We are Edward Snowden, Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald from the Oscar-winning documentary CITIZENFOUR. AUAA.

glenngreenwald · 2015-02-23T20:42:49+00:00

I did see it coming! That's why I decided not to say anything on my own. And I even joked to the Buzzfeed reporter about how I was trying hard to ignore it, but obviously not succeeding!

It was all light-hearted - and totally predictable. That's why I said I'm not blaming the BuzzFeed reporter. He was doing his job, accurately quoting me, highlighting what he knew would get attention. I take responsibility. I'm just commenting on how often and easily this type of media pressure distorts things.

glenngreenwald · 2015-02-23T20:29:08+00:00

Here's a little insight into how digital age media works:

I learned of NPH's joke after I left the stage (he said it as we were walking off). I was going to tweet something about it and decided it was too petty and inconsequential even to tweet about - just some lame word-play Oscar joke from a guy who had just been running around onstage in his underwear moments before. So I forgot about it. My reaction was similar to Ed's, though I did think the joke was lame.

A couple hours later at a post-Oscar event, a BuzzFeed reporter saw me and asked me a bunch of questions about the film and the NSA reporting, one of which was about that "treason" joke. I laughed, said it was just a petty pun and I didn't want to make a big deal out of it, but then said I thought it was stupid and irresponsible to stand in front of a billion people and accuse someone of "treason" who hasn't even been charged with it, let alone convicted of it.

Knowing that would be the click-worthy comment, BuzzFeed highlighted that in a headline, making it seem like I had been on the warpath, enraged about this, convening a press conference to denounce this outrage. In fact, I was laughing about it the whole time when I said it, as the reporter noted. But all that gets washed away, and now I'm going to hear comments all day about how I'm a humorless scold who can't take a good joke, who gets furious about everything, etc. etc.

Nobody did anything wrong here, including BuzzFeed. But it's just a small anecdote illustrating how the imperatives of internet age media and need-for-click headlines can distort pretty much everything they touch.

glenngreenwald · 2015-02-23T20:17:27+00:00

Oh, now I get it. Wish I could delete my answer above!

glenngreenwald · 2015-02-23T20:16:50+00:00

Canada, Sweden and North Dakota have pretty harsh winters, too. As does Boston.

glenngreenwald · 2015-02-23T20:15:07+00:00

The key tactic DC uses to make uncomfortable issues disappear is bipartisan consensus. When the leadership of both parties join together - as they so often do, despite the myths to the contrary - those issues disappear from mainstream public debate.

The most interesting political fact about the NSA controversy, to me, was how the divisions didn't break down at all on partisan lines. Huge amount of the support for our reporting came from the left, but a huge amount came from the right. When the first bill to ban the NSA domestic metadata program was introduced, it was tellingly sponsored by one of the most conservative Tea Party members (Justin Amash) and one of the most liberal (John Conyers).

The problem is that the leadership of both parties, as usual, are in full agreement: they love NSA mass surveillance. So that has blocked it from receiving more debate. That NSA program was ultimately saved by the unholy trinity of Obama, Nancy Pelosi and John Bohener, who worked together to defeat the Amash/Conyers bill.

The division over this issue (like so many other big ones, such as crony capitalism that owns the country) is much more "insider v. outsider" than "Dem v. GOP". But until there are leaders of one of the two parties willing to dissent on this issue, it will be hard to make it a big political issue.

That's why the Dem efforts to hand Hillary Clinton the nomination without contest are so depressing. She's the ultimate guardian of bipartisan status quo corruption, and no debate will happen if she's the nominee against some standard Romney/Bush-type GOP candidate. Some genuine dissenting force is crucial.

glenngreenwald · 2015-02-23T20:05:58+00:00

Edward Snowden should not be forced to choose between living in Russia or spending decades in a cage inside a high-security American prison.

DC officials and journalists are being extremely deceitful when they say: 'if he thinks he did the right thing,he should come back and face trial and argue that."

Under the Espionage Act, Snowden would be barred even from raising a defense of justification. The courts would not allow it. So he'd be barred from raising the defense they keep saying he should come back and raise.

The goal of the US government is to threaten, bully and intimidate all whistleblowers - which is what explains the mistreatment and oppression of the heroic Chelsea Manning - because they think that climate of fear is crucial to deterring future whistleblowers.

As long as they embrace that tactic, it's hard to envision them letting Ed return to his country. But we as citizens should be much more interested in the question of why our government threatens and imprisons whistleblowers.

glenngreenwald · 2015-02-23T20:01:04+00:00

Are you at all familiar with the long history of the exact agency you trust so much - the FBI - abusing surveillance powers?

