Greenwald and Poitras Answer Questions from US Press after Winning Polk Award for Journalism
"We Wont Succumb to Threats": Journalists Return to U.S. for First Time Since Revealing NSA Spying plus FULL Transcript thanks to "Creative Commons" license.Published on Apr 14, 2014
http://www.democracynow.org - Ten months ago, Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald flew from New York to Hong Kong to meet National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden. Poitras and Greenwald did not return to the United States until this past Friday when they flew from Berlin to New York to accept the George Polk Award for National Security Reporting. They arrived not knowing if they would be detained or subpoenaed after Director of National Intelligence James Clapper described journalists working on the NSA story as Snowden's "accomplices." At a news conference following the George Polk Award ceremony, Poitras and Greenwald took questions from reporters about their reporting and the government intimidation it has sparked.
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Transcript
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AMY GOODMAN:
After winning the George Polk Award for National Security Reporting on Friday in New York, journalists Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras held a news conference along with Guardian reporter Ewen MacAskill. The three of them were the reporters NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden met with last June in Hong Kong. Poitras and Greenwald flew in from Berlin for the ceremony, arriving midway. The reporters in the room did not know what would happen. Democracy Now! attended the news conference after the ceremony. Greenwald and Poitras began by responding to a question about whether they were worried about getting detained or arrested entering the United States Friday for the first time since they started working on the NSA story.
GLENN GREENWALD: We werent so worried that we werent willing to get on the plane. I mean, if we were really worried, we wouldnt have come. There was no need for us to come. But we knew, certainly, that it was a risk.
I mean, I think the important thing to realize about this is that American national security officials and other officials in the government have deliberately created an environment where they wanted us to think there was a risk. They have very deliberately and publicly suggested that the journalism we were doing was a crime. They have advocated that we be arrested. They have had their favorite media figures openly speculate about the possibility that we would be. They detained my partner for nine hours. They announced that there was a terrorism investigation pending in the U.K., and they refused to give my lawyers any information at all about whether there was a grand jury investigation, whether there was an indictment under sealvery unusual behavior when dealing with these lawyers, in particular, who say that they can always get at least something.
So they wanted us to have this kind of uncertainty about whether or not they would take action upon our return to the U.S. Thats very clear. And its easy, I guess, to say it doesnt seem likely that it will happen, but when those threats are being directed at you, you take them seriously. And so we did, but then, obviously, assessed that the risk was low enough, mostly because we didnt think that they would be so counterproductive or self-destructive to do it, and were willing, therefore, to get on a plane and come back.
REPORTER: And those conversations about the indictment, how longor if there was an indictment or grand jury out, how long did those conversations go on?
GLENN GREENWALD: Weve been trying to get information from the government about whether or not we could safely return to the U.S. for at least four to five months. And originally, the government said that they were willing to have conversations about what that might entail, and then, ultimately, I guess, decided that they werent willing to have those conversations, because they just stopped returning calls and stopped giving any information. And so, they just expressly refused to say whether or not there werewhether there was a pending indictment under seal or whether or not we were the targets of a grand jury investigation.
AMY GOODMAN: Your trip isnt over. It doesnt just have to happen at the airport. What are you concerned about, for both Glenn and Laura? And, Laura, if you could describe how your experience coming through the airport today compared with your previous experiences?
LAURA POITRAS: Sure. I mean, you know, the other risk that I think that we face as journalists right now are the risk of subpoena, where the government subpoenas our material to try to get information about our source. And we know that the government has been using the border as a sort of legal no mans land to get access to journalists materials. I mean, Ive experienced that for six years, where Ive been detained, interrogated and had equipment seized at the border, and never told, you know, for what reason thats happening. So
AMY GOODMAN: How many times have you been stopped?
LAURA POITRAS: You know, Ive asked the government to answer that question, and they wont tell me. I think close to 40 or more. Ive got FOIAs out, and soon as I can get a precise count, Ill certainly publish it. So, I mean, the risks of subpoena are very real. And asyou know, as you indicate, I mean, the fact that were here is not an indication that there isnt a threat. We know theres a threat. We know theres a threat from what the government is saying in terms how theyre talking about this journalism, the journalism that were doing. And, I mean, the reason were here is because were not going to, you know, succumb to those threats.
