WikiLeaks founder calls NSA a ‘rogue agency’

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says the US National Security Agency has become a “rogue agency” with too much power, even suggesting that President Barack Obama would be toppled politically if he attempted to disband the agency.

“They would come up with all of this dirt (on Obama),” Assange told a large audience at the South by Southwest Interactive conference via Skype. “Congress may impeach him … a criminal act would come to light.”

Assange said “the NSA has grown to be a rogue agency. It has grown to be unfettered … the ability to surveil everyone on the planet is almost there, and arguably will be there within a few years. And that’s led to a huge transfer of power from the people who are surveilled upon, to those who control the surveillance complex.”

The Australian whistleblower, who has been confined to the Ecuadorian embassy in London since June 2012, also blasted the Obama administration, saying it was not taking fellow secret leaker Edward Snowden’s revelations about the NSA’s surveillance activities seriously.

“We know what happens when the government is serious,” he said. “Someone is fired, someone is forced to resign, someone is prosecuted, an investigation (is launched), a budget is cut. None of that has happened in the last eight months since the Edward Snowden revelations.”

Snowden spoke at the same conference on Monday where he urged Americans to help “fix” the US government spying on its citizens.

Snowden has been living in Russia under temporary asylum since he leaked a cache of highly-sensitive documents about the United States’ spying programs.