When Arundhati Roy Met Edward Snowden AND Daniel Ellsberg

Indian author-activist Arundhati Roy met Daniel Ellsberg and Edward Snowden, thanks to John Cusack.

Daniel Ellsberg, Edward Snowden, Arundhati Roy, and John Cusack (L–R). (Photo: Instagram.com/JohnCusack)

Indian author and activist Arundhati Roy met Edward Snowden, former employee and whistleblower of American National Security Agency (NSA) and Daniel Ellsberg, whistleblower of the Pentagon.

The meeting happened at a hotel in Moscow, Russia in the first week of November. Hollywood actor John Cusack was also present at the meeting in room number 1001 of Moscow Ritz–Carlton on a winter evening.

In the place, close to Kremlin, the Russian fortress, conversation between the two whistleblowers who have filled the pages of period history books of years between 2050 and 2060 (and beyond maybe) happened.

Arundhati Roy wrote about the meeting for Outlook India and The Guardian.

“I know why you’re here,” he said to me, smiling. “Why?” “To radicalise me.” I laughed.

Arundhati Roy in <i><a href="http://www.outlookindia.com/article/what-shall-we-love/295799">Outlook India</a></i>

Snatching the opportunity on the most elegant fashion, Roy asked Snowden about a picture of him cradling the American flag for Wired.

Screenshot of the picture of Edward Snowden for Wired. (Photo: Screenshot from Wired)

The answer was as unexpected as can possibly be.

Oh, man. I don’t know. Somebody handed me a flag, they took a picture.

Edward Snowden to Arundhati Roy according to <i><a href="http://www.outlookindia.com/article/what-shall-we-love/295799">Outlook India</a></i>

Snowden spoke at length about the surveillance methods of America and it’s inability to “still win a war,” when Roy asked him.

The absolute statements by the whistleblower only makes one think and rethink about what the past and future implications of “another 9/11” would be.

If we do nothing, we sort of sleepwalk into a total surveillance state where we have both a super-state that has unlimited capacity to apply force with an unlimited ability to know (about the people it is targeting) – and that’s a very dangerous combination. That’s the dark future. The fact that they know everything about us and we know nothing about them – because they are secret, they are privileged, and they are a separate class… the elite class, the political class, the resource class – we don’t know where they live, we don’t know what they do, we don’t know who their friends are. They have the ability to know all that about us. This is the direction of the future, but I think there are changing possibilities in this.

Edward Snowden to Arundhati Roy according to <i><a href="http://www.outlookindia.com/article/what-shall-we-love/295799">Outlook India</a></i>

The meeting, orchestrated and arranged by Hollywood actor John Cusack, because he though “trying to get the three of them together would be a fine thing to do,” according to a report by MailOnline.