AMY GOODMAN: What are your plans for the United States? Will you be staying here long? Glenn, will you be moving back? Laura, will you be moving back?
GLENN GREENWALD: I mean, I thinkyou know, I think that this first stepI mean, since we didnt know what today held, we havent been doing a lot of long-term thinking, because we had no idea what the outcome would be of our deplaning. But I think that once we got on the airplane this morning, it was a commitment not just to come back for this one time, but to come back whenever we want, which is our prerogative as American citizens. And it ought to be our right, not just to come back, but to come back without fear of that kind of harassment, to even have that enter our thought process.
So I dont know what Lauras long-term plans are, I mean, but for me, you know, I have a book coming out next month, and I want to be able to come to the U.S. to talk about the issues that it raises. I have a lot of journalistic colleagues here with whom Im working. I want to be able to freely travel to work with them and work on stories in the United States and to talk about the things I think we need to be talking about. So I do think this sort of presages more visits to the U.S. for me.
LAURA POITRAS: I mean, I started working outside of the United States and setting up my edit studio in Berlin before I was contacted by Snowden, and because of the sort of repeated targeting that I had at the border, and so this was the decision I had made before working on the NSA material. And for me, the decision is: I dont feel confident I can protect source material in the United States right now. I mean, its justI certainly cant cross a border with it or with my equipment or anything that I consider to be sensitive. And so, my plan is to finish editing and then return. I mean, I absolutely plan to return.
REPORTER: What worries each of you the most about the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court?
GLENN GREENWALD: Well, what worries me is the fact that it doesnt have any of the attributes that were taught as first-year law students, or even as American citizens, make a court an actual court. It operates in complete secrecy. Theres only one side allowed to be heard, which is the government. And it even for a long time was housed in the Justice Department, indicating what its real purpose is, which is not to be an outside body exerting oversight, but to be an enabler of what the executive branch wants to do. And the proof is in the pudding, in that theres been 30 years of FISA court decisions and an infinitesimal, humiliatingly small number of demands by the U.S. government to surveil that have been even modified, let alone rejected, by that court. So its purely fictitious, the idea that it exerts any real oversight over the surveillance regime.
AMY GOODMAN: What has been your latest communication with Edward Snowden? What is hewhat are his concerns now and where he stands in Russia?
GLENN GREENWALD: Well, I mean, you know, I dont think its any secret that I talk to him regularly. And, you know, I feel like a lot of what we do has an impact on him, because thingsjust choices that we make can have an influence on how hes perceived or even what his legal situation is. So, you know, we certainly talked about our plans to come back, and he was very supportive of that.
And, you know, I think that his situation in Russia is what its basically been for the last eight months, which is that hes in a country that he didnt choose to be in, that he was forced to remain in by the United States revoking his passport and then threatening other countries not to allow him safe transit. But at the same time, that alternative, as imperfect as it might be, is certainly preferable to the alternative of not being in Russia, which is being put into a supermax prison in the United States for the next 30 years, if not the rest of his life. And so, given how likely of an outcome that was, and he knew that was when he made his choice, I think hes very happy with his current situation.
REPORTER: Do you know what kind ofwhether hes stillwhether hes actively being pursued now? It seems like recently hes been speaking a lot, speaking out a lot more, like giving telepresence talks. Does he feel safer?
GLENN GREENWALD: I mean, you know, I think hisI mean, its really kind of an extraordinary thing thats sort of been underappreciated, the fact that he made the choice to go before the world and say that this leak, which is the largest national security leak in American history, the one that has made the American national security state angrier than any other, "is something that I did. And Im not only saying that I did it, but I want to tell you my rationale for why I did it, and Im proud of it." And, you know, eight months later, he is further away from the grasp of the United States than he has ever been. And, you know, I think that he feels not just a duty, but a sort of a responsibility, to participate in the debate that he helped to trigger around the world. And the fact that hes able to do that is one of the reasons why I think its so important that he hasnt been in prison. I dont think hes ever going to feel safe, but I think he feels confident enough to be speaking out, and especially because he feels like the focus will remain on the revelations and not on him personally.
