48. The Leak That Changed The World: Death of Privacy (Ep 6)

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Rest Is Classified - Episode 48: The Leak That Changed The World: Death of Privacy

Title: The Rest Is Classified
Host/Author: Goalhanger
Episode: 48. The Leak That Changed The World: Death of Privacy (Ep 6)
Release Date: May 20, 2025
Guests: David McCloskey, Gordon Carrera, Alan Rusbridger

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Introduction

In Episode 48 of The Rest Is Classified, hosts David McCloskey and Gordon Carrera delve deep into the aftermath of Edward Snowden's monumental leaks, exploring the intricate dance between journalism, intelligence agencies, and the enduring debate over privacy versus national security. This episode, titled "The Leak That Changed The World: Death of Privacy," provides a comprehensive look into the lasting impacts of Snowden's revelations and the ongoing struggles surrounding classified information.

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1. The Guardian vs. UK Government: A Clash Over Classified Files

The episode opens with a riveting account from former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, who recounts a pivotal moment when the UK government confronted The Guardian over its possession of Edward Snowden's leaked documents.

Key Points:

• Government Pressure: Rusbridger describes how a high-ranking Cabinet Secretary visited him with a polite yet firm request to return or destroy the 60,000 classified documents provided by Snowden.

  "The government was grateful for our responsible behavior so far, he said in tones of polite reasonableness." ([02:23])

• Implicit Threats: Rusbridger sensed underlying threats questioning the security of The Guardian's archive and insinuating the presence of foreign agents within their operations.

  "We want these files, you know, we want them destroyed and there's a threat there, because basically they're saying, if you don't give us the files, we're gonna close you down." ([05:16])

• Destruction Protocol: To appease the government, The Guardian agreed to a controlled destruction of the files overseen by two GCHQ agents, humorously dubbed "the Hobbits." The process involved meticulous physical destruction and advanced degaussing techniques to ensure data irretrievability.

  "They use angle grinders to just kind of pound them. So this is like sparks and flame and there's sweat and there's dust as they literally break apart." ([09:26])

Notable Quote:

"Well, welcome to the Rest Is Classified. I'm David McCloskey." ([02:47])

This moment underscores the tension between journalistic integrity and governmental authority, highlighting the precarious position media outlets hold when handling sensitive information.

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2. Gordon Carrera’s Undercover Mission: Inspecting The Guardian’s Archive

Gordon Carrera shares his firsthand experience of being dispatched on a clandestine mission to New York to assess the security of The Guardian's Snowden archive.

Key Points:

• Mission Briefing: Carrera was instructed by BBC News to evaluate the archive without leaving any electronic traces, emphasizing the clandestine nature of journalistic operations in intelligence matters.

  "My boss handed me the mission to go to New York and to look at the archive." ([14:01])

• Exploration of Sensitive Documents: During his visit, Carrera encountered highly classified materials, including technical documents detailing GCHQ's capabilities and limitations in intercepting communications.

  "There was a problem book for GCHQ mathematicians... It absolutely showed what they could do and what the limits were of their capability." ([17:13])

• Surveillance Incident: On his return flight, Carrera noticed his email inbox mysteriously deleting messages, leading him to suspect covert surveillance efforts to monitor his activities.

  "All my emails start deleting one by one... I was interpreting it as someone saying, we know what you've been doing." ([19:02])

Notable Quote:

"So, it is very British. It was mid-2024, when Section 702 of the FISA act came back for reauthorization." ([07:24])

This segment highlights the complexities and risks journalists face when navigating the blurred lines between reporting and espionage.

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3. The Legacy of Edward Snowden: Hero or Villain?

The core of the episode revolves around the enduring legacy of Edward Snowden, juxtaposed against the repercussions his actions have had on privacy, surveillance, and global politics.

Key Points:

• Life in Exile: Snowden remains in Moscow, navigating a life far removed from his earlier days of advocacy for internet freedom. His presence in Russia has led to speculation about his role and intentions.

  "He's in exile in Moscow. He has been there ever since." ([26:31])

• Public Persona vs. Reality: While Snowden has amassed millions of followers and continues to speak out on privacy issues, his relationship with Russian authorities and constrained freedom of speech add layers of complexity to his narrative.

  "He speaks frequently virtually from Moscow... he is a person who has to live under limits." ([28:22])

• Impact on Intelligence Practices: Snowden's leaks prompted heightened scrutiny and reforms within intelligence agencies, fostering a more informed public discourse on surveillance and privacy. However, the essential surveillance programs remain largely intact, albeit with increased oversight.

  "The legacy an Edward Snowden is to create a public debate and to improve the oversight of these powers that the state had rather than stop them having the powers." ([31:00])

Notable Quotes:

"He's no hero. I see him as an arsonist." – Alan Rusbridger ([47:08])

"A massive chilling effect with the tech companies." – Gordon Carrera ([40:14])

These contrasting viewpoints emphasize the ongoing debate over Snowden's actions and their ethical implications.

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4. Privacy vs. National Security: A Perpetual Balancing Act

The discussion extends to the broader implications of Snowden's revelations, particularly the intricate balance between individual privacy rights and national security imperatives.

Key Points:

• Trade-offs Defined: The hosts debate the necessary trade-offs between ensuring national security and protecting individual privacy, acknowledging that eliminating surveillance capabilities can have significant security ramifications.

  "They're trade-offs, they're trade-offs. There's an absolute trade off here." – Alan Rusbridger ([44:56])

• Technological Evolution: Post-Snowden, intelligence agencies have adapted, with some programs being scaled back while others have been revamped to maintain surveillance efficacy amidst heightened public awareness and legislative changes.

  "The intelligence agencies are pretty good at adapting." – Gordon Carrera ([34:13])

• Corporate Surveillance Parallel: The conversation delves into how Snowden's focus on government surveillance overshadowed the pervasive data collection practices of tech companies, pointing out that corporate entities now play a significant role in eroding privacy.

  "It's as much driven by companies as it is by governments." – Gordon Carrera ([40:14])

• Legislative Responses: The reauthorization battles over surveillance programs like Section 702 of the FISA Act illustrate the contentious nature of this debate, with policymakers striving to justify these measures as essential for national security.

  "Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle continue to make the case that these capabilities are critical to national security." – Alan Rusbridger ([43:21])

Notable Quote:

"If you are living in a world in which all your data is collected and analysed, whether it's by companies or the state, does that take away your privacy?" – Gordon Carrera ([42:46])

This segment underscores the enduring relevance of the privacy vs. security debate in the digital age.

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Conclusion: Unresolved Tensions and Ongoing Debates

As the episode draws to a close, the hosts reflect on the unresolved tensions that persist in the wake of Snowden's actions. The legacy of his leaks continues to influence discussions on privacy, surveillance, and the role of intelligence agencies in modern society.

