Edward Snowden, the former CIA staffer who has been hiding in Hong Kong following his revelations about the National Security Agency (NSA) monitoring millions of phone calls and internet data, has endorsed Beijing's accusation of the U.S. government hacking into Chinese computers.
In an interview with the South China Morning Post, the NSA whistleblower said that the United States had hacked into "hundreds" of targets in Hong Kong as well as mainland China since 2009.
This was his first interview since late Monday when it was believed that Snowden had gone into hiding fearing retaliation from the U.S. government for leaking the secret information.
Defending himself, Snowden said that he was neither a "traitor" nor a "hero", just an "American citizen."
Earlier, the American man said that he leaked the NSA's phone tapping and internet monitoring policy out of conscience in a bid to protect the "basic liberties" of people across the world.
Speaking to the newspaper, Snowden accused the U.S. government of "hypocrisy" and said that the NSA targets included computers belonging to the Chinese University of Hong Kong as well as "public officials, businesses and students."
"We hack network backbones - like huge internet routers, basically - that give us access to the communications of hundreds of thousands of computers without having to hack every single one," said the 29-year-old American who is probably shifting from one hotel to another in fear of possible prosecution from the U.S. government.
The leaks have triggered a nation-wide debate where many people in the U.S. are hailing him as a "hero" while others are calling him a "traitor."
As many people wonder why Snowden chose Hong Kong as his destination to hide, he said that Hong Kong has a relatively high level of freedom of speech even though it is a Special Administrative Region under the People's Republic of China.
Snowden earlier had expressed his desire to seek political asylum in Iceland but Iceland said that only a person living in the country is eligible to apply for asylum.
"The main stipulation for seeking asylum in Iceland would be that the person must be in Iceland to start the process," said Johannes Tomasson, the chief spokesman for Iceland's Ministry of Interior in Reykjavik.
"That would be the ground rule No. 1," said Tomasson.
It is not clear if Snowden has made any further attempts for political asylum to any other country, but the Russian newspaper Kommersant said its government is considering offering asylum to the U.S. whistleblower if a request comes forth from him.
Dmitry Peskov , spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin told the Russian newspaper Kommersant: "If such an appeal is given, it will be considered. We'll act according to facts."
