Becoming an “international fugitive” was worth it because of the benefits it brought to the public, according to US whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The former National Security Agency (NSA) worker said progress had been made since he released thousands of documents about global surveillance records two years ago.

“The difference is that you get a different quality of government when they are accountable to the public,” he said on video live-link from Moscow to an event in London organised by human rights group Amnesty International.

Within hours the American Senate passed a USA Freedom Act that would end the bulk collection of millions of Americans’ phone records.

However, he accused the British government of trying to reform surveillance laws in a negative way.

“Rather than preserving civil liberties, they are trying to limit it,” he said.

Although he can “no longer see my family” or live in the US, Snowden said “the things I've received personally and we've all benefited from publicly, make it all worth it.”

“It has been incredibly rewarding, incredibly gratifying,” he added, pointing out that newspapers around the world have published stories about government abuses and courts had acted to stop them.





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“I think the most liberating thing about burning your life to the ground, and becoming an international fugitive, or so I'm told, is that you no longer have to worry about tomorrow, you think about today,” he said. For me that's been a great experience, I'm actually quite grateful for it.

Unable to answer where he saw himself in five years he added: “I've applied for asylum in 21 different countries, including western Europe, I'm still waiting for them to get back to me.”

Working as a contractor for the NSA in Hawaii, Snowden became uncomfortable with the level of intrusion the agency and its foreign counterparts, including Britain's GCHQ, were making into the lives of innocent civilians.

After raising the alarm with his superiors he decided to blow the whistle and stole tens of thousands of classified files, before fleeing to Hong Kong in June 2013.

There, he helped to co-ordinate a series of articles that exposed mass surveillance programmes such as the NSA's Prism and GCHQ's Tempora, which involve “hoovering up” vast volumes of private communications.

Most controversial Nobel Peace Prize nominees Show all 5 1 /5 Most controversial Nobel Peace Prize nominees Most controversial Nobel Peace Prize nominees Edward Snowden 2014: The National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden has been nominated by two Norwegian MPs for the Nobel Peace Prize, meaning the US contractor currently claiming asylum in Russia could be awarded the same prize accepted by President Barak Obama in 2009 Most controversial Nobel Peace Prize nominees Vladimir Putin 2013: The Russian President Vladimir Putin was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize because the former KGB agent “actively promotes settlement of all conflicts arising on the planet,” according to the advocacy group that nominated him, at least Most controversial Nobel Peace Prize nominees Barack Obama 2009: US President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” shortly before launching military airstrikes in Libya. The irony was not lost on Mr Obama it seemed, who during a press conference joked: "[Energy Secretary Steven] Chu's the right guy to do this, he's got a Nobel Prize in physics - he actually deserved his Nobel Prize" Most controversial Nobel Peace Prize nominees Henry Kissinger 1973: Henry Kissinger was awarded the prize for his work on the Paris Peace Accords jointly with Le Duc Tho, who turned the Prize down. The American humourist Tom Lehrer later quipped that Kissinger’s award represented the “death of satire” Most controversial Nobel Peace Prize nominees Josef Stalin 1945: Soviet dictator Josef Stalin was nominated for “his efforts to end World War II”. Fellow nominee Vladimir Putin recently said there was no difference between him and Oliver Cromwell, when asked whether he would erect a statue of Stalin in Moscow

Film-maker Laura Poitras made the Citizenfour documentary about the revelations.

Once Snowden's identity was out, he fled to Russia, where he remains wanted by the US authorities.

Surveillance methods being used around the world gave government a window into “anybody's life at any given time,” he said, asking: “Do we really want the Government watching everybody all the time?”