Edward Snowden Says US ‘Fundamentally Good’ But We Misled Everyone

Edward Snowden gave a lengthy interview yesterday, speaking in depth about his motivations for leaking details about the NSA’s surveillance programs as well as predicting that the US will claim he aided its enemies.

Snowden spoke with The Guardian, the paper with whom he has been in contact and where he brokered a release of certain bits of information after he arranged his own unmasking last month.

During a long interview, Snowden again said he expected to be accused by the government of harming US security, a claim he also said can be made of any leak with which the powers that be are displeased:

“I think they are going to say I have committed grave crimes, I have violated the Espionage Act. They are going to say I have aided our enemies in making them aware of these systems. But this argument can be made against anyone who reveals information that points out mass surveillance systems.”

Snowden says his decision to enlist initially was prompted by desire to help and do good, but as he became more entrenched in the NSA’s spying program — and felt increasingly uncomfortable with its reach and scope:

“We were actually involved in misleading the public and misleading all the publics, not just the American public, in order to create certain mindset in the global consciousness and I was actually a victim of that.”

Snowden stated that he “believed in the nobility of our intentions to free oppressed people overseas,” but said:

America is a fundamentally good country. We have good people with good values who want to do the right thing. But the structures of power that exist are working to their own ends to extend their capability at the expense of the freedom of all publics.

You can watch a clip of Edward Snowden’s latest statement above.