Gordon Corera
Appearances
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44. The Leak That Changed The World: Stealing State Secrets (Ep 2)
And one of the reasons, and we'll come back to a few other reasons, but one of the reasons here is that if you were a spy, you'd go take the job at DAO, even for a lower pay, because that gets you access to the really hardcore secrets. So it is interesting, but it does suggest you're back to either grievance or ideology, but that's his motivation, not being a spy. So here he is. He's angry.
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He's angry at the system, angry at his employers, it looks like. And he's going to do something about it. After the break, we'll come back and look at how he takes those secrets and what he does with them. This episode is sponsored by Incogni. Now, David, in the world of espionage, you're trained, aren't you, to assume one thing. Someone's always watching.
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That's right. Your address, phone number, family ties, even political leanings, all online. It's like your personnel files being left open on a cafe table.
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44. The Leak That Changed The World: Stealing State Secrets (Ep 2)
That's why we use Incogni. They act on your behalf, demanding data brokers delete your information. And they keep doing that automatically because it's not a one-time breach. It's the risk of constant exposure.
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44. The Leak That Changed The World: Stealing State Secrets (Ep 2)
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44. The Leak That Changed The World: Stealing State Secrets (Ep 2)
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44. The Leak That Changed The World: Stealing State Secrets (Ep 2)
Still in Hawaii.
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44. The Leak That Changed The World: Stealing State Secrets (Ep 2)
I mean, he's working as something called an infrastructure analyst at Booz Allen, earning 120K, 120,000. Seems like quite a lot of money for me, but maybe that's the contractor world in the US intelligence community. There we go. But he says the key thing here is he had access to something called X-Keyscore, which is one of the systems used to search through all the different streams of data.
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that NSA collects. And, you know, as we'll kind of explore, I think, you know, as we go through the series, there were huge amounts of streams of different ways in which NSA was able to grab different types of data and different types of record and electronic communications.
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And X-Key School was the kind of search tool, if you like, to kind of put an email address in that and see what you could bring up.
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Yeah. And I think if you or I or our audience were sitting at X Key Score, I think we'd be astonished at the kind of, you know, what you could pull up if you went into it. So I think there is a lot, you know, that's not, you know, the exact who you, you know, whether you could wiretap the president. I don't know.
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But the idea that there's a lot of data there that you could use, I think that's true.
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And it's not entirely clear to me what that means. We'll come to that. Deadly sin number one continues. It's a theme, Gordon. Theme through the series. But here's the thing. He's seeing all this stuff. He's in a job where he's got access. He's decided he wants to...
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blow the whistle or cause damage however we want to put it that's his view so he's he's decided he's going to download this material and it's fascinating how he does it so he starts to copy the files that he has access to from his reading list system which is called heartbeat and what's interesting is he transfers it onto old legacy pc so really old computers left in the office so these are not internet connected in a way you'd normally expect so again that just uh
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stops the trail being clear about what he's doing and stops leaving a digital trail to it. He then takes the material and transferred it onto tiny SD cards. It's really interesting. He doesn't want to use thumb drives, you know, kind of USB flash drives. He wants to use tiny SD cards because one of the reasons is... You can smuggle them out much more easily. He can put them in a sock.
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Yeah, it's quite a place to end up because by age 29, 2012, he's working again as a contractor, but for NSA. So effectively inside the NSA in Hawaii. Nice place to work. He's living with his girlfriend then, Lindsay Mills. She's a photographer and a dancer. Now the place he works sounds amazing. He's working deep underground in a kind of tunneled out facility beneath a pineapple field.
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They're not going to set off metal detectors because they're so small. I mean, at one point he hides one of the cards in his cheek. You know, they're small enough. You put it in his cheek. So if someone stops him or asks him something, he could just swallow it. The problem is it's very slow transferring this. Anytime they're pretty slow, but on probably old computers and old SD cards.
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So he spends hours. hours overnight on the night shift, kind of copying and compressing the files so that you can fit them onto the SD cards. And it sounds like it is literally like those old movies where the spy is trying to steal something.
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It's like in the original Mission Impossible film with Tom Cruise, where you're seeing the bar move across the screen, like 81%, 82%, slowly moving across the screen as he's trying to move those files around. That's the process initially for stealing them. And then he also has got this thing about Rubik's Cubes. And this is, I guess, the thing he loves doing.
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I find this entirely unsurprising, by the way. It is a bit of a hacker trope, I think, the Rubik's Cube, and he's definitely got it. And so he starts kind of carrying them around the office, and it's quite useful to do that every day because people get used to him carrying them, and they know him as the Rubik's Cube guy.
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And then what he does is he kind of peels off the square on the Rubik's Cube, and he hides the SD cards underneath so that he can just carry them past the armed guards who were there at the door. There's a fair bit of security there. There's armed guards. You've got to scan your badges. There's those kind of airlocked security doors you've got to swipe through.
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But he's able to get this data out, I guess. He understands the system. That's the point.
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People in Britain have done it and they've left them on trains and, you know, made mistakes about it. He takes them home and then he transfers them onto a kind of large storage device and encrypts them. He puts a hood over his head in case there's a camera in his house, you know, classic spy stuff.
