Edward Snowden: How the US Government Built a Mass Surveillance System — and Why He Exposed It

In October 2019, Edward Snowden appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience to explain how American intelligence agencies had developed the ability to collect information about millions of people, why he exposed their secret operations, and what happened to him afterward.

The former CIA officer and NSA contractor had spent more than six years in Russia. He was facing criminal charges in the United States, and the American government had just sued him over the publication of his memoir, Permanent Record.

But the most important part of the conversation was not Snowden's personal story. It was his account of how surveillance powers introduced after the September 11 attacks survived legal controversies, congressional objections, changes of government and years of public criticism.

His central warning was that the danger came not merely from individual officials misusing surveillance technology. It came from building a system capable of monitoring entire populations and allowing whoever controlled the government to decide how extensively to use it.

Subsequent court decisions, government investigations and regulatory actions have established that several of the problems Snowden discussed were real. They also reveal where his arguments were broader than the available evidence.

1. How America Built Its Secret Surveillance System

September 11 changed the government's approach to intelligence collection

Snowden traces the modern American surveillance apparatus to decisions made inside President George W. Bush's administration after September 11, 2001.

Before the attacks, American intelligence agencies already possessed extensive surveillance capabilities. However, legal restrictions generally required particular procedures before authorities could intercept communications involving people inside the United States.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 established a specialized judicial system for certain national-security investigations. The Fourth Amendment also protected Americans against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Snowden argues that these safeguards reflected an important principle: the government should ordinarily establish a legitimate reason for investigating someone rather than examine everyone's private information in the hope of discovering wrongdoing.

After September 11, officials feared that al-Qaeda operatives might already be living throughout the United States, preparing further attacks.

The Bush administration responded by authorizing surveillance outside established judicial procedures. The program eventually became known as the President's Surveillance Program, with a collection of activities commonly associated with the name Stellar Wind.

According to Snowden, the government began collecting telephone and internet information far beyond the limits of conventional investigations. Some activities involved communications content, while others involved metadata: information about communications, such as numbers contacted and the times of calls.

These were not necessarily identical programs, and their legal treatment differed. Nevertheless, they shared an important characteristic: large quantities of information could be collected without first establishing individual suspicion against every person whose records were obtained.

Dick Cheney, David Addington and the secret legal framework

Snowden identifies Vice President Dick Cheney and Cheney's legal adviser, David Addington, as central figures in the surveillance program's creation.

He describes Addington preparing highly classified legal interpretations that justified extraordinary presidential authority. According to his account, the legal basis was closely held inside the White House, with some senior officials expected to accept assurances of legality without examining the underlying reasoning.

A significant part of this history is independently documented.

A July 2009 joint inspector general report, prepared by oversight offices from the Justice Department, Defense Department, CIA, NSA and Office of the Director of National Intelligence, examined the President's Surveillance Program.

The investigation found that the program had operated under presidential authorizations issued after September 11. It also documented serious internal disagreements over its legal justification.

In March 2004, senior Justice Department officials challenged the legality of certain activities. The resulting confrontation involved the White House, Justice Department leadership and intelligence officials.

The report describes how White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales certified continued presidential authorization without the concurrence of senior Justice Department officials.

This matters because the disagreement was not simply between civil-liberties campaigners and the intelligence establishment. Lawyers inside the government itself had questioned aspects of what the government was doing.

Snowden's broader description of the secret authorization process is consistent with this institutional history, although his specific claims about private exchanges and documents should not automatically be treated as independently proven in every detail.

Was the program effective against terrorism?

Snowden argues that the surveillance programs failed to demonstrate the counterterrorism value used to justify their extraordinary reach.

He points out that some terrorist organizations avoided the telephone and internet systems being monitored. Couriers, physical meetings and other offline methods could reduce the usefulness of electronic surveillance.

His argument is not that intelligence collection can never detect terrorism. It is that collecting everyone's information is difficult to justify when the government cannot demonstrate that doing so is substantially more effective than targeted investigation.

Independent oversight later supported a significant part of that criticism.

In January 2014, the bipartisan Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board examined the NSA's bulk telephone-records program under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act.

Its official report concluded that the program had limited demonstrated value and lacked a viable statutory foundation.

The board examined terrorism investigations, including the case of Basaaly Moalin, a San Diego resident connected to financial support for the militant organization al-Shabaab.

The NSA's analysis had helped bring Moalin to investigators' attention. However, the board questioned whether collecting millions of Americans' records was necessary to establish that connection.

The distinction is important. The existence of one useful investigative lead does not, by itself, establish that an entire population's records needed to be collected.

The board recommended ending the bulk telephone-records program.

The surveillance system outlived its original emergency

Snowden argues that government institutions become reluctant to surrender powers once those capabilities have been established.

Even when programs originate in genuine emergencies, the equipment, databases, legal arrangements and personnel supporting them create reasons for continued operation.

A surveillance system justified by terrorism may later become useful for other intelligence or law-enforcement purposes.

The United States has also developed a large private contracting industry around intelligence collection, cybersecurity, communications infrastructure and data analysis.

