He left the CIA in 2009 in order to take his first job working for a private contractor that assigned him to a functioning NSA facility, stationed on a military base in Japan. It was then, he said, that he "watched as Obama advanced the very policies that I thought would be reined in", and as a result, "I got hardened."...
...Over the next three years, he learned just how all-consuming the NSA's surveillance activities were, claiming "they are intent on making every conversation and every form of behaviour in the world known to them"....
...he believe[s] that the value of the internet, along with basic privacy, is being rapidly destroyed by ubiquitous surveillance. "I don't see myself as a hero," he said, "because what I'm doing is self-interested: I don't want to live in a world where there's no privacy and therefore no room for intellectual exploration and creativity."
Once he reached the conclusion that the NSA's surveillance net would soon be irrevocable, he said it was just a matter of time before he chose to act. "What they're doing" poses "an existential threat to democracy", he said....
...For him, it is a matter of principle. "The government has granted itself power it is not entitled to. There is no public oversight. The result is people like myself have the latitude to go further than they are allowed to," he said.
Wow! Thanks for the flag.
g’day, Albion
Snowden sounds like one of his generation who was attracted to Ron Paul, liking neither Bush nor Obama nor Romney, etc. Sounds more like Ellsberg than Manning. Whether in the end he did a good think remain to be seen. It’s not as if we didn’t suspect what was going on, but this just confirms it.
How much you wanna bet he is NOT in Hong Kong? That part, I imagine, is purely diversionary or they’d have nabbed him in a NY minute. TMI
Wow. Thank you for those excerpts, dear Albion Wilde!