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Now, what's so interesting is it's not entirely clear how many documents he's able to take, but some accounts are up to 1.5 million. I mean, there are different accounts. There's the smaller figures. But it's astonishing how much. And I guess this is also the reality of the digital world.
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Because 50 years ago or 30 years ago, these documents would have been on paper, basically, rather than electronic. You were not going to carry 1.5 million documents out of a secret facility and then hide them in your room at home. Whereas he can do it and stick them on a hard drive. And that has changed dramatically.
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you know, intelligence, it's changed security, it's changed what people call the insider threat, it's changed what you can do with spying and stealing secrets now, even though Edward Snowden, as we said, is not a spy, because of the ability to kind of collect large amounts of information in a tiny place.
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And this in World War II was an underground aircraft factory designed to be protected from bombing. And I love the way he describes it as being like a Bond villain layer, but with crappier lighting.
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Okay, go for it.
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And their files have been downloaded.
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So totally indiscriminate. Your point about indiscriminate is taken in terms of what he takes. But here's the interesting thing. The question is, what is he going to do with them? That is the big question for him. He's not indiscriminate in what he wants to do with them. And I think this is important.
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Because one option for him, if he'd simply wanted to do as much damage as possible, if that had been his motivation, he could have self-published onto the internet these files. That's true. And, you know, that is, if you like, the WikiLeaks option. And we should say WikiLeaks, Julian Assange had really just emerged in, I think, 2010.
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I mean, a few years before, but particularly at that time, there'd been this huge leak of diplomatic cables, which were kind of State Department cables, which WikiLeaks had got hold of, and they just put them out on the internet. And the WikiLeaks Julian Assange attitude was information must be free. You know, it doesn't matter. Classification doesn't matter. Risk. Just put it all out there.
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You know, that's what it's for. Now, at this point, if... Snowden had been seeking maximum damage, he could have given them to WikiLeaks or he could have put themselves onto the internet. And he was capable of doing that. And he does not want to do that. So I think that goes back to this point where the complexity of his motives, it's not as simple as just wanting to do damage.
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Yeah, take it. So here he is, you know, again, within the kind of heart, the secret state, Fair to say he's remembered by colleagues as being quite eccentric. They remember him as a kind of pale vampiric figure wearing a hoodie, a particular hoodie which actually had a parody of the NSA logo on it.
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He says he wants people who can, if you like, work through the documents, validate them, explain them and publicize them. That's what he wants to do rather than just take indiscriminately and publish them.
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Yeah. And it is also true that I think working through journalists, he thinks will give him a bit more protection in a sense, because you can go through kind of First Amendment and the freedom of the press, and that that will give him a bit of institutional protection, if you like. as he seeks to kind of expose what he sees as the surveillance state.
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So certainly that is a decision that he's kind of consciously taken that this is the best route to try and get this information out there. So here he is. He's decided he wants to reach out for journalists. But how? I mean, how do you do that without being spotted?
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So he sets up a series of anonymous or at least pseudonymous email accounts to try and contact people using kind of particularly interesting encrypted email services. Encrypted so it's hard to trace, you know, who owns the account. And actually the NSA and FBI will try and trace that eventually. And they go through lots of efforts to do that. It's interesting.
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He comes up with names for these accounts. Cincinnati, you know, a Roman who voluntarily relinquished power. Tell me you're a narcissist without telling me you're a narcissist. And he uses another one, okay, Virax, truth teller. He's coming up with these email accounts, which he's going to use to reach out to journalists to say, I've got this stuff for you.
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Now, he's worried about using the internet and being traced, obviously, because he knows a fair bit about what can be done. So he used something called war driving around Hawaii. It's really interesting. So war driving is basically where you drive a car around with your antenna looking for Wi-Fi and hotspots and internet access. that you can just kind of jump onto.
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So it's someone else's, you know, kind of Wi-Fi or network that you can connect to and then use so that you can use that to send your email and then move on. And then obviously, if someone comes to try and trace which IP address or where the email passed through in terms of the network, It'll just be some, you know, cafe or something like that.
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So it had an eagle, which is the kind of normal symbol, but wearing headphones and kind of spying on the world. Talons across the world. Talons across the world. And he kept a copy of the Constitution on his desk. So you do get a picture of a man who is perhaps at odds with his institution, which is kind of interesting, isn't it?
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So, you know, he drives around doing this kind of wall driving thing, trying to send these emails to check whether it's been replied to on this special account. He then has to go back and find another network. So it's not an easy process. But this is the moment where he thinks... I've got something for the journalists.
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They're bound to want to listen and to hear what I've got to say because he's sitting on a stack of 1.5 million top secret documents.
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That's right, and it's going to lead to what was the biggest story of the year in news terms back in 2013. Join us next week for that. But if you join the Declassified Club, you can hear the whole series right now. Our first bonus, where David and I answer the questions you've sent in, will be out this Friday.
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But in the weeks to come, our bonuses will include interviews with former CIA chiefs, the former head of MI5 and other people from the spy world. So to join, just sign up at therestisclassified.com and take advantage of our launch discount.
