Epstein Secrets

ew, amass even greater power. Whatever his actual agenda in 2012, we know that he tested pos- sible reactions to a leak exposing NSA surveillance in the United States. He asked fellow workers at the NSA base in 2012, according to his own account, “What do you think the public would do if this [secret data] was on t

on authorized Greenwald’s trip to Hong Kong on the con- dition that he take with him a Guardian staffer in whom she had confidence, the Scottish-born Ewen MacAskill, a sixty-one-year-old veteran journalist who had been the Washington bureau chief for The Guardian. His assignment was to evaluate the bona fides of

le awaiting his trial and was facing a long prison sentence. There was no reason for Snowden to expect a better outcome for himself if he returned to the United States or was arrested anywhere else that had an extradition treaty with the United States. As the Russian officials in Hong Kong would have informed him, R

feature- @ length documentary, Citizenfour, which would be commercially @ released in October 2014 and win an Academy Award for her. The next day, Ewen MacAskill, whom Poitras had not wanted Greenwald to bring to the initial meeting, joined Poitras and Green- wald in Snowden’s room. Snowden insisted that MacAs

on was its undisputed dominance in the business of obtaining and deciphering the communications of other nations. The NSA was the instrument by which the United States both protected its own secret communications and stole the secrets of foreign nations. The NSA, however, has an Achilles’s heel: It is dependent on c

he need for a face-to-face meeting with Snowden. Even after he had revealed his true identity to Poitras and Greenwald on June 3, the Guardian editor Ewen MacAskill offered him the option of remaining an unnamed source for the stories. He said, as he later told Vanity Fair, “You should remain anonymous; the stori

his anonymous data was archived into a huge database. The idea was that when any foreigner on the FBI’s watch list of terrorists called any number in the United States, the FBI could trace that person’s entire chain of telephone contacts to try to determine if he or she was connected to a known terrorist cell. There

inor subterfuge: Hosenball, “NSA Contractor Hired Snowden Despite Concerns About Resume Discrepancies.” 76 “playing with fire”: Spencer Ackerman and Ewen MacAskill, “Snowden Calls @ for Whistleblower After Claims by New Pentagon Source,” Guardian, May 22, @ 2016. 76 establish a paper trail: Director of Nationa

whistle-blowing concept to adversaries was echoed by Russian President Vladimir Putin. He complimented Snowden for having “uncovered illegal acts by the United States around the globe,” Putin’s view implies a convenient global concept of whistle-blowing that justified breaking US laws. Even so, this whistle-blower

e authorized Greenwald’s trip to Hong Kong on the condition that he take with him a Guardian staffer in whom she had confidence. He was Scottish-born Ewen MacAskill, a 61-year old veteran journalist who had been the Washington bureau chief for the Guardian. His assignment was to evaluate the mystery source in Hon