{"id":43449,"date":"2014-06-02T12:00:57","date_gmt":"2014-06-02T11:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=43449"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:33:47","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:33:47","slug":"edward-snowden-breaking-law-was-only-option-says-whistleblower","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2014\/06\/edward-snowden-breaking-law-was-only-option-says-whistleblower\/","title":{"rendered":"Edward Snowden: Breaking Law Was Only Option, Says Whistleblower"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘If I could go anywhere that place would be home.’<\/em><\/p>\n

Snowden tells NBC it was his duty to reveal sprawling NSA surveillance and going home would be ‘walking into a jail cell’.<\/em><\/p>\n

One year after revealing himself as the source of the biggest intelligence leak in US history, Edward Snowden appeared in a long network television interview on Wednesday [28 May 2013] to describe himself as an American patriot and to make the case that his disclosures were motivated by a desire to help the country.<\/p>\n

In his most extensive public comments to date Snowden sought to answer critics who have said his actions damaged US national security or that the threat from the secret government surveillance he revealed was overblown. Snowden was interviewed by the NBC News anchor Brian Williams, who travelled to Moscow for the meeting.<\/p>\n

Snowden defended his decision to leak documents to the press, instead of restricting his complaints to internal channels, and explained why he had decided for the moment not to travel back to the United States to face criminal charges.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I could go anywhere in the world that place would be home,\u201d Snowden told Williams<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019ve from day one said that I\u2019m doing this to serve my country \u2026 I don\u2019t think there\u2019s ever been any question that I\u2019d like to go home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Snowden said he had not second-guessed his decision, however, to release an estimated<\/a> 1.7m top secret government documents. \u201cMy priority is not about myself,\u201d Snowden said. \u201cIt\u2019s about making sure that these programs are reformed \u2013 and that the family that I left behind, the country that I left behind \u2013 can be helped by my actions.\u201d<\/p>\n

The interview, which took place at Kempinski Hotel in Moscow last week, followed months of negotiations between the news network and representatives of Snowden. The conversation, which was held in a library and lasted more than four hours, was billed as Snowden’s first interview with a US television network.<\/p>\n

Snowden has regularly participated<\/a> in interviews over the last year, although never on such a large stage, or on one as likely to bring his words \u2013 and his argument \u2013 into American living rooms. NBC Nightly News, which ran clips from the interview, drew about 8.4m total viewers<\/a> per night in May.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday Snowden, 30, described for the first time his experience of the 9\/11 terror attacks and talked about his views on the threat of terrorism.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never told anybody this,\u201d he said. \u201cNo journalist. But I was on Fort Meade [Maryland] on September 11th. I was right outside the NSA. So I remember \u2013 I remember the tension of that day. I remember hearing on the radio the planes hitting. And I remember thinking my grandfather, who worked for the FBI at the time, was in the Pentagon when the plane hit it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI take the threat of terrorism seriously. And I think we all do. And I think it\u2019s really disingenuous for the government to invoke and sort of scandalize our memories, to sort of exploit the national trauma that we all suffered together and worked so hard to come through to justify programs that have never been shown to keep us safe, but cost us liberties and freedoms that we don\u2019t need to give up and our constitution says we should not give up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Snowden said he did not consider himself blameless. \u201cI think the most important idea is to remember that there have been times throughout history where what is right is not the same as what is legal,\u201d he said. \u201cSometimes to do the right thing, you have to break a law.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a Pew Research poll of Americans earlier this year<\/a> 57% of 18 to 29-year-olds said Snowden\u2019s leaks had served the public interest but respondents 65 and over disagreed. A majority of respondents in older age groups supported prosecuting Snowden, while the 18-29 group split 42-42% on the question.<\/p>\n

As much as he wanted to return home, Snowden said, he did not plan \u201cto walk into a jail cell\u201d. He repeated a view explained elsewhere<\/a> by his legal counsel that the charges he faces under the 1917 Espionage Act would not allow him to mount a defense that he had acted in the public interest.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are things that no individual should empower himself to really decide, you know, \u2018I\u2019m gonna give myself a parade,\u2019\u201d Snowden said in reply to a question about how he judged his actions. \u201cBut neither am I going to walk into a jail cell, to serve as a bad example for other people in government who see something happening, some violation of the constitution, and think they need to say something about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the year he has lived in Russia as a fugitive from US law, Snowden said, he had not met President Vladimir Putin. \u201cI have no relationship with the Russian government at all,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

NBC News said it had confirmed \u201cwith multiple sources\u201d that before he took the story to the press Snowden had raised a concern about possibly illegal surveillance on at least one occasion with intelligence agency superiors. Snowden said he had advanced his concerns on multiple occasions, even sending emails to the office of the NSA general counsel, and that the NSA would have a paper trail. The NSA has denied Snowden took such steps.<\/p>\n

Snowden said he remained comfortable with the decision he made.<\/p>\n

“I may have lost the ability to travel but I’ve gained the ability to fall asleep at night and know I’ve done the right thing and I’m comfortable with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 This story was amended on 29 May to clarify that Snowden did use internal government channels to raise his concerns.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 theguardian.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One year after revealing himself as the source of the biggest intelligence leak in US history, Edward Snowden appeared in a long network television interview on Wednesday [28 May 2013] to describe himself as an American patriot and to make the case that his disclosures were motivated by a desire to help the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-whistleblowing-surveillance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43449\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}