During a tech-oriented show at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin on Monday, whistleblower fugitive Edward Snowden made a video appearance and gave an hour-long talk denouncing the U.S. government's surveillance policies.

He told the several thousand audience members that they should take action against the government and that if given another opportunity, he would leak secret government information again, the Los Angeles Times reported.

"They're setting fire to the global Internet," Snowden said, adding, "and you guys in the room are the global firefighters."

The former National Security Agency contractor fled to Russia, where he was granted asylum, after leaking national secrets online.

"I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution," Snowden said. "The interpretation of the Constitution had been changed in secrets from no unreasonable search and seizure to any seizure is fine."

Snowden's American Civil Liberties Union attorney, Ben Wizner, along with American Civil Liberties Union's Speech, Privacy and Technology Project Principal Technologist Christopher Soghoian moderated the South by Southwest discussion. Snowden appeared against a U.S. Constitution backdrop, featuring "We the people" in large letters.

Snowden streamed his appearance live while taking questions from the moderators and questions from tweets to #asksnowden.

British scientist Timothy John Berners-Lee asked Snowden the first question of the afternoon about creating government accountability.

Snowden said the U.S.'s lack of accountability could result in international consequences.

"The problem is when the overseers are not interested in oversight. The key is accountability," Snowden responded. "If we allow the NSA to continue unrestrained, every other government surveillance of private communications and holding the companies who were complicit accountable."

He also said that Facebook and Google should be able to collect data as long as it's within reason.

"You should only collect the date and hold it as long as necessary for the nature of the business," Snowden said.