Trio stand up to Big Brother

US NATIONAL Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden delivered a Christmas message from his Russian sanctuary on British TV in which he said: “I didn’t want to change society. I wanted to give society a chance to determine if it should change itself.”

What fascinated me was the amount of time afforded to the former NSA operative: His message was akin in presentation and duration to the Pope’s Christmas message or a minor presidential address. How society has changed.

Meanwhile, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, in a presentation on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme edited by PJ Harvey, pronounced that “knowledge is power”. Assange, from his sanctuary in the Ecuadoran embassy in London, where he has been granted asylum, said: “Documents disclosed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden show that governments dare to aspire, through their intelligence agencies, to a god-like knowledge of each and every one of us.”