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We will be there.
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And he's bored. And he's bored. I mean, I think in some ways he's too clever for many of the roles he takes. Ugh, Gordon. No, I think that's true. I think that's the picture I get a bit of him.
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Now, it is at this point in 2012... that he's going to turn into someone who is not just kind of aggrieved and chafing against authority, but who is actually going to collect and steal a ton of secrets. His narrative of it is that he'd seen what the secret state was up to. He'd seen the kind of power of the surveillance state. He'd been able to look at these documents and he wants to stop it.
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So I think this is the kind of interesting point where, you know, how far is this
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being like a whistleblower and how far is this being someone who is trying to kind of damage the state or stealing documents you know two quite different interpretations of the same actions he says he's kind of chasing you know look going down rabbit holes in his spare time trying to kind of understand what the secret state is up to and he wants to stop that because he believes
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It's against the Constitution in terms of the collection of Americans' data. And he believes it's unethical and against his ideas of the free internet. Do you buy that, David? I'm guessing you don't.
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Yeah, a kind of reading list. Yeah. A reading list of documents. And it's quite interesting because he does this kind of semi-openly. At this point, he's kind of telling people he's creating this and he's got access to all the systems because he's a systems engineer. And in a sense, those people...
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who keep the systems running, by definition, have privileged high-level access to all the files because they need to in order to be able to manage them. So it does mean he is able to do stuff which maybe a normal spy wouldn't have been able to do in terms of collect and collate all the data that's here. And so, yeah, he starts to collect this material.
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It's an interesting point to look at here is, is he a whistleblower? Because I think that is how... he is framed very much by his supporters, that he is someone who has seen the bad stuff in the secret state and he wants to expose it and therefore he's a whistleblower. Being a whistleblower is obviously something which also gets you certain kinds of protections.
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You know, it's very different from being, if you like, a spy or someone who's stealing stuff or out to damage an institution.
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Absolutely. So last time we looked at Edward Snowden's the early years. Him, the young Snowden, a kind of guy who grew up with computers and the internet, loved them. A libertarian who goes to work as a contractor, CIA, works in the CIA elsewhere, clearly chafes at some of the restrictions on him, has some difficulties at work, also has an ideology.
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Yeah, it is a matter of interpretation. But I think ideology does play a role. You are right that there may be triggers to do with what happens in the workplace. And I think he's kind of his views are dismissed by a supervisor because he's a contractor. Actually, he's kind of told, you know, come back as staff if you want to talk to me like that. And he's kind of flamed out in front of colleagues.
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I accept that there is grievance there. And that grievance is really powerful in the espionage business too. Yeah, but I also think there's ideology there. He's decided he wants to do something and he's going to start collecting files. And we'll look in a minute at how he does that. He doesn't go through, if you like, whistleblower channels because there are supposed to be channels.
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Now, some people have said, well, you know, there's no evidence he did that and he should have done that. I think that's half true, but I also, in Snowden's defence, will say, you know, the evidence was people who had tried to blow the whistle about some of these programmes had been shut up.
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I mean, you know, there were cases of people like Thomas Drake who'd been in the NSA and had talked about some of this attitude, and he'd basically tried to blow the whistle internally. It had failed. He'd gone out and gone to a newspaper and told them about it, and then he got arrested. And so it is true that Snowden doesn't go through, if you like, the formal channels to go...
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put your hand up and go, I think these programs are wrong. But I don't think he feels he would have been listened to or that there was that option to actually have any difference or make any difference about these programs by going through the formal channels.
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So one of the kind of key questions, which I think we'll come back to is, you know, what explains his journey? How far is it about about grievance and how far is it about ideology. And we left him in Japan working as a contractor for NSA and having seen some of the really secret programs in there, which suggested the NSA was collecting data about American phone records.
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The Inspector General.
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And I think, you know, it gets to a question of motive, which maybe we'll come back to when we get to the very end of the series, which is what is he seeking to do at this point? Is he trying to place greater oversight on these programs and have a debate about them? Is he trying to stop the surveillance and the programs? Is he trying to damage the NSA and the intelligence community?
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And that's a kind of big question. It's quite hard because, you know, the answer is in Edward Snowden's head, and I'm not sure even... He would be able to verbalize it even if he was here and be honest about it. But those are the different kind of levels of what's going on.
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But what is, I think, significant is that rather than take just a few documents, and I think this is one of the big questions I have, is if he was really aggrieved by, say, Stella Wynne, the program collecting American phone records and a few other surveillance programs,
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he could have just picked 10 files to take, but what he's about to do and what we're going to see is he's not going to take 10 files. He's going to take almost everything he can lay his hands on about what the NSA and its allies do.
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And I think that to me is one of the question marks is why does he take so much to expose what they do rather than if you like the kind of narrow things where he's got an issue about the kind of, and I think a legitimate issue about the constitutionality or the ethics of it.
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So after that, he does that for a couple of years. Then age 28, 2011, he goes back to the US and he takes another kind of tech role. He's a liaison between the company Dell and the CIA coming up with cloud computing solutions. So again, another really techie job.
