"When Edward Snowden leaked highly classified secrets about government spying in 2013, the undertaking took meticulous coordination.
Snowden, a former NSA contractor, chatted with Guardian reporters Glenn Greenwald and documentary maker Laura Poitras over encrypted email exchanges. Their first meeting hinged on code words and a secret signal involving a Rubik's cube.
But when the first article revealing hush-hush surveillance programs went live that June while he was in a Hong Kong hotel room, that's as far as Snowden had thought things through, he said over a live internet feed from Russia, where he's been living in exile since the leaks.
"I admit it. I did not have a plan beyond that point, beyond getting the story out there," Snowden said during a question-and-answer session Thursday at Comic-Con in San Diego. "I planned to ask the world for justice and see what happened."
As any reader of spy novels can tell you, danger might have quickly descended on Snowden.
"I never thought I would be saved," he said, adding he didn't even expect to make it out of Hawaii, where he was living before heading to Hong Kong to meet the journalists. "But I thought the stories might be able to still get out there."