Snowden: NSA conducts industrial espionage too

The US National Security Agency is involved in industrial espionage and will grab any intelligence it can get its hands on regardless of its value to national security, former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden said.

Snowden said the NSA does not limit its espionage to issues of national security and he cited German engineering firm, Siemens, as one target. "If there's information at Siemens that's beneficial to US national interests -- even if it doesn't have anything to do with national security -- then they'll take that information nevertheless," Snowden said. Snowden also told the German public broadcasting network he no longer has possession of any documents or information on NSA activities and has turned everything he had over to select journalists. He said he did not have any control over the publication of the information.