What you seem to be saying is: "I'm willing to turn myself into such a nonthreatening, uninteresting, compliant citizen - never threatening anyone who wields power - that I believe they will never want to do anything against me."

Accepting that bargain, even if it were reliable, is already a huge damage you're inflicted on yourself.

glenngreenwald · 2015-02-23T19:50:11+00:00

You should ask the US Government:

1) why are you putting whistleblowers in prison at record rates?

2) why did you revoke his passport when he was trying to transit through Russia, thus forcing him to stay there?

3) why do you put whistleblowers in the position of having to choose between asylum in another country or decades in prison?

glenngreenwald · 2015-02-23T19:47:20+00:00

Attacking an AMA guest with petulant and defensive whining is really great behavior. Congrats.

glenngreenwald · 2015-02-23T19:45:32+00:00

I probably would have said what I said the day before when CITIZENFOUR won the Independent Spirit Award and Laura, Dirk and Mathilde generously asked me to say something:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udfKDCI3i2s

Or maybe I would have just read from some documents that I can't wait to be reported and disclosed, along with some nice visuals of those docs.

glenngreenwald · 2015-02-23T19:43:02+00:00

You should try reading just a small amount of history, and then I am convinced you will see the utter irrationality of saying: well, as long as it's government agencies doing the spying on me, then I trust it won't be misused.

glenngreenwald · 2015-02-23T19:38:46+00:00

We've been reporting continuously on huge stories without pause for 18 months, using editors, reporters, and experts from all over the world.

These documents are complex and take time to process, understand, and research.

If we rush the reporting and make mistakes, we'll be doing a huge favor to proponents of mass surveillance, and then people like you will be coming and asking - reasonably: "why did you rush all this? Why didn't you make sure the reporting was accurate before publishing it"?

Snowden expressly asked us to vet the documents carefully and subject them to the reporting process so that the public could be informed in a clear and accurate way. With an archive this vast and complicated, that takes time.

I hardly think anyone can complain that there hasn't been enough reporting done - it's been an unprecedentedly continuous and rapid stream of stories. The public needs time to understand and digest them, and good reporting takes time to do.

glenngreenwald · 2015-02-23T19:28:56+00:00

I've spoken some about this. We had a great relationship with the CBC for months and did some big-impact stories on CSEC:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/csec-used-airport-wi-fi-to-track-canadian-travellers-edward-snowden-documents-1.2517881

The reporter with whom we were working left (Greg Weston) - he was great - and then new one who was assigned wasn't comfortable with the documents, it seemed to us.

But then CBC editors assured us they were committed to doing the reporting aggressively, assigned someone new, and the last story CBC did with us - on mass CSEC spying on file uploads - was, I think, superbly done:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/cse-tracks-millions-of-downloads-daily-snowden-documents-1.2930120

glenngreenwald · 2015-02-23T19:16:04+00:00

For me personally, the most shocking revelation was the overall one that the explicit goal of the NSA and its allies is captured by the slogan "collect it all" - meaning they want to convert the internet into a place of limitless, mass surveillance, which is another way of saying they literally want to eliminate privacy in the digital age:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/15/crux-nsa-collect-it-all

There is definitely more significant reporting to come. Our colleagues at the Intercept - Jeremy Scahill and Josh Begley - just last week reported one of the most significant stories yet on the NSA and GCHQ's 's hacking practices:

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/19/great-sim-heist/

glenngreenwald · 2015-02-23T19:11:57+00:00

I think much has changed. The US Government hasn't restricted its own power, but it's unrealistic to expect them to do so.

There are now court cases possible challenging the legality of this surveillance - one federal court in the US and a British court just recently found this spying illegal.

Social media companies like Facebook and Apple are being forced by their users to install encryption and other technological means to prevent surveillance, which is a significant barrier.

Nations around the world (such as Brazil and Germany) are working together in unison to prevent US hegemony over the internet and to protect the privacy of their own citizens.

And, most of all, because people now realize the extent to which their privacy is being compromised, they can - and increasingly are - using encryption and anonymizers to protect their own privacy and physically prevent mass surveillance (see here: http://www.wired.com/2014/05/sandvine-report/).

All of these changes are very significant. And that's to say nothing of the change in consciousness around the world about how hundreds of millions of people think about these issues. The story has been, and continues to be, huge in many countries outside the US.

glenngreenwald · 2015-02-23T19:07:11+00:00

I did a TED talk specifically to refute that inane argument, here:

http://www.ted.com/talks/glenn_greenwald_why_privacy_matters?language=en

glenngreenwald · 2014-07-09T18:32:35+00:00

After the German publication made the story about the NSA's spying on Tor users and others, you made a tweet that implied the story was using documents not leaked by Snowden. Do you think there is another NSA leaker?