Snowden alleges that defense contractors benefited financially from the surveillance expansion and exercised influence over lawmakers who were responsible for overseeing it.

The financial incentives are plausible, but the interview does not establish that particular legislators accepted improper payments in exchange for supporting specific surveillance programs. Political influence, defense spending and criminal corruption are different claims and require different evidence.

The institutional problem Snowden identifies is nevertheless substantial: government agencies and private businesses can develop common interests in preserving expensive systems, even when the original justification for those systems becomes less convincing.

2. How Surveillance Became Lawful After Being Exposed

The New York Times withheld a major investigation before the 2004 election

One of Snowden's strongest criticisms concerns information that the American public could have learned before President Bush's reelection.

Journalists James Risen and Eric Lichtblau investigated warrantless surveillance during Bush's first term.

Their reporting revealed that the NSA had been monitoring certain international communications involving people inside the United States without the warrants ordinarily required for such surveillance.

The newspaper did not publish the investigation before the November 2004 presidential election.

On December 16, 2005, it finally released the story.

The newspaper acknowledged that the Bush administration had urged it not to publish the information, arguing that disclosure could damage intelligence operations and alert terrorists.

Contemporary reporting by The Washington Post confirmed that the newspaper had postponed publication for approximately a year while conducting additional reporting and considering the government's objections.

Snowden believes this delay deprived voters of information relevant to their assessment of Bush's administration.

The publication also arrived as Risen was preparing to release a book discussing intelligence operations, adding pressure for the newspaper to disclose what its reporters had discovered.

The delayed investigation ultimately won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting.

Snowden's criticism is not that newspapers should disregard legitimate national-security risks. It is that withholding evidence of potentially unlawful government conduct can itself have political consequences.

Telecommunications companies faced enormous legal exposure

The surveillance disclosures created another problem for the government: telecommunications providers had cooperated with intelligence collection and faced potential lawsuits.

Snowden argues that companies could be held liable for providing customer information without appropriate authorization.

The scale of that potential exposure was considerable.

In a December 2007 statement, Attorney General Michael Mukasey said telecommunications companies faced more than 40 lawsuits connected to alleged cooperation with intelligence agencies after September 11.

He argued that the companies needed legal protection because the cases involved potentially enormous financial claims.

The government maintained that intelligence cooperation had been necessary to protect national security. Critics argued that legal immunity would prevent courts from fully examining whether companies had violated customers' rights.

Both positions had substantial practical consequences.

Without protection, companies might become less willing to cooperate with future intelligence requests. With protection, customers could lose meaningful opportunities to challenge past surveillance in court.

Congress changed the law instead of simply terminating surveillance

Congress passed the Protect America Act in August 2007 and the FISA Amendments Act in July 2008.

The 2007 legislation expanded the government's ability to acquire certain foreign-intelligence communications involving targets outside the United States.

The 2008 legislation established a more durable statutory framework and provided legal protections for telecommunications companies that had assisted government surveillance under specified circumstances.

An important correction to Snowden's compressed account is that the principal retroactive liability-protection provisions were enacted in the 2008 FISA Amendments Act, not simply completed by the 2007 Protect America Act.

The Justice Department argued that the laws modernized intelligence collection while introducing judicial review and additional safeguards.

Its official explanation of the 2008 legislation emphasizes court supervision, procedures governing surveillance of Americans and legal protections for cooperating companies.

Snowden views the same legislative sequence differently.

His argument is that Congress responded to a scandal involving surveillance without ordinary legal authorization by creating new legal structures under which significant surveillance could continue.

That does not mean every practice continued unchanged or that all the new authorities were unconstitutional.

It means the political outcome was not simply to return intelligence collection to its pre-September 11 limits.

Some extraordinary capabilities were instead incorporated into permanent or renewable legal arrangements.

Later courts found that bulk telephone collection exceeded the law

The strongest subsequent legal development came after the interview.

On September 2, 2020, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in United States v. Moalin that the NSA's earlier bulk telephone-metadata program had exceeded the authority Congress granted under Section 215.

The court concluded that the program violated the relevant provisions of FISA.

It did not definitively rule that the entire program violated the Fourth Amendment, although it recognized serious constitutional concerns.

The court also upheld the defendants' convictions because the unlawfully collected metadata had not tainted the evidence supporting their prosecution.

The published judicial opinion therefore supports a precise conclusion: a federal appeals court subsequently found the bulk telephone-records program unlawful under the statute used to authorize it, without invalidating every associated prosecution or deciding every constitutional question.

That distinction is more informative than either claiming the entire surveillance apparatus was judicially declared unconstitutional or suggesting that earlier secret court approvals settled the controversy.

The government later abandoned the bulk call-records program

The USA FREEDOM Act of 2015 ended the previous model of routine NSA bulk telephone-metadata collection under Section 215 and introduced a more targeted process involving telecommunications providers.

However, even the replacement system encountered operational difficulties.

In June 2018, the NSA announced that it was deleting call-detail records acquired under the newer system after discovering that some records had been obtained without proper authorization.

In 2019, the NSA suspended use of that call-records authority after considering the program's intelligence value, operational costs, compliance problems and data-integrity concerns.