Key Points:

• Complex Legacy: Snowden's actions have led to both advancements in public awareness and ongoing challenges in balancing surveillance with privacy rights.

  "It leaves us with this question, this tension over privacy and national security that is really kind of unresolved now in this new world of the Internet." – Alan Rusbridger ([53:40])

• Hero or Villain Dichotomy: While some view Snowden as a whistleblower hero advocating for transparency, others see him as a liability who compromised national security, illustrating the nuanced nature of his legacy.

  "Trying to separate the world into heroes and villains is a mistake. It's too simplistic." – Gordon Carrera ([51:05])

• Future Implications: The episode emphasizes that the debates ignited by Snowden’s leaks are far from over, continuing to shape policies and public perceptions around surveillance and privacy.

Final Notable Quote:

"If you had a house, you burned my house down, and then I build a better house 10 years later, I'm not really thanking the arsonist for burning my old house down." – Alan Rusbridger ([50:33])

This metaphor encapsulates the contentious views on Snowden’s impact, highlighting both the resultant improvements and the lasting scars left by his actions.

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Overall, Episode 48 of The Rest Is Classified offers a nuanced exploration of Edward Snowden's enduring influence on privacy, surveillance, and the ethical boundaries of journalism and intelligence operations. Through firsthand accounts and thoughtful debate, the episode invites listeners to critically assess the complex legacy of one of the most pivotal figures in modern espionage history.

Transcript

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[David McCloskey]

The.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Expected call from the British government Finally came the Cabinet secretary, the most powerful unelected figure in the machinery of state and the Prime Minister's closest official aid like to visit me? He turned up in my office first thing on Friday 21 June.

[David McCloskey]

The government was grateful for our responsible behavior so far, he said in tones of polite reasonableness.

[Alan Rusbridger]

But enough was enough. British menace comes in many disguises. On the surface, there was nothing intimidating about Jeremy Heywood, Quaker and Oxford educated, with a playful little Tintin quiff of hair. But there was an edge of steel in his voice as he implied he was the nice guy and he wouldn't like me to meet his rough friends.

[David McCloskey]

A lot of people in government believe.

[Alan Rusbridger]

You should be closed down and that the Chinese are behind this. He pointed to the block of Social housing across the canal from my office. I wonder where our guys are. He possibly joked. Do you know how many Chinese agents are on your staff? If we had some, it would be nice to know. Well, welcome to the Rush is classified. I'm David McCloskey.

[Gordon Carrera]

And I'm Gordon Carrera.

[Alan Rusbridger]

And that, dear listeners, was a quote.

[David McCloskey]

Not from Edward Snowden.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Thank you, Gordon.

[David McCloskey]

You've become generous as this series has aged.

[Alan Rusbridger]

That is a quote from Alan Rusbridger, who was in 2013, the editor of the Guardian newspaper. To our American listeners, that's some version.

[David McCloskey]

Of the British New York Times, I.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Guess, although I imagine there's many other newspapers here who are going to review me poorly after I describe them that way. And he is writing in his memoir about the moment when the British state effectively comes to him and says that really his fun's over and it's time to be done writing about Edward Snowden and these leaks and I think a little bit on how we got here. So prior to this, an absolute flood of articles have come out about gchq, Britain's signals intelligence agency, mastering the Internet, tapping undersea cables, about the NSA and its capabilities to conduct domestic surveillance on Americans. Edward Snowden is in Moscow in this time. But really at this point now, the.

[David McCloskey]

UK government is kind of striking back.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Against the Guardian for what it has published so far.

[Gordon Carrera]

That's right. The UK government has had enough of these Guardian stories coming out. Crucially as well, the Guardian has the files from Snowden. It has an archive of what are thought to be 60,000 documents relating to GCHQ and to the UK, which Edward Snowden gave to the Guardian journalists. Ewan McCaskill, who was the Guardian reporter who'd been sent out to Hong Kong, he has brought them back and they are now in the Guardian's office in London. And the Guardian journalists are kind of working on them under Rusbridge's oversight there as also in New York, to try and kind of produce articles about mass surveillance, about other issues. But these are kind of top secret documents and the government is not happy. I mean, one Downing Street A does say, you've had your fun, now it's time to hand the files back as if they're a kind of party piece.

[Alan Rusbridger]

What were the files?

[Gordon Carrera]

Well, we'll come to that. But Oliver Robbins, who's actually just become the head of the British Foreign Office, is one of the people who sent to get in touch and to say, we want these files, you know, we want them destroyed and there's a threat there, because basically they're saying, if you don't give us the files, we're gonna close you down. I mean, that's the implicit threat which the Guardian feel was there. I mean, whether it was explicit or not. And as we heard in that quote from Alan Rustbridger, the government officials are saying, how can we be sure? This is their argument from the government that those files with really top secret information on them are secure in the office of the Guardian from foreign spy agencies.

[Alan Rusbridger]

That's a comment about assets of Chinese intelligence being on staff or having access to the building, that kind of thing.

[Gordon Carrera]

And that becomes the discussion between them because the Guardians say, well, look, we've got controls over who goes in there. It's in a special room, it's not connected to the Internet, the files are not online. You know, there's a physical security list. Only two people can write names onto the list. And then the spies from government say, well, who enforces the list? And the Guardian goes, well, you know, there's security guards who are there 24 7. And then the government goes, well, what's the background of the security guards? You know, how do we know they're not being paid by the Chinese to kind of let people in out of hours, you know, and how many Chinese agents might be on your staff? And this is the kind of argument.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Couple Guardian rent a cops smoking outside the office, guarding the, Guarding the secrets.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, and the government is clearly unhappy on that. Now, Alan Rusbridger feels, you know, Snowden's entrusted the Guardian with these files. They don't want to just hand them back. You know, they feel that's the kind of wrong thing to do. And they're also worried whether it might allow some of the state to investigate them and work out how they were taken and build a case against him or use it to uncover journalistic sources. They don't want to hand it back. So in this fascinating kind of compromise, they agree that staff from GCHQ will be allowed to come to the office and supervise the smashing and destruction of the files. I mean, it is interesting because they're guarding the light. We don't want you destroying it, but we're going to let it be destroyed so you can come and tell us how to do it.

[Alan Rusbridger]

I think American listeners will be a little bit befuddled as to why the government has the authority to do this. Because, you know, I guess in the States you would have.

[Gordon Carrera]

You have First Amendment protection and Fourth.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Amendment protection against unlawful search and seizure, which of course was originally about you people. And you know, what you were up to. But now I think it is kind of an interesting context. It is. It's going to be dealt with very differently.