REPORTER: Whats the most important revelation, do you think, that came from all the documents that were released because of Edward Snowden?
GLENN GREENWALD: For me, the most significant revelation is the ambition of the United States government and its four English-speaking allies to literally eliminate privacy worldwide, which is not hyperbole. The goal of the United States government is to collect and store every single form of electronic communication that human beings have with one another and give themselves the capacity to monitor and analyze those communications. So, even though Ive been warning for a long time about this being an out-of-control, rogue surveillance state, long before I ever heard the name Edward Snowden, to see in the documents that that not only is their ambition, but something that theyre increasingly close to achieving, was, to me, by far the most significant goal, something that I dont think anyone in the world knew or understood. And every other revelation is really just a subset of that one.
REPORTER: And just to follow up, do you think that nuclear terrorism or any of the threats against the United States would justify that kind of searching of the world? I mean, would we want a nuclear terrorist to go off in New York?
GLENN GREENWALD: Yeah, I mean, I dontno, I dont think that the desire to detect what a small number of people are doing justifies ubiquitous, mass, suspicionless surveillance. And I actually think that the system that says collect everything makes it actually harder to find the things that they claim theyre looking for, because when you collect so much, its really impossible almost to find the Boston Marathon attack or the attempted detonation of a bomb in Times Square, any of the other things that the surveillance state, as ubiquitous as it is, failed to detect.
REPORTER: The Obama administration has prosecuted more whistleblowers than all other administrations combined. What is the future of whistleblowing?
GLENN GREENWALD: Do you want to
LAURA POITRAS: Well, I mean, I thinkIm not going to go into too many details, but I think what were seeing is actually more people coming forward, you know, more people realizing that theythat their conscience is telling them that there are things that they know of that should be public. And I cant go into lots of details. I mean, one that isactually has been reported was a story that Glenn did with Jeremy Scahill, which was on the targeted killing program and how theyre using metadata to assassinate people without actually knowing the identities of the people. And that camethat information wasthat was a source that came forward. So I think, you know, wereI mean, I think, you know, in this sort of post-9/11 era, I think there are a lot of people who have sort of a heavy conscience over what has happened and who have a lot of information. And I think that maybe the risk that Snowden has taken opens up a space where people will maybe feel that now is the time to come forward.
MIKE BURKE: What tips do you have for journalists working in the United States regarding securing their data and communications with sources?
LAURA POITRAS: OK, soand youre talking about people who are doing like national security reporting? So, Im onGlenn and I are both on the board of an organization called the Freedom of the Press Foundation. We just published a blog about a tool thats called Tails, which is a operating system that runs on aeither USB stick or SD disc, that is a sort of all-in-one encryption tool that you can use for PGP and encryption [inaudible]. And its just quiteits just really secure. And we arewe didnt talk about it for a long time, because we didnt necessarily want to draw attention to it, so that it would beavoid being targeted. But we figured, by now, the intelligence agencies who are paying attention would sort ofit would be on their radar. So, its actuallyits a really important tool for journalists.
And I think there are huge concerns for international journalists and their communications and how they protect sources, and that these revelations have exposed. So, for instance, information thats foreign information thats transited to the United States gets sucked up, and so how are you going to protect your sources? And how do intelligence agencies behind the scenes share information? And those are all thethese are all things that I think will continue to come forward as more sources come forward and more reporting is done. And, yeah.
REPORTER: How do you feel the U.S. public has reacted? And do you feel like theres been a sufficient amount of reaction from the U.S. public?
