Edward Snowden got personal about how the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks affected him in a wide-ranging interview with NBC News’ Brian Williams that aired Wednesday night.
“I take the threat of terrorism seriously, and I think we all do,” the former National Security Agency contractor said. “And I think it’s 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, and justify programs that have never been shown to keep us safe but cost us liberties and freedoms that we don’t need to give up, and our Constitution says we should not give up.”
Snowden said he was in Fort Meade, Md., where NSA headquarters is located, the day of the terror attacks. He also recalled that his grandfather was working for the FBI at the time and was in the Pentagon when it was hit by a hijacked plane.
In another part of the interview with Williams, Snowden said that he sees himself as a “patriot.”
“Being a patriot means knowing when to protect your country, knowing when to protect your Constitution, knowing when to protect your countrymen from the — the violations of an — and encroachments of adversaries,” he said, as quoted by NBC News. “And those adversaries don’t have to be foreign countries.”
Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday that if Snowden was a patriot, he would stay in the U.S. and make his case in court.
Watch below, courtesy of NBC News:
I completely agree with him in that the government used 9/11 to destroy our rights and overreach. USA PATRIOT Act. War in Iraq.
On his other points, particularly about the nobility of his actions, I disagree. Any credence I gave that fled with him to China and then Russia.
Neither he nor Greenwald could produce a single instance where the NSA broke the law. NEither he nor Greenwald could produce any evidence that he attempted to inform superiors of wrong doing. On the other hand, he blatantly admitted he violated US law and claimed that he should be above the law. He’s an arrogant cuss who deserves hard time in prison.
Please don’t repeat the misinformation that he fled to Russia. He was attempting to transit through Russia, with an ultimate destination in South America when his passport was revoked. His original intention was to go to Iceland, but he was unable to get assurances that he would receive whistleblower protections, so the final destination changed.
I get that some are unable to trust his methods and motivations, but there is zero evidence that he ever gave any of the encrypted info to Russia or China, and there is zero evidence that he intended to do anything except expose programs that he saw as invasive to American citizens.
He’s a self-appointed constitutional lawyer/judge/jury and administration security policy maker. The public, indeed, has a right to know. Whistleblower laws may not be properly abided by, but I believe he could have found an organization to sue the government, such as the ACLU, for protection of him and his efforts.
Wait a second. He says he was at Ft Meade, MD on Sept 11, 2001. He was born June 21, 1983, which would have put him just past his 18th birthday. Was he really in the NSA at 18? Something doesn’t add up here.