Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian journalist who first reported on the National Security Agency documents leaked by Edward Snowden, said that Snowden has even more documents that could hurt the NSA and the U.S. government. However, Greenwald claims that Snowden does not want these documents leaked just yet.
In an interview with The Associated Press in Rio De Janeiro, Greenwald said that the documents are practically a ‘blueprint’ for how the NSA works.
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. “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 that the interview with the AP was taking place just four hours after his last communication with Snowden. He has “literally thousands of documents” that are “basically the instruction manual for how the NSA is built.”
Greenwald said that Snowden doesn’t want these documents made public, but greenwald added that they would be “harmful” for the U.S. government if they came out.
The journalist made similar comments in an interview with Argentina's La Nacion newspaper. According to CNN, in that interview, Greenwald said that the “large number” are about software people used “without consciously agreeing to surrender their rights to privacy.”
“The U.S. government should be on their knees every day praying that nothing happens to Snowden, because if something happens, all information will be revealed and that would be their worst nightmare,” he added.
Snowden was seen publicly for the first time since he arrived at the Moscow airport on Friday, when he met with human rights groups. WikiLeaks said that he is trying to get safe transportation to Latin America, since Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia have all offered asylum. His U.S. passport was revoked, though, making travel increasingly difficult for Snowden.
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