Edward Snowden: I Never Wanted To Destroy The NSA, I Wanted To ‘Reform It’ | The 11th Hour | MSNBC

Ahead of the release of his new memoir, 'Permanent Record,' Edward Snowden explains that his intention when leaking NSA secrets in 2013 was only to fix an agency he believed was broken. He joins MSNBC's Brian Williams as part of an exclusive interview. Aired on 09/16/19.
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Edward Snowden: I Never Wanted To Destroy The NSA, I Wanted To 'Reform It' | The 11th Hour | MSNBC

64 comments

    1. @Jeffrey Hagelin Once again, CNBC (not a trump website) economist editor claims even Trump critics cite the economy on Trumps policies and removal of restrictions. Removing restrictions does not take 4-6 years to impact businesses. you are being disingenuous. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/07/how-trump-has-set-economic-growth-on-fire.html
      Tax cuts do not take 4 to 6 years to impact businesses. Obama’s economists said it was impossible to have more than 2% growth, while Trumps predicted higher. Before the tax cuts the democrats predicted a failing economy, and one year later the GDP soured and unemployment was at a 50 year low.
      You people are flat out lying!

    2. Shayna w,. https://bongino.com/is-obama-to-thank-for-the-trump-economy/. Also keep in mind that Obama had the slowest recovery for a recession in recent history. Getting us out of one doesn’t mean much, we’ve always got out of one. He also never gave us a yearly 3.0 gdp and smirked that jobs will never come back and that this new annual 2.0 gdp is the new norm. If Obama’s economy was so great, democrats would have ran more on it during the 2016 campaigns.

  1. There’s no reforming the NSA, it surely seems. There’s no questioning power unless the power is legitimate, but if power ignores its “own” laws, and still considers itself legitimate, you better be careful because if it doesn’t go by the law, its own law, it won’t go by any but the “law” of violence. True respect is respect given freely, not from fear. But fake respect is the currency of the fake world.

    1. @The Blade: Public opinion changes when government motives changes. Why must American government always and I mean always, take advantage of something started for a good reason and push the limits in order to abuse it? We create B to keep an eye on A, C to keep an eye on B and so on. American government is like a perpetual child. It never grows up. It has to been constantly supervised.

    2. Fake respect is the very substance holding the democratic party together. Especially its “candidates.” They all go home at night, wake up in the morning, they avoid the mirror at any cost. The shred of respect they have for themselves necessitates being afraid to look at one’s self in the mirror and the hard reality their images point out.

    3. @Pappy Chulo agree. But citizens seem to never take responsibility for the actions they authorized. Germans wanted Hitler. I am more concerned about what Snowden has told Russia. I doubt Russia is providing his needs out of kindness. I should add that the people who are calling Snowden a hero or Patriot might change their tune when we find out what he has told the Russians which they will use against us. Snowden and Russia are controlling the story.

  2. Funny all the real whistle blowers into our government and the deep cronies corruption is either in prison or ran out of the country knowing they would get unlawful railroaded!!!

    1. There’s nothing to question. It’s all corrupt through and through: from the system and its institutions, to the people who pledged in fraternities and sororities keeping it all functioning properly, according to its design. Always has been that way and always will be that way until it’s dying day.

    2. “The Navy Says Those UFO Videos Are Real

      And they were never meant to be released to the public.” One has to wonder what is going on with this recent story.

    3. No point questioning. Most of us are well of and would rather not risk losing everything and be labeled terrorist by the gov.

  3. Snowden revealed traitors in the government and the traitors chased him out. America is run by freedom hating psychopaths.

    1. He literally gave millions of classified documents to wikileaks and he didn’t even know what was in them by his own admission.

    2. @Jose Mendez Ah, childish abuse…the typical response of those unable to analyse arguments, and who lack vocabulary.

  4. I’m amazed, how people are so willing to surrender their civil liberties to the government, to put down Edward Snowden, what was the American Revolutionary War fought for? What happened to our educational system? God help us!