This did not end American intelligence surveillance. Other collection authorities, including Section 702 of FISA, are separate from the discontinued bulk telephone-records system.

Nevertheless, the sequence is revealing. A program initially presented as an essential national-security capability eventually faced statutory challenges, limited demonstrated value and operational difficulties serious enough that the NSA stopped using its successor.

3. Why Congress and the Courts Struggled to Control Surveillance

Only a small group of lawmakers initially knew the details

Snowden describes a government in which public officials could possess extraordinary powers while the people responsible for overseeing them lacked sufficient information.

The original surveillance arrangements involved restricted congressional briefings.

The Gang of Eight — eight senior congressional leaders and intelligence-committee officials — could receive especially sensitive intelligence information.

Other lawmakers, including members of intelligence committees, sometimes received partial briefings.

Snowden argues that such arrangements created a serious democratic problem.

Officials who discovered troubling information could not necessarily explain their objections publicly without disclosing classified material.

Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall were among those who repeatedly expressed concern about secret surveillance authorities.

Their statements were often deliberately limited because revealing the programs' details would expose classified information.

As a result, the public could hear warnings about intelligence practices without understanding what those warnings actually meant.

Snowden also argues that lawmakers who had previously been briefed had incentives to defend the programs after their existence became public.

He specifically discusses Nancy Pelosi and the political consequences of classified participation.

That is an argument about institutional responsibility, not proof that every briefed official approved every activity or possessed complete knowledge.

The government could prevent people from proving they had been surveilled

Another major problem concerned judicial review.

To challenge unlawful surveillance, a person generally needs a legally sufficient basis to establish that the government acted against them.

But what happens when the surveillance program itself is secret?

Snowden describes civil-liberties organizations struggling to establish legal standing because they lacked access to the evidence necessary to prove surveillance had occurred.

The government could also refuse to confirm or deny the existence of particular intelligence activities.

This is commonly called a Glomar response, named after a historical government information dispute.

Organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union challenged surveillance authorities, while lawsuits including Jewel v. NSA raised questions about interception of communications passing through telecommunications infrastructure.

Reports concerning AT&T facilities and dedicated interception equipment had previously suggested that the government possessed access to major communications networks.

Yet suspicious infrastructure did not necessarily reveal the full scope, legal basis or actual use of the surveillance.

Snowden regarded this as a trap: citizens needed evidence to challenge government conduct, but the government controlled the evidence and could invoke national security to prevent disclosure.

The NSA recorded thousands of compliance violations

Snowden refers to an internal NSA audit reporting 2,776 surveillance-related violations in a year.

That number is independently documented.

An internal audit covering the 12 months preceding May 2012 recorded 2,776 incidents involving unauthorized collection, storage, access or distribution of protected communications.

The findings were reported by The Washington Post in August 2013.

The incidents ranged from technical and procedural mistakes to serious violations of surveillance requirements.

One reported error involved a computer system confusing the American area code 202 with Egypt's international dialing code 20.

The result was unintended interception of communications.

The figure does not mean investigators documented 2,776 separate cases of deliberate spying on Americans. Many incidents were unintentional or procedural.

It does establish that extensive surveillance systems can generate significant compliance failures even when rules and oversight mechanisms exist.

The broader 2014 review by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board also distinguished compliance problems from evidence of deliberate misconduct. It reported that certain violations had occurred without finding evidence that officials were generally operating the telephone-records program in bad faith.

This qualification matters. Demonstrating that a system violates legal requirements is different from proving that every person operating it intended to break the law.

4. James Clapper's Congressional Testimony Exposed the Problem With Secret Oversight

Ron Wyden asked a question the intelligence chief already knew was coming

On March 12, 2013, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Senator Ron Wyden asked whether the NSA collected any type of data on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans.

Clapper answered:

“No, sir.”

When Wyden pressed him, Clapper added:

“Not wittingly.”

The exchange appears in the official Senate hearing record.

Three months later, the first Snowden disclosures demonstrated that the government was collecting enormous quantities of American telephone metadata.

The contradiction became unmistakable.

Wyden had alerted Clapper's office to the question in advance. He subsequently sought a correction of the testimony.

Clapper later described his answer as the least untruthful response he could provide under the circumstances, explaining that he was attempting to protect classified information.

Snowden viewed this as a defining failure of democratic accountability.

The intelligence chief had delivered a materially misleading answer during public testimony, while lawmakers who understood the underlying programs remained constrained by secrecy.

Snowden says colleagues inside the NSA understood the contradiction and reacted cynically to the official testimony.

Why documentary evidence mattered more than suspicion

Before June 2013, many journalists, activists, lawmakers and intelligence veterans suspected that the NSA operated extensive domestic surveillance programs.

But suspicion could be dismissed.

Documents could be authenticated, compared with public statements and tested against the government's explanations.

For Snowden, the difference between knowing something privately and proving it publicly became decisive.

The Clapper exchange illustrated that even senior officials could maintain public positions contradicted by classified government activities.

Without documentary evidence, citizens had little ability to resolve the disagreement.

Snowden's conclusion was that democratic oversight cannot function when essential facts remain exclusively in the hands of the institutions being supervised.

