Edward Snowden Declares Mission Accomplished

"Fugitive NSA leaker Edward Snowden, who had been keeping a low profile in Moscow since being granted asylum there in August, has broken out of his seclusion with a lengthy interview with the Washington Post and a recorded television address to be aired in Britain on Christmas Day.

Snowden used his first significant direct media contacts since arriving in Russia in June to portray his disclosure of secret intelligence gathering programs as a public service alerting Americans and people around the world to the risks those operations pose to individual privacy.

Since he fled his National Security Agency job in Hawaii and began leaking highly classified information, Snowden has been charged in the U.S. with felony espionage and theft of government property. But he is hailed as a hero by those who share his concerns that the massive NSA data sweeps in the name of counterterrorism unjustly intrude on the communications of innocent people."* Cenk Uygur, Ben Mankiewicz, John Iadarola, and Jimmy Dore break it down on The Young Turks.

*Read more here from Carol J. Williams / LA Times: