NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has denied critics’ charges that he placed sensitive documents in danger of falling into Chinese or Russian hands. From James Risen at The New York Times:
Mr. Snowden said he gave all of the classified documents he had obtained to journalists he met in Hong Kong, before flying to Moscow, and did not keep any copies for himself. He did not take the files to Russia “because it wouldn’t serve the public interest,” he said.
[…] He also asserted that he was able to protect the documents from China’s spies because he was familiar with that nation’s intelligence abilities, saying that as an N.S.A. contractor he had targeted Chinese operations and had taught a course on Chinese cybercounterintelligence.
“There’s a zero percent chance the Russians or Chinese have received any documents,” he said.
American intelligence officials have expressed grave concern that the files might have fallen into the hands of foreign intelligence services, but Mr. Snowden said he believed that the N.S.A. knew he had not cooperated with the Russians or the Chinese. […] [Source]
Snowden has previously defended himself against accusations of working for China directly, asking “why wouldn’t I have flown directly into Beijing? I could be living in a palace petting a phoenix by now.”
