Edward Snowden says he’s not worried about his future under President-elect Donald Trump.
“I’m not worried,” Snowden said Tuesday in an interview with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who asked if he is worried a Trump presidency could lead to his imprisonment.
“I’m comfortable with the decisions that I made. I believe that I did the right thing,” Snowden continued, in the interview, which was streamed on the social media platform Periscope.
“If my own personal security was the only thing I cared about I would have never come forward and done all this.”
{mosads}Snowden leaked classified information in 2013 about the National Security Agency’s (NSA) mass surveillance programs. He fled U.S. authorities and now resides in Russia, which granted him asylum. He faces at least 30 years in jail in the U.S. if convicted under the Espionage Act.
Snowden has floated a pardon deal from President Obama but now has also said he’s not counting on one. Obama has also said he can’t do anything on the matter, making a pardon unlikely. Many top lawmakers, including the House Intelligence Committee, have also urged Obama not to pardon Snowden.
In the wide-ranging interview, Snowden also explained why the NSA is the only account he follows on Twitter. He said he wasn’t just trolling the organization.
“The government could come to Twitter and say, ‘Hey, we want everyone that Snowden communicates with, his direct messages and who he follows,’ ” he claimed.
“I don’t want to compromise other people’s privacy because they’re interested in what I’m doing,” he added.
Snowden explained that he uses Twitter in a “crude” way, memorizing the accounts he likes and physically going to their pages.