Just more than a week after publicly admitting he was the source who revealed the National Security Agency’s sweeping domestic spy program, whistleblower Edward Snowden defended his actions in an online chat. Speaking to Guardian readers and journalists, Snowden indicated he remains in Hong Kong after arriving there last month, but did not confirm his exact location. He stood by his assertion that as an NSA contractor he had the capability “to wiretap anyone” in the United States with a personal email address. At one point, Snowden was asked when, exactly, he made the decision to come forward. He said: “For me, there was no single moment. It was seeing a continuing litany of lies from senior officials to Congress — and therefore the American people — and the realization that Congress, specifically the Gang of Eight, wholly supported the lies that compelled me to act. Seeing someone in the position of James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, baldly lying to the public without repercussion is the evidence of a subverted democracy.”