The most recent poll, for the Huffington Post and YouGov, suggested a shift in support away for Snowden, with 38% saying they feel he did the wrong thing in leaking documents against 33% who felt he did the right thing. After the first interview, 35% said he did the wrong thing while 38% said he had done the right thing.
The interview took place immediately after the Guardian published the first leak about a court order to Verizon ordering it to hand over US customers' call records to the NSA.
Snowden explained why he thought that story and the other subsequent leaks about the NSA and its partnership with the corporate sector had to be made public.
"They are getting everyone's calls, everyone's call records and everyone's internet traffic as well."
In reference to one surveillance system -- Boundless Informant -- that he said allowed the NSA to track data it was accumulating, he said: "The NSA lied about the existence of this tool to Congress and to specific congressmen in response to previous inquiries about their surveillance activities."
He was part of the internet generation that grew up on the understanding that it was free, he said. The partnership between the intelligence agencies and the corporate sector was a "dangerous collaboration," especially for an organization like the NSA that has demonstrated time and again "it works to shield itself from oversight."
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
2
1
1
