Snowden interview turns up few key revelations

Viewers were met with a dramatic presentation as Edward Snowden's first televised interview was broadcast in Germany on Sunday (26.01.2014). Piercing drum beats accompanied images of Moscow's snow-covered roofs before an off-screen voice said, "This is the beginning of a world-exclusive interview with Edward Snowden. Under top secret conditions, journalist Hubert Seipel meets with Snowden."

The man asking the questions made a name for himself partly thanks to his coverage of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"[Seipel's] stubbornness and his connection to Putin's people helped him get this interview," says his colleague Hans Leyendecker, who heads the investigative team for the "Sddeutsche Zeitung" daily. That publication is among the German media outlets that worked directly with the data Edward Snowden released.

Surprises still possible?

In the interview, Snowden offers a detailed description concerning the extent of the surveillance activities of the US National Security Agency (NSA), his former employer. He also discusses surveillance of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, economic espionage and collaboration between the NSA and German intelligence services. These are all details that had already come to light gradually in the past months, spurred on by journalists to whom Snowden entrusted his cache of material.

Snowden bluntly summed up the scope of the NSA's activities

In German-language media, the response to Snowden's interview focused on the concrete clues about economic espionage that he mentioned as well as his insinuation that the chancellor is hardly the only politician in Germany affected by the NSA's surveillance activities.

Asked what new revelations Snowden's interview brought forth, investigative journalist Hans Leyendecker pointed to the dimensions the affair has already taken on. "We have a problem in this discussion that people were saying very early on that everything is under complete surveillance," Leyendecker said.

Given that tendency, the journalist explained, it's difficult to bring forth information that will still surprise people.

In some ways, the response to the interview in Germany supports that view. Debates conducted on social media focused less on the content of what Snowden said and far more on questions about why the interview was broadcast at a relatively obscure time late on Sunday evening.

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Snowden interview turns up few key revelations