Edward Snowden Reveals How Smartphones Are Used To Spy & Collect User Data

Edward Snowden, the whistleblower and former NSA contractor appeared on the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast last Wednesday morning. In the more than two hour interview, Snowden touched on many subjects, including one about how mobile phones are used to spy on its users. During the show, Snowden shared that the issue with smartphone use today is the users have no idea what is happening on the device at any given time.

Edward Snowden said that the significant change that has happened since 2013 is that now, it is mobile-first everything. Things have shifted since he worked with the US intelligence, and the majority of the surveillance is conducted not on laptops, but smartphones and most surveillance easily target the device in our pocket, explained Snowden.

The movements of our smartphone are our movements as a person, Snowden noted. The user’s data, which contains his behavior, where he goes and what he does must not be kept forever, but the government collects all these ahead of time in the hopes that it could be useful to them someday, Snowden exposed. This happens when the user connects to a network using his mobile device.

“We need to identify the problem. And the problem with smartphone use today is you have no idea what the hell it’s doing at any given time.”We need to be able to make these intelligent decisions not just on an app-by-app basis, but also a connection-by-connection basis,”

In other words, disallowing Facebook from ‘talking’ to third-party sources and other sources while it is currently in use. Edward Snowden faces several charges of espionage and theft of government property in the US. He has been living in Russia since 2013, and last month released a memoir titled “Permanent Record.” On the release of the book, the US Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the whistleblower and former NSA contractor along with his publisher for not submitting the book to appropriate government agencies for the necessary pre-publication review.

Edward Snowden also talked about aliens and that he believed that the US Government has no knowledge about these rumored extra-terrestrial entities. He also stated that he has never heard about it while he was working with US intelligence.