The Biggest Moments From Edward Snowden's Big NBC Interview

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Edward Snowden speaks with Brian Williams in an NBC News exclusive interview.

Image: NBC News

By Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai and Brian Ries2014-05-29 01:59:38 UTC

This is a developing story...Mashable will continue to update it throughout the hour...

Edward Snowden speaks.

The bespectacled NSA-leaker, currently living under asylum in Moscow, Russia, is giving a wide-ranging interview to NBC Nightly News' Brian Williams on Wednesday night, his first with a major American television network since exposing the country's massive surveillance programs.

See also: Meet the Man Hired to Make Sure the Snowden Docs Aren't Hacked

Wednesday's interview comes after "months of negotiations between NBC News and intermediaries for Mr. Snowden" and "contained its own quotient of cloak-and-dagger activity," according to The New York Times . Ahead of the interview, Williams told the Times, “What’s going to be most interesting is to see if it moves the conversation or changes any minds.”

These are the biggest moments from the interview.

On life in Russia

Snowden, who spoke for over four hours with Williams at an undisclosed location in Moscow last week, said he "never intended" to stay there. "When people ask why are you in Russia, I say, 'Please ask the State Department," he explained.

Snowden told Williams, "The reality is I never intended to end up in Russia. I had a flight booked to Cuba onwards to Latin America and I was stopped because the United States government decided to revoke my passport and trap me in Moscow Airport."

(Perhaps anticipating the remarks, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told Snowden to come home and "man up" in an earlier interview Wednesday morning.)

On coming home to America

Asked if he wanted to come home, Snowden said, of course.

"I don't think there's ever been any question that I'd like to go home. I mean, I've from day one said that I'm doing this to serve my country. Now, whether amnesty or clemency ever becomes a possibility is not for me to say. That's a debate for the public and the government to decide. But if I could go anywhere in the world, that place would be home."

Was he anxious to be granted amnesty or clemency?

"My priority is not about myself," Snowden said. "It’s about making sure that these programs are reformed and that the family that I left behind, the country that I left behind, can be helped by my actions. I will do everything I can to continue to work in the most responsible way possible and to prior causing no harm while serving the public good."

On his role at the NSA

Snowden explained that his role as an NSA contractor wasn't to be a simple, low-level hacker, but a real "spy," he said.

"I was trained as a spy in sort of the traditional sense of the word, in that I lived and worked undercover overseas — pretending to work in a job that I’m not — and even being assigned a name that was not mine," he said during the interview.

Snowden was addressing remarks made by various U.S. officials, including President Barack Obama, that he was just a hacker or a system administrator. Snowden defined those terms as "misleading."

Snowden and Russia

Williams asked Snowden about his relationship with Russia and whether he has given anything to the government who has granted him asylum. Snowden denied having "any relationship" with the Russian government and explained once again that even if he wanted to he couldn't give anything to Russia because he doesn't have the documents anymore.

"I took nothing to Russia so I can give them nothing," he said.

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Topics: Brian Williams, edward snowden, NSA, surveillance, U.S., US & World, World