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Privacy, surveillance gain top billing at Austin’s South By Southwest Interactive festival

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FILE - In this Thursday, Dec. 20, 2012, file photo, Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks speaks to the media and members of the public from a balcony at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Assange (over live video) will make an appearance this year at the South By Southwest Interactive Festival, illustrating how the festival is trying to balance holding on to its independent roots even as it’s flooded by a barrage of corporate sponsors and threatens to grow too big for its hometown. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File)

AUSTIN, Texas – To get a feel for the pulse of the tech industry, it’s a good idea to head to Austin, Texas, rather than Silicon Valley this time of the year.

More than 30,000 people descend on the Texas city for the South By Southwest Interactive Festival each March. This year, NSA leaker Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (ah-SAHNJ’) are topping the bill.

Snowden and Assange won’t be making the trip to Texas, however. They’ll appear on live video, since both are living as fugitives, in Moscow and the Ecuadorian embassy in London, respectively. Their inclusion illustrates how the festival is trying to balance holding on to its independent roots even as it’s flooded by a barrage of corporate sponsors and threatens to grow too big for its hometown.

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