5. How Snowden Discovered the Surveillance Evidence

His final NSA position was not the job he expected

Snowden's decisive discovery occurred while working in Hawaii.

He expected to join the NSA's National Threat Operations Center. Instead, a contracting change placed him in an obscure Office of Information Sharing.

According to Snowden, the office had effectively been maintained by one employee approaching retirement.

Its limited activity gave him an unusual opportunity to develop a new information system.

The system, called Heartbeat, was designed to aggregate intelligence records from different repositories and deliver information relevant to individual employees.

Agency affiliation, job responsibilities, organizational memberships and other elements of an employee's digital identity would help determine which material appeared.

Snowden's technical experience across both the CIA and NSA was important.

Government intelligence systems are compartmentalized, meaning access is restricted according to clearance, assignment and the need to know.

This can protect sensitive operations. But it can also prevent employees from seeing how separate programs fit together.

Snowden had administrative privileges that enabled him to understand and interact with systems beyond the limited views available to ordinary analysts.

He says that broader visibility allowed him to recognize connections that others might miss.

A routine computer search revealed Stellar Wind

While working in Hawaii, Snowden helped neighboring systems administrators identify classified records that had been placed on inappropriate networks.

Their automated searches looked for classification markings, restricted words and other indicators of sensitive material.

During one search, a document appeared containing the marking STLW.

Snowden learned that it referred to Stellar Wind.

The material was connected to an inspector general's investigation of surveillance activities under the Bush administration.

According to Snowden, an employee previously involved in the investigation had brought related material into the Hawaii network environment.

What he found was not simply another intelligence report.

It described the development of surveillance programs, their legal authorizations, the officials involved and the internal disagreements surrounding them.

The classified investigation contradicted what Snowden believed the public had been told

Snowden says he had encountered an unclassified account of the surveillance investigation while working in Japan.

When he later examined classified investigative material, he believed the two accounts presented substantially different understandings of responsibility and legality.

He argues that the public version was not merely the complete report with sensitive passages blacked out.

In his account, material had been reorganized or rewritten in ways that made the government's conduct appear less troubling.

The precise relationship between the classified draft Snowden describes and publicly available inspector general reports cannot be established solely from his interview.

However, the independently published 2009 investigation confirms that serious legal disputes occurred within the government.

Snowden also describes an extraordinary exchange in which NSA Director Michael Hayden allegedly agreed to continue surveillance on presidential authority despite legal objections.

That particular exchange remains Snowden's account unless independently verified against the relevant record.

His larger discovery was institutional rather than personal.

He concluded that lawyers, intelligence officials, administrators and elected representatives could cooperate in sustaining questionable government activities for years without any participant needing to think of themselves as part of a grand conspiracy.

Why he did not become a whistleblower immediately

Snowden rejects the idea that one document instantly transformed him from a loyal intelligence employee into a dissident.

His doubts accumulated over several years.

He had seen human-intelligence operations he considered unethical, questioned official explanations of surveillance, observed disagreements between public statements and classified realities, and watched previous whistleblowers suffer serious consequences.

At the same time, his career offered substantial financial rewards.

Leaving threatened his income, future, freedom and relationships.

Snowden acknowledges that he repeatedly hoped another employee, elected official, investigator or institution would address the problem.

Eventually, he concluded that the existing system was not correcting itself.

6. What Earlier Whistleblowers Had Already Tried

Snowden was not the first intelligence employee to challenge surveillance practices.

He identifies former NSA officials William Binney, Thomas Drake, Kirk Wiebe and Ed Loomis as important predecessors.

They had raised concerns about intelligence programs and government conduct years before the 2013 disclosures.

Some experienced FBI investigations, searches and professional retaliation.

Thomas Drake faced particularly serious prosecution.

In 2011, however, the major criminal case against Drake ended with his guilty plea to a misdemeanor involving unauthorized access to a government computer.

The Justice Department's account confirms that outcome.

Snowden interprets the treatment of earlier whistleblowers as evidence that conventional routes for reporting misconduct could expose employees to enormous personal risks without necessarily producing public accountability.

He also discusses the work of civil-liberties litigants and telecommunications whistleblowers who had identified suspicious interception infrastructure before 2013.

Their experiences informed his decision to provide documentary evidence to independent journalists rather than rely entirely on internal complaint mechanisms.

7. Why Snowden Gave the Documents to Journalists

He rejected publishing the entire archive himself

Snowden says he possessed the technical ability to release classified information directly onto the internet.

He chose not to do so.

Instead, he supplied material to journalists, including Laura Poitras, Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill, and involved independent news organizations in deciding what should be published.

His stated condition was that information should be released only when journalists independently judged it to serve a genuine public interest.

Stories were not to be published merely because they were sensational, commercially valuable or likely to win awards.

He wanted the journalists to authenticate documents, assess their significance and consider possible damage from disclosure.

The process also created a separation between the source of the information and the people deciding what readers should see.

Snowden believed that distinction was essential: exposing government secrecy should not require the public to accept his personal judgment about every document.

The government was given opportunities to respond

Snowden describes another safeguard.