[Gordon Carrera]

I think the answer is partly there are less protections for journalists in the uk. You don't have the First Amendment protections and, and the laws around things like the Official Secrets act and the ability to put injunctions on people are, if you like, a bit looser and open to interpretation and to be used for pressure. And I think this is one of the problems in the UK for journalists is that there's kind of ambiguity about when an injunction might be slapped on someone or when the Official Secrets act could be used to prosecute journalists. And without some of those constitutional protections there is a higher degree of risk. You know, they're aware of that. The Guardian. So two men from GCHQ come to the Guardian offices. They start saying that perhaps the Russians could turn the plastic cups onto the table into microphones through some clever way. The Guardian, I think, rather unfairly, nicknamed the pair the Hobbits. But they agree that they're going to be able to come back I think the next day and destroy them. The pair say there'll be a lot of smoke and fire.

[Alan Rusbridger]

So the first day is kind of a reconnaissance mission by the two Hobbits.

[Gordon Carrera]

By the two Hobbits, the smoke and fire.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Are they going to destroy these things?

[Gordon Carrera]

Smaug the Dragon from that, you know, you think it's going to be some kind of Tolkien like tale.

[Alan Rusbridger]

So they come in on Friday 19th July. Right. They're going to very politely do the destruction over the weekend.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, I mean it's all kind of bizarrely British and polite, this act. So the next day they come back and three Guardian staff are there. And it's so interesting because I think we all wonder like if you've got a computer and you've got some sensitive information on it, how do you really make sure that it's destroyed? I think everyone probably realizes it's a lot different from just dragging and dropping the files to your, you know, recycle bin on the thing to make sure that top secret files are not available.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Yes, all of our 13 year old listeners are going to be very interested to learn here. This is going to be a Gordon.

[Gordon Carrera]

Carrera tutorial how to destroy hard drive.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Things on your computer that you don't want your parents to see. Listen closely and I've got some bad.

[Gordon Carrera]

News for you because if you really want to wipe it from a foreign intelligence agency or your parents being able to get hold of it, it's not going to be easy. So it's not enough just to wipe the hard drive. You have to destroy physically every part of the computer that could store data. Because. And I spoke to someone, let's just say in the know, who may or may not have been involved in some of this, about why it was so complex. And they said you can even hide small amounts of data outside of the hard drive on a device. So it's not enough just to destroy or wipe the hard drive. You have to destroy every significant chip on the board of the computer. And they use angle grinders to just kind of pound them. So this is like sparks and flame and there's sweat and there's dust as they literally break apart. And just every single chip has to be smashed physically. And then even that.

[Alan Rusbridger]

These guys had a lot of fun, didn't they?

[Gordon Carrera]

I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I think it's a bizarre scene. I mean, the next problem is even that's not enough because you're gonna need something called a degausser, which in the.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Show notes, yeah, we are selling rest is classified branded degaussers.

[Gordon Carrera]

It's where we appetize the degausser. I think they cost about $30,000 or £30,000 each, though, so they're not.

[Alan Rusbridger]

And ours are more expensive because of the, you know, superior branding.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, of course. And they are basically a microwave oven.

[Alan Rusbridger]

For electronics.

[Gordon Carrera]

For electronics. And again, I kind of asked someone, I said, really? What does this do? And it turns out you feed. You then feed the chips and the boards into it, and it uses an electromagnetic pulse to realign their magnetic elements on the hard disk and on the computer. So in other words, it uses physics rather than code to wipe it, to wipe the drive so that it's impossible to recover the data, because otherwise, if you just hit delete, basically it's just overwriting it. But you can recover it. But this, you know, you're feeding the bits of computer into it and it goes pop as it wipes it. And this whole thing, you know, takes three hours to destroy these computers. And then they just. They shake hands and then walk away.

[Alan Rusbridger]

That is very British.

[Gordon Carrera]

It is very British.

[David McCloskey]

Handshake is kind of mysterious of why.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Anyone on either side offered that. At the end of this degaussing, this sweaty degaussing session. I mean, it does remind me, in my continual quest to work Breaking Bad references into our podcast. Gordon, there is an episode in which I believe Walter and Jesse. Walter is, of course, the guy who Was making crystal meth for those who have. Not something we endorse. No, no, no. Not a friend of the podcast. And I believe the hard drive is in police custody. It's come off of there's a laptop that's been taken from a drug dealer that's in police custody. There's some incriminating evidence on that hard drive. And they wire up a van that delivers this electromagnetic pulse outside of the police station. It's a very interesting scene where basically all of the electronics inside this kind of vault, once they bring the van close enough, go smash against the wall and are sort of, I guess, degaussed. Yeah, right.

[Gordon Carrera]

Well, listen, if you feel the need to degauss, then, yeah, that's what it takes.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Between that episode, your instructions and the.

[David McCloskey]

Link in the show, notes to the.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Rest, is classified, officially branded degausser.

[Gordon Carrera]

People now know how to do it.

[Alan Rusbridger]

You're a 13 year old. If you have $40,000, you can wipe your hard drive down to the subatomic level.

[Gordon Carrera]

Very good. And it's described by Alan Rossberger, I think, as a piece of theater.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Yeah, it sounds like complete with the handshake at the very end. I understand that there is this kind of vagueness in the law and the Guardian, of course, doesn't want to run totally afoul of the British state, But I mean, why?

[David McCloskey]

Why is he willing to do this?

[Gordon Carrera]

Well, it's an interesting story because one of the reasons is that that's not the only copy. And you know, as we said, British law is somewhat more restrictive, but they have another copy which is in New York where it's under first amendment protection and. And where the Guardian are also going to be working eventually with the New York Times, to whom they will actually give one of the archives in order to kind of keep it protected. At the very start, I did tease the idea that I might reveal something of a clandestine mission.

[Alan Rusbridger]

That's right, you did.

[Gordon Carrera]

I did. I did. And for those who remember all the way back, because it was a long time ago.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Yes. I'll lift the COVID like Chekhov's shotgun you were delivering. Now I did it on the mantelpiece. Now it must be fired.

[Gordon Carrera]

It's my tiny bit part in the story of. Of Edward Snowden and the archive. So in that summer, kind of September 2013, I get summoned by my boss, BBC, the head of BBC News, who said, come and see me. And he says, I've got a mission for you, should you choose to accept it. And he didn't quite say it like that.

[Alan Rusbridger]

No, don't. Ruined it, Gordon.

[David McCloskey]

Did he say mission, though?

[Gordon Carrera]

Close. And the stories at that point, the Guardian was feeling pretty lonely and it was degaussed. They'd been degaussed. And also a lot of the British press was having a go at them for endangering national security. And I think they were looking for allies, which is one of the reasons they were in touch with the New York Times and others. I was told that senior leadership, the Guardian had contacted senior leadership at the BBC to discuss would we be interested in partnering and looking at this archive? And so my boss said the mission is to go to New York and to look at the archive. And the instructions from my boss were do not write anything down electronically. So don't put anything on a computer, don't use your phone out to contact anyone about this. Just go and then come back and tell me what I think. You know, give me a judgment on the archive and what we think could happen.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Have a quick, breezy look at one.

[Gordon Carrera]

And a half million documents, secret document.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Come back with a synthesis.