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One interesting thing, though, about not taking that job, though, is that People have said, was he working for the Russians or the Chinese? I don't think that's true. In fact, I'm sure that's not true.
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They also look at a kind of manifesto he seems to have written, which I think is a really interesting document because I don't think it's ever fully been published. And they actually say at the time, we don't think this should be published because it's basically why he's doing it, document.
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Sorry, privacy. A privacy jihadist. Privacy jihadist. OK. But I think it makes him look quite ideological, as we talked about, the kind of libertarian stuff. And I think there is a bit of nervousness at the Guardian, I think, at this point, about him and his motivation, whether he's for real. This manifesto, I think, also makes them even more nervous.
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It's like, you know, is this guy a bit cranky or something? But they realise this is potentially a massive story. This is the first time...
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Cincinnati. Virax or whatever.
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It's pretty good. By the way, audience members can email in with what they think David's name could or should be. Anyway, you can guess it. Or if you know it, even better.
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Who hasn't embellished their CV a little bit? So again, he's just totally- Listen, he's trying to convince them. He's sitting on a stack of top secret documents. But that's all he needs. Yeah, yeah.
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Okay, so this meeting takes place at the Guardian and they're convinced enough to send Glenn Greenwald and to go with Laura Poitras. Interestingly enough, they also send Ewan McCaskill to go with them. And full disclosure... Ewan was my kind of counterpart, the Guardian, when I was at the BBC. I know him well, I've spoken to him. And a very smart choice. And I would say that, wouldn't I?
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That's right. He's decided he doesn't want to publish it himself. He wants to go through journalists. who we think can kind of work through it and make the most of it and decide what to publish. So who's he going to try?
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But I think it is true. He's a kind of veteran, serious journalist who knows a good story and knows how to pursue a story, won't be intimidated off it. But who is clearly there, I think, you can read between the lines, to kind of slightly babysit the other two and kind of keep the kind of rigorous journalism side on track on this. And he's going to go out with them.
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I think much to Laura Poitras' disappointment and annoyance, who's like, who's this guy who's been sent along with us? It's supposed to be me and Glenn. But The Guardian go, we need our person to be there as a kind of reporter.
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But he's going to play an important role.
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OK, with you having voluntarily read a bit more from Edward Snowden, I think let's pause there to take a break as we and the journalists arrive in Hong Kong to meet Edward Snowden. This episode is sponsored by Incogni. Now, David, in the world of espionage, you're trained, aren't you, to assume one thing, someone's always watching.
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I mean, he actually is wary of one obvious place, which is the New York Times, because he feels that in the past they were leaned on by the government to not publish certain stories about government surveillance and had held back. So instead he wants to look for figures who he thinks I think will be more sympathetic, who he's going to reach out to initially anonymously
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That's right, your address, phone number, family ties, even political leanings, all online. It's like your personnel files being left open on a cafe table.
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That's why we use Incogni. They act on your behalf, demanding data brokers delete your information. And they keep doing that automatically because it's not a one-time breach. It's the risk of constant exposure.
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Well, these days there are eyes and ears everywhere across the internet. Ad companies, data harvesters, parties unknown. NordVPN blocks all of it, malware, pop-ups, and the creepier corners of the web.
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to try and persuade them to listen. So the first person he tries, and it's a really interesting character, an important character in our story, is a guy called Glenn Greenwald. Now, Glenn Greenwald, his background is as a civil liberties lawyer. He's become a journalist with the Guardian US, the...
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That's right. On the plane, they're looking at the documents that he sent them, thousands of them, and they're realizing they're onto something big. These three eventually arrive in Hong Kong on June the 2nd, and it's agreed that initially just Greenwald and Poitras will go to meet Snowden on June the 3rd.
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And it's interesting because he's left very specific spy-style instructions on how they're going to meet. And the instructions are they go to the third floor of the Mirror Hotel, go to a certain quiet alcove by the hotel restaurant, which is furnished, bizarre detail, with an alligator-skin-looking leather couch...
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It looks like it might be alligator skin. They ask the first hotel employee near the room whether there was a restaurant open, and that would be a kind of signal to Snowden. He'd be hovering nearby, but they'd not been followed. And then they wait around for a guy with a Rubik's cube. His favorite thing. Well, they don't know what he looks like. No, they don't know. So exactly.
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And to be fair, I guess it's a pretty good recognition thing, a Rubik's Cube, because it's not the kind of thing most grown people carry around with them. So the idea is it's one of the few recognizable things that he's brought with him. He can show it to them and they'll know who he is.
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Well, you've got to make contact somehow. So anyway, first time at 10 o'clock, no one comes. They say the recognition words, no one comes. They go back again 20 minutes later, which is the kind of backup moment.
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Exactly. I think the assumption is he's checking them at that first meeting. And that's why nothing happens then. And then this is from Glenn Greenwald in his memoir, No Place to Hide. At 10.20, we returned and again took our place near the alligator on the couch. Was there an alligator, like a stuffed alligator? I don't know. I'm stuck on this detail, Gordon.
