Snowden: I Had More Access Than Almost Any Other Official [View all]

Edward Snowden: I Had More Access Than Almost Any Other Official in the Intelligence Community
The man responsible for leaking classified National Security Agency documents says he wasn't just "some low-level employee."

... Snowden was young. He was just a contractor. "How did a 29-year-old have access to all those classified documents?" asked Sonia Brindi of the Portuguese television network Globo during a lengthy new interview with Snowden in Moscow ... "How did you access them?"

The public's bewilderment is misplaced, Snowden replied. "There's sort of been a misinformation occurring in the U.S. media, that was then propagated by the international media, which was that I was some low-level employee, I didn't really have any understanding of these materials," he said. "I had functioning at a very senior level. I've written policies on behalf of the United States. I had been in meetings with the very top technical officials on the NSA and the CIA" ...

... "I would love to face court in the U.S.," he said — but only if reforms are made to the Espionage Act ...