Hero or villain? Edward Snowden is behind one of the biggest leaks in U.S. history — this is his story.
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00:00All the prices we paid, all the sacrifices we made, I believe we would do again. I know I would do it.
00:30In the midst of the lead up to the Iraq war, when so many other Americans were protesting,
00:52I actually drank the Kool-Aid and I said, I'm going to sign up for the U.S. Army.
00:56Didn't go for the Air Force, didn't go for the Navy. I said, I want to try out for Special Forces.
01:26I knew the risks when I came forward. And if I was only comfortable, if I was only concerned with my own safety, my own future, I never would have left Hawaii.
01:42I would still be working at the NSA today.
01:56You can't come forward against the world's most powerful intelligence agencies and be completely free from risk because they're such powerful adversaries that no one can meaningfully oppose them.
02:09If they want to get you, they'll get you in time. But at the same time, you have to make a determination about what it is that's important to you.
02:39People's lives are at risk here because of data that Mr. Snowden purlined.
03:07So the damage and the full extent of it is yet to be measured.
03:22The main thing to remember here is that I did not pick a particular destination.
03:28I was trying to go to Latin America to seek asylum under human rights law.
03:34Unfortunately, I was frozen in place in transit by the State Department once they heard that I had departed Hong Kong.
03:42There was a rumor that my passport was sort of canceled before I departed.
03:47That's not true.
04:03I would like to return to the United States.
04:24That is the ultimate goal.
04:27But if I'm going to spend the rest of my life in prison, the one bottom line demand that we all have to agree to is that at least I get a fair trial.
04:35And that is the one thing the government has refused to guarantee because they won't provide access to what's called a public interest defense.
04:56There is no public evidence that any individual has come to harm as a result.
05:13And we know that there's no classified evidence that an individual has come to harm as a result.
05:17Or we would have seen it years ago would have been on the front page of every newspaper around the world.
05:23I'm comfortable with the decisions I made.
05:27But I don't think it's up for me to decide the direction of the future of our society.