Snowden: I Didn’t Reveal Any Operations Against ‘Legitimate’ Military Targets

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In an open-to-the-public live chat on The Guardian’s website on Monday, Edward Snowden, the self-proclaimed source of recently leaked top secret National Security Agency documents, said the documents he released to the media “did not reveal any US operations against legitimate military targets.”

“I pointed out where the NSA has hacked civilian infrastructure such as universities, hospitals, and private businesses because it is dangerous,” Snowden wrote. “These nakedly, aggressively criminal acts are wrong no matter the target. Not only that, when NSA makes a technical mistake during an exploitation operation, critical systems crash. Congress hasn’t declared war on the countries – the majority of them are our allies – but without asking for public permission, NSA is running network operations against them that affect millions of innocent people. And for what? So we can have secret access to a computer in a country we’re not even fighting? So we can potentially reveal a potential terrorist with the potential to kill fewer Americans than our own Police? No, the public needs to know the kinds of things a government does in its name, or the ‘consent of the governed’ is meaningless.”

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