Yes, for multiple reasons, I do believe there is - though that had nothing to do with the Gellman story. Snowden docs were clearly the basis for that WashPost article.

glenngreenwald · 2014-07-09T18:31:12+00:00

So what? Surely this increases the urgency?

Right - that's' why we investigated and then published 8 days later - not exactly what any rational person would characterize as a long delay.

glenngreenwald · 2014-07-09T14:35:42+00:00

NOTE: The AMA is still going strong after 1 1/2 hours and is on the front page. Murtaza and I will take a break and come back in an hour or two and answer more questions, especially since people on the West Coast are now joining.

glenngreenwald · 2014-07-09T14:27:03+00:00

Mr. Greenwald, how aggressive do you feel the surveillance by the Feds is on you? Have you caught them in their efforts?

In response to the lawsuit brought by my partner against the UK Govt alleging that his detention under a terrorism law was illegal, they filed documents making conclusively clear that they were monitoring the electronic communications of myself, my partner, and/or my colleagues at the Guardian.

glenngreenwald · 2014-07-09T14:13:05+00:00

In your article, you cite a "FISA recap" spreadsheet that lists 7,485 e-mail addresses as monitored between 2002 and 2008. Is it your understanding that those 7,485 e-mail addresses are the only ones monitored under FISA court orders during that period?

We cannot say at all that these were the only emails monitored - either under FISA or some other way. There very well could be other lists we don't have.

Also, it's important to realize that if the NSA thought some of their targets were plainly illegally selected, it's highly unlikely they'd put it down on paper, let alone go to the FISA court with it.

Also, have you seen any evidence in the Snowden documents that NSA has targeted the communications of US persons absent a FISA court order?

What caused us to hold our story last week is that DOJ and other officials began whispering to another news agency that at least one of the people we named (Nihad Awad) was monitored without a FISA warrant.

glenngreenwald · 2014-07-09T14:11:05+00:00

Is literally emailing the addresses on the list part of your process to identify the owner? Or would that create security concerns because 'legitimate' targets might realize they're under surveillance?

I suppose we could email every email address on the list, but without knowing who those people are, it would mean we would be tipping off every single NSA target - no matter who they are or what they are doing - to the fact that their email accounts are being monitored.

glenngreenwald · 2014-07-09T14:09:34+00:00

If a release like that were to hypothetically occur, what do you imagine the immediate fallout might look like based on all of your recent experience butting heads with the national security state?

I think it would enable the NSA, the DOJ and all their various defenders and apologists in the media to shift attention away from the substance of the revelations (what the NSA is doing to our privacy) onto questions about why Snowden and the journalists with whom he worked were so "reckless".

glenngreenwald · 2014-07-09T13:57:04+00:00

As for a question, do you think that we will see change? Are you hopeful that there will be the sort of reforms that advocates like yourselves have long been pushing for?

Over the last six weeks, I traveled to 10 countries where I did public speaking events on these stories. In each, large auditoriums were sold out well in advance, and media coverage was intense, because the interest level in this story - even a year after we began reporting - is still so high.

There has been a major, profound debate around the world, not just in the US, about a variety of key topics: the dangers of state surveillance, the value of individual privacy in the digital age, the menace posed by government secrecy, the actual role of the US (and Obama) in the world), the proper relationship between journalists and those who wield the greatest power.

There have been diplomatic relations between big countries altered, reform legislation proposed and passed, all sorts of new international regimes formed, massive pressure on US tech companies imposed, and a change in consciousness about a wide range of issues.

I can't predict what change will happen from all of this, but I know it will be significant.

glenngreenwald · 2014-07-09T13:53:15+00:00

How do you feel about the fact that the moderators of /r/worldnews have a policy of filtering any story from The Intercept as "Opinion"?

Reddit is practicing censorship, pure and simple.

From the comments I've seen from the responsible moderators, the people doing this are partisan Democrats who want to conceal these stories because they perceive that it reflects poorly on Obama.

The reporting we have done has won the Pulitzer, the Polk, and basically every other news reporting prize in the west.

Only on Reddit are our stories deemed something other than "news".

It's pitiful.

EDIT: To be clear, my understanding of how this all works is that Reddit itself isn't doing the censoring, but rather the moderators who have been empowered.

glenngreenwald

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