Is Edward Snowden handing us a snowden job? Are his claims a bunch of clappertrap? (Sorry, when I have a chance to post not one, but two puns this bad, I cannot resist).
Here, courtesy of Rob Lever\’s article at Agence France Presse, is Snowden\’s explanation of why he leaked all those documents:
Inan interview with Wired magazine in Moscow, where he sought asylumafter the revelations, Snowden said he had long been troubled by theactivities of the National Security Agency (NSA), which employed himas a contractor.
Butit was only when Director of National Intelligence James Clapper toldlawmakers that the agency does “not wittingly” collect dataon millions of American citizens that he was angry enough to act.
Snowdensays he made his decision to leave his office in Hawaii and head toHong Kong with secret documents on thumb drives after reading inMarch 2013 about Clapper briefing a Senate committee.
“Ithink I was reading it in the paper the next day, talking tocoworkers, saying, can you believe this…?” Snowden said.
This explanation does not excuse what Snowden did, or take away from the glory for it (depending, of course, on your point of view about his mega-leaks). But it does tell us what, as of this moment anyway, his claimed reasoning was.
Make of it what you will.
