HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019558.jpg

70 | HOW AMERICA LOST ITS SECRETS

down the opportunity for a whistle-blowing scoop for The Guardian. After all, the classified documents Snowden would provide him would also give credence to both Greenwald’s book and his many blogs denouncing U.S. government surveillance.

Aside from Greenwald and Poitras, Snowden sought an outlet inside the American establishment. So he had Poitras write to Barton Gellman, the Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter for The Washington Post. Poitras had met Gellman in 2010, when they were both fellows at NYU’s Center on Law and Security. Poitras had requested help in encrypting her computer from Karen Greenberg, the executive director of the center, who took her “by the hand” to meet Gellman, Greenberg’s resident expert on encryption software. Born in 1960, Gellman graduated from Princeton in 1981 and became an award-winning investigative reporter for the Miami Herald, the Post, and Time magazine. He was also the author of Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency. If Gellman could be drawn into the enterprise, he could provide Snowden with a gateway to the prestigious American paper credited with bringing down President Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal.

Poitras, as the go-between for Snowden, immediately contacted Gellman. After telling him she was involved in a story about NSA surveillance, she suggested that they meet in New York City.

For their rendezvous, Poitras took a number of precautions to evade anyone attempting to follow her. She had Gellman first meet her in one coffee shop in lower Manhattan. When he arrived, she had him follow her on foot to another coffee shop, following her anti-surveillance tradecraft. Once assured no one was watching them, she ordered coffee for herself and Gellman. Over coffee, she told Gellman about Snowden, whom she described as her anonymous source. She said that he was willing to supply Gellman with documents that would expose domestic surveillance, if Gellman agreed to write a story on it for the Post. Even though Gellman had left the staff of the Post in 2010, he had previously written several stories on that subject for the newspaper, and he was also highly regarded by the editors there. Gellman was interested in Poitras’s offer (although he would consult a friend at the Justice Department about the legality of publishing NSA documents).

Epst_9780451494566_2p_all_r1.z.indd 70 9/29/16 5:51 PM
HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019558