Citizenfour Page #3

So it's important to note that

if someone has a perception

of you having done a thing,

it will now follow you

for the rest of your life.

So just keep in mind

that what happens to you guys,

for example, with fingerprints

and retinal scans and photographs,

that is what is going to

happen to people in the future

when they resist policy changes

and when they try to protest

in a totally constitutionally

protected way.

This is for you, Director Clapper,

again on the surveillance front,

and I hope we can do this

in just a 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?

No, sir.

It does not?

Not wittingly.

There are cases

where they could inadvertently,

perhaps, collect, but not wittingly.

The encrypted archive 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 to declare my involvement.

My personal desire is that you paint

the target directly on my back.

No one, not even my most

trusted confidante,

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:
00 a.m. local time

on Monday.

We will meet in the hallway outside

of a restaurant in the Mira Hotel.

I will 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.

As far as positioning,

I mean, if you want us to sit

in any particular way or whatever.

You know, I'm gonna go there,

to try to get better light.

So, um, there's, you know,

so many different

enormous stories

just, that are kind of

stand alone stories,

that even, like, you know,

certain things

about an individual document

that can just be their own story.

And I just want to start

churning those stories out.

I basically woke up this morning

and already started writing stories.

So I'm hoping to, you know,

start publishing

like within a day or two days.

- Okay.

- As long as you're good with that.

- Yeah.

- Um, and...

So, as far as like the stuff

we have to talk about,

I'm kind of dichotomizing it,

between stuff that

I'd like to talk to you about

in terms of like the documents

and the content,

and Laura has a bunch of

questions about that as well,

sort of working through the documents,

getting your take on

a lot of this stuff that,

you know, will help me

understand it better.

But then also the sort of "you" story,

like the who you are, what you've done,

why you've done what you've done.

- Yeah.

- And I'd love to do that first.

Okay.

Um, in part because you're

the only one who can do that.

So I'd just like to get that done

so that it's done, um,

and also because, you know,

it might be that

you want to do that early.

- Because...

- Who knows what could happen...

It might be necessary, we might

choose to have that done early.

Tell me your thoughts on

where you are with that...

The primary one on that,

I think I've expressed that

a couple times online,

is I feel the modern media has

a big focus on personalities.

Totally.

And I'm a little concerned

the more we focus on that,

the more they're gonna use

that as a distraction.

And I don't necessarily

want that to happen,

which is why I've consistently

said, you know,

"I'm not the story here."

Nervous, huh?

No, it's a very, very cheap pen,

that just with the slightest

force broke, go ahead.

But uh, yeah,

anything I can do to help you guys

get this out I will do.

I don't have,

uh, any experience with media,

with how this works,

so I'm kind of learning as I go.

Right, so I just want to get a sense

of why did you decide to do

what you've done.

So, for me,

it all comes down to state power

against the peoples' ability to

meaningfully oppose that power.

And I'm sitting there, uh, every day

getting paid to design methods

to amplify that state power.

And I'm realizing that if, you know,

the policy switches

that are the only things

that restrain these states,

were changed, there...

you couldn't meaningfully oppose these.

I mean you would have to be

the most incredibly sophisticated,

technical actor in existence.

I mean, I'm not sure there's anybody,

no matter how gifted you are,

who could oppose all of the offices

and all the bright people,

even all the mediocre people

out there with all of their tools

and all their capabilities.

And as I saw the promise

of the Obama administration

be betrayed and walked away from

and in fact, actually advance...

Uh-huh, uh-huh.

...the things that had been promised

to be sort of curtailed

and reigned in and dialed back,

and actually get worse,

particularly drone strikes,

which I also learned at NSA,

we could watch drone videos

from our desktops.

As I saw that, that really

hardened me to action.

- In real time?

- In real time.

Yeah, you... it'll stream

a lower quality of the video

to your desktop.

Typically you'd be watching

surveillance drones

as opposed to actually

like you know murder drones

where they're going out there

and bomb somebody.

But you'll have a drone that's just

following somebody's house

for hours and hours.

And you won't know who it is,

because you don't have

the context for that.

But it's just a page,

where it's lists

and lists of drone feeds

in all these different countries,

under all these different code names,

and you can just click on

which one you want to see.

Right, but, so if your self-interest

is to live in a world in which

there's maximum privacy,

doing something

that could put you into prison,

in which your privacy

is completely destroyed,

is sort of the antithesis of that.

How did you reach the point where that

was a worthwhile calculation for you?

I remember what the Internet was like

before it was being watched,

and there's never been anything

in the history of man that's like it.

I mean, you could again have children

from one part of the world

having an equal discussion

where, you know,

they were sort of granted,

um, the same respect

for their ideas and conversation,

with experts in a field

from another part of the world,

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