Before publishing sensitive stories, journalists were expected to approach the government.

Officials could dispute factual claims, identify errors, explain operational considerations or warn about potential harm.

Snowden says this procedure was intended to test the evidence against the strongest available objections.

Critics have argued that the disclosures endangered intelligence methods and could have helped hostile governments understand American capabilities.

Snowden responds that the journalists acted carefully and that, by the time of the 2019 interview, the government had not publicly demonstrated that the reporting had directly caused anyone's death.

That is Snowden's assessment. The absence of a publicly established casualty does not prove that the disclosures caused no intelligence damage, just as government assertions of harm do not automatically establish that harm occurred.

The strongest defensible conclusion is that the reporting involved editorial review and government consultation, while the full consequences of the disclosures remain contested.

The reporting won the Pulitzer Prize

In 2014, The Guardian US and The Washington Post received the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for reporting connected to the Snowden documents.

The Pulitzer Prize committee's record recognizes reporting that revealed extensive secret NSA surveillance and helped readers understand its national-security context.

The disclosures also exposed intelligence collection involving internet communications, global contact records, location information and systems affecting people outside the United States.

Some reporting raised concerns about surveillance touching journalists and human-rights organizations, illustrating why the consequences extended beyond suspected terrorists.

The award does not resolve every question about Snowden's conduct.

It does independently establish that major journalistic institutions and the Pulitzer committee considered the published revelations to have substantial public importance.

Snowden deliberately avoided becoming the center of the story

Snowden initially gave an identifying interview to the journalists who had received the documents.

He explained his identity, motivations and reasons for believing the public needed to understand the surveillance system.

He then avoided further interviews for approximately six months.

His stated intention was to keep attention on government conduct rather than his personality.

Snowden believes the American government tried to redirect public discussion toward his credibility, character and motives.

He describes a sustained campaign of criticism following June 2013.

He also criticizes major news organizations for relying heavily on relationships with government officials.

Access to classified briefings, senior interviews and exclusive information can give journalists incentives to avoid confrontations that might damage those relationships.

Political loyalties can produce a similar result, he argues. Supporters of a president may minimize practices they would condemn under an opposing administration.

His concern is that the public can lose sight of evidence when attention shifts entirely to whether the person supplying it is admirable or objectionable.

8. Why Snowden Says He Cannot Receive a Fair Trial

The Espionage Act does not treat whistleblowing as a separate category

Snowden faces American criminal charges related to unauthorized disclosures of classified information.

He argues that the Espionage Act fails to distinguish adequately between a person who sells secrets to a foreign intelligence service and someone who gives evidence of alleged government wrongdoing to journalists.

The law includes offenses carrying penalties of up to ten years' imprisonment per count.

Snowden's principal objection is not that classified information should always be freely disclosed.

It is that defendants prosecuted for disclosure can face severe restrictions on presenting their motives and the public benefits they believe resulted.

He argues that jurors should be allowed to hear why the information was released, what wrongdoing it allegedly exposed and whether publication caused identifiable harm.

His proposed condition for returning to America

During the interview, Snowden says he would return to the United States if he could receive a trial allowing a meaningful public-interest defense.

He wants a jury to consider his reasons for acting and the consequences of disclosure.

He also raises doubts about being tried in the Eastern District of Virginia, an area with substantial connections to the federal government, intelligence agencies and defense contracting.

His concern is that a jury drawn from that environment might be unusually unsympathetic to a defendant accused of exposing national-security operations.

That concern does not establish that an impartial jury could not be selected.

It explains why the location of the expected proceedings mattered to him.

Snowden says discussions about possible arrangements occurred during the Obama administration but produced no agreement.

At the time of the October 2019 interview, he reported no comparable negotiations with the Trump administration.

Other cases illustrate the same legal conflict

Snowden places his case alongside those of Daniel Ellsberg, Chelsea Manning, Thomas Drake and Daniel Hale.

Ellsberg disclosed the Pentagon Papers, exposing government decision-making about the Vietnam War.

Manning supplied classified material to WikiLeaks.

Drake challenged NSA practices and faced prosecution.

Hale disclosed information about America's drone warfare program and was facing prosecution when Snowden spoke with Rogan.

Snowden regards these cases as evidence that the legal system needs a clearer distinction between disclosures motivated by public accountability and espionage intended to benefit an adversary.

Such a defense would not automatically excuse releasing classified information.

It would permit jurors to evaluate the claimed public interest alongside the government's evidence of wrongdoing and harm.

9. The Threat Snowden Calls Turnkey Tyranny

Surveillance power survives changes of president

Snowden argues that the central danger of widespread surveillance is not dependent on whether a particular president appears trustworthy.

Intelligence infrastructure remains available when administrations change.

A government may introduce powerful capabilities under one set of promises, only for a successor to use them under entirely different policies.

Snowden calls this potential:

“turnkey tyranny”

The phrase describes a state in which extraordinary systems of social control already exist and future leaders need only activate or redirect them.

His concern applies across political parties.

He discusses George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump as presidents who inherited increasingly sophisticated intelligence machinery.

Even if an administration uses the system cautiously, its successor may interpret the same powers more aggressively.