GLENN GREENWALD: I mean, I think the number of people in this room, 10 months after we first did our reporting, is a testament to how much the story has resonated. And, you know, because I live outside the United States, I think Im probably a little bit more attentive to how it has resonated internationally, which sometimes I think gets lost in the debate in the United States. But really, I mean, literally around the globe, people think not only about surveillance, but about individual privacy in a digital age and the trustworthiness of government officials to exercise power in the dark and the proper role of journalism vis-à-vis the state, and a whole variety of other topics, including the role that the United States government is playing in the world, in a radically different light than they did prior to this reporting. And Iyou know, I see the impact when I go other places and talk about the story, how much it continues to resonate.
And I know Ive said this before over many months, many times, and theres a little bit of skepticism when I say it in some circles, but I say it because it really is true: In my opinion, the stories that are the most significant and that are the most shocking and that will have the broadest and most enduring implications are the ones that were currently working on and have not yet been reported. And so, I think its really hard to assess while were still in the middle of the story, which is really where we are, what the ultimate consequences will be. I dont think we know. But, for me, of course, theres some indifference or some apathy. Theres some jaded, you know, sort of cynicism. But in general, the public reaction has been, speaking for myself, just vastly larger and more consequential than even in my wildest dreams I imagined could happen when I started working on the story.
AMY GOODMAN: Edward Snowden just warned that the U.S. government is surveilling human rights groups in the United States. Can you, any of you, address this, what you know about this, from the documents, and to U.S. just refusing to give Chancellor Merkel her NSA file?
GLENN GREENWALD: Ill only break news on Democracy Now!, as you know, but not at press conferences. But, no, I mean, you know, as I said, I mean, I think some of the most significant stories are left to come, and its hard to preview them when they havent gone through the journalistic process and to talk about ones that we havent published. But obviously, Edward Snowden is aware of whats in the material that he gave us. And so, when he describes what the surveillance state is doing, I think it should be deemed pretty reliable, since everything else that he said about that has proven to be true. And I believe that will, as well, without sort of talking about the reporting that were doing.
LAURA POITRAS: I mean, working in Germany, I mean, as we all know, the history of the Stasi in Germany makes this country very, very sensitive to these kinds of invasions of privacy and very aware of their corrosive and pernicious effects when you have governments that surveil their own populations. And so, you have that, and then youre also balancing the sort of global politics of allies and howI mean, the government there, I think, is deeply, deeply, deeply concerned about the spying thats happening there, and theyre trying to, you know, really, I think, investigate that. And I also think, though, there are a lot of things in which the BND is working with the NSA. And so, I think its too soon to say whats going to happen there.
SAM ALCOFF: A lot of the focus has been on the government and the NSA. Would Booz Allen Hamilton, as private clientsis there any reason to believe that they shared any of the vast troves of information they had with private clients?
GLENN GREENWALD: I mean, itsyou know, I think its hard for us to talk about things that we havent actually reported, because it just wouldnt be a meaningful way to talk about it, because the reporting that we dooftentimes you read a document, and you think you know the meaning of it, and then you go and do your research and read other documents and consult with experts, and it turns out that the understanding that you had of it originally isnt the accurate understanding. So I try really hard not just to spout off about things that we havent gone through the process of reporting.
Having said that, I will just say that in general thethere almost is no division between the private sector and the NSA, or the private sector and the Pentagon, when it comes to the American national security state. They really are essentially one. And so, to talk about whether or not there are protections on how Booz Allen uses the material versus how the NSA uses it almost assumes, falsely, that there is this really strict separation. They call each other partners because thats what they are. And theyre indispensable in every way to the national security state, which is why Edward Snowden had access to all these materials, not as an NSA employee, but as a Booz Allen employee.
REPORTER: Any regrets on what youve done so far?
GLENN GREENWALD: No, I have none at all. I doubt they do, either. But
REPORTER: What are your hopes for actual reform inU.S. surveillance reform, in general?
GLENN GREENWALD: I mean, speaking for myself, I would like to see the debate be about not whether the U.S. should be collecting metadata under a specific provision of the PATRIOT Act, 215, but the broader question of whether or not we want to empower the government to monitor and surveil people who are suspected of absolutely no wrongdoing whatsoever, essentially to engage in mass surveillance. Is that really a proper function of the state? And even beyond just domestically, why should one government, in particular, turn the Internet from what it was intended to be, and its greatest promise, which is a tool of freedom and human exploration and liberation, into the most oppressive tool of human control and surveillance ever known in history?
