:00:11. > :00:18.Welcome to HARDTalk. Thanks to Edward Snowden's leaking of American
:00:19. > :00:23.intelligence secrets, the whole world now knows the extent of US and
:00:24. > :00:30.UK surveillance of global phone and internet traffic. Have those
:00:31. > :00:34.revelations flagged up a corrosive infringement of Civil Liberties or
:00:35. > :00:38.undermined efforts to protect the world from terrorism? My guess is
:00:39. > :00:43.Glenn Greenwald, who broke the Snowden story. His mission, he says,
:00:44. > :00:47.is to hold power to account. But is this a journalistic crusade that has
:00:48. > :01:23.gone too far? Glenn Greenwald in Rio, welcome to
:01:24. > :01:28.HARDTalk. Great to be with you. Let me start not with the specifics of
:01:29. > :01:31.the Edward Snowden story, but just asking you about the way you see
:01:32. > :01:37.your role as a journalist. Is it fair to say that you don't believe
:01:38. > :01:44.in the impartiality or the objectivity of the journalist? I
:01:45. > :01:48.don't believe any human beings are impartial, I think we all view the
:01:49. > :01:52.world through subjective prisons that are the by-product of a whole
:01:53. > :01:55.variety of factors, cultural, socioeconomic and the like. The
:01:56. > :02:00.question is not if we have opinions or not, the question is if we are
:02:01. > :02:05.honest about the assumptions we have embraced or do we dishonestly
:02:06. > :02:12.pretend we are something we are not? So, honestly, what is your own
:02:13. > :02:16.subjective prism? I think individuals should not be monitored
:02:17. > :02:23.and have DOS years compiled about them, or be analysed by the state,
:02:24. > :02:26.unless there is evidence that they have done wrongdoing or if there is
:02:27. > :02:32.suspicion to believe that they are planning to do so. That is what it
:02:33. > :02:36.means to be a free individual. So a private realm of the state does not
:02:37. > :02:40.intrude into it. That's an important point, we will come back to it.
:02:41. > :02:46.Maybe an even bigger question, at the beginning, do you believe there
:02:47. > :02:53.should be an assumption of trust between the citizen and those
:02:54. > :02:57.responsible for national security in a democracy like the United States
:02:58. > :03:01.or the United Kingdom? Absolutely not. If you look at the people that
:03:02. > :03:06.have founded the United States, what they were most worried about was
:03:07. > :03:13.having a system of government in which the power of leaders was
:03:14. > :03:16.constrained, not by constitution, legal institutions or checks and
:03:17. > :03:20.balances, or by simply citizens assuming that they were good people
:03:21. > :03:26.and would not abuse the power, even if they were acting in the dark.
:03:27. > :03:31.They experienced the exact opposite, as has the Enlightenment and
:03:32. > :03:35.centuries of political sciences. That institutions run by human
:03:36. > :03:39.beings cannot be trusted to exercise power in the dark, without
:03:40. > :03:44.accountability, without abusing it. Your default position when it comes
:03:45. > :03:51.to senior executives in positions of power, your default position is that
:03:52. > :03:55.you do not trust a word they say? My default position is, as a journalist
:03:56. > :03:59.and as a rational human being, is that when people in power make
:04:00. > :04:04.claims they ought to have evidence to support those claims or they
:04:05. > :04:09.should be treated with great scepticism. The role of the media,
:04:10. > :04:13.journalism, is to investigate those claims for people in power, subject
:04:14. > :04:16.them to critical scrutiny and investigate to determine if they are
:04:17. > :04:21.true, rather than blindly assuming that they are true. Let's get to
:04:22. > :04:24.specifics and the sense of investigation that now surrounds
:04:25. > :04:32.Edward Snowden, everything he has revealed about the activities of not
:04:33. > :04:41.only the National Security Agency United states but GCHQ and other key
:04:42. > :04:46.institutions in the US and the UK. Just explain to me how Snowden
:04:47. > :04:51.reached out to you and how you decided he was the ultimate credible
:04:52. > :04:57.source. He reached out to me in December 2012, asking if I could
:04:58. > :05:00.install encryption technology so we could communicate securely. We
:05:01. > :05:05.talked for about a month about the prospect of doing so. I never
:05:06. > :05:09.actually ended up doing that. He went to Laura Poitras, who did have
:05:10. > :05:15.that. He spoke to her for a month or so and asked for me to become
:05:16. > :05:17.involved. I asked him to provide me with documents that would verify the
:05:18. > :05:25.authenticity of the claims he was making. He sent me two dozen or so
:05:26. > :05:29.secret NSA documents, that work right shopping in what they
:05:30. > :05:33.revealed. I flew to Hong Kong, I met with him and abetted him
