"Because of that secrecy, even the best-informed journalists and policy analysts had no information on the way PRISM worked," Gellman writes. The fundamental problem, Gellman says, is that after the 2001 al-Qaida attacks, the national security community assumed hugely expanded powers under surveillance programs established without public knowledge, let alone debate. "The public had no need to know or contribute outside views on policy or law. "McRaven believed in transparency inside the walled precincts of the FISA Court and the House and Senate intelligence committee," Gelllman writes. One of those making the case was William McRaven, the now retired Navy admiral who oversaw the raid that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in 2011. Many in the national security establishment argued that the checks and balances within national security agencies, as well as congressional oversight, should give the public confidence. intelligence community presented Gellman with a slide show revealing information gleaned about planned attacks against Americans. Yet all this back-and-forth, between Gellman and Snowden, and Gellman and national security officials, is the best part of a compelling book.Īs the Post prepared to publish, the U.S. Gellman, meanwhile, heard an earful from the national security establishment, where many did - and still do - see him as Snowden's accomplice. In contrast to Gellman's portrait, Snowden was cast in a far more heroic light by the others he collaborated with, author Glenn Greenwald and filmmaker Laura Poitras. "I hate to disappoint you on that because I know it was a major claim," Snowden replied. But when Gellman pressed him, it turned out Snowden had merely tapped into a public email belonging to Nancy Pelosi, then the House minority leader. One of Snowden's most tantalizing claims is that he hacked into accounts of Supreme Court justices and senior leaders of Congress. He also describes Snowden as precise and accurate most of the time, though sometimes prone to self-aggrandizement and exaggeration. Gellman offers a very human portrayal of Snowden: a loner, filled with zeal and a black-and-white worldview. They don't denounce people for doing things that are clearly wrong." "You're not willing to indict, because mainstream American media, they don't do that. "I don't think you go far enough ideologically," Snowden told Gellman at one point. Over the years, Gellman and Snowden have often debated and disagreed, in person and online. Snowden insists he was just transiting through Russia, but has been stuck there to this day because the Obama administration revoked his passport. Gellman first visited Snowden in Moscow several months after the latter fled his position as an NSA contractor in Hawaii. intelligence officials, past and present. And as a reporter who spent most of his career covering national security, Gellman was also in contact with the top U.S. He had direct access to Snowden and the secret documents. Gellman, 59, tells Snowden's story from a unique vantage point. There was more, lots more, along the way, though it ultimately included a Pulitzer Prize for Gellman and the Post. "No one but me would have all of them," Gellman writes. But he would need the paper to provide him with "a windowless room with a high-security lock, reinforced door and heavy safe bolted to the floor."Įlectronic credentials to enter the room would be limited to a precious few. Gellman said he couldn't reveal his source or the full scope of the story. government - in a meeting with Executive Editor Marty Baron, whom he had never met. Gellman had to explain the story - and the likely fight it would provoke with the U.S. When Snowden reached out, Gellman turned to the Washington Post, the newspaper where he had worked for two decades but had left three years earlier. "I think Snowden did substantially more good than harm, even though I am prepared to accept (as he does not) that his disclosures must have exacted a price in lost intelligence," Gellman writes. But throughout, Gellman offers a much broader perspective, rather than just one-sided advocacy. Seven years after they first made contact, Gellman remains sympathetic to Snowden's crusade to expose surveillance programs previously unknown to the American public. Snowden handpicked Gellman as one of three journalists to tell his story originally. Gellman offers the most detailed, comprehensive and balanced take on the impact of Snowden's 2013 revelations and what they mean today, as the debate on national security versus individual privacy keeps evolving. Yet Barton Gellman's new book, Dark Mirror: Edward Snowden And The American Surveillance State, makes a major contribution largely absent in the earlier efforts. Edward Snowden's story on disclosing some of the National Security Agency's most sensitive surveillance programs has by now been oft told, by Snowden himself, among others.
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