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Snowden: Why I Chose Hong Kong

Q&A

In Guardian live chat.

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Kin Cheung/AP

Edward Snowden is apparently feeling safe enough in Hong Kong to field questions at The Guardian in a live Q&A. In his first answer, Snowden defended his decision to leak information about NSA operations against China and other countries by saying he didn’t reveal any operations against “legitimate military targets,” only civilian infrastructure like universities and businesses. Snowden said that hacking countries we’re not at war with could crash critical systems, affecting “millions of innocent people.” As for why he chose Hong Kong, he said he could have been interdicted on his way to Iceland and that it would take longer for the U.S. to pressure Hong Kong into extraditing him. Snowden also promised that more information on exactly what sort of access the NSA has to tech company servers—he said it was “direct,” but companies and the NSA say it’s more targeted.

Read it at The Guardian