    1. @Hal Swan says:
      “@allgoo19 Yeah, and they were called Torries aka Conservatives.”
      ==
      You means the loyalists?

      More often than that, I find them not very logical.
      Today, loyalists(conservatives) support multi-national corporate policies but they call themselves “patriots”, while those multi-nationals are working hard to ruin the economy(for their profit).

    2. @Chris Mahoney says:
      “Brainwashed by that word Patriotism”
      ==
      From conservative point of view, “patriotism” means support for the corporations.

  5. He’s the hero, he lets the world know that the US gov’t is doing harm or security threat to the world. The hero like him should be welcomed back to his home soil.

    1. I agree with you, but the only thing that will happen to him if he comes back to the USA is the same thing that happened to JFK which is he will get killed by our own government.

    2. Yes, a welcome home party at Levenworth. He became judge, jury, and executioner. There were no other alternatives to violating the trust “We the people” put in him?

    3. Why not leave him where he is?He wants to preach freedom from government oppression,he is in the perfect place.I don’t think Putin will like it.

  6. Watch the full interview folks! It’s almost an hour but well worth it, this is the truth people need to hear. honestly we should all crave truth a little more as a society.

    1. The truth I would like to know which he will not talk about is how much he told Russia and how this benefited them. He will not paint himself into a corner. Everyone in jail is innocent. Just ask them.

    1. when you are around someone that has been placed in a position that knows everything because of the position the of the presidency if you are outsider you are dangerous man Donald Trump is fighting a dangerous wicked deceitful force he needs America’s prayers they are trying to destroy him at all those around him

    2. @White RiceSpying goes back to before Snowden. Stalin our ally during WW2 knew of the top-secret atom bomb tests the day they happened. Do you think the Russians have not debriefed Snowden? And if he says he will not talk the Russians would say okay here is an apartment, food, and clothing? How naive.

    3. I find it amusing that I never said any one of those things, and you assume that I did. The only thing that relates to anything I even said was the part about Stalin spying on us in World War 2; however, how do you find terrorists by spying on your close allies and the USSR was trying to make the U.S. communist, not to fight terrorism.

    4. @White Rice WTF? I didn’t know it was a deposition and you wanted no deviation from your question. Brilliant. I promise you I will never respond to another comment of yours.

  7. Snowden is nothing short of a Patriot. He gave his life for America.
    People shouldn’t let that be lost on them… or let the sacrifice be in vain.

    1. ​@EL GERONE The “world” is only attempting to get the technology because the US opened pandora’s box, assuming they weren’t attempting global surveillance already, and the world is trying to hide from it because it was used to spy on, literally, the whole world.

    2. White Rice exactly so if they didn’t know before they know now thanks to Snowden….then he get on a plane to go to Russia not switzerland or Cuba but Russia like a returning agent .????????

    3. @EL GERONE So… the world would be a better place with the U.S. secretly spying on the whole world without their consent? Also, I’m not sure if we’ve watched the same video, but he literally said that he tried to go to many countries before he had no other option than to go to Russia.

    4. Semper Fortis – you are nothing short of a fool. Patriots don’t run off to hostile countries, they stand and fight.

  8. Notice he mentioned Joe Biden being one of the guys who didn’t allow allies to follow their own human rights beliefs. Joe Biden is not, and never will be, presidential material!

    1. And what has that “true American” told the Russians about our capabilities? Do you think the Russians have put him up, clothed him and given him food out of kindness? Do you think they never sat down with him to debrief him? And if he would not talk the Russians would say oh well here is an apartment, food and clothing.

    2. The Blade who cares America and Russia both eat from the same Table!!!!
      Look at there President and ours ..,Freinds!!!

    1. i admire your stupidity, stealing and releasing government documents is not an admirable thing to do, people die, and yes i used to hold a top secret clearance, i can think of many prisons to hold your hero

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