Peter Gabriel's new video, for his song "The Veil," pays tribute to former CIA employee and whistleblower Edward Snowden. The video features footage from military training exercises, real-life combat images and surveillance tapes, mixed in among scenes from director Oliver Stone's new biopic Snowden. Snowden himself also makes a surprise appearance in Gabriel's video.

"As we become so visible in the digital world and leave an endless trail of data behind us, exactly who has our data and what they do with it becomes increasingly important," Gabriel says in a prepared statement. "Snowden's revelations shocked the world and made it very clear why we need to have some way to look over those who look over us. With increasing terrorist attacks, security is critical, but not without any accountability or oversight."

The video for "The Veil" was directed by Kurt Mattila. This is the second song Gabriel has released this year. In June he dropped "I'm Amazing," a song he says was inspired by Muhammad Ali.

Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Resources

Peter Gabriel - official site