In an interview with the Associated Press on Sunday, Glenn Greenwald said NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has “blueprints” that explain how the NSA operates. Greenwald described the documents as "basically the instruction manual for how the NSA is built,” and said they are detailed enough to allow readers to evade or possibly duplicate NSA surveillance techniques.
Greenwald, the first journalist to publish any of Snowden's NSA documents, said he didn't believe the information would harm American citizens or put their security at risk. "I think it would be harmful to the U.S. government, as they perceive their own interests, if the details of those programs were revealed," he said.
The documents, which Snowden has insisted not be made public, were provided by Snowden as a sort of guarantee to prove the accuracy of other classified information, much of which has already been released.
"In order to take documents with him that proved that what he was saying was true he had to take ones that included very sensitive, detailed blueprints of how the NSA does what they do," Greenwald said, adding that the documents "would allow somebody who read them to know exactly how the NSA does what it does, which would in turn allow them to evade that surveillance or replicate it."
Greenwald said he spoke with Snowden just hours before the AP interview, nothing that the 30-year-old whistleblower, who is still living in Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport, is doing well, all things considered.
"I haven't sensed an iota of remorse or regret or anxiety over the situation that he's in," said Greenwald, speaking at a hotel in Rio de Janeiro, where he's lived for the past eight years. "He's of course tense and focused on his security and his short-term well-being to the best extent that he can, but he's very resigned to the fact that things might go terribly wrong and he's at peace with that."
[Image via AP]