In December 2012, journalist
Glenn Greenwald was contacted by an anonymous source, but since they were unable
to establish “secure communications” that is as far as the contact went. A month later, Laura Poitras started
receiving anonymous encrypted emails from that same source. Edward Snowden, under the pseudonym Citizenfour, described himself to Laura
Poitras as a “senior government employee in the intelligence community”
[Editor’s note – he’s not a senior official – he was a slimy, dirtbag
contractor.]. He offered to share
information with her provided she take some computer security precautions. Then she received this:
“You
asked why I picked you. I didn’t. You did.
The surveillance you’ve experienced means you’ve been “selected” – a
term which will mean more to you as you learn about how the modern SIGINT
system works. For now, know that every
border you cross, every purchase you make, every call you dial, every cellphone
tower you pass, friend you keep, article you write, site you visit, subject
line you type – and packet you route is in the hands of a system whose reach is
unlimited but whose safeguards are not.
Your victimization by the NSA system means that you are well aware of
the threat that unrestricted secret police pose to democracies. This is a story few but you can tell.”
Poitras subsequently moved to
Berlin so she can avoid the possibility of having her film footage seized by
the US government.
The first interviewee in the
film is William Binney, a former NSA employee [approximately 33 years]. He was a crypto-mathematician who analyzed
nuclear threats during the Cold War.
After the Cold War he turned his attention to the Internet and began to
develop methods of mass data analysis.
He claimed that just a few days after 9/11, NSA decided to “begin spying
on everyone in this country.” He says
that AT&T provided NSA with over 300 million records every day. This program was re-authorized every 45 days
by what he called the “Yes Committee -
Hayden, Tenant, the Department of Justice.”
He told a staffer he knew on the House Intelligence Committee, who in
turn told the chairman of the committee. Nancy Pelosi was the ranking Democrat
on the committee. Pelosi and all the
others on the House Intelligence Committee were briefed into various and sundry
programs like Stellar Wind [and including CIA programs]. Binney stated that he and four other NSA
employees worked within the government to try to get those in charge to make
sure that Stellar Wind passed Constitutional muster, to get it into federal
judicial oversight. Binney claims NSA
raided him and his co-workers in order to scare them, to keep them quiet.
In another email from Citizenfour to Poitras –
“Disturbingly, the amount of US communication ingested by NSA is still
increasing. Publicly, we complain that
things are ‘going dark,’ but in fact our accesses are improving. The truth is the NSA has never in its history
collected more than it does now. I know
the location of most domestic interception points, and that the largest
telecommunication companies in the US are betraying the trust of their
customers, which I can prove. We are building
the greatest weapon for oppression in the history of man, yet its directors
exempt themselves from accountability.
NSA Director Keith Alexander lied to Congress, which I can prove. Billions of US communications are being
intercepted. In gathering evidence of
wrongdoing I focused on the wronging of the American people. But believe when I say that the surveillance
that we live under is the highest privilege compared to how we treat the rest
of the world. This I can also
prove. On cyber operations the
government’s public position is that we still lack a policy framework. This too is a lie – there is a detailed
policy framework, a kind of ‘martial law’ for cyber operations created by the
White House. It’s called Presidential
Policy Directive 20 and was re-authorized at the end of last year. This I can also prove. I appreciate your concern for my safety, but
I already know how this will end for me, and I accept the risk. If I have luck and you are careful you will have
everything you need. I ask only that you
ensure his information makes it home to the American public.”
Excerpts from Congressional
hearings are presented. Here is what was
said –
Congressional Hearing, 2012
Congressman Johnson: Does
the NSA routinely intercept American citizens’ email?
Gen Alexander: No.
Congressman Johnson: Does
the NSA intercept Americans’ cellphone conversations?
Gen Alexander: No.
Congressman Johnson: Googled
searches?
Gen Alexander: No.
Congressman Johnson: Text
messages?
Gen Alexander: No.
Congressman Johnson:
Amazon.com orders?
Gen Alexander: No.
Congressman Johnson: Bank
records?
Gen Alexander: No.
Congressman Johnson: What
judicial consent is required for NSA to intercept communications and
information involving American citizens?
Gen Alexander: Within the
United States that would be the FBI lead.
If it was a foreign actor in the United States the FBI would still have
to lead and could work with the NSA or other intelligence agencies as
authorized. But to conduct that kind of
collection in the United States it would have to go through a court order, and
the court would have to authorize it. We
are not authorized to do it, nor do we do it.
Senate hearing with Director of
National Intelligence James Clapper, 2013 -
Sen. Wyden: This is for you
Director Clapper, again on the surveillance front and I hope we can do this in
a just “yes or no” answer because I know Senator Feinstein wants to move
on. So, does the NSA collect any type of
data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?
Lt Gen Clapper: No sir…
Sen. Wyden: It
does not?
Lt Gen Clapper: Not wittingly. There are cases where they could
inadvertently, perhaps, uh…collect, but not wittingly.
[Editor's Note: Why aren't these men in jail for lying to Congress?]
