Published on May 28, 2014
NBC News interview with Brian Williams Wednesday night, Edward Snowden talked about how 9/11 personally affected him, and charged that the government has exploited that tragedy to justify spying on American citizens.

He said, "It's really disingenuous for the government to invoke and sort of scandalize our memories to sort of exploit the national trauma that we all suffered together and worked so hard to come through to justify programs that have never been shown to keep us safe, but cost us liberties and freedoms that we don't need to give up and our Constitution says we don't need to give up."

Williams challenged him, asking why the government wouldn't want to "cast the widest net possible" after a horrible attack on the country. Snowden argued that the U.S. can't turn into a security state and if the American people want to be free, "we can't become subject to surveillance, we can't give away our privacy, we can't give away our rights."