Welcome to the Tech Policy podcast. I'm Evan Swartstrom. On today's show, Russia, it's been in the news a lot. Russia's played a role in our election, according to some. And it's been a while if we haven't ever actually talked about Russia on the show, so I'm excited for today's episode.

Joining me to talk about Russian surveillance and Russian hacking is Ashen Kazarian, a legal fellow at Tech Freedom.

Ash, thanks for joining the show.

Thank you for having me.

Welcome to you, the first tech policy podcast that you're recorded.

Finally, I mean, it's been a while since you promised me to do this.

Yeah, yeah, clearly it's been a while since you promised me to do this. Yeah, yeah,

clearly it was my fault. So anyway, Ash, of course, surveillance has been an issue ever since

Edward Snowden's revelations in the United States. And the U.S. has gotten a lot of flack for this.

But one of the greatest ironies is that he is now living in Russia under political asylum,

and Russia isn't exactly the best when it comes to surveillance on its citizens, to put it lightly.

So I'm just curious to start off, what's the mood like in Russia surrounding Edward Snowden?

I mean, we know that Americans either think he's a traitor or a hero or maybe

something in between. What do Russians think about Edward Snowden living in Russia?

Well, I'm obviously qualified to talk about what Russians think and their opinion, public opinion,

but...

Because you are Russian.

Because I am Russian.

Majority of people I've talked to think that having Snowden in Russia is kind of a win for

Russian diplomacy and kind of in your face to America as if you see we're not as bad.

Like actually your democracy is bad because he's running away from you and we're so great.

We're providing him home and food and he's having so much fun here, going to the ballet and stuff.

...