26 January 2014. Add AP report.

Snowden Says USA Spies Industry

Related video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdS544yxxZk

Google translation, tweaked by Cryptome

http://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/snowden352.html

Interview with Edward Snowden in ARD

"USA operate industrial espionage"

In the world's first television interview of former U.S. intelligence official Edward Snowden he has reiterated his belief that the United States spied on foreign business enterprises.

In conversation with the NDR journalist Hubert Seipel, Snowden said that he did not want to pre-empt future publications by journalists and could - in his view, but there should be no question how the United States behaved. U.S. intelligence agencies spied not only politicians and other citizens: "If there is information about Siemens that benefits the national interest of the United States, but have nothing to do with national security, they take this information anyway," he said. Snowden has been granted initial asylum in Russia.

A few days ago an NSA spokeswoman stressed that the intelligence agencies were not involved in industrial espionage. Background to this was a report in the "New York Times" that the U.S. intelligence could implant computers with radio bugs.

Previously German politicians had called for a possible no-Spy Agreement with the United States that should also include a waiver of industrial espionage.

Snowden emphasized to ARD that he himself was no longer in possession of explosive material, but he had passed it to selected journalists and therefore to the public. He will have no influence on possible publication. The show today at 20.00 clock is a first cut from the interview. The interview was produced in collaboration with the North German broadcasting and production company Cinecentrum.

The first showing of the entire interview today of essential excerpts in the ARD interview broadcast " Günther Jauch " at 21.45 clock and following at 23.05 clock in full length also a first.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/german-tv-snowden-says-nsa-110808416.html

German TV: Snowden says NSA also spies on industry

Associated Press

By Kirsten Grieshaber, Associated Press 58 minutes ago

BERLIN (AP) -- Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden claimed in a new interview that the U.S. agency is involved in industrial espionage.

In the interview aired Sunday night on German public television broadcaster ARD, Snowden said if German engineering company Siemens had information that would benefit the U.S., but had nothing to do with national security needs, the National Security Agency would still use it.

It wasn't clear what exactly Snowden accused the NSA of doing with such information — he only said he didn't want to reveal the details before journalists did.

Snowden also told ARD television that he was no longer in possession of any NSA documents, because he had passed them all on to a few selected journalists and that he had no further influence on the release of the files.

He also said U.S. government representatives wanted to kill him, according to a simultaneous German translation by the station. Snowden referred to an article he had read on Buzzfeed in which U.S. government representatives had told a reporter that they wanted to kill him.

Snowden, wearing a white shirt and black jacket, also chatted about his childhood and said he'd always been fascinated by computers and was one of those kids whose parents would tell him late at night to finally turn it off.

Hubert Seipel, the reporter who talked to Snowden, said he first met him in Moscow at the end of December and conducted the interview on Thursday.

Seipel described Snowden, 30, as "worried, but relaxed at the same time." He said Snowden was studying Russian, but that he couldn't confirm any further details about where exactly he met Snowden or whether he is working for a Russian Internet company, as some media have previously reported.

Snowden faces felony charges in the U.S. after revealing the NSA's mass surveillance program. He is living under temporary asylum in Russia, which has no extradition treaty with the U.S.

The revelations about U.S. surveillance programs have damaged Washington's relations with key allies, including Germany following reports that the NSA had monitored communications of European citizens — even listening in on Chancellor Angela Merkel's cellphone.