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Keeping a mostly low-profile as a US fugitive in Moscow, former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden has suddenly resurfaced in the media, saying he is confident his personal “mission is already accomplished” and he has “already won” after leaking NSA secrets. The challenge now, he believes, is to stress the importance of privacy and urge an end to mass government surveillance. Snowden gave a more than 14-hour interview to The Washington Post, which says it’s the first he has conducted in person since arriving in the Russian capital in June. He follows that up by speaking directly to the British public in a televised message that will be broadcast Wednesday as an alternative to the queen’s annual Christmas speech. Snowden told the Post he was satisfied because journalists have been able to tell the story of the US government’s collection of bulk Internet and phone records, an activity that has grown dramatically in the decade since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. “For me, in terms of personal satisfaction, the mission’s already accomplished,” he said in the interview, which was published online Monday night. “I already won.” “As soon as the journalists were able to work, everything that I had been trying to do was validated,” Snowden told the Post. “Because, remember, I didn’t want to change society. I wanted to give society a chance to determine if it should change itself.” | 
