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The third choice Snowden made, and the choice that most effectively defined him to the public, was to reveal himself as the man behind the leak in a video in Hong Kong. He not only identified himself as the person who stole the government documents published by the Guardian and Washington Post, but he incriminated himself further on camera by allowing Poitras to film him actually disclosing NSA’s secret operations to Greenwald. By disclosing classified data to Greenwald, an unauthorized person, he intentionally burned his bridges.

What makes this choice intriguing is that there was no evident need for him to expose himself in this way. If he merely wanted to be a whistle-blower, he could have, as Bradley Manning did, anonymously sent the documents to journalists as “Citizen 4.” In fact, in late May 2013, that was exactly what he did. He sent Barton Gellman the PRISM scoop anonymously which the Washington Post published on June 6th, 2013. In that scoop, Snowden’s name was not revealed. He also sent Greenwald and Poitras documents while he was still the anonymous source “Citizen 4.” Neither Gellman nor Greenwald had suggested the need for a face-to-face meeting with Snowden. Even after he had revealed his true identity to Poitras and Greenwald on June 2nd 2013, Guardian editor Ewen MacAskill offered him the option of remaining an unnamed source for the stories. He said, as he later told Vanity Fair. “You should remain anonymous; the stories are just as good without you.” However, anonymity was not part of Snowden’s long game.

The reason he gave Greenwald in Hong Kong for going public in this way was to avoid any suspicion falling on his co-workers at the NSA. Yet, if merely wanted to take sole responsibility for stealing state secrets, he did not need to be the subject of a documentary. He could have simply allowed Greenwald to identify him by name as the source in the stories. That would not present an issue since he had not been identified by either name or position in the initial stories published on June 5th and 6th by Greenwald, Poitras and Gellman. In short, he did not act to defect suspicion from his co-workers for the initial investigation. Why now?

The one thing that Snowden could not accomplish by anonymously transferring the documents to journalists was a starring role in the drama. If he had appeared digitally-masked in Poitras’ video with an altered voice, he would not achieve fame in the media. For that, he needed to allow Poitras to film him committing the crime of turning over NSA documents to Greenwald. This video was also the result of his advanced planning. Indeed, one reason he chose Poitras was that she was a prize-winning/ documentary film-maker who had already made a documentary about NSA whistle-blower William Binney. Snowden, while he was still working at the NSA in March 2013, made it clear how he intended to use Poitras' film-making skills. He told her: “My personal desire is that you paint the target directly on my back.”

He chose to make himself the on-camera star of a 20-hour long reality show. This sensational footage would transform him in the public’s mind into a selfless hero. It would be a mistake to assume that the central role he gave himself was an exercise in narcissism. It was an integral part of his personal transformation. After this globally-watched video, he was no longer a near non-entity servicing a computer system at a back-water NSA base in Hawaii. In the space of 12 minutes on television, he had emerged from the shadowy world of electronic intelligence and became one of the most famous whistle-blowers in modern history. It was a mantle that would allow him to also become a leading advocate of privacy and encryption rights as well the leading opponent of NSA spying. While this remarkable transformation may not have been his entire motive, it certainly was the result of the choice he made to go public.

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