Greenwald On NSA Leaks: 'We've Erred On The Side Of Excess Caution'

hide captionReporter Glenn Greenwald speaks to reporters in Hong Kong on June 10, 2013, just days after publishing a series of reports about the NSA's mass surveillance programs.

Reporter Glenn Greenwald speaks to reporters in Hong Kong on June 10, 2013, just days after publishing a series of reports about the NSA's mass surveillance programs.

When Edward Snowden was ready to leak the classified documents he'd stolen from the National Security Agency, the first journalist he contacted was Glenn Greenwald. Snowden knew of Greenwald through his coverage of the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping scandal, and he said he believed Greenwald could be counted on to understand the dangers of mass surveillance and not back down in the face of government pressure.

The first story Greenwald broke from Snowden's documents was about how the government collects the metadata from telecom companies, including the metadata of calls made by people in the U.S. Ever since publication, Snowden and Greenwald have been at the center of controversies about leaking and journalistic ethics.

Greenwald's new book, No Place To Hide, tells the story of how he met Snowden, the editorial decisions he's made and the revelations contained in some of the documents Snowden leaked. Greenwald tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross about why Snowden decided to leak the documents and whether the leaks have impeded NSA's ability to detect terrorist threats.

On a common misunderstanding about Edward Snowden

One of the things ... that I think has been misunderstood about Edward Snowden ... is that he actually hasn't released a single document to the public. He could have if he wanted to: He could have uploaded the documents to the Internet on his own; he could have given them to foreign powers. There are all sorts of things he could have done, and what he did instead is he came to journalists and said, "I don't actually think that I, Edward Snowden, am the person who should be making the decisions about what the public should and shouldn't see. I actually think that's journalists who ought to be making that call and I want you to work within media organizations that have experience in making these decisions and make those judgments yourself." ... There's a huge responsibility that comes from making those choices.

On why Snowden leaked the documents

Edward Snowden does not think that there is one or two discrete programs within the NSA that are abusive and out of control. He believes the NSA system itself, the entire ubiquitous system of suspicionless surveillance, is itself inherently abusive and the public has a right to know, not about every detail, not about every program, but about the capabilities that this agency has developed so that the world can have a debate about whether we actually want a system like that.

On the process of reading through the leaked documents

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Greenwald On NSA Leaks: 'We've Erred On The Side Of Excess Caution'