Why Obama did not reverse the surveillance expansion

Rogan raises Obama's earlier criticism of Bush-era warrantless wiretapping and campaign promises concerning whistleblower protections.

Snowden argues that Obama entered office with opportunities to reform intelligence agencies but instead retained significant surveillance authorities.

He considers this especially troubling because the 2013 disclosures occurred during Obama's second presidential term.

Snowden rejects the suggestion that problematic programs would necessarily have been corrected eventually without public exposure.

He offers an institutional explanation for why presidents fail to reform powerful intelligence structures.

Incoming presidents receive alarming classified briefings about terrorism, foreign intelligence threats and national-security vulnerabilities.

Career officials possess detailed knowledge of the programs and can explain why altering them might increase risks.

The president, meanwhile, must manage an enormous range of domestic and international responsibilities.

Snowden argues that this information imbalance encourages elected leaders to defer to permanent government institutions.

He sometimes describes those institutions using the term deep state, but his explanation is largely bureaucratic rather than supernatural or conspiratorial.

Career civil servants, intelligence officials and established administrative systems continue operating after elected leaders leave office.

Their expertise provides continuity, but it can also make major reforms difficult.

Snowden suggests that experienced officials possess indirect political leverage through their access to information and ability to resist changes.

He does not establish that a coordinated intelligence campaign forced Obama to preserve particular programs.

Could the presidency itself be too powerful?

Rogan asks whether the American presidency has become too complicated for one person to supervise effectively.

Snowden agrees that concentrating enormous authority in the presidency also concentrates impossible responsibility.

No individual can independently understand every classified technical system, legal interpretation, military operation and intelligence assessment.

He suggests that reducing executive authority, distributing responsibilities and strengthening structural restraints would make government more accountable.

He contrasts the enormous federal bureaucracy of modern America with the relatively limited national government envisioned during the country's early constitutional period.

His concern is not simply that politicians make poor decisions.

It is that the scale of modern government allows decisions with enormous consequences to occur inside institutions that ordinary voters can barely inspect.

National security is not automatically the same as public safety

Snowden offers a distinction that helps explain his view of intelligence agencies:

“national security is a very different thing from public safety.”

He argues that national-security institutions can become focused on protecting the government, its continuity and its authority.

Those objectives may overlap with the public's safety, but they are not always identical.

A government protecting itself against embarrassment, criticism or political instability may be acting in its institutional interest without necessarily defending the rights of its citizens.

Snowden believes excessive secrecy can transform the public from participants in government into people governed by decisions they cannot examine.

The practical question becomes whether intelligence institutions ultimately answer to the public or whether the public must simply accept institutional assurances.

10. How September 11 Shaped Snowden's Own Beliefs

He witnessed the evacuation of the NSA headquarters area

Snowden was approximately 18 years old when the September 11 attacks occurred.

He was working near Fort Meade, Maryland, where the NSA maintains its headquarters.

He recalls widespread evacuations, military police directing traffic and thousands of employees leaving the area during the emergency.

According to Snowden, NSA Director Michael Hayden ordered the agency's campus evacuated.

Snowden criticizes the decision.

He argues that an intelligence agency facing an unprecedented terrorist attack should have mobilized every available analytical and technical resource, including employees who ordinarily worked on unrelated assignments.

Rogan challenges him by pointing out that the headquarters itself might have been a terrorist target.

Snowden accepts that possibility but argues that the risk was speculative, while the need for intelligence during an active attack was immediate.

He interprets the evacuation as an example of institutional risk aversion: officials protecting themselves from responsibility for potential employee casualties rather than prioritizing operational needs.

That interpretation is not proof of Hayden's motives. It reflects Snowden's judgment about how the agency responded under pressure.

Intelligence agencies had competed instead of sharing information

Snowden also discusses investigations into the failures preceding September 11.

The CIA, FBI and NSA possessed different responsibilities, information sources and operational cultures.

Snowden argues that agencies competed for prestige, budgets and professional advancement, creating incentives to retain valuable intelligence rather than share it.

He acknowledges that information-sharing problems were important.

However, he argues that the issue was not necessarily an absence of legal authority to exchange information about serious threats.

Existing procedures sometimes allowed cooperation when justified.

In his view, officials could have pursued appropriate authorizations rather than allowing bureaucratic rivalries to obstruct investigations.

After September 11, those failures helped justify removing restrictions on intelligence collection.

Snowden believes this addressed the wrong problem: instead of correcting organizational behavior, the government expanded the powers of institutions that had already failed to cooperate effectively.

11. The Government Career Snowden Expected to Have

His family had served the federal government for generations

Snowden did not enter intelligence work as an outsider hostile to the American government.

He grew up in a family closely associated with federal service.

His mother worked in the federal court system. His father served in the Coast Guard for approximately 30 years. His grandfather had been an admiral and later worked for the FBI.

The family lived near Fort Meade, surrounded by government offices, military facilities and defense contractors.

For Snowden, federal employment appeared ordinary and respectable.

He was also fascinated by computers from an early age.

Conventional schooling held less interest.

After contracting mononucleosis, he stopped attending regular high-school classes and enrolled in community college through a concurrent-enrollment arrangement.

