If it comes to a question of law, the charges they brought against me - the Espionage Act - is called the quintessential political crime. A political crime, in legal terms, is defined as any crime against a state, as opposed to against an individual. Assassination, for example, is not a political crime because you've killed a person, an individual, and they've been harmed; their family's been harmed. But the state itself, you can't be extradited for harming it.
Edward SnowdenThere were no whistleblower protections that would've protected me - and that's known to everybody in the intelligence community. There are no proper channels for making this information available when the system fails comprehensively.
Edward SnowdenYou can't come up against the world's most powerful intelligence agencies and not accept the risk.
Edward Snowden