Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Out of a Spy Movie: How Glenn Greenwald First Met Edward Snowden In Person

NYT has the story:
The source had instructed his media contacts to come to Hong Kong, visit a particular out-of-the-way corner of a certain hotel, and ask — loudly — for directions to another part of the hotel. If all seemed well, the source would walk past holding a Rubik’s Cube.

So three people — Glenn Greenwald, a civil-liberties writer who recently moved his blog to The Guardian; Laura Poitras, a documentary filmmaker who specializes in surveillance; and Ewen MacAskill, a Guardian reporter — flew from New York to Hong Kong about 12 days ago. They followed the directions. A man with a Rubik’s Cube appeared.

It was Edward J. Snowden, who looked even younger than his 29 years — an appearance, Mr. Greenwald recalled in an interview from Hong Kong on Monday, that shocked him because he had been expecting, given the classified surveillance programs the man had access to, someone far more senior.
And get this, it sounds like there is much more to come:
Snowden has now turned over archives of “thousands” of documents, according to Mr. Greenwald, and “dozens” are newsworthy.

Note, there is a bit that doesn't make sense here. Why would Snowden, except for drama, have Greenwald loudly shout out directions to ID himself?  Long before the current Snowden affair, Greenwald was a public figure, there are hundreds of pictures of him on the internet and dozens of youtubes.

3 comments:

  1. Maybe Snowden wasn't able to see his contact right away, like he was around the corner, or thought there was a chance that Greenwald may look differently than his pictures, which often times that's the case. I guess there had to be some sort of queue for him to walk by.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Because if someone who was standing in the hotel and asking for directions, and it wasn't Greenwald, the guy with the rubic's cube could keep it in his pocket and walk away (?)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I just threw my rubric's cube in my neighbor's trash after wiping for prints. The concept of paranoia has become obsolete.

      Delete