He later obtained a GED rather than completing a conventional high-school diploma.

His first technology job was practically beside the NSA

Around 1998, Snowden encountered a small-business owner at community college who operated a web-design company.

She recognized his technical abilities and offered him work.

Her husband was an NSA linguist, and the business operated from their home on Fort Meade.

Snowden therefore found himself regularly passing NSA facilities years before he formally worked for the intelligence community.

He continued developing practical computing skills and gaining industry certifications.

His early career illustrates how technical expertise could open opportunities in government technology without a conventional academic background.

He volunteered for the Army after September 11

Snowden initially supported the government's response to the attacks.

He says he believed official claims concerning terrorism, Iraq and weapons of mass destruction.

He enlisted in the US Army through the 18X program, which offered a path toward Special Forces qualification.

He wanted to contribute personally to the military campaign.

But his military career ended after severe injuries to both legs.

Snowden describes bilateral tibial stress fractures associated with demanding marches and physical training.

He was unusually light when he entered the Army, weighing approximately 128 pounds with a 24-inch waist.

He recalls the strain of carrying heavier equipment and training partners, along with an awkward landing during an exercise in Georgia.

Doctors warned that continuing toward parachute training could produce catastrophic injury.

He was offered the possibility of recovering and repeating training, but this would have required surrendering his place in the Special Forces pipeline.

Snowden instead accepted an administrative discharge after less than six months.

He later interpreted the arrangement as also protecting the Army against potential future liability for his injuries.

Security clearances became his route into intelligence

After leaving the Army, Snowden sought employment that could lead to a top-secret security clearance.

He understood that combining a high-level clearance with technical expertise could substantially improve his earning prospects.

His first relevant position involved security at the Center for the Advanced Study of Language at the University of Maryland, College Park, which was associated with NSA interests.

His responsibilities initially involved protecting the facility, monitoring alarms and performing routine security work rather than analyzing intelligence.

A recruitment event restricted to people with security clearances helped him secure a position supporting CIA computer systems.

By approximately 2005, he was helping administer important CIA infrastructure in the Washington area.

He describes working overnight with one colleague, maintaining systems essential to the agency's operations.

Management initially treated the position as routine systems supervision, but Snowden says his technical abilities allowed him to assume considerable responsibility at a young age.

12. What Snowden Learned While Working for the CIA

Geneva gave him access to international intelligence operations

The CIA eventually recruited Snowden for an overseas technical assignment.

He attended specialized training at a facility known as the Hill in Warrenton, Virginia.

He was then posted to Geneva, Switzerland, under diplomatic cover.

His official embassy position appeared relatively ordinary.

His real responsibilities involved maintaining secure communications and essential technical infrastructure.

The work extended well beyond computers.

Snowden describes dealing with encryption equipment, electrical systems, heating, ventilation, alarms, locks and other equipment required to keep sensitive embassy operations functioning.

He also traveled to other European countries on assignment.

At the time, he regarded the work as exciting and remained strongly committed to the CIA's mission.

Human-intelligence operations began changing his opinion

Snowden's first serious ethical doubts concerned human intelligence.

Unlike signals intelligence, which focuses on communications and electronic information, human intelligence involves recruiting individuals who can supply information from inside organizations.

In Geneva, Snowden encountered CIA efforts to obtain confidential information, including attempts to recruit people with access to bank records.

He became troubled by operations that, in his judgment, risked damaging individuals' livelihoods or personal lives for comparatively modest intelligence gains.

He describes officers treating informants and potential recruits as means to institutional objectives.

These experiences did not immediately convince him to leave.

He initially regarded questionable practices as isolated incidents or necessary compromises.

Over time, however, he accumulated enough concerns that he began questioning the broader culture of intelligence work.

Japan deepened his concerns

Snowden subsequently worked for the NSA in Japan.

He continued observing classified systems and intelligence procedures.

His doubts increased, but so did the personal costs of leaving the profession.

He had developed valuable expertise, possessed important clearances and understood that government technology work could be highly lucrative.

He also had relationships, family responsibilities and long-term career expectations.

Snowden describes the tension between recognizing possible wrongdoing and risking everything by challenging it.

Dell, Amazon and the intelligence contracting business

Snowden later returned to CIA-related work as a senior technical employee supporting Dell's relationship with the agency.

His job involved meeting senior technology officials and helping develop major infrastructure proposals.

Dell wanted to sell the CIA a private cloud-computing system.

Snowden worked with commercial personnel whose objective was to win substantial government contracts.

He describes an environment in which advanced technical systems were simultaneously national-security tools and major business opportunities.

Amazon ultimately won the cloud opportunity Snowden discusses.

The experience reinforced his understanding of how closely classified government operations had become connected to large private technology companies.

Contractors could enjoy extensive access to government systems while remaining formally outside the permanent civil service.

In some cases, highly skilled contractors could earn considerably more than traditional government employees performing related work.

For Snowden, these financial incentives help explain why employees might tolerate questionable conduct even when they privately objected.

