The Guardian has released new footage from a June 6, 2013 interview with Edward Snowden. Snowden slams the NSA, the US government and expects he will be demonized by the US government.
Snowden predicts US government’s response to his leaks will be to accuse him of “grave crimes” and say he has violated the espionage act and aided enemies.
He did not intend to become a mole when he joined the intelligence community. “I was young” Snowden says. He explained that he believed in the goodness of our intentions to free oppressed people overseas, but was exposed to true information not information that was propagandized in the media. The US was involved in misleading the public to create a mindset in the global consciousness but the power structures in the US work to their own ends.
When asked what disclosure he made that is “primary,” Snowden singles out this disclosure that the government’s surveillance is not only foreign but domestic as well.
Snowden is harsh with the NSA saying the agency lied about Boundless Informant to Congress and Congressmen. He describes Boundless Informant as a global auditing system that lets us track how much data we are collecting, where we are collecting it from by which authority. Snowden describes the NSA as an organization that works to shield itself from oversight.
He said he is not willing to live under a government that records everything he says. and that he waited for leadership to correct the excesses of government but that never happened.
Snowden has been offered asylum by Boliva, Nicaragua and Venezuela. He is thought to be in the transit area of the Moscow airport and determining his next move.
The interview was conducted by Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald, watch it here.