In a new story out on NBC’s website, Snowden has pushed back on critics who claim he was no more than a low-level hacker, instead telling Brian Williams that he was “trained as a spy” who worked undercover overseas, sometimes even using a name other than his own.
He defended his expertise in portions of the interview that aired at 6:30 p.m. ET on Nightly News. The extended, wide-ranging interview with Williams, his first with a U.S. television network, airs Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET on NBC.
âI was trained as a spy in sort of the traditional sense of the word, in that I lived and worked undercover overseas â pretending to work in a job that Iâm not â and even being assigned a name that was not mine,â Snowden said in the interview.
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He described himself as a technical expert who has worked for the United States at high levels, including as a lecturer in a counterintelligence academy for the Defense Intelligence Agency and undercover work for the CIA and National Security Agency.
âBut I am a technical specialist. I am a technical expert,â he said. âI donât work with people. I donât recruit agents. What I do is I put systems to work for the United States. And Iâve done that at all levels from â from the bottom on the ground all the way to the top.
For more details, see NBC News.
