In an interview with "Last Week Tonight" host John Oliver that aired this weekend, Edward Snowden defended his decision to leak thousands of national security documents.

Oliver began the episode by discussing the security implications of the Patriot Act's controversial Section 215. Oliver then played footage of his trip to Moscow where "America's most famous hero and/or traitor in recent American history" Snowden has been living in asylum. After an uncomfortable period in the hotel room, during which time Oliver began to sincerely question whether he will show, Snowden walked in over an hour late, eliciting a strong applause from the audience.

After some (unsuccessful) ice-breakers, Oliver got to the real question: "Why did you do this?"

SNOWDEN: The NSA has the greatest surveillance capabilities that we've ever seen in history. Now what they will argue is that they don't use this for nefarious purposes against American citizens. In some ways that's true. But the real problem is that they're using these capabilities to make us vulnerable to them and then saying, "While I have a gun pointed to your head, I'm not going to pull the trigger. Trust me."

After Snowden and Oliver discussed the difference between domestic surveillance and foreign surveillance and Americans' concern with one and not the other, Oliver pressed Snowden on the national security risks he had taken.

Snowden defended his actions, saying that though he "recognized" the security concerns of releasing tthe NSA documents, the journalists to whom he'd handed over the documents were taking "extraordinary security measures to make sure this is reported in the most responsible way." Despite his statement, Snowden quickly admitted that there will be "f*ck ups" by journalists and said that that is "a fundamental concept of liberty."

SNOWDEN: You will never be completely free from risk if you're free.

Snowden went on to say that he believes his actions have been vindicated by the world's response to the information he exposed.

The interview with Snowden begins around the 16-minute mark.