[Gordon Carrera]

I was like, sure. So, anyway, I head out to New York following my instructions, my clandestine mission.

[Alan Rusbridger]

What was your cover for the travel?

[Gordon Carrera]

Gordon Carrera, a BBC journalist. I was not using. I was not. This is. It's not deep cover spy, David. And I go to New York and I meet, actually, in the Guardian office, I meet Alan Rusbridger, Janine Gibson, who is the US editor, Stuart Miller, her deputy. And they're very nice to me and they say, sit down and go and have a look at the raw Snowden archive. I wasn't given rights to browse through the whole lot. I was given a kind of selection of the raw documents. And it's very interesting because even now, how many years later are we? 12 years later? Firstly, I can remember it vividly, and secondly, I still don't think I can describe some of the things I saw because I think they were that sensitive to see stuff which is top secret, strapped to, you know, in front of you. And also, the stuff I saw was not stuff that had been made public. Probably interesting to give people a sense of it, but I'm going to be very careful what I say because I still think some of the stuff is very classified. So there was stuff about how the bearers kind of pick up data from the fiber optic cables. There was a very interesting report from a GCHQ staffer who'd been to a foreign country about what signals could be intercepted in a capital of that country and how they could be intercepted. Obviously, quite Interesting. Also with the name of the staffer on the file, there was something which was very sensitive, which was. And this was one of the most strangest things. It was a problem book for GCHQ mathematicians. Right. It outlined what they could do in terms of finding certain types of communications and what they couldn't do, and then laid out the problem for the mathematicians to try and solve mathematically. And the booklet was just full of maths, which I, even with my A level maths, I could not understand because this is like, for the most advanced mathematicians in the country. But what was so sensitive about it and so fascinating was that it absolutely showed what they could do and what the limits were of their capability.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Ah.

[Gordon Carrera]

So it told you exactly what. And this is why I'm being very careful. And I'm sure they maybe change now, but exactly what kinds of communications in a certain way could be accepted and what kinds couldn't be. Which obviously is very sensitive. And so it was amazingly interesting to see. But one of the things I came away realizing was a, there was some really top secret stuff in that archive. I mean, like properly top secret stuff. And secondly, that the Guardian actually had been very careful about what it was publishing. And I think now government officials I've spoken to recognize this with the Guardian. They were angry at the time, but they was a whole load of stuff that the Guardian didn't touch, which was incredibly sensitive and which could have been incredibly damaging. But anyway, last, last point of my story is two things happened which were interesting. One was, so I've been told, no electronic notes. I'd taken some very careful paper notes because I thought I need a kind of a memoir to know what to think about this. Not of the actual content of the documents, but kind of just general stuff about what I thought about it or whatever. I got out of the Guardian office and I remember thinking to myself, going back to my hotel room and thinking, I'm not even sure I should have these paper notes because I think this is slightly dangerous.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Did you eat them?

[Gordon Carrera]

I'll come back to that, because there's a particular risk. Because actually, in August, Glenn Greenwald's partner, David Miranda, had been stopped at Heathrow Airport under terrorism powers, because they believed he was taking documents from the archive and taking them, I think, from Berlin. Laura Poitras to Rio to Glen Greenwald, but via London. And they'd stopped him under the Terrorism act, which was very controversial because it was basically someone couriering. Yeah, but for journalism. And they're using terrorism powers against him. And so there Was quite a lot of worry. Hang on a sec. If the authorities know I'm coming back, might they think I've got something?

[Alan Rusbridger]

You're muling papers.

[Gordon Carrera]

If I'm muling papers, am I going to get arrested? So I thought, got to destroy this stuff. How do you destroy papers, David? I'm in a hotel room and you gauss them.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Yeah, physical papers.

[Gordon Carrera]

But I was sat there with like. And I remember thinking to myself, I don't know how to do this. I've not had spy training. Because in the old Cold War spy movies, you put it in an ashtray, don't you, and burn it. But you haven't got an ashtray. No one has an ashtray. Now, you tell me what I should have done. Well, I'll tell you what I did.

[Alan Rusbridger]

You tell me what you did.

[Gordon Carrera]

First, I tore it up into tiny bits, and then I went round various cafes in Manhattan and then flushed it down toilets.

[Alan Rusbridger]

I think that's the right answer.

[David McCloskey]

Oh, good.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Yeah. No, I do. I think that's the right answer. I think critical to hit multiple.

[Gordon Carrera]

Multiple, yeah. That's better.

[Alan Rusbridger]

If you had a map of the sewage network to make sure it didn't end up in the same place. And someone's gonna reconstruct, I think, multiple toilets. Small pieces.

[Gordon Carrera]

And I'll give you my last weird.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Did you shred it or did you rip it yourself?

[Gordon Carrera]

I ripped it. I ripped it.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Okay. You should have bought a shredder.

[Gordon Carrera]

Okay, last bit of this story, which is also bizarre. So I don't want to make this all about me, but. So, phone and laptop locked into a safe in the hotel room all the time. Never took them out. So then I go back to the airport to fly home. And this I remember vividly. I'm on the plane at JFK in my seat, economy, before you ask, and switch on my phone. And in front of me, I look at my email inbox. All my emails start deleting one by one, as if someone is pressing the delete key. And by the end of about a couple of minutes, my inbox is empty of emails. Now, that was deeply suspicious.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Sure.

[Gordon Carrera]

And I asked people afterwards, I said, from, you know, GCHQ and from America, I said, come on, what was that? And they said, no, we'd never do something like that. But I at the time, interpreted it as someone saying, we know what you've been doing, and we're gonna send a little signal to you to say, we know what you've been doing. You know, we're gonna let you know that you thought you were doing a kind of very clever secret mission, but actually we know exactly what you've been doing. But they. People I've spoken to are adamant. They wouldn't do that. But then it's a little bit of a weird coincidence.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Did you get the emails back? Did you?

[Gordon Carrera]

Had to reconstruct my inbox and kind of rebuild it when I went back. Because it's not clandestine surveillance, is it? If you're deleting someone's inbox.

[Alan Rusbridger]

I guess it could have been a mistake by the clandestine surveillance who got in there and started monkeying around. I mean, maybe. Maybe it was our Phoebe friend. Score. Having a little fun with you in New York.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

You're not an American citizen and don't.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Have the same, you know, I should.

[Gordon Carrera]

Be under five eyes protections, though. Well, you think that has its limits?

[Alan Rusbridger]

Winking a nod.

[Gordon Carrera]

But anyway, I remember thinking myself, someone's got an eye on me, on what I'm doing on my not very clandestine mission.

[Alan Rusbridger]

And you never got any closure on this, though?

[Gordon Carrera]

I never got an answer to it. If anyone knows the answer. If any members of the intelligence community are listening who were involved in deleting my inbox and would like to get.

