Glenn Greenwald, the former Guardian newspaper journalist who helped reveal the National Security Agency's secret phone and Internet surveillance program and the identity of leaker Edward Snowden, says he plans to publish a list of names of U.S. citizens who were targeted by their own government.
Greenwald,
who is promoting his new book, "No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State," said the list will be the biggest revelation of the 2 million classified files Snowden obtained, The Sunday Times of London reported in a story
reprinted at Real Clear Politics.
"As with a fireworks show, you want to save your best for last," Greenwald told GQ Magazine of the "finishing piece" still to come. "The last one is the one where the sky is all covered in spectacular multicolored hues."
Greenwald said he wants to lift the lid on the NSA's specific domestic targets to reveal the fundamentals of how the surveillance program was operating.
"One of the big questions when it comes to domestic spying is, 'Who have been the NSA's specific targets?'" he said, according to The Sunday Times.
"Are they political critics and dissidents and activists? Are they genuinely people we'd regard as terrorists? What are the metrics and calculations that go into choosing those targets and what is done with the surveillance that is conducted? Those are the kinds of questions that I want to still answer."
Greenwald added that the NSA's failure to catch Snowden is ironic.
"There is this genuinely menacing system and at the same time are really inept about how they operate it," he said.
"Not only was he out there under their noses downloading huge amounts of documents without being detected but to this day they're incapable of finding out what he took."
Greenwald said he talks to Snowden daily and described him as "by far the person most at peace and fulfilled as a human being" of anyone he's ever met.
The names will be published on The Intercept, the website Greenwald set up on leaving the Guardian. Greenwald said he would also publish further revelations about GCHQ, the British equivalent of the NSA.
"The British are more unrestrained and vicious in their surveillance mindset than even the U.S.," he said.
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