Putin denying Spying on their Citiznes

Edward Snowden leaked information about the United States' intelligence agency in June of 2013 and reveled that the NSA collects data on all Americans. Snowden fled the United States and went to seek asylum in a different country, one option was Venezuela, but Snowden got trapped in the Moscow airport when he was switching planes and the United States revoked his passport. Since then he has been granted one year of temporary asylum in Russia, but it is not the ideal place for a whistle blower to be staying at.
Russia, under Vladimir Putin, president of Russia and his administration are notorious for using internet and telephone networks to spy on their own citizens.

Every year Putin holds a call-in meeting with, where the nation gets to ask the president of Russia their questions. The meeting happened this year on the 17th of April and a special guest popped up to ask the president a question. Edward Snowden called in to ask Putin if the Russian government collects the communication data of its citizens, like the United States does. Putin quickly dined the accusation, by saying that their special services are restricted by law and that Russia does not have to money to conduct these operations, like the United States does.

These statements are not true, as pointed out by Andrei Soldatov, a investigative journalist and an expert on Russia's security services. According to Soldatov, Russia has had a program like PRISM, since 1995, called SORM. Putin said that the FSB, the successor to the KGB, needs a warrant from the court in order to preform surveillance, but the warrants don't need to be shown and internet and phone providers can not view the warrants.

Putin does a very good job of keeping up his persona of a cold and cut throat man, but he is not the best at hiding the things his government does when asked the tough questions.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/edward-snowden-asks-vladimir-putin-about-russian-spying-on-its-citizens/2014/04/17/bdbdcbdc-c62b-11e3-9f37-7ce307c56815_story.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/04/17/putin-told-edward-snowden-that-russia-doesnt-use-mass-surveillance-on-its-citizens-heres-a-reality-check/