[Alan Rusbridger]

In touch, would like to be whistleblowers.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, the email. You know where to reach us.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Scroll down past the Degosser link.

[Gordon Carrera]

But that was my very brief introduction into seeing the raw documents and the archive and to understand what it really looked like. And it was eye opening.

[David McCloskey]

So you have brought back firsthand evidence.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Of Snowden's fourth deadly sin.

[Gordon Carrera]

Which one was that?

[David McCloskey]

Which is the indiscriminate nature of what he provided.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Because you're attesting to documents that really any responsible British or American journalist should.

[Gordon Carrera]

Never have printed, but also to say that they have not come to light since then, you know, so. So there are archives which I think are in the us I think with the New York Times, for instance, maybe bits in other places as well. It's still there and still there and still there. And one of the deals the Guardian made was, we're gonna let you have it, but only for a very narrow type of story about mass events, not for kind of dipping into to look for other stories or what else you can find. And so, yes, the stuff is there, and it's probably also less sensitive now than it used to be. But it has been, you know, limited in how it's been used, I'd say.

[David McCloskey]

And maybe there.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Gordon Carrera has returned from his secret mission, albeit with his inbox.

[David McCloskey]

Completely scrambled. Mysteriously.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Edward Snowden's still in Moscow. When we come back, maybe we'll deal with Snowden. The man, his life in Russia, and the legacy of what he leaked.

[Gordon Carrera]

See you after the break.

[David McCloskey]

This episode is sponsored by Incogni.

[Gordon Carrera]

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[David McCloskey]

And in everyday life, Gordon, well, they usually are. But not spies.

[Alan Rusbridger]

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[David McCloskey]

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[Gordon Carrera]

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[David McCloskey]

And once it's out there, it spreads to scammers, identity thieves, really, anyone with a WI FI signal and bad intentions.

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[Gordon Carrera]

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[G]

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[David McCloskey]

Think of it as your own digital counterintelligence service. So head to incogni.com restisclassified for 60% off an annual plan. That's incogni.com restisified. This episode is sponsored by NordVPN. Which, Gordon, frankly, is essential if you'd rather not have your online life monitored like some Cold War embassy.

[Gordon Carrera]

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[David McCloskey]

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[G]

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[David McCloskey]

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[Alan Rusbridger]

Think cafes, airports, hotels.

[David McCloskey]

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[G]

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[David McCloskey]

Plus there's a 30 day money back guarantee. No risk, no trace, no loose ends. The link is in the episode description.

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[Alan Rusbridger]

Welcome back. We are in the home stretch of our death march through the life and times of Edward Snowden. And I think maybe Gordon, as we sort of bring this all to a head, we start with Snowden himself, because we've been talking a lot about journalists, your undercover secret mission to New York to look at the archives, all of these incredible just bombshell stories that have come out. But Ed Snowden has actually just been in Moscow. He has been there ever since. Most of what we talked about happens in 2013. Yeah, it's now 2025, and he's still there, really, in exile.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, he is. I mean, it is a strange life for him. A very different life. Maybe not the one he expected. And that first, he kind of keeps his head down. You know, he says he fears being snatched. He didn't speak Russian, thinking, you know, maybe it got easier for him as his girlfriend came out. But while I think, you know, maybe the surroundings physically may have got easier for him politically, I think the surroundings have got trickier for him in a way, because, you know, Russia of 2013 is different from the Russia of today of 2025, and particularly in the relations with the West. Being stuck in Moscow looks like a more difficult thing and a more problematic thing now in terms of the way we see Snowden than perhaps it did in 2013, and then perhaps he expected, given the darker turn Russia has taken under Vladimir Putin, and, you know, the idea of Edward Snowden, a kind of champion of Internet freedom, being in this country, which has become increasingly authoritarian and repressive. I mean, that is, I think, you know, even though he can't say, it must be uncomfortable and harder for him as well as for the story about him. It's taken a turn. I think that's the way of putting it.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Well, and this is more, I think, on the deadly Sid number five, which is Ed Snowden as essentially a stooge for the Russians, A mouthpiece.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah.

[Alan Rusbridger]

I don't buy that in many cases, but, I mean, interestingly enough, he speaks pretty frequently virtually from Moscow. And I think between 2015 and 2020.

[David McCloskey]

He actually earned a little over a million dollars in speaking fees.

[Gordon Carrera]

Right.

[Alan Rusbridger]

You know, he's spoken to the EU Parliament. He speaks to, you know, companies, conferences. He actually gave a talk at a big bitcoin conference in 2024, I believe. You know, where sort of Ed Snowden's.

[David McCloskey]

Head pipes in virtually, and he speaks.

[Alan Rusbridger]

To this big, big group convened in Las Vegas or wherever. It's interesting because I think he's unlike a lot of other defectors that we'll probably talk about on this program.

[David McCloskey]

He is very comfortable in the virtual world.

[Alan Rusbridger]

I do wonder if for him, kind of exile in Moscow is a little bit less painful than it might be.

[Gordon Carrera]

For other people, then it might. As long as he's online, you'd get.

[Alan Rusbridger]

As long as he's online, obviously, you know, and he's. He's not talked about this or refuses to talk about it, but clearly the Russians have set some boundaries around what he is able to say. You know, he's. He's very clearly enabled by his Russian handlers or sort of minders to speak publicly, to speak negatively about the United States nsa, the intelligence community.

[Gordon Carrera]

He's also not been afraid at points to be critical of Russia. And I mean, I agree there are going to be boundaries because he is there. But I think the idea he's some kind of Russian stooge. I don't think that's right. I think he's a person who has to live under limits.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Yes. And I guess maybe stooge isn't the most precise word I could use. I think what, what seems to have happened and what I think Putin, because this would have been a Putin level decision to allow him to stay, to.

[David McCloskey]

Kind of create this environment for him.

[Alan Rusbridger]

I think the decision was, let's just let this guy continue his crusade.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah.

[Alan Rusbridger]

And do it from Moscow. And I imagine almost the Russian pitch to some degree, which is not a.

[David McCloskey]

Cold or nasty pitch, but is kind.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Of a subtle one, is you just.

[David McCloskey]

Stay here and we'll kind of help.

[Alan Rusbridger]

You communicate your message. Yeah, right. We'll let you get on these conferences and video conferences and undermine confidence in American society, the Western system, the Intelligence and Security Agency.

[Gordon Carrera]

Although you could argue he continues to be consistent in his views on Internet freedom, you know, and privacy.

[Alan Rusbridger]

He continues to be a privacy jihadist.

[Gordon Carrera]

As I've said, you know, and he's consistent.

[Alan Rusbridger]

He is consistent in that. It's very interesting. He essentially has come out and said that he believes that the provisions of the U.S. constitution around the right to expression and the right to privacy really apply to everybody, not just Americans.

[David McCloskey]

Right.