:05:34. > :05:39.extensively. I determined that he was who he said he was and that the
:05:40. > :05:45.documents were valid. You vetted him extensively. You make it sound
:05:46. > :05:48.forensics. But how on earth did you ultimately decide that this guy, not
:05:49. > :05:53.just was giving you credible information, that is the relatively
:05:54. > :05:57.easy part, and how did you decide it was the right thing to do, both for
:05:58. > :06:05.him and for you, to press ahead with publication? Because I saw in the
:06:06. > :06:09.documents shocking revelations about what is being done to people's
:06:10. > :06:13.privacy. Not just in my country, but around the world. That this massive
:06:14. > :06:16.system of suspicion and spying had been built without the people and
:06:17. > :06:21.the countries whose governments were building it having any idea that it
:06:22. > :06:25.was taking place. For me, it was a very easy call as a journalist to
:06:26. > :06:28.understand that these documents are critically important for people in
:06:29. > :06:34.democracies to learn about and to know about. We understood that they
:06:35. > :06:40.had to be reported carefully. We have reported on them carefully. The
:06:41. > :06:43.question of whether people around the world should know that all the
:06:44. > :06:48.mutations are being collected by foreign governments and their own,
:06:49. > :06:51.of course that is up for debate, we have a right to know that. I wonder
:06:52. > :06:57.if it gave you pause, Bob Woodward, one of the famous investigative
:06:58. > :07:00.journalists of the modern era, he looked at how you handle it and
:07:01. > :07:06.concluded he would do things very differently. He said he would have
:07:07. > :07:09.pretty much insisted that Edward Snowden remain anonymous. He said it
:07:10. > :07:13.would be more effective and better for him if he remained a protected,
:07:14. > :07:17.anonymous source. He also says, again, given the weight of
:07:18. > :07:21.everything that was being revealed, that you should have taken more time
:07:22. > :07:28.and more care, be more strategic about the way that you put
:07:29. > :07:32.information to the public domain. If of Woodward approved of the
:07:33. > :07:35.reporting I was doing I would be extremely alarmed. This is somebody
:07:36. > :07:41.who has become very, very rich, probably the world's richest
:07:42. > :07:45.journalist, by doing little more than spilling America's top secrets
:07:46. > :07:48.in his books, fed to him by government officials designed to
:07:49. > :07:54.venerate the US government and the policies it is pursuing. He has
:07:55. > :07:59.become the ultimate establishment mouthpiece. There is no doubt Edward
:08:00. > :08:03.Snowden thought you were the go to guy to this. What you have told the
:08:04. > :08:09.world is that there has been extensive, globalised secrets
:08:10. > :08:12.buying, engineered by the United States and the UK. In different
:08:13. > :08:17.times, in different ways, it has involved some of the biggest web
:08:18. > :08:21.taste and communications corporations in the world. It has
:08:22. > :08:25.also, at different times, targeted key individuals, some of them key
:08:26. > :08:29.individuals that are friends of the US and the UK. Fascinating stories.
:08:30. > :08:34.Here is what Edward Snowden says about the import of what he has
:08:35. > :08:44.revealed. What we show is a Dragnet, mass surveillance that puts entire
:08:45. > :08:51.populations under an all seeing eye. It hits our country, it hits our
:08:52. > :08:57.freedom to speak and communicate freely. Do you believe that to be
:08:58. > :09:01.true? There is no question it is true. If you like a proper documents
:09:02. > :09:04.reveal, what the ultimate point is, leaving aside the Independent
:09:05. > :09:08.details and all of the individual stories, is that goal of the United
:09:09. > :09:13.States government and the UK Government, its closest ally, is to
:09:14. > :09:17.eliminate all privacy globally. By which I mean to make every form of
:09:18. > :09:26.electronic communication between all human beings collected, stored,
:09:27. > :09:29.analysed and monitored by the US and its four English-speaking partners
:09:30. > :09:35.in the surveillance world. Let me just be clear. You are saying
:09:36. > :09:38.important things. But they are not going through my e-mail, your e-mail
:09:39. > :09:44.or any other citizen's e-mail and looking at the content? Apart from
:09:45. > :09:48.anything else, it would be utterly impossible to analyse, your word,
:09:49. > :09:55.analyse the content of all this data? What you just said is
:09:56. > :09:59.completely factually false. They absolutely are looking at the
:10:00. > :10:03.content of my e-mail. I know that because of the documents that were
:10:04. > :10:07.filed by the UK Government. You may be a special case, I will grant you
:10:08. > :10:12.that straightaway. You almost certainly are a special case now.
