Edward Snowden: 'The mission's accomplished'

MOSCOW, Dec. 24 (UPI) -- Edward Snowden said when he released classified secret NSA documents, his intention was to "give society a chance to determine if it should change itself."

In an exclusive interview with the Washington Post, Snowden said "in terms of personal satisfaction, the mission's already accomplished."

"I already won. As soon as the journalists were able to work, everything that I had been trying to do was validated. Because, remember, I didn't want to change society. I wanted to give society a chance to determine if it should change itself," he said.

"All I wanted was for the public to be able to have a say in how they are governed," he added. "That is a milestone we left a long time ago. Right now, all we are looking at are stretch goals."

Snowden is currently living in Russia under temporary asylum after releasing documents in June 2013 that revealed U.S. intelligence services were bulk collecting public phone records. He was working for the NSA as a contractor at the time.

Snowden told the Post he wasn't "trying to bring down the NSA" when he revealed the classified information.

"I am working to improve the NSA," he said. "I am still working for the NSA right now. They are the only ones who don't realize it."