Wednesday, May 28, 2014

7 Things We Learned From Edward Snowden's First U.S. Interview

The former NSA contractor who leaked details of U.S. intelligence-gathering programs spoke to Brian Williams in an “NBC Nightly News” interview in Moscow.

Snowden calls himself a "patriot" and insists he is not a spy for Russia.

"I have no relationship with the Russian government at all. I've never met the Russian president," he said. "I'm not supported by the Russian government. I'm not taking money from the Russian government. I'm not a spy, which is the real question. But I would ask this question, too, you know, I would also be skeptical."

The former National Security Agency contract systems analyst is currently living in Russia on a temporary grant of asylum.

NBC

Snowden says he was trained "as a spy" and worked undercover overseas.

"I was trained as a spy in sort of the traditional sense of the word in that I lived and worked undercover overseas, pretending to work in a job that I'm not, and even being assigned a name that was not mine," Snowden said.

"So when [critics] say I'm a low-level systems administrator, that I don't know what I'm talking about, I'd say it's somewhat misleading," he added.

NBC

He wants to come home.

After leaking government secrets and fleeing the country, Snowden said he would like to return to the U.S.

"I don't think there's ever been any question that I'd like to go home. I've from Day One said that I'm doing this to serve my country," he said.

"Now, whether amnesty or clemency ever becomes a possibility is not for me to say. That's a debate for the public and the government to decide. But, if I could go anywhere in the world, that place would be home," Snowden said.

NBC

He didn't intend to end up in Russia and blames the U.S. for leaving him stranded there.

"The reality is I never intended to end up in Russia," Snowden said. "I had a flight booked to Cuba onwards to Latin America and I was stopped because the United States government decided to revoke my passport and trap me in Moscow Airport."

"So when people ask why are you in Russia, I say, 'Please ask the State Department.'"

NBC

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Google Is Overwhelming Staffed By White Men, Report Says

“We’re not where we want to be when it comes to diversity,” Google admits in a new report that shows its workforce is overwhelmingly white and male.

AP Photo/Jens Meyer, File

Google / Via google.com

Asians represent the second largest ethnicity at Google, though most other races make up a tiny fraction of the workforce.

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Anonymous Twitter Account @HiddenCash Is Hiding Envelopes Stuffed With Money Around California

Someone has been hiding cash around the Bay Area and sending clues through Twitter on where to find it. The account, @HiddenCash, says it is heading to Los Angeles next.

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Pings Heard In Ocean Not From MH370's Black Boxes, U.S. Navy Official Says

Electronic pings used to narrow the search area for MH370 didn’t actually come from the missing plane’s black boxes, an official says.

A visitor looks out at Malaysia Airlines aircraft at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport Tuesday.

AP Photo/Vincent Thian

The months-long search for a missing Malaysian Airlines plane suffered a setback Wednesday when an official revealed the acoustic pings they had picked up probably didn't come from the plane after all.

The series of pings were detected in April and seemed to come from the black boxes of the missing Boeing 777. That led searchers to comb an area of the southern Indian Ocean, west of Australia.

But by Wednesday — after a search of 329 square miles wrapped up — U.S. Navy officials said the pings could actually have come from the search ship or other equipment that was towed in the water, according to CNN. Officials explained that if the pings had come from the plane they would have found it by now.

A map shows the possible path of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

Handout / Reuters

The revelation that the pings didn't come from the plane comes just one day after the Malaysian government released 45 pages of raw satellite data on the plane's flight path. It also means that searchers have a significantly larger area to comb through; for the next phase, Australia will hire private companies to look at 23,166 square miles of ocean floor, CNN reports.

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