Apple, Google attend spy summit to talk aftermath of Snowden's leaksMay 23, 2015 - 16:46 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - Apple, Google and Vodafone reportedly attended highly confidential meetings with spy chiefs from seven countries last week to discuss the aftermath of Edward Snowden's leaks. As Digital Spy reports citing The Intercept, executives from the firms debated privacy and security with the likes of the CIA, GCHQ and other spy agency chiefs of past and present from Australia, Canada, France, Germany and Sweden. The group attended the three-day conference organised by the Ditchley Foundation in an 18th-century mansion in Oxfordshire, where questions where raised about mass surveillance and intelligence operations, brought on by Snowden's whistleblowing activities since the summer of 2013. Investigative reporter Duncan Campbell - who was among a select number of press invites to the conference - said: "Perhaps to many participants' surprise, there was general agreement across broad divides of opinion that Snowden - love him or hate him - had changed the landscape; and that change towards transparency, or at least 'translucency' and providing more information about intelligence activities affecting privacy, was both overdue and necessary." A programme for the event revealed the types of questions that were posed, such as 'Are we being misled by the term mass surveillance?' and 'Who should authorise intrusive intelligence operations such as interception?'. Snowden recently conducted an interview on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, where he talked about his decision to disclose files containing classified information on surveillance programmes. "I do understand what I turned over," the ex-CIA employee insisted. "There's a difference between understanding what's in the documents and reading what's in the documents." Top stories Yerevan will host the 2024 edition of the World Congress On Information Technology (WCIT). Rustam Badasyan said due to the lack of such regulation, the state budget is deprived of VAT revenues. Krisp’s smart noise suppression tech silences ambient sounds and isolates your voice for calls. Gurgen Khachatryan claimed that the "illegalities have been taking place in 2020." Partner news Most popular in the section | Titus, Bilirakis lead legislation to sanction Azerbaijani war criminals Representatives Dina Titus (D-NV) and Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) have introduced the bipartisan legislation. Azerbaijan must respect human rights, Scholz tells Aliyev German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has called for greater respect for human rights in Azerbaijan. Armenia: Defense Ministry warns against involving army in political processes The Ministry’s statement came after a video surfaced online, showing soldiers joining the protests in Tavush. Scholz hopes Armenia-Azerbaijan peace treaty will be signed this year German Chancellor Olaf Scholz hopes that a peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan will be signed this year. |