:10:13. > :10:16.But I am thinking of my mother, my father, the millions and billions of
:10:17. > :10:21.people across the world who now use the internet. They are not all, to
:10:22. > :10:23.go back to Edward Snowden's words, they are not now having their
:10:24. > :10:31.ability to speak, think and associate freely threatened by this
:10:32. > :10:37.metadata analysis. You are absolutely wrong. If you look at
:10:38. > :10:43.what communications experts say, they will say that metadata is a
:10:44. > :10:46.more invasive form of surveillance and even listening to the content
:10:47. > :10:49.because of what can be done with metadata at the moment. Think about
:10:50. > :11:01.if your daughter decides that she once to get an abortion, if your
:11:02. > :11:07.best friend has an HIV. If they listen to the telephone calls, they
:11:08. > :11:10.will listen to them talking to the doctor, whose specialisations they
:11:11. > :11:14.will not even know. If they collect metadata, they will see that the
:11:15. > :11:18.woman called an abortion clinic, or a friend has called somebody
:11:19. > :11:23.specialising in HIV treatment, or some body has called a drug
:11:24. > :11:26.addiction or suicide hotline. There are comprehensive pictures that can
:11:27. > :11:32.be assembled view by knowing who is e-mailing you who you are talking
:11:33. > :11:38.to, how long you are speaking, these patterns that emerge are more
:11:39. > :11:42.revealing than even the content. That is nothing to say having
:11:43. > :11:48.internet history monitored, Google search terms collected, everything
:11:49. > :11:52.that gives an indication of what you are interested in, what you are
:11:53. > :11:56.reading, and incredibly invasive picture. Let's talk about the
:11:57. > :12:00.process about how it was decided what to publish and what not to. He
:12:01. > :12:03.worked particularly with the Guardian newspaper, you are no
:12:04. > :12:06.longer with them but you worked with them for a long time. You talked
:12:07. > :12:13.about a process involving editors, outside advisers. Was there absolute
:12:14. > :12:20.consensus on what to publish and what not?
:12:21. > :12:28.There was ultimate consensus. We sometimes began with different views
:12:29. > :12:36.on which parts of documents should be withheld or published, but at the
:12:37. > :12:40.end of the day, we met with editors, journalists, consulted with
:12:41. > :12:47.experts and reached a consensus about the most responsible way to
:12:48. > :12:54.report. Let me insert one critical fact. We have in our possession many
:12:55. > :13:00.many thousands of documents we got from Mr Snowden. I believe the grand
:13:01. > :13:07.total of documents we published so far is 250, a tiny fraction of the
:13:08. > :13:11.amount of material, which shows how responsible we have been.
:13:12. > :13:17.That raises important questions. You have only published a tiny fraction
:13:18. > :13:24.of the huge number of top-secret documents that you have in your
:13:25. > :13:28.possession. So, question number one, who owns those documents
:13:29. > :13:33.intellectually, who has ultimate control? You no longer work for the
:13:34. > :13:38.Guardian, Edward Snowden is stuck in Moscow. Who actually controls this
:13:39. > :13:46.top-secret information which has yet to be published?
:13:47. > :13:58.The journalist who he trusted. You? Myself, Laura Poitras, the
:13:59. > :14:05.Guardian, the Washington Post. The world's largest and most respected
:14:06. > :14:12.Western news poppers -- papers. But, you were the first he turned
:14:13. > :14:18.to. Do you have most of the documents?
:14:19. > :14:23.Myself and Laura Poitras have the full set of documents, others have
:14:24. > :14:33.portions of them. Do you believe you have the right, you no longer work
:14:34. > :14:36.for the Guardian. Do you believe you and Laura Poitras have the right to
:14:37. > :14:44.decide going forward what further to publish?