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Was it an alligator skin couch or was it a couch that looked like an alligator? I don't know. I don't know. Maybe someone can tell us who stayed at the hotel, which faced the back wall of the room and a large mirror. After two minutes, I heard someone come into the room.
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Rather than turn around to see who'd entered, I continued to stare at the back wall mirror, which showed a man's reflection walking towards us. Only when he was within a few feet of the couch did I turn around. The first thing I saw was the unsolved Rubik's Cube twirling in the man's left hand. It's not even solved. That's my sin number six. Failing to solve the Rubik's Cube.
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the branch of The Guardian published out of America, but he lives in Brazil and he's been focusing on abuses of power by the US government for some time. He's only just joined The Guardian a previous year. He is quite a radical campaigning figure. Now, it's interesting because in the journalist world, some people say, well, is he a journalist? He's more of an activist.
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You're probably one of those people who does it like that. Anyway, so here's the really interesting thing. And I think this is a really interesting detail is they're shocked by who he is because here is this guy and they had been in their heads for
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expecting someone in their 50s or 60s like a chain smoking you know alcoholic washed up spy as they put it snowden himself says expecting someone with terminal cancer and a guilty conscience and and instead they get basically they look at it they go really It's a young guy in a white T-shirt with some faded lettering. And as Greenwald puts it, jeans and chic nerd glasses.
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With a bit of a kind of goatee and some stubble.
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So you can see that they're again going like, really? Is this for real?
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I don't know. It's what you'd imagine. Like when you watch All the President's Men and Deep Throat and these things, you know, you always imagine this kind of older guy who's at the end of his career and is unhappy with the way things have gone and who knows all the secrets. Because I guess maybe they're thinking to have access to all these secrets. He's got to be a senior. Senior. Yeah.
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And so anyway, they're surprised by it. They exchange the recognition phrase, what time does the restaurant open? At noon, but don't go there. The food sucks, Snowden says. Greenwald actually, according to Luke Harding's book on this, you know, he's a Guardian journalist. He says Greenwald struggled to keep a straight face because he found it all slightly comic.
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But the three of them head off towards the lift, not saying anything. It's an elevator. Yeah. An elevator lift. For our American listeners. Thank you. And they go to room 1014. Now, this is the scene. I mean, this is the place where it's really going to happen for the next few days between those three journalists and Snowden. But of course, Snowden's already been there 10 days.
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And so there's room service plates, there's trash, you know, there's noodle containers, half-eaten burgers, there's dirty laundry, there's damp towels on the floor. He's barely left the room.
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It's like a teenage room. I mean, he's only been out of the room like three times in the nearly two weeks he'd been there. Wow. And so it's quite a small room and you can see it on Citizen Four, Laura Poitras' film. You know, it's not a big suite in which they're now going to be holed up together.
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Yeah. Tremendous error on his part. Should have paid for it. So, you know, he tells them, put your phones away, put your phone in the minibar fridge. And then Snowden takes the pillows from the bed and he places them at the bottom of the door, which I guess is him thinking if someone's got a microphone outside, it's not going to pick up the sounds of what they're talking about.
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I actually think he is more of a sign about how journalism was changing, where you get these people who've got quite strong individual brands and who have quite strong views and have an online presence. And Greenwald, in a way, I think is ahead of his time in being one of those characters.
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But here we are, and they're going to be in this room for days, it's worth saying. Now, Ewan McCaskill, the Guardian journalist, comes on the second day because Snowden wasn't necessarily expecting him. He actually, you can see, actually takes a lot of the lead in the kind of questioning Snowden and trying to understand who he is. And, you know, Snowden sits on the bed and... White T-shirt.
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glenn greenwald and ewan mccaskill start asking questions they basically they need to answer that question like who are you and why are you doing this they have to understand his kind of motivation and his his credibility and i mean they do find his story a little odd at first i think you can see he hadn't finished college sounded like he worked for the cia and the nsa he'd be training for special forces so there's a bit of them going like this sounds like a bit
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crazy. But he's, you know, providing also some IDs and some details which make it clear that he's for real. And of course, he's got the documents. So they are kind of coming around to understand that he's the real deal.
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I think he's got other things to worry about at this point than his wardrobe decision.
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I think what comes across is a certain, you could say innocence, I think you'll pick me up on that, or naivety around Snowden. And I think they immediately are thinking like, is this a guy who's out for money and it doesn't appear to be. I mean, he talks about his belief, the ideological stuff, which we've been trying to assess, that he believes in the constitution.
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So he's very much being reached out to by Snowden, who I think has been reading some of his blogs because of who he is, rather than necessarily it being The Guardian specifically at this point. But December the 1st, 2012, Green will get an email from someone called Cincinnatus. Now, remember, this is the name of a Roman who voluntarily relinquished power.
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He talks about the internet allowed me to experience freedom and explore my full capacity as a human being. He said, for many kids, the internet is a means of self-actualization. I don't want to live, and I think this is a key phrase, I don't want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded.
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And he says, I worry that mine was the last generation to enjoy that freedom of the Internet. So I think he's giving them a sense, his argument, you know, except there might be different views of it, that this is someone who's ideologically motivated and they believe in him. And it's interesting because there's been this question back in New York, you know, is he for real?
