Former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden is accusing the agency of conducting industrial espionage.

German public television broadcaster ARD says Snowden made the accusation in an interview for broadcast Sunday.

In the interview Snowden says, "If an industrial giant like Siemens has something that the NSA believes would be beneficial to the national interests, not the national security, of the United States, they will go after that information and they will take it."

The ARD interview is his first TV interview since revealing the NSA's mass surveillance program.

Snowden faces felony charges in the United States and has temporary asylum in Russia.

Snowden also said he would not be involved in any future publications of the documents he withdrew from the NSA databanks. He said he no longer possesses any NSA data.

He told ARD the information has been distributed among a number of, what he called, trustworthy journalists, who are going to decide for themselves what to make public and in what sequence. [Read More]

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Source: VOA News: Human Rights and Law