"They're just owned. An analyst will get a daily (or scheduled based on exfiltration summary) report on what changed on the system, PCAPS [abbreviation of the term "packet capture"] of leftover data that wasn't understood by the automated dissectors, and so forth," Snowden wrote.

"It's up to the analyst to do whatever they want at that point — the target's machine doesn't belong to them anymore, it belongs to the US government."

Snowden talked about the NSA in very critical terms. When asked who will be brought to justice after the NSA surveillance programs are revealed, Snowden responded, "In front of US courts? I'm not sure if you're serious [...] Who 'can' be brought up on charges is immaterial when the rule of law is not respected. Laws are meant for you, not for them."

The NSA leaker also revealed how the NSA "wants to be at the point where at least all of the metadata is permanently stored," emphasising the importance of metadata. "In most cases, content isn't as valuable as metadata because you can either re-fetch content based on the metadata or, if not, simply task all future communications of interest for permanent collection since the metadata tells you what out of their data stream you actually want," he explained.

The NSA isn't the only surveillance power that netizens should be worried about. Snowden explained in the interview that its allied counterparts from the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada — part of the so-called Five-Eyes — "go beyond what NSA itself does."