[Alan Rusbridger]

And so he's kind of continued that. Yeah, really pretty extreme viewpoint. He's taken that to its logical end in what he communicates from Russia.

[Gordon Carrera]

But let's step back at this point. Because I think it is interesting 12 years on to kind of look at the legacy and what all of this led to and what it meant, because at the time it was very intense. But I think now, with a bit of hindsight, you can see a more balanced view, I think, of. Of what Snowden left behind from that, you know, kind of amazing period. He wanted to expose some of these programs. He exposed them. I think the reality is, and I think this is really interesting, is that most of those programs, whether it's the US or the uk, are still going.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Yeah.

[Gordon Carrera]

But they are going under much greater public understanding, oversight and accountability, and under different legal frameworks. That I think is important as a legacy, because I think, you know, there is this comment from David Anderson, who did a big study about the kind of British powers that gchq, for instance, had. And his argument was it's not necessarily that they shouldn't have had the powers, but the lack of accountability and transparency about them made them undemocratic because there wasn't enough power, control or understanding of how those powers were being exercised. And I think that is an important legacy of Snowden is to create a public debate and to improve the oversight of these powers that the state had rather than stop them having the powers, though, which is a different point.

[Alan Rusbridger]

It probably is worth just a little bit of a reminder on precisely what he exposed, because I think it is basically three buckets of capabilities. Right. And I'll just speak to the American context here. The first one is that the National Security Agency was collecting information from US Tech companies to be able to target.

[David McCloskey]

Foreign citizens of the United States and.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Their communications outside of the United States. But that would pass through those US Tech companies. Right. So that's kind of like one Prism. Yeah, Bucket Prism. The second one is that the nsa, the National Security Agency, was collecting telephone metadata on, in bulk on American citizens from, you know, Verizon, AT&T, to enable, not searches on directed on US persons, but to enable connections to be made. For example, if a safe house in Karachi gets taken down by CIA, phones are collected. They want to see who in the United States those phones might be in contact with. It allows for that kind of searching and connection. Right. And then there's another, I think, bucket around the NSA collecting information from US Tech companies abroad.

[Gordon Carrera]

Right? Yeah.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Right. That's more kind of traditional sort of foreign hacking, Right?

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah.

[Alan Rusbridger]

So in those cases, and actually, Bart Gelman, who is the Washington Post reporter who wrote this book Dark Mirror, on these collection programs, basically says that, that the NSA behaved responsibly in its searches through those databases.

[David McCloskey]

And there wasn't anything he could dig.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Up to really show that they were misused.

[Gordon Carrera]

But let me give you.

[Alan Rusbridger]

I just think it's an important.

[Gordon Carrera]

It's a good bit of context. But for instance, the database of U.S. phone numbers, they searched it 288 times in 2012 for times when a foreign terrorist dials a U.S. number. Thirteen leads are past the FBI. One person, you know, this is, according to official statistics, gets caught planning an attack in Times Square and arrested, but the FBI actually knew about him anyway. So you have a kind of mass collection of data on Americans, but actually, is it proportional? Is it worth it? You know, it's part of that post 911 era of kind of collect everything. Who knows how it'll be useful. And that metadata program has kind of died, you know, effectively, and it's gone.

[Alan Rusbridger]

It was. I think it was sunsetted, those Patriot.

[Gordon Carrera]

Act stipulations, which suggests it has some utility, but not enough to keep it going. PRISM is still there, effectively 702, but debated, you know, and it's quite political about how very political in the US Some of those capabilities are there and clearly had some use. But I think it's quite hard to judge from the outside how vital it was they had these capabilities. As I said, to my mind, the mistake was not necessarily building the capabilities, but thinking that you could do some of this without greater public understanding or transparency or accountability.

[Alan Rusbridger]

I'd put it down to just read that quote from Bart Gilman where he said, quote, nothing in the Snowden archive and nothing I learned independently offered reason to doubt that the NSA workforce did its best to follow the rules in good faith. And so I just. There's a lot of different kind of core debates we could kind of bring this down to. I don't think this is a debate so much about whether the NSA or the FBI was really spying on Americans. I think this is a debate about whether we as a society want our.

[David McCloskey]

Government to possess this information in the first place.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Right. It's about whether the government has the right or whether it's good that the government possesses this.

[David McCloskey]

A lot of the real scary scenarios here are not what's happened with this.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Already as it relates to Americans. It's about what could happen in a future where this information is potentially used by a more authoritarian.

[Gordon Carrera]

Without wishing to get into US Politics, I mean, you could argue we are in a more authoritarian world, you know, in which states and how they use intelligence agencies change over time. And therefore you can have these capabilities in secret and go, well, it's fine because it's all under strict controls and the people are good people, but all it takes is a more authoritarian government to go, I want to use that capability in a slightly different way and tweak the secret way in which it's used. And suddenly you're on the road to something else. So that's why I think how much you want those controls over the state. I think it's a really interesting question. Another area I think is how much damage did Snowden do to this spying game? I mean, you know, at the time, again, I think you can see this in a different way now that we look back, because there was a lot of like, he's done huge damage to capabilities. Stuff has been switched off. We're going dark, which is the kind of intelligence phrase for when you could watch something, a target, you know, on the Internet or their communications, and then you lose that ability. I spoke to someone recently. They said, you know, it wasn't so much we went dark, it went spotty. You know, it lost a bit of insight. And it did have, I think, some. Some damage to some of those capabilities because it revealed to, you know, terrorists and others how much the US could observe them, that they could get their G mail through PRISM and things like that, and therefore they changed their behavior. But, you know, I think the intelligence agencies are pretty good at adapting. It was interesting, one person said to me that if there was a. A mistake or a loss to it, it was that they spent so long really focused on regaining their access and their capability to watch terrorists and insurgents at that point. And that if anything, that meant they took their eye off the ball of what other states were doing, you know, your kind of Russians and China, because they were so focused on rebuilding the capability over Snowden. And that might be one of the kind of consequences of it, is that, you know, Russia and China got a bit more of a passion. You can see China since then thinking, how can we build an equivalent capability? How, for instance, potentially could they use some of their tech companies? We've talked about TikTok in the past, you know, to collect data or to do things like that. TikTok obviously say they wouldn't do it. But you could imagine if you're in China, you're thinking, hey, America is using its tech companies. It's using all this access, it's got all these databases. We want to be able to do something similar. And I think you start to see changes in Chinese behavior after Snowden as it tries to almost replicate the kind of capability it now understands the US has. So that is irrespective of the kind of specific intelligence you do see. I think those quite significant changes.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Well, and I think in addition to the just the very clear hard costs of, okay, there's a lost platform that enabled us to collect on a foreign adversary, terrorist group, criminal network, whatever it might be, that could potentially go away. Right. I mean, that. Obviously that happened. I would imagine a lot of that over time was regained.

[David McCloskey]

Right.

[Alan Rusbridger]

But there was a massive effort inside the intelligence community.