:14:45. > :14:50.We are working with media outlets in making those choices. Even though I
:14:51. > :14:55.am no longer at the Guardian, we have started our own media outlet
:14:56. > :14:59.with the most experienced and respected editors and journalists
:15:00. > :15:04.already working with our organisation. When I reported in
:15:05. > :15:10.foreign countries, I worked with some of the largest and most
:15:11. > :15:15.respected media establishments in those countries. I worked with their
:15:16. > :15:19.editors, lawyers, to make these decisions collaboratively. There has
:15:20. > :15:25.never been a single document published because I, myself, have
:15:26. > :15:29.decided. We worked in a journalistic structure.
:15:30. > :15:33.On your own admission, you have, in your possession, thousands and
:15:34. > :15:38.thousands of top-secret documents which you believe at least for now,
:15:39. > :15:43.you believe are so sensitive that they should not be released into the
:15:44. > :15:48.public domain. If they were, it would harm the security of key
:15:49. > :15:54.countries, even the US. If they fell into the wrong hands, could be
:15:55. > :15:58.extremely dangerous. That puts you in an extraordinarily difficult,
:15:59. > :16:01.some would say vulnerable and exposed, position. Do you
:16:02. > :16:08.acknowledge that? Sure, when you do journalism, you
:16:09. > :16:13.are in difficult positions, you challenge powerful factions, you go
:16:14. > :16:17.to war zones. It is a dangerous profession. It isn't about you as a
:16:18. > :16:24.journalist. You control information which is of
:16:25. > :16:29.vital national security interest to hundreds of millions of people who
:16:30. > :16:36.live in the US, UK and other countries. Surely the wisest course
:16:37. > :16:41.of action for you as a human being and journalist, is to return that
:16:42. > :16:44.information from where it came? You have decided the information is so
:16:45. > :16:49.sensitive it can never be published, so should you not get it
:16:50. > :16:54.out of your possession and return it?
:16:55. > :16:58.No, first of all, the people who can't be trusted to safeguard the
:16:59. > :17:04.security of that information are called the NSA and GCHQ, who are so
:17:05. > :17:08.reckless they put it on systems accessed by tens of thousands of
:17:09. > :17:15.people, and lost control. We have maintained tight control. Secondly,
:17:16. > :17:20.I never said all of the documents which have been published should not
:17:21. > :17:24.be published. There is a lot of reporting I intend to do in
:17:25. > :17:31.publishing these documents. How much more? I don't have an exact
:17:32. > :17:37.number but I can tell you if I had to guess, we are still in the first
:17:38. > :17:46.half of the reporting, the majority of reporting on these documents.
:17:47. > :17:53.I asked so much about the security and ownership of the secrets that
:17:54. > :17:58.you possess, because the argument of the security chiefs in the US and
:17:59. > :18:03.here in the UK is that they have to assume that the secret you now
:18:04. > :18:07.possess are no longer secure. They point to things, for example, you
:18:08. > :18:12.have told the New York Times, I am borderline illiterate on matters of
:18:13. > :18:16.computer encryption you said in summer. You said you have someone
:18:17. > :18:23.well regarded doing your computer for you. When they hear that, and
:18:24. > :18:28.see your partner David Miranda carrying flash cards with thousands
:18:29. > :18:32.of secrets on airlines, pass words on paper, they assume that the
:18:33. > :18:36.secrets you have cannot be regarded as secret any more, do you
:18:37. > :18:41.understand that? No, I don't understand that and I
:18:42. > :18:48.will tell you why. Everyone can toss around all sorts of inflammatory
:18:49. > :18:57.accusations. Instinctively attacking journalists who in any way to find
:18:58. > :19:01.what it is they want. I can make all types of accusations as well, but
:19:02. > :19:07.ultimately the wake national people decide what is true is through the
:19:08. > :19:11.evidence, reality. As I said, the reality is there is only one group
:19:12. > :19:16.of people whose security measures were so reckless and sloppy that
:19:17. > :19:21.they caused these documents to be lost, those are the NSA and GCHQ.
:19:22. > :19:26.The journalists who have worked on this case have never lost control of
:19:27. > :19:29.a single piece of paper, because even though it is true six months
:19:30. > :19:34.ago when I first began I didn't have a very good grasp of encryption, I
:19:35. > :19:39.consulted with experts, which is the responsible thing to do. Just like
:19:40. > :19:44.the New York Times and Washington Post. We used the most sophisticated
:19:45. > :19:49.forms of encryption to ensure that there would be no way to access
:19:50. > :19:55.them. Let us talk about trust. You do not
:19:56. > :20:02.trust the security chiefs who have said what you have done has
:20:03. > :20:06.fundamentally undermined security and aided and abetted terrorism.
