In a lengthy interview published by The Washington Post today, Edward Snowden declared “mission accomplished” in his exposure of NSA surveillance. Snowden said: “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.” Snowden also repeated his denials of sharing the leaked documents with foreign governments, including his host country Russia. Snowden said: “If I defected at all, I defected from the government to the public.”