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And so Ewan, after initial meetings, sends a four word text saying, from Hong Kong back to Janine Gibson at the Guardian in New York. And they knew they couldn't talk openly on the phone, but she needed to know whether this was the real thing. And the phrase is, the Guinness is good. And that means he's the real deal. The Guinness is bad would have meant he's not trusting him.
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And according to you, and this was a little joke because him and Janine Gibson used to go out for drinks when they were on the road together. And he'd always want a Guinness and she'd want a kind of wine or a cocktail or something. And so, you know, the Guinness was a reference. But that message goes back to New York saying the Guinness is good. He seems like he's for real.
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Yeah. Like, totally. Yeah. I think they worry about him, actually. Ewan says, you know, he had kids the same age. And he's thinking, Snowden, you could go to jail for the rest of your life, potentially, for what you're doing now. And so they are thinking quite hard about the kind of risks for him. But I think they can see that this is something he's thought through and he wants to do.
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And, you know, they're probing him. Greenwald, at one point, I think, probes him on his morality and where it comes from. And his answer is interesting. His video games are Should be encouraging for all of us. You know, it's the idea in a video game, you're the kind of individual hero in your game or in your story who's kind of taking on the great powers and you can do it.
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And so they're getting this sense of an unusual character, I think. I think they can also see that he is not a spy in the sense of working for a foreign power and that he views it... as a patriotic act. Now, I'm sure some people would disagree with that, but he sees himself not as betraying his country, but as defending the constitution, which he thinks has been violated.
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So I think all of that makes him realise he is committed to doing this. He wants to see it through, knowing the risks.
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So, you know, it's a little clue in the name.
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And now in these kind of subsequent days, there is a lot of tension in this room. I think it's really, really interesting. I mean, every day... They leave him thinking when they come back the next day, he's going to have been snatched or have disappeared or something will have happened to him. And he is saying he's finally got them out there. You know, we know he's been waiting for this.
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He wants to get this story out. He knows the clock is ticking on the fact that he kind of signed off work ill and, you know, in Hawaii. And at some point that's going to get noticed. He's been away for a couple of weeks now. And he's fearing that at any point he could get picked up. Nothing will get released. Everyone will get arrested and it'll all be for nothing. And he hopes...
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Or not so subterranean narcissism. You've got to pick a code name. So, I mean, why not? It's not the worst one to pick, I could think. Anyway, he says in this email, I have some stuff you might be interested in. It is vague, though. And here's what's interesting. Greenwald is told that to get the information, he has to use a type of encryption called PGP, pretty good privacy.
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Back to that idea, he hopes that going public will give him some protection. So this is the most vulnerable phase for him because, you know, he is out with the secrets, but he's not yet public. So he wants this to move fast. Meanwhile, the journalists are also trying to work out, well, we need to kind of assess this stuff. We need to write the stories.
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In the room, yeah. And they're also working across kind of three time zones, you know, London, Guardian, you know, where the boss, Anna Rusper, who's the big editor is, New York, where it's going to be edited out of, and then Hong Kong. So no one's really sleeping much. You've also got this slight tension because Glenn Greenwald also wants to publish the stories as soon as possible.
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One of the things he fears is being scooped because he knows the Washington Post also have got some of this through those previous contacts. And he's worried that, you know, the Guardian might go slow, they might not do it. So actually, at some point, he starts saying...
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And reaching out to other media saying, I've got a story for you and basically using that to put pressure on The Guardian and saying, if The Guardian back away, I'm going to go somewhere else with this story because I think it's so good. So the stakes are pretty high because also if you're The Guardian, you want to get this right.
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You've got to make sure this story is bottomed out and you're not going to kind of screw up or make a mistake. So the pressure is really growing at this point as they work on that first story. But in New York, you know, Janine Gibson, who's the US editor, has basically decided this is good. We're going to do it. But we've got to go through the right steps in order to get this story out.
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And this is also really interesting because the Guardian try and contact the US government and the White House to say, we've got a big story coming. And of course, they're not at this point saying what it is. They're just saying, you need to talk to us. It's a really big story. And so the government doesn't seem to realize at first it's important, but eventually...
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They get back to the Guardian in a call and they ask for a delay. And they say, can you delay putting this first story out? And it's worked in the past because with US publications, they'd often agree to a bit of a delay and, you know, a nice conversation. But the Guardian and Jeanine Gibson kind of hold firm and go, we want to run this story.
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And, you know, we're coming to you for comment, but we're going soon. But it's interesting as well, because you get a call, which has got the deputy head of the NSA, senior FBI officials. And I think one of the things that tells you is this is a real story. It's a big story. This is a big story. You're not getting fobbed off with the press officer going, ah, you know, we'll give you a quick line.
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So at this point, the pressure has been building and the Guardian want to get the story out. But Greenwald and particularly Snowden are desperately pushing and the government is pushing back on the Guardian to kind of go with it. And at this point, they get ready to publish.
