WASHINGTON (CBS DC) — Former National Security Agency contractor and government surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden insists he is “not a hero, not a traitor” and that his leaks were a “moral obligation” and not done in self-interest.

Speaking last Friday via videoconference at Stanford University for “The 2015 Symbolic Systems Distinguished Speaker” series, Snowden addressed moral dilemmas on whistleblowing and his reasons for leaking the government program information before fleeing to Hong Kong, and later Russia.

Asked if he feels he is a hero or a traitor, Snowden dismissed both labels.

“This is a really common question that’s asked a lot,” he said. “I think it’s got one of the least interesting answers. I don’t think about myself or how I will be perceived. It’s not about me. It’s about us. I’m not a hero. I’m not a traitor. I’m an ordinary American like anyone else in the room. I’m just trying to do the best that I can.

“The courts were frozen out, the majority of Congress was frozen out, the populace was frozen out,” he said.

Snowden told the crowd that he has “certainly paid for” his decision to leak the information.

“When legality and morality begin to separate, we all have a moral obligation to do something about that,” he continued. “When I saw that the work I was doing and all my colleagues were doing [was] being subversive not only to our intentions but contrary to the public’s intent, I felt an obligation to act,” Snowden told the Stanford audience.

“I certainly paid for it,” he said. “I lived in Hawaii, had a wonderful girlfriend, a home, a happy family, a successful career. To walk away from that it does require a real commitment to something… I think the driving principle is that you have to have a greater commitment to justice than a fear of the law.”

Snowden has been on a virtual globe-hopping tour, with the former NSA contractor making video appearances at Princeton University for a “distinguished speakers” series, Norway, Australia and Stanford. He has upcoming video audiences this month in Italy and Ecuador, where “Citizenfour” – the Oscar-winning documentary about him – will be screened.

American Civil Liberties Union attorney Ben Wizner, who represents Snowden, tells The New York Times that Snowden’s main source of income is speaking fees – some of which exceed $10,000 per appearance. Snowden’s American girlfriend, Lindsay Mills, represented him at the Academy Awards ceremony in February and has since joined Snowden in Moscow.

Two weeks ago, a federal appeals court ruled that the NSA’s phone call record collection program that he first leaked is illegal. The House of Representatives voted overwhelming in favor of transforming the program – a move President Barack Obama supports and the Senate is currently debating.

Apple and Google also boosted encryption on smartphones and other products in order to frustrate FBI and other U.S. government surveillance tactics that were first exposed by Snowden.

But despite these congressional and technological victories, Snowden’s legal case has not improved among U.S. intelligence agency leaders.

Michael Morell, the former deputy director and acting director of the CIA, writes in a new memoir that Snowden’s leaks helped empower the Islamic State militant group and has made the U.S. and allies “less safe.”

“ISIS was one of the terrorist groups that learned from Snowden, and it is clear his actions played a role in the rise of ISIS,” Morell writes in “The Great War of Our Time.” “In short, Snowden has made the United States and our allies considerably less safe. I do not say this lightly: Americans may well die at the hands of terrorists because of Edward Snowden’s actions.”

The Russian government granted Snowden a three-year residency last year, and given how U.S. prosecutors have offered no acceptable plea bargain and revoked his passport – Snowden’s return to America in the near future is unlikely. But Snowden said he would “of course” come home if given a good opportunity.

“If there’s any question, if the opportunity was presented, I would of course come home,” he said. “Because that’s where I live, that’s where my family is.

“I never published a single document on my own because I believe that the model, the ideal of American government is actually quite a shrewd one,” he said. “I tried to emulate the model of checks and balance. Instead of making a unilateral decision, that ‘The world must know,’ I worked with the free press, institutions that we trust, American journalists.”