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                         Snowden Wants to Return to US

   by VOA News

   Fugitive self-proclaimed spy and NSA secrets leaker Edward Snowden says
   he wants to return home to the United States.

   In his first interview on U.S. television, Snowden told NBC-TV newsman
   Brian Williams Wednesday that he sees himself as a patriot, but until
   he can return to the U.S. he plans to ask Russia to extend his asylum.

   He sought to defend himself against charges by the Obama administration
   that he is a traitor who endangered lives by revealing the extent of an
   NSA spying program.

   Asked whether he would make a deal to return, Snowden said he first
   wants to make "sure that these programs are reformed," and that the
   family and country he left behind can be helped by his actions.

   The United States charged Snowden with theft and two counts of
   espionage after he revealed the breadth of National Security Agency
   surveillance programs, including the bulk collection of telephone and
   Internet data from Americans.

   Earlier Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Snowden
   should "man up" and return to the United States to face espionage
   charges.

   Snowden is living in asylum in Russia a year after leaking a vast cache
   of NSA documents to journalists that described clandestine U.S. spy
   operations around the world.

   In the interview, Snowden claimed he was "trained as a spy" and worked
   undercover overseas for the U.S. intelligence community. He rebutted
   critics who described him as nothing more than a low-level analyst.

   Snowden passed on the documents to journalists at the British newspaper
   The Guardian and The Washington Post.

   In the interview, Snowden described himself as a "patriot." He said all
   three branches of the U.S. government have made reforms as a result of
   what he did.
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   [1]http://www.voanews.com/content/us-intelligence-leaker-says-he-was-a-
   trained-spy/1924001.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/us-intelligence-leaker-says-he-was-a-trained-spy/1924001.html