:20:07. > :20:09.Oliver Robins, deputy national-security adviser for
:20:10. > :20:16.intelligence in the UK Cabinet office who says, in written evidence
:20:17. > :20:19.in court, it is known in the seized material there is personal
:20:20. > :20:24.information which would allow intelligence staff to be identified.
:20:25. > :20:29.He says the government has had to assume copies of information held by
:20:30. > :20:37.Mr Snowden may now be held by one or more other states. You are saying he
:20:38. > :20:42.is not telling the truth? There is this thing called the rock
:20:43. > :20:46.war, in which the US and UK governments persuaded their media
:20:47. > :20:50.outlets and populations to support an aggressive attack on another
:20:51. > :20:53.country by making one false claim after the next to scare the
:20:54. > :20:58.population into believing there was a security threat which did not
:20:59. > :21:03.exist. That they had to go to war to stop it. What journalism is about is
:21:04. > :21:07.based on the premise, when people like Mr Robbins and others who
:21:08. > :21:11.exercise power in the dark, make those kinds of claims to justify
:21:12. > :21:16.their own power, they are often lying, they often tell things to the
:21:17. > :21:20.population which turn out to be untrue. The job of a journalist is
:21:21. > :21:25.not to investigate other journalists, it is to try to be
:21:26. > :21:29.responsible when telling their readers what government officials
:21:30. > :21:33.are saying, and to assess whether there is evidence. That is my role
:21:34. > :21:37.as a journalist. I have two challenge that, you are
:21:38. > :21:42.accusing the most senior intelligence officials on both sides
:21:43. > :21:47.of the Atlantic or routine and systematic lying. What is your
:21:48. > :21:53.evidence? You say look at the rock war. What is your evidence, when the
:21:54. > :21:58.head of MI6 says there is real evidence that since your
:21:59. > :22:00.revelations, the sorts of communications conducted by
:22:01. > :22:04.terrorists have changed because they have adapted to what they have
:22:05. > :22:07.learned from you, where is your evidence there is intelligence
:22:08. > :22:13.chiefs are lying? First of all, I think the rock war
:22:14. > :22:20.is a pretty insignificant collection marked the rock war is a pretty
:22:21. > :22:24.significant example. If you want to scream at me, I can disconnect. If
:22:25. > :22:28.you want to ask the question, you need to give me time to answer. The
:22:29. > :22:35.evidence government officials lied is found in history with things like
:22:36. > :22:38.the rock war when the government is destroyed 26 million people based on
:22:39. > :22:44.lies they told over the course of two years to their population. If
:22:45. > :22:48.you look at countries where there are constitutional guarantees of
:22:49. > :22:52.free which includes most western democracies, you find all sorts of
:22:53. > :22:59.people who have created those perceptions, have done so based on
:23:00. > :23:03.the recognition people in power will routinely lie to their population.
:23:04. > :23:08.The evidence I have is three Democratic senators two weeks ago in
:23:09. > :23:14.the US on the intelligence committee with access to classified ads --
:23:15. > :23:18.information, said the claims of NSA officials that these programmes have
:23:19. > :23:23.stopped terrorist plots, that there is no evidence for that.
:23:24. > :23:34.You are backed by peer media, worth billions of dollars -- Pierre
:23:35. > :23:39.Omidyar. You say you will conduct journalism
:23:40. > :23:45.in the future which is far from the glaring subservient super political
:23:46. > :23:52.powers. So, should we expect that you will use most of the material
:23:53. > :23:57.Edward Snowden gave you, ultimately? I am going to use most of the
:23:58. > :24:02.material which is newsworthy. How much of that is part of the pile, I
:24:03. > :24:05.cannot quantify right now. But there is a lot more reporting to do. We're
:24:06. > :24:10.not the journalists who repeat what the government says and demanding
:24:11. > :24:15.everyone accepts it without evidence. We believe the way you
:24:16. > :24:19.hold power accountable is reporting on the truth, and the documents
:24:20. > :24:23.reveal that. Glenn Greenwald, thank you for
:24:24. > :24:29.joining me from Rio, thank you for being on HARDtalk.
:24:30. > :24:31.IQ, my pleasure. -- thank you.