Edward Snowden spoke at SXSW over a very choppy video feed, but it wasn’t the fault of technology, his signal was bouncing over seven proxies in order to keep him safe.

The thirty year old is currently living in Russia after he made public classified documents about NSA spying programs last summer. Ben Wizner and Christopher Soghoian from the ACLU hosted the Austin portion of the event, directing questions and imparting their own thoughts on privacy rights.

Snowden slammed the NSA repeatedly over the course of the hour. He described them as setting fire to the internet and described the SXSW attendees as the firefighters.

Snowden did say that data collection is not a total evil, nor did he advocate for a total elimination of data collection. He did, however, say that data collection should only be stored until the operation is done, not indefinitely.

When asked about recent remarks by NSA Director Keith Alexander saying Snowden had hurt the US and made us more vulnerable, Snowden redirected the criticism back on his critics. Snowden said that it was the NSA directors that had harmed the US by making it less secure. Not only had the NSA hurt encryption, but by monitoring all communications, there was no focus on actual suspects. Snowden even went as far to say that it was this wide focus that allowed the Boston Marathon bombing to not be stopped beforehand.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the World Wide Web, praised Snowden’s efforts. Moderator Sogohoian jumped in on the praise.

“His disclosures have improved internet security,” Sogohoian said.

Snowden talked about the dangers that the NSA and an unchecked Congress were creating.

“A secret court shouldn’t be interpreting the Constitution when only the NSA lawyers are appearing,” Snowden said. “We need a watchdog that watches Congress.”

Snowden was also asked about the steps individuals can take to improve their own security. He advocated for TOR and encryption for individuals.

“You encrypt your hardware and you encrypt your network,” Snowden said.

Snowden closed with the question that most everyone wanted an answer to: Why? Why did Snowden decide to release these documents? His answer brought rounds of applause from the tech friendly audience.

“I took an oath to defend the Constitution and I saw it had been violated on massive scales,” Snowden said.