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Whistle-blower | 91

"The initial impression was one of extreme confusion," Greenwald wrote in his book. "I was expecting to meet somebody in his sixties or seventies, someone very senior in the agency, because I knew almost nothing about him prior to our arrival in Hong Kong." His initial confusion was understandable. Snowden, it will be recalled, had falsely identified himself to them in an e-mail as a senior member of the intelligence community.

Snowden led Greenwald and Poitras to the nearby elevator, and they went through various corridors of the hotel to his room on the tenth floor. It was mainly occupied by a king-sized bed, but it also featured a sleek writing desk in the corner, two chairs, and a modernistic lamp. The bathroom was behind a glass partition, which could be closed off by a black louver blind. There was also a small refrigerator in which Snowden asked them to stow their cell phones.

Snowden, as we know, had already told Poitras that he wanted her to make a documentary of the meeting. She therefore wasted no time in mounting her camera on a tripod. "Minutes after meeting, I set up the camera," she said. Snowden told her, "When you are involved in an action which is likely to get you indicted, you typically don't have a camera rolling in the room." Nevertheless, he allowed her to film his actions for the next eight days. One possible reason is that he had no intention of standing trial. In any case, as Poitras found out, Snowden was anything but camera shy. Over the next week, she would shoot over twenty hours of Snowden's activities in that small room. It was essentially a one-man show, a presentation of him, by himself, for the appreciation of a global public. Poitras knew virtually nothing about her subject until ten minutes before she began filming him. She had not even googled him, because she was concerned that her Internet search might alert the NSA and law enforcement authorities. In an over-the-top waiver of his own privacy, he allowed her to film him washing in the bathroom, preening his hair in the mirror, napping on his bed, getting dressed, and packing his bag. He even permitted her to film a private computer exchange between him and Mills (who was in Honolulu). That day Mills informed Snowden that two government investigators had come to their home in Hawaii, asking her about Snowden's whereabouts. When he had failed to show up for work on June 3 it

Epst_9780451494566_2p_all_r1.z.indd 91 9/29/16 5:51 PM
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