And so, I dont think anybody thinks that theres no legitimate form of surveillance. I think that its perfectly legitimate for the government to surveil people about whom theres evidence, real evidence, to believe and convince a court to believe that theyre engaged in actual wrongdoing, a targeted surveillance of people for whom theres probable cause or some similar standard. But mass surveillance, suspicionless surveillance, of our private communications, I think, is without any justification whatsoever. And I think the national security state ought to be reined in and converted from a system of mass surveillance into one of targeted surveillance.
REPORTER: Have you yet seen any evidence that other countries have regarded these revelations as "we better up our game"?
GLENN GREENWALD: No. Actually, I think thats an interesting point, as a matter of fact, is I dont think any countriesyou know, I cant talk to closed societies like China. I dont know what, you know, their reactions have been. But I think open governments, open countries, their reaction has not been, "Lets pull our resources to match and replicate the capabilities of the United States." Insteadit is, instead, "Lets figure out how to defend ourselves from what essentially is this digital invasion of the privacy of our citizens and our elected leaders." And I know in Brazil, for example, and in Germany, the two countries that probably have been the most affected by the revelations and where the reaction has been most intense, there has been very serious debate and resources devoted to figuring out how to build defenses to protect the sanctity of the privacy of their communications.
AMY GOODMAN: Quickly, yourPresident Obama renewing the bulk phone record data collection despite calling for some reforms, your response to it?
GLENN GREENWALD: I mean, you know, I think that itsyou know, President Obama likes to parade around as some sort of, you know, King Solomon figure in between the excesses of the NSA and those who are raising concerns about it, and trying to balance it and come up with some reasonable centrist approach. I mean, thats generally his political brand. The reality is, is that hes presided over this out-of-control system for five years and has never expressed a single inclination to rein it in in any way. So the fact that hes continuing it for as long as he can, I think, is the opposite of surprising. I mean, he is an advocate of this system over which he presided for so many years. I mean, I think hes one of the obstacles to reform, not a vehicle for it.
AMY GOODMAN: Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras, speaking at a news conference on Friday after winning the George Polk Awardsthe ceremony took place in New Yorkfor their reporting on Edward Snowden and the National Security Agency. They flew in from Berlin that day. They came in in the midst of the ceremony, not knowing if they would be detained or subpoenaed by the U.S. government when they entered the country. They won the George Polk Award along with Ewen MacAskill of The Guardian and Barton Gellman of The Washington Post. The Pulitzer Prize will be announced today. Greenwald and Poitras recently launched The Intercept along with Jeremy Scahill. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. When we come back, another George Polk Award winner will talk about the elections in Afghanistan. Stay with us.
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KoKo
(84,711 posts)so that I could post this for folks who prefer to read rather than "click links."
This is Part II of what I posted in Video/Media Forum on DU...but, this is for our DU Progressives because what is said here means more to them...than the "general audience."
It's a great watch as Part II of their appearance before the "Media Whore USA Press Corps."
Anyone remember the "Old Days" of "Media Whores pn Line" who called out our MSM in the USA with every post for what THEY DIDN'T COVER?
Anyway.... It's worth a watch and if you can't or don't watch the "Creative Commons" gives you the TRANSCRIPT! and that's a good thing.
And, really, to more journalist sites that adopt this model, the better off we will all be!
grasswire
(50,130 posts)And congratulations to Glenn and Laura.
I wonder if anyone understands that if they were collecting this type of information the number of man hours and people it would have taken to be able to screen over all of it. The cost of storing it along is amazing, but I seriously doubt if it was such a threat as they make it out to be, unless of course someone wanted to single out a threat and be able to follow their conversations or text. After all, something of this magnitude would have to be a selective process in screening. Goodness knows they wouldn't want to spend any money listening to my discussions or text about the weather and my day in the garden.