Behind the mask: Edward Snowden's revelations forced the issue of court authorisation for surveillance into the open. Photo: Reuters <\/p>\n
United States intelligence leaker Edward Snowden said in a TV interview he \"was trained as a spy\" and had worked undercover overseas for US government agencies. <\/p>\n
In an advance excerpt of his interview in Moscow with NBC Nightly Newsthat aired on Tuesday in the US, Snowden rejected comments by critics that he was a low-level analyst. <\/p>\n
Snowden worked for Dellas a contractor to the US National Security Agency (NSA) from 2009 to earlier this year, then as acontractor for management consultancy firm Booz Allen Hamilton. <\/p>\n
Previous reports have him working as for the CIAas a security guard from age 19 and as an undercover operator in overseas posts at 23. <\/p>\n
\"Well, it's no secret that the US tends to get more and better intelligence out of computers nowadays than they do out of people,\" Snowden told NBC news anchor Brian Williams. <\/p>\n
\"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 I'm not - and even being assigned a name that was not mine.\" <\/p>\n
Describing himself as a \"technical expert\", Snowden said: \"I don't work with people. I don't recruit agents. What I do is I put systems to work for the United States. And I've done that at all levels from - from the bottom on the ground all the way to the top.\" <\/p>\n
He said he worked undercover overseas for both the CIA and NSA and lectured at the Joint Counterintelligence Training Academy \"where I developed sources and methods for keeping our information and people secure in the most hostile and dangerous environments around the world.\" <\/p>\n
\"So when they (critics) say I'm a low-level systems administrator, that I don't know what I'm talking about, I'd say it's somewhat misleading,\" Snowden added. <\/p>\n
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