Edward Snowden says he would ‘volunteer’ for prison …

Fugitive secret-leaker Edward Snowden said hed gladly volunteer to go to prison, if it meant he could return home to the U.S., according to a bombshell interview with the runaway former NSA contractor published Wednesday.

I told the government Id volunteer for prison, as long as it served the right purpose, Snowdentold WIRED magazine in an exclusive interviewfrom Moscow. I care more about the country than what happens to me.

But we cant allow the law to become a political weapon or agree to scare people away from standing up for their rights, no matter how good the deal, he said. Im not going to be part of that.

The remarks, part of far-reaching article titledThe Most Wanted Man in the World,are some of the most extensive yet made by Snowden since he fled to Russia in 2013 seeking refuge from American prosecution.

The 31-year-old North Carolina native also warned WIRED which will feature a provocative cover photo of Snowden clutching an American flag on its upcoming issue that the NSA remains plagued with flaws and is still unprepared to securely handle the sensitive personal information it allegedly uncovers on millions of U.S. citizens.

They still havent fixed their problems, Snowden said of his former employer. They still have negligent auditing, they still have things going for a walk, and they have no idea where theyre coming from and they have no idea where theyre going.

If thats the case, how can we as the public trust the NSA with all of our information, with all of our private records, the permanent record of our lives, he said, before revealing another eye-opening covert government surveillance program, called MonsterMind.

MonsterMind, Snowden explained, is a secret NSA scheme that has the capability to detect incoming cyberattacks and the ability to counterattack with no human intervention at all,WIRED writer James Bamford explained.

But Snowden warned that such a program could result in a huge unintended international incident, because many of such attacks are orchestrated by sinister hackers to come from computers in third-party countries that arent even aware of the attack.

These attacks can be spoofed, he said. You could have someone sitting in China, for example, making it appear that one of these attacks is originating in Russia. And then we end up shooting back at a Russian hospital. What happens next?

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Edward Snowden says he would ‘volunteer’ for prison ...