[David McCloskey]

I mean, this was when I was still inside.

[Alan Rusbridger]

I mean, and I was not directly related to this at all, but a massive effort to try to understand who had what information and really conduct a kind of damage assessment. So there's a.

[David McCloskey]

There's a massive number of man hours.

[Alan Rusbridger]

It's probably just not even possible dealing with the Snowden fallout internally. There's also the fallout. You know, we talked a couple episodes ago about those tech companies on that slide. They had been sort of some mixture of kind of coercion and payouts had sort of compelled them to cooperate. And now you look at the latest. I mean, it was early. It was mid. Early mid-2024, when Section 702 of the.

[David McCloskey]

FIS act came back for reauthorization.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Nasty political fight around it.

[David McCloskey]

And you can see that the tech.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Companies now have basically said, look, unless you actually compel us to do this, we're not cooperating. So there's a massive chilling, I think, that has happened between Washington and Silicon.

[David McCloskey]

Valley in the years since.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Much more adversarial.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, there was. I mean, there was in the immediate aftermath of Snowden because the tech companies were furious. I think Mark Zuckerberg went to see Obama in the White House and said, you blew it by saying that Prism is only used to spy on foreigners, not Americans, because, of course, most of the customers. Customers of Facebook are foreigners, not Americans. And so they were kind of angry for Zuckerberg's business, bad for Zuckerberg's business to know.

[David McCloskey]

Poor Zuck.

[Gordon Carrera]

Poor Zuck. That actually, at the time, Facebook and the NSA were working together to collect intelligence on or, you know, to get details of basically their customers.

[Alan Rusbridger]

And of course, foreigners knew this was happening at some level. He was just frustrated that it came to life.

[Gordon Carrera]

And so I think it definitely had a kind of chilling effect with the tech companies. Although I think now the tech bros are perhaps a bit closer to the White House, you know, again, and they're a bit more aligned, I think, tech companies to nations Whereas in that period in 2013, 2015, they kind of saw themselves as kind of above nations and above politics. And I think we have a different view of tech companies now than then.

[Alan Rusbridger]

You know, many ordinary citizens just sort of assume that, well, look, tech companies are selling all of our data anyway, so there's maybe less of a assumption of privacy now, although the, the focus of that kind of ire or concern.

[David McCloskey]

Is now much more focused on the.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Tech companies themselves, maybe as opposed to the NSA or gchq.

[Gordon Carrera]

Because I always think this is one of the interesting aspects of it, is the reason the state could get this data was because the tech companies were collecting it and the state's getting it off the tech companies. And Snowden made everyone go look at the state. But actually the tech companies were hoovering up people's data in a massive way and continue to do it, and continue basically to mine it's, and do the kind of data analysis about it, but for the purposes of selling advertising and for understanding them. And you're right, I think at the time Snowden came out, we became very attuned to the state doing it. And it was only maybe Cambridge Analytica 2016, 2017, that we started to think about what the tech companies could do and were doing. We came to think much more about this kind of, you know, surveillance capitalism model and, you know, what constitutes surveillance. Collecting large amounts of data about us keeping on a computer and having it automatically processed, Is that surveillance? I mean, in the Snowden world, that is surveillance, because it's what the NSA were doing. If it's surveillance, then we're certainly living in a surveillance society now. But it is as much driven by companies as it is by governments, I think. And it goes to big issues about consent. How do we consent to our data being collected and used and analyzed, whether it's by companies in the state, especially when the systems are so complex. But I think those big questions which I think Snowden raised, which are really interesting, which is if you are living in a world in which all your data is collected and analysed, whether it's by companies or the state, does that take away your privacy or privacy, you know, does it remove your ability for free expression? Does it kind of reduce the ability to have dissent? I think those questions that he raised are still valid, but as I said, I think they're as valid about corporate data collection as they are about, if you like, the NSA or GCHQ's data collection.

[Alan Rusbridger]

The flip side of that privacy or privacy argument is, and this is the case that continues to be made when that Section 702 authorization comes up, as.

[David McCloskey]

It now will again two years from now.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Right. Lawmakers really on both sides of the aisle continue to make the case that these capabilities for the nsa, GCHQ in particular to be able to, to intercept or collect data from US Tech companies abroad are absolutely critical to national security. Right.

[David McCloskey]

And that there is a pile of.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Evidence to show that they are critical to disrupting terrorist plots, to gaining an.

[David McCloskey]

Information advantage over adversaries.

[Alan Rusbridger]

I believe they've even been linked to the takedown, really the targeted killing of Ayman al Zawahi, the head of Al Qaeda, a few years ago. So, you know, there is a national security argument to be made that these capabilities are critical. And I would argue that at least in the U.S. policymakers, again on both sides of the aisle, I think they feel a tremendous responsibility to their constituents and American citizens to continue to provide.

[David McCloskey]

These capabilities to NSA to protect people.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah. And it's to some extent it's about. Do you worry more about your government spying on you or do you worry about your government protecting you from other threats? Yeah, and to some extent that's a very personal, individual thing. It depends a little bit on your own. Yeah, very mindset, your own personal politics about where you're coming from, about what kind of person you are, whether you fear being persecuted by your own government, what kind of state you live in, how you view your state. If you're in Germany and you have a history of the kind of, you know, Gestapo and the Stasi, you have a different attitude towards government surveillance and monitoring from other countries. And America has a more libertarian tradition in some extent than the uk. I think it is quite a personal thing, you know, about where you sit as to how you balance those different risks and threats and therefore how much power the state should have.

[Alan Rusbridger]

I think it's critical to frame it as a trade off because if these authorizations were taken away and if Ed.

[David McCloskey]

Snowden had been able to wave his.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Magic wand, he has really worked hard, again, because I think he's being dishonest about this. Intellectually, he's worked hard to say, oh, look, there's sort of no actual cost. Right. To me revealing these programs and there's no real national security argument to be made to justify that. And I would say they're trade offs, they're trade offs. There's an absolute trade off here. If you decided to wave your wand and end that bulk metadata collection, which eventually did end the Section 702 authorization, those come with Real costs. Yeah.

[Gordon Carrera]

But I think the public should have the ability or its proxy in the form of parliamentarians and congresspeople to have an informed debate about those trade offs. I think the problem was before that there wasn't an informed enough debate and consent to work out what those trade offs to even decide, determine what they were, to determine what they were. So I mean, as we come to the end, I guess it's interesting, isn't it? Because it's important not to make this all about Snowden the man. But I think it is interesting to go back to him. And I think one of the questions I have which has gone through this series is what was he trying to do? To ask the question, did he succeed and what was his legacy? If he was trying to stop surveillance, if that was his aim, to kind of destroy the NSA and its powers, he's failed because the institutions have continued and a lot of the powers, maybe not all, are still there. If his aim was to expose them in order to put them under better democratic control, then he's arguably succeeded in that aim. But I actually, I'm not quite sure which of those two, you know, is he an ideologue or is he a vandal? Ed, if you're out there, kind of get in touch and tell us what, whether you feel you've succeeded or not. But that to me is kind of one of the big questions.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Well, he also has, I believe he's got over 5 million followers on X Twitter. So he's definitely succeeded from the standpoint of his egomania. And maybe it is worth just sort of bluntly returning to one of the kind of questions that we started this whole series with, which is he a hero or is he a villain? Right. And I'm gonna re litigate. I know you love this, Gordon. I'm gonna re litigate my deadly sins against Ed Snowden.

