Q & A: Edward Snowden speaks to Peter Maass

For those not familiar with him, Maass is an interesting journalist mainly focusing on international affairs. He&#x27;s been following the surveillance story for a bit, and has an archive of some of his articles from the past ~10 years or so here: <a href="http://www.petermaass.com/articles/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.petermaass.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;</a><p>He wrote a bunch of articles in the &#x27;90s as well, but doesn&#x27;t seem to have them on his site. However his reporting on the Bosnian War was collected into a book: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0679763899/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0679763899&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=kmjn-20" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;gp&#x2F;product&#x2F;0679763899&#x2F;ref=as_li_ss_tl?...</a><p>Most relevant here, he wrote an article in mid-June criticizing the focus on Snowden and Assange as personalities: <a href="http://www.petermaass.com/articles/we_steal_secrets_misses_the_leak_for_the_leakers/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.petermaass.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;we_steal_secrets_misses_t...</a>

&quot;I was surprised to realize that there were people in news organizations who didn’t recognize any unencrypted message sent over the Internet is being delivered to every intelligence service in the world. In the wake of this year’s disclosures, it should be clear that unencrypted journalist-source communication is unforgivably reckless. &quot;<p>Not only the news people. My country&#x27;s politicians as well. They didin&#x27;t even change the standard code for voicemail, exposing all their messages to anyone with their number. For any whistleblower trust is the key. Even if you can trust the journalist&#x2F;politician, you need to know if they know how to guard their communication. (Edit: typo&#x27;s)

Through all of this, one of the things that impresses me about him is how well-spoken he is.<p>Obviously, the interview was done over encrypted email, so he had the opportunity to choose his words carefully, but even so.<p>During the interview his father did with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News, he also impressed me with his speaking ability, even under a high-pressure situation like that.

This is an interesting article, too, about Laura and how she helped Snowden:<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/magazine/laura-poitras-snowden.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2013&#x2F;08&#x2F;18&#x2F;magazine&#x2F;laura-poitras-sno...</a>

I&#x27;m prepared to stand up (coward level: coward) and point out Obama&#x27;s address is titled <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/08/09/protecting-our-security-and-preserving-our-freedoms" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.whitehouse.gov&#x2F;blog&#x2F;2013&#x2F;08&#x2F;09&#x2F;protecting-our-sec...</a> &quot;protecting our security and preserving our freedoms&quot; which is &quot;...&quot;<p>A King-Kong level MEH.

I hope that the media keeps focusing on the issues detailed by the whistleblowing, rather than the story of said whistleblowing.<p>We shouldn&#x27;t be distracted by a human interest story.

&quot;Definitely surprised. As one might imagine, normally spies allergically avoid contact with reporters or media, so I was a virgin source — everything was a surprise.&quot;<p>Ouch — poor choice of words. He indirectly classified himself as a spy. The media will be all over this. He needs to be more careful with his language.

Like his comment about the presses job to check the government. I don&#x27;t know if the press still values or even consider this their job. Do we need to have a charity news organization that focused on checking the government.

What a short article. It ended just as it was getting going.<p>Weird.

There really isn&#x27;t much to see here. After reading I thought I had missed something, perhaps one of those &quot;page 1 of 30&quot; things at the bottom. But to get the &quot;full story&quot; I&#x27;m told to buy some magazine or whatever. So much for releasing information in the public&#x27;s interest. It&#x27;s time to Jason Bourne this thing and make some MONEY off of it!

&quot;P.M.: Laura started filming you from nearly the start. Were you surprised by that? Why or why not?<p>E.S.: Definitely surprised. As one might imagine, normally spies allergically avoid contact with reporters or media, so I was a virgin source — everything was a surprise. Had I intended to skulk away anonymously, I think it would have been far harder to work with Laura, but we all knew what was at stake. The weight of the situation actually made it easier to focus on what was in the public interest rather than our own. I think we all knew there was no going back once she turned that camera on, and the ultimate outcome would be decided by the world.&quot;<p>He intended to &quot;skulk away anonymously&quot;. Then the journalists get involved, and it seems that it was too late for that. This seems to imply the journalists had something to do with that.<p>I don&#x27;t know how to stop this sound like and accusation or judgement, which its not supposed to be, and generally speaking Im a Guardian supporter, but I get the feeling that he was led in much deeper than he wanted by these journalists. May be he was pushed? Maybe he decided? I don&#x27;t know.<p>Yes, it hard to get off a moving train, as it were. But I wonder if there was as much coercion as there was motivation on his part. I wonder how much control he had once the journalists got involved. Or maybe that is normal for things like this.<p>I&#x27;d love to know a lot more about how this worked in general.