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I've always liked that it's only pretty good privacy. Well, I think it's supposed to be ironic. So this is, I mean, this is interesting. As a journalist myself, it's not the normal encryption that's built into your laptop or phone. It's something which provides really quite intense encryption, which if you use it properly... It shouldn't be crackable.
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And that's right. And it's a really interesting little detail that the police or officials go and see his girlfriend in Hawaii. And this is before it seems the stuff has been published. And it is interesting because does it suggest they're onto him in some way? Have they got some parallel track where they know that something's going on with him?
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Or is it just that he's been missing for work for so long? But it seems a little bit odd because some of the timelines don't quite match up here, I have to say, with that visit to his girlfriend. But clearly someone is suspicious about him. So, yeah, he knows the net is closing.
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Yeah, you check it. So there we are. I think he knows time is running out. He knows the net might be closing around him. But at last, as we head towards June the 5th, the first story is about to come out and the world is about to learn about Edward Snowden. And I don't think it's ever going to be the same again.
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And of course, if you want to hear that right now, you can join the Declassified Club to hear the whole series. Our first weekly bonus episode was released on Friday, but members also have access to a weekly newsletter, discounted spy books, ad-free listening... First access to live show tickets and an upcoming prize draw.
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As opposed to being signed by you. Well, thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time. We'll see you next time.
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If someone intercepts that message, even the NSA, they wouldn't be able to decipher and decode what's in the message. So Snowden has said, look, you need to use this and install this in order for me to be able to send you what I need to send. And it's interesting because Greenwald doesn't get around to doing it. He's just busy. He's busy.
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But he also admits in his memoir, No Place to Hide, that he's not that into technology. How? No, he's actually not. It all looks a bit too complicated. I think we've all been there. When someone says, you have to install this or do that. And you're like, really? I think that's Greenwald.
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So the weeks go by. Puts and takes. So the weeks go by. Eventually, Cincinnatus, you know, this mysterious account, gets back in touch again in late January and says, not willing to share anything until you encrypt something. And Greenwald is clearly thinking, I'm not going to take this seriously unless they show me something. I know it's for real.
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And, you know, Snowden actually sends him tutorials on how to do encryption because he's so desperate.
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It happens all the time. I mean, I literally have one a few weeks ago where someone emailed me. I won't say what it was. Their email address was clearly a kind of made up name and was like, do you have time to meet? I've got something to talk to you about. I'm glad you finally got my message. Yeah. I've been trying to contact you for weeks. Yeah. There are other ways, David.
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But you do get a lot of these messages, actually. And I've had some which have been, as you would politely put it, whack jobs, where people have said, you know, I've been tortured by the British state. And you end up talking to them and you realise... No. Somebody's tortured you, but it probably wasn't the British state. And then you get other ones where you go meet up with me.
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I've got some secret documents to hand over. And I remember once doing the classic thing, going into a kind of hotel, meeting someone who claimed to have secret documents, I think in that case, relating to the Iran nuclear program. And you're like, this looks exciting. Anyway, you went back and looked at them and kind of shared them with some experts and realised that actually they were fake.
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And it was the person who'd handed them to me was trying to implicate someone else as having supplied something to the Iranian nuclear programme. It was a kind of, you know, set up where they were hoping you'd report on it and this person would get into trouble about it. And then occasionally maybe you get the real deal and you get a kind of source who does provide stuff. So it definitely happens.
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And it is definitely really hard to know which one's to take seriously. So we've pushed on him, but you can understand Greenwald's perspective here. I can absolutely understand it.
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But it's funny because Snowden himself says, here am I, ready to risk my liberty, perhaps even my life, to hand this guy thousands of top secret documents from the nation's most secretive agency, a leak that will produce dozens if not hundreds of journalistic scoops, and he can't even be bothered to install an encryption program. So at this point, Snowden tries someone else.
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So he now tries a filmmaker, Laura Poitras. She's another very interesting character who has been making a series of films about, if you like, the war on terror, about US policy post 9-11, including Iraq. And the reason I think he picks her is because as a result of making those films, she's finding herself getting stopped at airports. She's clearly on some kind of watch list.
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She's having her devices seized and confiscated. And so she's learning about encryption and the need to protect her stuff.
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And she's based in Berlin.
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Are outside the States. Yeah, that's right. Greenwald in Rio. Even though they're Americans. Yeah. She starts to get these emails every week from Snowden, normally at the weekends. And it's interesting. At one point, she writes, I don't know if you are legit, crazy, or trying to entrap me. She also is a bit like, oh, this is kind of weird. But by February 2013, she's taking them seriously.
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Yeah. And so you can see why people are skeptical. So then time passes. I mean, you know, quite a lot of time passes. It must be kind of weird for Snowden, who's taken this risk, basically. He's reaching out to people and nothing is happening.
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There is kind of this... Interesting parallel, you're right. But then in April, Laura Poitras is starting to take it seriously and she actually gets in touch with... Glenn Greenwald, and they meet up when they're both in New York. She says, take the battery out of your phone first. She says she's got emails from someone promising secret documents on surveillance.