[David McCloskey]

Right.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Cause I do have a final gun. Gordon is leaving to go to the bathroom. I'm gonna communicate that this to the audience.

[Gordon Carrera]

Okay? Okay.

[Alan Rusbridger]

In between pitches for my personally branded degausser that we're selling. Okay. So number one, he has a demonstrated track record throughout this whole episode of fabricating stories and exaggerating his access and telling outright falsehoods about the chronology. Second one, very impure motives, I would argue. I think there's a little top hat.

[David McCloskey]

Of ideology on this one.

[Alan Rusbridger]

I think that, that the core of.

[David McCloskey]

This is a bit of a revengers.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Tale against the NSA and against really.

[David McCloskey]

His superiors for not seeing his genius. Right.

[Alan Rusbridger]

The Downloads start in 2012. After a big fight at NSA with his superiors about a software patch in which he gets reamed for having raised the issue to Fort Meade.

[David McCloskey]

Right.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Sin number three, he does not avail.

[David McCloskey]

Himself of any of the whistleblowing routes.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Now, having worked in a monstrous government bureaucracy, I completely sympathize with the fact that these routes are clunky, uncertain. He had other whistleblowers before him who were sort of told to pound sand.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yep.

[David McCloskey]

The roots were available to him.

[Alan Rusbridger]

He decided to not take them.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Okay, the fourth one. The completely disproportionate nature of what he.

[David McCloskey]

Leaked relative to his stated goals.

[Alan Rusbridger]

If he wanted to focus entirely on the NSA's surveillance on Americans, there's a very small portion of the documentation of the 1.5 million documents, pages of documents that he took, that he could have taken to make that case, and I think he would have been treated a lot differently. The last one, you know, you've disputed sin 5. You disputed my word that he's a Russian stooge. But he has become, I think, a mouthpiece in a Russian active measures campaign against the West.

[David McCloskey]

Passively, they let him talk.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Right.

[David McCloskey]

They let him spread this message.

[Alan Rusbridger]

I think all of this, to my mind, is absolutely no way. No way he's hero. I see him as an arsonist. Right. And. And here's why. I think that there have been. And out of this debate over privacy versus national security, more transparency, more openness with the public about what's actually going on. I think that is good.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah.

[Alan Rusbridger]

I think it's probably good not to get too technical. I think it's probably good that that bulk metadata collection was sunsetted and taken, because I actually think that is the most egregious example of really unlawful search and seizure on the part of the U.S. government. Right. I'm glad that's gone. But to my mind, the system that we have today, which I think is better than the system that he, you know, was fighting against, is kind of like, if I had a house, you burned my house down, and then I build a better house 10 years later, I'm not really thanking the arsonist for burning my old house down. And I think that's the role he played. And I think, you know, he could have done things a lot differently.

[David McCloskey]

I think that if he had been.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Proportional, I think that if he had stayed in the United States, he would be a free man in the US Today, and he'd be more or less a hero right now, Obviously, there'd be people inside the national security establishment who would disagree. With that.

[David McCloskey]

But he made these decisions along the.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Way that I've just outlined that I think firmly cast him in that role as arsonist. And to my mind, absolutely not a hero.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, I mean, thank you for that very, very long indictment of Edward Snow.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Gordon has just returned from the bathroom.

[Gordon Carrera]

I mean, look, I actually think not just on Edward Snow, but generally. I think trying to separate the world into heroes and villains is a mistake, generally. And I think it's too simplistic. And I think it's always a mistake. People are more complicated than that. People's motives that I think we can see with Edward Snowden may have been complicated and confused between the ideological and the grievance. And I think that is true. And I think the legacy and the effects of him are complicated and not, you know, binary. I think more democratic accountability over the surveillance systems and the intelligence collection systems are a plus. But I think there is a legacy of damage in certain ways, in certain places. But maybe not as much as people say. Just as a kind of final thought, I do think he's an interesting figure because going back to the man slightly, he is a figure who comes from a kind of different age of the Internet to go back to that kid who grew up with computers and this idea that the Internet could be free. And today that seems like a very romantic, idealistic notion, but also utterly bewildering, I think, to people the idea that the Internet could be a place of kind of free expression and anonymity and privacy, when the reality is actually, it does look like a darker place. It looks like a darker place where darker things happen online, where the state feels it needs to be online to find the darker things that are happening and what people are doing online and including bad people online, and in which kind of cyber warfare, cyber attacks are happening and in which states and companies are acquiring data and eroding that privacy online. So I think fundamentally, I come away thinking Edward Snowden might have been a man driven by both ideology and grievance, but he also a kind of figure trapped almost in a time of the past. And whether you view that as a kind of happier time or not, it's not today anymore.

[David McCloskey]

No.

[Gordon Carrera]

And we're in a kind of a different, darker world of the Internet than that idea that we had in the past.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Well, and I guess it also. I appreciate Gordon that you're justifying my.

[David McCloskey]

Description of him as a privacy jihadist.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Because he is sort of like a.

[David McCloskey]

Jihadist trying to go back to this golden.

[Gordon Carrera]

But isn't there something quite attractive about that, about, about elements of that when it, when it was a freer place. I don't know, maybe it's unrealistic to think it could be that, though.

[Alan Rusbridger]

Well, it certainly doesn't seem like a past that we can ever really return to given all that's happened. And I think it just as we, you know, close out this series on Snowden, I think it leaves us with this question, this tension over privacy and national security that is really kind of.

[David McCloskey]

Unresolved or unresolvable now in this new.

[Alan Rusbridger]

World of the Internet.

[Gordon Carrera]

So with that, we come to the end of this long and I think, fascinating story of Edward Snowden. We really hope you've enjoyed it. And before we go, we'd like to say a massive thank you, especially to everyone who signed up to be a member of the Declassified Club. We're thrilled to have you on board. And for those who want one more Snowdon High, the bonus content this week will be an interview with Chris Ingrid. And he was deputy director of the NSA at the time of the whole Snowden affair. So if you want to hear that, you can [e-mail] and remember to take advantage of our launch discount.

[Alan Rusbridger]

That's right. One last Snowden High. One punch into your veins.

[David McCloskey]

Join us for that one.

[Alan Rusbridger]

We will. See you next time.

[Gordon Carrera]

See you next time.