Citizenfour Page #4

on any topic, anywhere,

anytime, all the time.

And it was free and unrestrained.

And we've seen, uh, the chilling of that

and the cooling of that

and the changing of that model,

toward something in which people

self-police their own views,

and they literally make jokes

about ending up on "the list"

if they donate to a political cause

or if they say something

in a discussion.

Uh, and it's become an expectation

that we're being watched.

Um, many people I've talked to

have mentioned that

they're careful about what

they type into search engines

because they know that

it's being recorded.

And that limits the boundaries

of their intellectual exploration.

Uh... and I'm...

I am more willing to risk imprisonment,

or any other negative outcome,

personally,

than I am willing to risk

the curtailment

of my intellectual freedom

and that of those around me

whom I care for, uh,

equally, as I do for myself.

And again, that's not to say

that I'm self-sacrificing,

because it gives me...

I feel good in my human experience

to know that I can contribute

to the good of others.

Could you elaborate on that?

So, I don't know

how much of the programs

and the actual technical capacities

everybody's talked to you about,

but there's an infrastructure in place

in the United States and worldwide...

that NSA has built,

in cooperation with

other governments as well...

that intercepts basically

every digital communication,

every radio communication,

every analog communication

that it has sensors in place to detect.

And with these capabilities, basically,

the vast majority of human

and computer-to-computer communications,

device-based communications,

which sort of inform the relationships

between humans,

are automatically ingested

without targeting.

And that allows individuals

to retroactively

search your communications

based on self-certifications.

So, for example, if I wanted to see

the content of your email,

or, you know, your wife's phone calls,

or anything like that,

all I have to do is

use what's called a "selector,"

any kind of thing

in the communications chain

that might uniquely or almost uniquely

identify you as an individual.

And I'm talking about things

like email addresses,

IP addresses, phone numbers,

credit cards,

um, even passwords

that are unique to you

that aren't used by anyone else.

I can input those into the system,

and it will not only go back

through the database

and go, "Have I seen this

anywhere in the past?"

It will,

basically put an additional

level of scrutiny on it,

moving into the future, that says,

"If this is detected now

or at anytime in the future

I want this to go to me immediately,

and alert me in real time"

that you're communicating with someone.

Things like that.

So I don't know who you are

or anything about you.

Okay. Um...

I work for Booz Allen Hamilton,

a defense contractor,

I'm sort of on loan to NSA.

I don't talk to a Booz Allen boss,

I don't get tasking from Booz Allen,

it's all from NSA.

- Sorry, I don't know your name.

- Oh, sorry!

I, uh... my name is Edward Snowden.

I go by Ed. Um...

Edward Joseph Snowden is the full name.

- S-N...

- O-W-D-E-N

And where are you from?

I'm originally, I was born

in North Carolina,

uh, small town, Elizabeth City.

There's a Coast Guard station there.

I'm from a military family.

But I spent most of my time

growing up around Fort Meade

in Maryland.

And your family,

what's the consequences for them?

This is actually

what has made this hardest.

My family doesn't know what's happening.

They're unaware.

I don't think I'll be able

to keep the family ties

that I've had for my life, um,

because of the risk

of associating them with this.

And I'll leave, you know,

what to publish on this

and what not to publish to you guys.

I trust you to be responsible on this.

Um, but basically,

the closer I stay to my family,

the more likely they are to be

leaned on, you know.

So you don't want me to report this?

I mean, we definitely want

to do whatever we can

not to include them

or bring them into the mix.

Yeah, yeah, sure,

that's fine, I won't...

I'm sorry, let me interrupt you.

Can we just stop for a second and do

the documents and then go back to that?

- Does that makes sense?

- Sure.

What do I need?

Do I need an email address

that we're using, or...?

Well, so you can, you can send them...

once you've encrypted it, you can send it

from whatever you think is appropriate.

The main thing is you've got

to encapsulate all of this

in a way that it can't be

decrypted and read

when it's in transit

across the network...

Right.

...or on either of the end

points that it's received at.

Just so you know, these documents are

basically all gonna be uploaded

in like 48 hours, 72 hours, whatever...

This is simply... you want to get in

the process of doing this for everything,

because it seems hard, but it's not hard,

his is super easy.

So just walk me through it, and...

Okay. Show me... show me

the actual folder structure

where these files are first.

How many documents

did you say there were?

Seven.

Well, while you're working

did you want to...?

Okay, go ahead.

How many documents are we talking about?

Because when The Guardian did WikiLeaks,

technical people set up a system

so they were available

for anybody to see.

And I just wondered

if it's possible to do the same thing?

That would be the ideal end game,

um, but because some of these documents

are legitimately classified in ways

that could cause harm to people

and methods...

I'm comfortable in my technical

ability to protect them,

I mean you could literally

shoot me or torture me,

and I could not disclose

the password if I wanted to.

Um, you know, I have

the sophistication to do that.

There are some journalists

that I think could do that,

but there are a number of them

that couldn't.

But the question becomes,

can an organization actually

control that information

in that manner without risking

basically an uncontrolled disclosure?

But I do agree with that.

Honestly, I don't want to be the person

making the decisions on

what should be public

and what shouldn't.

Which is why, rather than

publishing these on my own,

or putting them out openly,

I'm running them through journalists.

So that my bias,

you know, and my things...

Because clearly

I have some strongly held views,

are removed from that equation,

and the public interest

is being represented

in the most responsible manner.

Yeah.

Actually, given your sort of, you know,

geographic familiarity

with the UK and whatnot,

I'd like to point out that GCHQ has, uh,

probably the most invasive...

I've heard about that.

...network intercept program

anywhere in the world.

Yeah, yeah.

It's called Tempora, T-E-M-P-O-R-A,

and it's the world's first "full take,"

they call it, and that means content

in addition to metadata, on everything.

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