Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden has revealed that the real reason the government uses mass surveillance on the public, is not to protect them from terrorism, but to brainwash them using social conditioning so that they can assert their control on the population. Responding to a question on the recent Panama Papers leak, which has implicated multiple public figures in mass tax evasion, Snowden said: “I signed up to defend my country,” he remarked about his decision to join the NSA. However the oath he took was to defend the constitution not the agencies of the government, or the President. “It’s not an oath to secrecy.” The-peak.ca reports: Snowden spoke to recent developments in the technology landscape, with special praise reserved for Whatsapp, the world’s most popular instant messaging app. The makers of the app recently decided to implement end-to-end encryption for the personal messages of its users. Snowden heralded apps like Whatsapp and Signal as tools the everyday person could use to avoid government collection of personal data. Perhaps the most provocative discussion of the night came when Panelist Micheal Vonn, also Policy Director of the BC Civil Liberties Association, asked him about why governments pursue mass surveillance projects, even though [...]