new york subway system leading to suspect najibul azazi, who was charged in 2010. it allowed us to know it was happening. reporter: but the target of the investigation contractor snowden remains defiant telling the south china morning post i would rather stay and fight the united states government in the courts. he accuses the u.s. of hacking network backbones like huge internet routers, targeting hong kong and china and proclaims he s neither traitor nor hero but what to call him is less of an issue than how a high school dropout ended up privy to the super secret surveillance programs. ask you if you re troubled that he was given that kind of opportunity to be so close to important information that was critical to the security of our nation? i have great concerns over that, the access that he had,
significant harm to our nation and to our safety. we re taking all necessary steps to hold the person responsible for these disclosures. those disclosures are bringing out international demands on the u.s. government. today a lawmaker from hong kong reacted to the claim that snowden made to the south china morning post that we told you about yesterday, that the u.s. has been hacking computers in china and hong kong for the last couple of years. snowden said this, quote, we hack network backbones like huge internet routers basically to give us access to the communications of hundreds of thousands of computers without having to hack every single one. according to mr. snowden, it appears that our right to privacy may have been systemically violated by the american national security agency. now, i think we re entitled to know the truth. and we re entitled to seek an account from the u.s. administration. snowden fled to hong kong
prevent for both here and abroad in disrupting or contributing to the disruption of terrorist attacks. automatic of those million, dozens have been critical. that s correct. reporter: most of the details he says are classified, but alexander was more than willing to admit this intelligence helped stop a plot to attack the new york subway system. leading to suspect pleading guilty to terror related charges in 2010. so it was the one that allowed us to know it was happening. reporter: but the target of the investigation, former nsa contractor snowden, remains defiant, believed to be in hong kong, telling the south china morning post, i would rather stay and fight the united states government in the courts. he accuses the u.s. of hacking network backbones like huge internet routers, targeting hong kong and china, and proclaims he is neither traitor nor hero. but what to call him is less of
and disrupting or contributing to the disruption. out of those millions, dozens have been critical? that s correct. reporter: most of the details he says are classified, but alexander was more than willing to admit this intelligence helped stop a plot to attack the new york subway system, leading to suspect imaginajibul azazi i 2010. but the target of the investigation, former nsa contractor snowden remains defiant believed to be in hong kong telling the south china morning post i would rather stay and fight the united states government in the courts. cueses the u.s. of hacking network backbones like huge internet routers, targeting hong kong and china and proclaims he s neither traitor nor hero but what to call him is less of an issue than how a high school
hour-long interview with edward snowden by the south china morning post. the big revelation, the headlines was he said the nsa has been carrying out about 61,000 hacks internationally. hundreds of those are on chinese and hong kong targets. we don t specifically know what targets they are, about you they talks about network backbones. these are basically big essentially huge routers linked to hundreds of we don t have specification evidence. it looked at targets like the chinese university here in hong kong and some institutions. no sign, though, that any military institutions have been hagged by the nsa. it brings us to this perplexing question, why did he choose hong