"The Man Who Knows Too Much? "GQ" interview with Greenwald..."More Bombs to Come"

[KoKo]

Last edited Mon May 12, 2014, 07:12 PM - Edit history (2)

He works at the white-hot center of the media universe as the most reliable source for NSA surveillance scoops. He talks to Edward Snowden most days and has full access to the complete archive. And while Glenn Greenwald has spent the past year publishing revelations from arguably the largest cache of breached secrets in American-intelligence history, he promises the biggest bombs are still to come
By Michael Paterniti
May 2014

He works at the white-hot center of the media universe as the most reliable source for NSA surveillance scoops. He talks to Edward Snowden most days and has full access to the complete archive. And while Glenn Greenwald has spent the past year publishing revelations from arguably the largest cache of breached secrets in American-intelligence history, he promises the biggest bombs are still to come
By Michael Paterniti
May 2014

What has been your philosophy with the archive?
I knew from the start that I was going to be super-aggressive with how it got reported. If I had a document about Norway or Brazil, I was going to try to team with a journalist in those places. I knew that I wasn't going to abide by the normal rules that the U.S. government has told media outlets they have to abide by if they want to do this stuff without being prosecuted. I knew I was going to cross those lines, because I don't believe in those lines.

And so it wasn't so much that I knew that I had this huge archive and could get in trouble for having it, it was more that I knew that what I was about to do and the way that I wanted to do it was going to be extremely controversial and would create legal risks. But then, I admired Snowden's example, the risks that he had rushed headlong into. To worry over my own risks—or limit them—would have just been untenable, psychologically, for me.


How much more is there to release—and what burden do you feel to get it out there?
We published the first article [about the NSA collecting Verizon phone records] while I was in Hong Kong last June and won't stop until we're done. I think we will end the big stories in about three months or so [June or July 2014]. I like to think of it as a fireworks show: You want to save your best for last. There's a story that from the beginning I thought would be our biggest, and I'm saving that. The last one is the one where the sky is all covered in spectacular multicolored hues. This will be the finale, a big missing piece. Snowden knows about it and is excited about it.

Afterwards, there'll be more to release—I made a promise to Snowden that we'd get as much of the archive out as possible—but I think the big media splashes will probably be over. But it takes time. We're reporting on stories right now, finding things in the archive still that we're trying to corroborate. We have one reporter who has done nothing but read documents, trying to cross-reference and make connections, every day since November.

Sometimes people think that, like, we have the entire NSA archive and that we can just go in and pick whatever we want at any moment and just report it. We don't have the entire NSA archive. We have snippets of the NSA archive. Some things we have a pretty comprehensive look at, because there's a lot of proximity to that program and Snowden's access and what he was doing. Other things were much more remote, and he was only able to grab portions of things. So we have kind of a fractured window into some things that needs to be connected to other things, where reporting needs to be done for us to get the full picture in order to report it. But yes, I feel a ton of pressure to get these documents out into the world. Somebody has risked their liberty to give me all these documents, with the intention of informing the world about what is being done. And every day that I don't work on the archive, I feel a little bit guilty. Like, I've almost failed in my obligation, right?

If Snowden had been nabbed before you guys had completed the full transfer in Hong Kong, did he have a backup plan?
Oh yeah. I don't want to say what his specific plans were. I don't actually even know them all. But yeah, he had multiple plans, Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, Plan D, Plan E, Plan F contingencies, because he was determined this story was going to get reported no matter what happened, no matter how extreme people got, no matter how unanticipated the events were—that there was no stopping the information from getting out. And I mean, that's still true. Like, he still has plans for that.

But he claims he doesn't have anything now—and nothing to offer Russia, for instance?
He says he has nothing with him. The only reason he's in Russia is that the U.S. blocked his attempt to go to Ecuador. Russia is planning on extending his visa either for another year or for five years or maybe even permanently. But it's an odd situation, because he's obviously expressed interest in having asylum in other places. At the same time, if you're him, I think it's sort of a bird-in-the-hand mentality, that you want permanent asylum somewhere, because you know that the U.S. is desperate to get ahold of you.

http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201406/glenn-greenwald-edward-snowden-no-place-to-hide?currentPage=1

What has been your philosophy with the archive?
I knew from the start that I was going to be super-aggressive with how it got reported. If I had a document about Norway or Brazil, I was going to try to team with a journalist in those places. I knew that I wasn't going to abide by the normal rules that the U.S. government has told media outlets they have to abide by if they want to do this stuff without being prosecuted. I knew I was going to cross those lines, because I don't believe in those lines.

And so it wasn't so much that I knew that I had this huge archive and could get in trouble for having it, it was more that I knew that what I was about to do and the way that I wanted to do it was going to be extremely controversial and would create legal risks. But then, I admired Snowden's example, the risks that he had rushed headlong into. To worry over my own risks—or limit them—would have just been untenable, psychologically, for me.

How much more is there to release—and what burden do you feel to get it out there?
We published the first article [about the NSA collecting Verizon phone records] while I was in Hong Kong last June and won't stop until we're done. I think we will end the big stories in about three months or so [June or July 2014]. I like to think of it as a fireworks show: You want to save your best for last. There's a story that from the beginning I thought would be our biggest, and I'm saving that. The last one is the one where the sky is all covered in spectacular multicolored hues. This will be the finale, a big missing piece. Snowden knows about it and is excited about it.

Afterwards, there'll be more to release—I made a promise to Snowden that we'd get as much of the archive out as possible—but I think the big media splashes will probably be over. But it takes time. We're reporting on stories right now, finding things in the archive still that we're trying to corroborate. We have one reporter who has done nothing but read documents, trying to cross-reference and make connections, every day since November.

Sometimes people think that, like, we have the entire NSA archive and that we can just go in and pick whatever we want at any moment and just report it. We don't have the entire NSA archive. We have snippets of the NSA archive. Some things we have a pretty comprehensive look at, because there's a lot of proximity to that program and Snowden's access and what he was doing. Other things were much more remote, and he was only able to grab portions of things. So we have kind of a fractured window into some things that needs to be connected to other things, where reporting needs to be done for us to get the full picture in order to report it. But yes, I feel a ton of pressure to get these documents out into the world. Somebody has risked their liberty to give me all these documents, with the intention of informing the world about what is being done. And every day that I don't work on the archive, I feel a little bit guilty. Like, I've almost failed in my obligation, right?

If Snowden had been nabbed before you guys had completed the full transfer in Hong Kong, did he have a backup plan?
Oh yeah. I don't want to say what his specific plans were. I don't actually even know them all. But yeah, he had multiple plans, Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, Plan D, Plan E, Plan F contingencies, because he was determined this story was going to get reported no matter what happened, no matter how extreme people got, no matter how unanticipated the events were—that there was no stopping the information from getting out. And I mean, that's still true. Like, he still has plans for that.

But he claims he doesn't have anything now—and nothing to offer Russia, for instance?
He says he has nothing with him. The only reason he's in Russia is that the U.S. blocked his attempt to go to Ecuador. Russia is planning on extending his visa either for another year or for five years or maybe even permanently. But it's an odd situation, because he's obviously expressed interest in having asylum in other places. At the same time, if you're him, I think it's sort of a bird-in-the-hand mentality, that you want permanent asylum somewhere, because you know that the U.S. is desperate to get ahold of you.

Good Interview...talks about his childhood, being Gay, Religion and answers some of the criticism about Snowden.

http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201406/glenn-greenwald-edward-snowden-no-place-to-hide?currentPage=1

[truth2power]

1. thanks for posting this, KoKo. I think you pasted the excerpts twice...

I don't have time to read the entire interview right now, but will get to it soon.