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She seems kind of nervous, unsure about it. They agree it seems serious, but they need the documents. They need some proof, which is, you know, typical. if you're a journalist, and Poitras does want to interview him. So they kind of part ways, go back to Berlin and Rio, unsure if they'll hear any more.
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Mid-April, Poitras tells Greenwald to expect a delivery and a FedEx parcel arrives with instructions on how to use an encrypted chat. And meanwhile, Snowden is now starting to send out some of the files. And he sends her an encrypted file, which is about something called Prism. We'll come to what it is shortly.
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But the point is, it's now clear that he's got access because this is, you know, this is something top secret.
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She knows it's the real deal. And he's saying the source, you still don't really know that much about him, that they need to meet. And this is interesting because we're now heading towards May. And when you talked about Edward Snowden fleeing and he's going to tell her that she needs to go to Hong Kong.
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Now, I think this is one of the really interesting bits of the story, the choice of destination of where Edward Snowden wants to go, wants to meet these people.
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There is no playbook. I think that's really interesting because your first question is, is this a trap? And I think Laura Poitras had raised that because you do see journalists. I mean, you see it particularly in Russia who are entrapped with the offer of... come and meet me for some secret. And then they get sprung on by the FSB and, you know. Not by the American government.
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Not by the Americans, no. So it would be unusual. You want to know, is it true? Is it fake? Your question is, who is the source? What is their motivation? What access do they have? Can I trust them? Is there a public interest in looking at this or in dealing with this? You know, what's the what is the story and what are the risks of meeting them? I have to say, Hong Kong would be a stretch.
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I mean, not least for the budget when you go to the bus. It is interesting because around this time, when Glenn Greenwald has been slow to respond, Laura Poitras has also gone to a Washington Post journalist called Bart Gellman. and talk to him about whether he could do it with the Post. He's just left the Washington Post.
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But actually, at the Washington Post, when they hear Hong Kong, they're like, whoa, this sounds kind of risky.
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Yeah. And it would be an obvious kind of suspicion, which is, is this someone who's basically a Chinese spy who's gone to China or a part of China in the case of Hong Kong? Or a defector, maybe. Or a defector, you know, with the documents. And therefore, you know, you're into kind of foreign spy world.
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But it is interesting because I recently spoke to someone who was a very senior intelligence official at the time about these kind of suspicions. You know, could he have been a Chinese spy or a Russian spy, given where he ended up? And they said they looked very hard at this at the time, as you'd expect them to do in the intelligence community.
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And they said the Russians and Chinese were both as surprised as the Americans were when he turned up in Hong Kong or when he eventually emerges and goes public in Hong Kong. So in other words, they didn't know that he was there. They're like, who's this guy?
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And you imagine that this is basically the US intelligence community spying on Russian and Chinese communications and seeing that they're surprised by it, which suggests they didn't have advanced knowledge.
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45. The Leak That Changed The World: America Exposed (Ep 3)
Yeah, it is a problem for him. And his argument or the argument of those people who met him and talked to him about it was that he saw Hong Kong as a kind of no man's land. And it's worth saying Hong Kong, a former British colony, but at this point, back to Chinese control after 97, but under one country, two systems. So China didn't have full control.
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45. The Leak That Changed The World: America Exposed (Ep 3)
And it's only actually after Snowden that China really prevailed. puts its national security law into practice in Hong Kong and really takes the place over. So at that time, it still had a kind of slightly more freewheeling, ambiguous role, but it is still technically part of China.
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45. The Leak That Changed The World: America Exposed (Ep 3)
And I guess it seems Snowden's calculation is that it's a place out of reach of American law and with options of where you can get to, but with a bit more freedom than anywhere else. That seems to be why he picked it.
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45. The Leak That Changed The World: America Exposed (Ep 3)
And he goes to the Mira Hotel in the Kowloon district. Very nice. Very nice hotel. It's a commercial district. It's a big, fancy hotel. And this is where he is going to try and bring the journalists. And initially, he's there and he's waiting. He says, you know, I barricaded myself in my room at the Mira Hotel. which I chose because of its central location.
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45. The Leak That Changed The World: America Exposed (Ep 3)
I put the privacy, please do not disturb sign on the door handle to keep housekeeping out. For 10 days, I didn't leave the room for fear of giving a foreign spy the chance to sneak in and bug the place. So he's there and he's still trying to get the journalists to come out. And Laura Poitras... He's talked to Bart Gelman and now Glenn Greenwald is back in play.
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45. The Leak That Changed The World: America Exposed (Ep 3)
So in late May, Edward Snowden has gone back to Greenwald to try and persuade him to come out. Greenwald still seems suspicious about why Hong Kong, but then Snowden sends him documents. Again, you know, it's the kind of calling card. This is the real deal. So at this point, Greenwald goes to New York.
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45. The Leak That Changed The World: America Exposed (Ep 3)
to see the US editor of The Guardian, Janine Gibson, on May 31st to say, I think I need to go out there. I mean, they see the documents. They realise this is potentially massive. But also the documents, you know, as we'll come to, are kind of quite technical. They're quite difficult to understand. You need the person. The document itself isn't enough. And so the Guardian team look at this.