Edward Snowden Opens Up in New Interview: “I Was Trained As a Spy”

U.S. National Security Edward Snowden speaks with Brian Williams in an NBC News exclusive interview NBC News

Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor behind one of the biggest leaks of classified intelligence in American history, describes his previous job as more Bond-like than reported in the past.

Its no secret that the U.S. tends to get more and better intelligence out of computers nowadays than they do out of people, Snowden said in an excerpt from a new interview with NBC News Brian Williams that will air on Wednesday. I was trained as a spy in sort of the traditional sense of the word in that I lived and worked undercover overseas pretending to work in a job that Im not and even being assigned a name that was not mine.

The 30-year-old is currently living in Russia and wanted on espionage charges in the U.S. after he helped expose some of the National Security Agencys surveillance programs.

Snowden went on to say the U.S. government has tried to discredit him by downplaying the number of positions he held while working for the CIA and the NSA.

What theyre trying to do is theyre trying to use one position that Ive had in a career here or there to distract from the totality of my experience, said Snowden, who added that he worked at all levels from from the bottom on the ground all the way to the top.

So when they say Im a low-level systems administrator, that I dont know what Im talking about, Id say its somewhat misleading.

[NBC News]

Read more:
Edward Snowden Opens Up in New Interview: “I Was Trained As a Spy”