It was “the highest honor you can give an American” to be called a traitor by Mr. Cheney, whom he denounced as “a man who gave us the warrantless wiretapping scheme as a kind of atrocity warm-up on the way to deceitfully engineering a conflict that has killed over 4,400 and maimed nearly 32,000 Americans, as well as leaving over 100,000 Iraqis dead.”  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/18/world/asia/nsa-leaker-denies-giving-classified-data-to-china.html?ref=world  Snowden denounced “a continuing litany of lies” both from senior government officials to Congress and Congressional leaders. In particular, he accused James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, of “baldly lying to the public without repercussion,” saying that such actions subverted democratic accountability.
Mr. Snowden also suggested that his decision to leak the information about United States government surveillance was influenced in part by the Obama administration’s harsh crackdown on leakers; the administration has filed charges in six cases, so far, compared with three under all previous presidents combined, and several of those charged have been portrayed as heroes and martyrs by supporters.
“Binney, Drake, Kiriakou and Manning are all examples of how overly harsh responses to public-interest whistle-blowing only escalate the scale, scope and skill involved in future disclosures,” he wrote. “Citizens with a conscience are not going to ignore wrongdoing simply because they’ll be destroyed for it: the conscience forbids it. Instead, these draconian responses simply build better whistle-blowers.”
“All I can say right now is the U.S. government is not going to be able to cover this up by jailing or murdering me,” he said. “Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped.”