After months of encrypted
communications with Citizenfour,
Poitras traveled to New York to await further instructions.
April 2013 email- “The encrypted archives should be available
to you within seven days. The key will
follow when everything else is done. The
material I provide and investigative effort required will be too much for any
one person. I recommend at a very
minimum you involve Glenn Greenwald. I
believe you know him. The plain text of
the payload will include my true name details for the record. Though it will be your decision as to whether
or how declare my involvement. My
personal desire is that you paint the target directly on my back. No one, not even my most trusted confidant,
is aware of my intentions, and it would not be fair for them to fall under
suspicion for my actions. You may be the
only one who can prevent that, and that is by immediately nailing me to the
cross rather than trying to protect me as a source. On timing, regarding meeting up in Hong Kong,
the first rendezvous attempt will be at 10 AM local time on Monday. We will meet in the hallway outside of a
restaurant in the Mira Hotel. I’ll be
working on a Rubik’s Cube so you can identify me. Approach me and ask if I know the hours of
the restaurant. I’ll respond by stating
that I’m not sure, and suggest you try the lounge instead. I’ll offer to show you where it is, and at
that point we’re good. You simply need
to follow naturally.”
On June 3, 2013 they finally get
Edward Snowden on film. As recommended,
Glenn Greenwald joined Poitras in Hong Kong to meet Snowden. What we see afterward is the leaking of
secrets as it happens. Greenwald asked
Snowden why he’s doing what he is doing.
Snowden’s answer is about “state power” and the peoples’ ability to
meaningfully oppose that power. He had a
bad feeling about getting paid well to amplify that state power.
His
method was to leak information first, get the story out about the actions taken
by the intelligence community against everybody in order to get people to talk
about the issue. When the first two
stories hit the streets, nobody had a clue about who leaked them. So after the stories hit the airwaves, we see
Edward Snowden watching TV – people like Anderson Cooper, Piers Morgan, Wolf
Blitzer – having the public discussion about the issue [government need for
information to “connect dots” vs. personal privacy]. And who do we see Piers Morgan talking
to? Glenn Greenwald. Meanwhile, Snowden
is in contact with his girlfriend who lives in Hawaii. She was paid a visit by an HR person from NSA
[not Booz Allen], and she was asked questions about Snowden’s “illness.” Apparently he called in sick when he fled to
Hong Kong. His girlfriend has no idea
where he is. He told her that he went
TDY for NSA [which he apparently did frequently, so it wasn’t a surprise to
her]. She hasn’t a clue about what he’s
doing or where he is, so she has plausible deniability [the way Snowden wanted
it]. Apparently his rent checks
mysteriously “stopped” going to his landlord [he had an automatic payment
system set up], so evidently NSA was on to him - they just hadn't made anything public.
After MacAskill asks Snowden
about when he’ll go public, he says “As
soon as they try to make this about me, which should be any day now, I’ll come out
just to go ‘hey, you know, this is, uh, this is not a question of somebody
skulking around in the shadows. These
are public issues, these are not my issues you know. These are everybody’s
issues, and I’m not afraid of you. You
know, you’re not going to bully me into silence like you’ve done to everybody
else. And if nobody else is gonna do it,
I will. And hopefully when I’m gone,
whatever you do to me, there will be somebody else who’ll do the same
thing. It’ll be sort of the Internet
principle of the hydra: you know, you
can stomp one person but there’s gonna be seven more of us…I don’t want to hide
on this and skulk around. I don’t think
I should have to…I think it is powerful to come out and be like ‘look, I’m not
afraid, you know, and I don’t think other people should, either. You know, I was sitting in the office right
next to you last week. You know, we all
have a stake in this this is our country, and the balance of power between the
citizenry and the government is becoming that of the ruling and the ruled. As opposed to actually, the elected and the
electorate.” Snowden believes that
his detection was inevitable, but he wants to get the jump on NSA. Here’s what I have a hard time reconciling –
he’s saying he’s not afraid, he doesn’t care what happens to him, yet he’s
saying this with the knowledge that he’s already safely out of the country
where US law enforcement can’t touch him [not without an extradition effort,
anyway]. It’s the “safety of being out
of range.”
On June 13, 2013, Snowden came in
from the cold [virtually, anyway]. Everybody knows who he
is. That same day the Wall Street
Journal tracked him down to his hotel.
They tried calling him, but he told whomever called him that they
reached a wrong number. Then he gets
another call from the front desk – another party is looking for him. He tells the front desk to hold all calls for
him. To escape the media, Snowden
relocates to Poitras’ room. There he
meets with Jonathan Man, a human rights lawyer.
Man makes arrangements for Snowden to go to the UN High Commissioner of
Refugees in Hong Kong for protection.
Snowden asks Man if there is any precedent for Hong Kong to extradite
anyone for exercising political speech.
He seemed very worried for a man who professed to being ‘unafraid.’
Snowden then applied for refugee status through the UN and went
underground. Poitras stayed in Hong Kong
with the intent to keep filming, but after six days she went back to Berlin.
