Saturday 25 April 2015

Product, Range and Distribution: Glenn Greenwald AMA

Glenn Greenwald is a journalist for The Guardian, he reports and investigates the NSA. Edward Snowden contacted him and met him in Hong Kong where he gave Glenn Greenwald information about the NSA.

I have found that Glenn Greenwald did a Reddit ask me anything here: Reddit AMA. Below are some snippets of the AMA which I think will benefit part 2 of this project.


[–]
tatertits7 280 points  
Is it too late to roll back the surveillance state?
[–]janine_gibson JANINE GIBSON 371 points  
I think this is the question we've all been asking. It's at the heart of this story. And we fundamentally think it's a debate best had in the open. It's going to come down to what citizens, users and voters think about how much they're prepared to give up in order to feel secure. It's not an easy question.
We had an event recently in NYC and the former general counsel for the NSA said this is a debate that has to be had once a generation -- that each generation needs to feel it has given consent. I think that's an interesting point. It certainly feels like there are a couple of generations who have been taken aback by the sheer size and scale of surveillance.


[S] 457 points  
Out of the ones you have deemed to be worth releasing, what percentage of the Snowden documents have you released so far?
As I've said many times, there are thousands of documents, and the majority of ones that should (and will) be published still remain. Large numbers of people from around the world - including me and Laura Poitras - work every day as their primary or only occupation on getting these documents vetted, understood, and reported on as soon as possible.


Aren't the Brits trying to crack all the equipment seized from David Miranda's airport detention? Didn't David reveal an encryption key under duress?
As he's said in interviews, he gave his password to his personal phone which allowed them access to his Facebook, Skype, email and photos. That's because they kept telling him that under the Terrorism Act, he could and would be arrested if he did not give that. He did not give any encryption keys that allow access to read documents because he did not have any such keys.

Mr Greenwald, Are you able to say what kind of encryption you are using? It would be nice to know what is still not easily disabled or worked around.
EDIT: It seems he answered this below:
See above: use GPG, Pidgen/OTR, Silent Circle, Tails, Tor


I just realized you've done a good job keeping your source out of the limelight, it feels like he's slowly fading from public conciousness and the real story is gaining traction
This is an astute point, and the credit for this is due to Snowden.
One of the most darkly hilarious things to watch is how government apologists and media servants are driven by total herd behavior: they all mindlessly adopt the same script and then just keep repeating it because they see others doing so and, like parrots, just mimic what they hear.
All whistleblowers are immediately demonized - they have to be "crazy" lest people think that there is something valid to their view that they saw injustices so fundamental that it was worth risking their liberty to expose. That's why Nixon wanted Daniel Ellsberg's psychoanalysis files: degrading the psyche of whistleblowers is vital to defending the status quo.
The script used to do this to Snowden was that he was a "fame-seeking narcissist." Hordes of people who had no idea what "narcissism" even means - and who did not know the first thing about Snowden - kept repeating this word over and over because that became the cliche used to demonize him.
The reason this was darkly hilarious is because there is almost no attack on him more patently invalid than this one. When he came to us, he said: "after I identify myself as the source and explain why I did this, I intend to disappear from media sight, because I know they will want to personalize the story about me, and I want the focus to remain on the substance of NSA disclosures."
He has been 100% true to his word. Almost every day for four months, I've had the biggest TV shows and most influential media stars calling and emailing me, begging to interview Snowden for TV. He has refused every request because he does not want the attention to be on him, but rather on the disclosures that he risked his liberty and even his life to bring to the world.
He could easily have been the most famous person in the world, on TV every day and night. But he chose not to, selflessly, so that he would not distract from the substance of the story.
How the people who spent months screaming "fame whore" and "narcissist" at him don't fall on the ground in shame is mystifying to me. Few smear campaigns have ever proven more baseless than this one.


What can we, the people of Reddit, do to make the most of all this new insight and information?
Figure out what your available resources and talents are and devote them to stopping the parts of NSA surveillance that you think are wrong. What Edward Snowden showed more than anything else is that even ordinary individuals have within them great power to stand up to and subvert real injustices by seemingly invulnerable institutions.


Do you ever worry about your safety?
All good journalism entails risk, by definition, because all good journalism makes someone powerful angry. It's important to be rationally aware of those risks and take reasonable precautions, but not fixate on them or, under any circumstances, allow them to deter you in doing what you thin should be done. Fearlessness can be its own form of power.

Knowing what you know, how bad does it get, relative to how much information is public? Also, do you think there's even a chance in stopping it?
I think the public - not just in the US but worldwide - now has a basic idea of the objective of the NSA: to eliminate privacy worldwide, literally, by ensuring that every human electronic communication is subject to being collected, stored, analyzed and monitored by the NSA and its allies (UK, Canada, New Zealand, Australia).
Still, even with the general understanding, there are still many specific revelations that I think will surprise most people, coming imminently.
As for whether in can be stopped: I have zero doubt that it can be. All institutions built by human beings can always be restrained, or even torn down and replaced, by other human beings, when the right will and strategy are found. See below for a more specific discussion of that.


[–]
glenngreenwald GLENN GREENWALD[S] 241 points  
What would you say is the single most shocking revelation that Snowden has leaked and why?
The general revelation that the objective of the NSA is literally the elimination of global privacy: ensuring that every form of human electronic communication - not just those of The Terrorists™ - is collected, stored, analyzed and monitored.
The NSA has so radically misled everyone for so long about its true purpose that revealing its actual institutional function was shocking to many, many people, and is the key context for understanding these other specific revelations.


I have found this Ask Me Anything with Glenn Greenwald and Janine Gibson really interesting and inspiring. Their integrity is admirable and the answers they have given have been really useful and will really help this project.

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