14 DAY TRIAL // On Monday, the now notorious NSA leaker Edward Snowden answered questions on The Guardian’s website. He explained why he chose to go to Hong Kong and, more importantly, why he told China that the US was hacking into their universities and research facilities.
According to Snowden, he has left the US because he believes that the government has “destroyed any possibility for a fair trial.”
The whistleblower, which many US officials name a felon and a traitor, clarifies the fact that he hasn’t told the Chinese anything about the United States’ operations against military targets.
“I pointed out where the NSA has hacked civilian infrastructure such as universities, hospitals, and private businesses because it is dangerous. These nakedly, aggressively criminal acts are wrong no matter the target. Not only that, when NSA makes a technical mistake during an exploitation operation, critical systems crash,” he said.
Snowden says the NSA is running a surveillance operation against millions of innocent people in countries that are considered the US’s allies.
“And for what? So we can have secret access to a computer in a country we're not even fighting? So we can potentially reveal a potential terrorist with the potential to kill fewer Americans than our own Police? No, the public needs to know the kinds of things a government does in its name, or the ‘consent of the governed’ is meaningless,” he noted.
US officials keep issuing statements in an effort to convince everyone that the controversial PRISM program is not as bad as it sounds.
However, Snowden says the United States government will not be able to cover up the incident by “jailing” or “murdering” him.
“Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped,” Snowden said.