Then the fallout began. At the offices of O Globo in Rio de Janiero, the headline of a newspaper says “The US
Spied on Millions of Brazilian Emails and Phone Calls.” At those same offices, Glenn Greenwald [who
lives in Brazil] shares some of the documents he got from Snowden to Brazilian
journalists. At the London offices of The Guardian, editors pour over the same
documents and are discussing what to disclose and what to redact. As the editors of The Guardian go to press
about a specific GCHQ program, they’re nervous.
They fear an injuction from the British government. Snowden contacts Poitras, who is in London
filming this as it happens. Snowden tells Poitras that NSA loves the
program under discussion because they can do things with that program that
they’re not allowed to do in the US. On
June 21, 2013 the US government charged Edward Snowden with three felonies, two
of them under the Espionage Act, and asks Hong Kong to extradite him. Two days later, WikiLeaks made arrangements
for Snowden to leave Hong Kong to seek political asylum elsewhere. His destination was Moscow, where he was
stuck in the transit lounge because the State Department canceled his
passport. Snowden became a ‘stateless
person.’ After 40 days, Snowden was
granted one year of political asylum in Russia. He's still there...
In Brasilia, Brazil, Greenwald
tells a Brazilian Senate investigation into NSA spying that the US uses
terrorism and the 9/11 attacks as justification for everything they do. Everything is in the name of national
security to protect the American people.
Greenwald claims the opposite is true, that what NSA is doing has
nothing to do with national security or terrorism. He claims that intelligence collection on
other countries is due to industrial, financial and economic issues. He describes the gathering of metadata from
the phone companies. The data includes
where you called from, who you called, the duration of your calls, and the same
information about all the people you call.
In aggregate all of this metadata [not the content of the calls] can
form a picture about you, which he characterizes as a major invasion of
privacy. He also goes into details about
other information the US government is capable of collecting and to what extent
to how much that government can keep tabs on you.
In Brussels, the European Union
began hearings to investigate NSA surveillance of EU citizens and
companies. In March 2014, he German
Bundestag began its own investigation into NSA spying. William Binney was called as an expert
witness. He told the Germans that he
sees the programs used by NSA and other spy agencies as the most major threat
to democracies around the world.
On July 20, 2013, the UK
government ‘convinced’ The Guardian
to destroy the GCHQ archive given to Ewen MacAskill by Edward Snowden, which
they did. On his return from the meeting
in Berlin, Glenn Greenwald finds out that his partner was detained at Heathrow
Airport for approximately nine hours under the UK’s Terrorism Act.
In Berlin, an international group
of lawyers representing Edward Snowden meet to discuss his legal status. These lawyers, including one from the ACLU,
are working pro bono. They discuss the
Espionage Act, a World War I-era law that does not distinguish between leaks to
the press in the ‘public interest’ and selling secrets to foreign powers for
personal profit. The problem the lawyers
have is that the government doesn’t have to defend why a certain piece of
information is classified [whether anything was improperly classified], the
government doesn’t have to demonstrate harm resulting from leakage of
government secrets.
At the end of the film, it’s July
2014 and we see Edward Snowden and his girlfriend living comfortably in
Moscow. Glenn Greenwald has another
meeting with Snowden. Greenwald passes a
note to Snowden that reveals approximately 1.2 million people are on the “watch
list.”
As a postscript, I saw a very interesting
and compelling thing on Last Week Tonight
with John Oliver. He interviewed
Edward Snowden. Not only did he
interview Snowden, he made him squirm. I
think this is the first time that Edward Snowden has been challenged by anybody
about what he’s done. Up until this
interview, nobody had dared to challenge Snowden’s assertions about NSA
surveillance. What a shame a real journalist wouldn’t do this… Our own press is crap.
Oliver:
How many of those documents
have you actually read?
Snowden: I have evaluated all of the documents in the
archive.
Oliver: You've read every single one?
Snowden: Well, I do understand what I turned over.
Oliver: There's a difference between understanding
what's in the documents and reading what's in the documents. When you’re handing over thousands of NSA
documents, the last thing you want to do is read them.
Remember
where I said that Snowden places a great amount of faith in journalists to do
the right thing? Oliver hit Snowden with
this rhetorical 2x4:
Oliver:
So The New York Times took a
slide, didn’t redact it properly, and in the end it was possible for people to
see that something was being used in Mosul on al Qaeda.
Snowden: That is a problem.
Oliver: Well, that’s a fuckup!
Snowden: It is a
fuckup, and those things do happen in reporting. In journalism, we have to
accept that some mistakes will be made. This is a fundamental concept of
liberty.
Oliver: Right. But you have
to own that then. You’re giving
documents with information you know could be harmful, which could get
out there.
Oliver stunned Snowden into silence. He knew Oliver had him by the cojones and
there was nothing he could do, because deep down he knew that Oliver was
right. With this one segment, John
Oliver just made it to the top of my “must-see TV” list. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert probably wish
they could have this much impact.
