REUTERS Edward Snowden says he may not be able to travel but at least he can sleep at night. Serial security leaker Edward Snowden is a free American who can’t come home — but he sleeps with a clear conscience.
“I may have lost my ability to travel,” Snowden said in a Moscow interview with NBC anchor Brian Williams that aired Wednesday in New York.
“But I’ve gained the ability to go to sleep at night and to put my head on the pillow and feel comfortable that I’ve done the right thing, even when it was the hard thing,” the 30-year-old former national security analyst said.
Yet in the next breath, the self-declared “patriot” confessed to missing his family and his country.
“I don’t think there’s ever been any question that I’d like to go home . . . If I could go anywhere in the world, that place would be home,” he said wistfully.
The North Carolinian, who sparked a global furor over U.S. surveillance techniques after leaking a massive trove of National Security Agency documents, told Williams he’s being punished for his patriotism.
“Being a patriot means knowing when to protect your country, knowing when to protect your Constitution . . . Adversaries don’t have to be foreign countries. They . . . can be bad policies. They can be officials who, you know, need a little bit more accountability,” he said.
HANDOUT/REUTERS ‘NBC Nightly News’ anchor Brian Williams (left) chats with fugitive NSA leaker Edward Snowden in Moscow Snowden claimed to have been a CIA spy at one time and an undercover operative overseas for the NSA — assertions that National Security Adviser Susan Rice denied in an interview with CNN.
Snowden also reassured Williams he’s not a pawn to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who granted him asylum for a year.
Snowden insisted he’d destroyed most of his stolen material before entering Russia and said he couldn’t even access it online.
He said the NSA wouldn’t know how many documents he’d taken, anyway.
“Their auditing was so poor, so negligent, that any private contractor, not even an employee of the government, could walk into the NSA building, take whatever they wanted, and walk out with it and they would never know,” he said.
Snowden made clear that an offer of clemency or amnesty from the U.S. would be warmly received.
“If Mr. Snowden wants to come back . . . we’ll have him on a flight today,” Secretary of State Kerry told the “Today” show of the man he labeled a “fugitive.”
gotis@nydailynews.com
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