13. The Smartphone: Surveillance That People Carry Voluntarily

A phone can reveal its location without its owner using it

By 2019, Snowden considered smartphones among the most important everyday surveillance technologies.

Unlike traditional wiretapping, smartphone tracking does not require investigators to install recording equipment inside someone's home or office.

The user carries the technology.

A powered-on phone communicates with cellular infrastructure so that it can remain connected to services.

This communication can continue when its screen is off.

Snowden explains that mobile networks identify devices and subscriptions using information including the International Mobile Equipment Identity, or IMEI, and International Mobile Subscriber Identity, or IMSI.

The IMEI generally identifies the physical handset. The IMSI identifies the mobile subscription.

Changing a SIM card does not normally change the handset's IMEI.

Cellular networks also generate records associating devices with particular network locations and times.

Such records can reveal movement patterns even without recording the content of conversations.

Metadata can reveal more than people expect

Snowden emphasizes that surveillance does not always require listening to telephone calls.

Metadata can reveal who communicates with whom, when contact occurs, how frequently people communicate and where their devices have been.

A record showing frequent late-night contact between two individuals may reveal a relationship.

Repeated visits to a particular address may reveal where someone lives.

Regular daytime presence at an office can suggest employment.

Combining these observations can make supposedly anonymous records personally identifying.

This is why Snowden objects to the assumption that telephone metadata is harmless simply because it does not contain spoken words.

The same principle applies to the distinction between surveillance of communications content and surveillance of people through their behavior.

AT&T's Hemisphere program demonstrated the value of old records

Snowden cites the Hemisphere program as an example of how long telecommunications information can remain valuable.

The project involved government access to extensive telephone records maintained through AT&T infrastructure.

Some records reached back to approximately 1987.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center's investigation describes a program that supplied historical telephone information to law-enforcement agencies, including records involving communications passing through AT&T switches.

The records could cover people who were not AT&T customers.

The project also involved location-related information.

Snowden argues that maintaining decades of such information is difficult to justify solely through the ordinary requirements of operating telephone networks.

The records have additional value for investigations, analytics and commercial purposes.

Hemisphere also demonstrates that surveillance debates extend beyond the NSA. Ordinary law-enforcement arrangements and private telecommunications databases can create similarly important privacy questions.

Turning off GPS does not eliminate location tracking

Snowden explains that location information can come from several different systems.

GPS is only one of them.

Phones can infer locations through nearby Wi-Fi networks, cellular signals and applications that collect geographic or behavioral data.

Wi-Fi access points broadcast identifying information.

Databases associating those identifiers with real-world locations allow devices to estimate their position.

Companies developed extensive Wi-Fi-location information partly through mapping projects, including observations associated with Google Street View.

A device may therefore be located approximately without relying exclusively on satellite-based GPS.

The precision depends on the available technology, environment and records.

A cell-tower connection alone does not necessarily reveal the same precision as GPS, and access to one kind of record does not automatically provide access to all others.

But the combination of these systems can establish detailed movement patterns.

Smartphone applications create a second layer of collection

Snowden considers application software another major privacy problem.

Social networks, messaging platforms, email services, advertising networks and analytics systems can establish internet connections even when users are not actively interacting with them.

These connections may transmit diagnostic information, advertising identifiers, usage statistics or other data.

Snowden criticizes the lack of ordinary consumer visibility into which servers applications contact and why.

He proposes controls allowing users to approve or refuse particular categories of network activity.

For example, someone using Facebook might allow the application to download messages and photographs while refusing connections used for advertising or background tracking.

Such controls would require clearer distinctions between necessary functionality and optional data collection.

Snowden argues that users should not need advanced networking knowledge to understand their phones.

He considered Apple's privacy protections stronger than Google's in some respects during the 2019 discussion, but criticized both ecosystems for restricting meaningful user control.

He acknowledges that software companies have genuine security and usability concerns.

His objection is that complexity too often becomes a justification for denying users the ability to inspect and control devices they own.

14. Can a Smartphone Actually Be Switched Off?

Removing a battery was a stronger physical safeguard

Snowden distinguishes ordinary background tracking from sophisticated device compromise.

A phone that is genuinely powered off cannot operate its ordinary communications hardware without power.

However, users must trust that the device has actually entered the state its software displays.

Highly sophisticated compromises may manipulate what the operating system reports or exploit lower-level hardware and firmware behavior.

Snowden notes that older phones allowed owners to remove their batteries.

This provided a physical method of disconnecting the device's primary power source.

He says some intelligence personnel working overseas valued this feature because it reduced reliance on software assurances.

Modern sealed smartphones make comparable physical verification harder.

That does not establish that ordinary phones secretly continue tracking after every shutdown.

Snowden's point is about the difference between trusting a device and independently verifying its behavior.

Why Snowden worked with hardware researcher Bunnie Huang

Snowden collaborated with hardware specialist Andrew “Bunnie” Huang on research examining how a phone's radio activity could be monitored independently of its normal software.

Their project became known as the Introspection Engine.

It involved research using an iPhone 6 and external hardware capable of examining aspects of the device's communications behavior.

The objective was to help users at elevated risk, especially journalists, determine whether a phone was transmitting information when they expected its radio systems to be inactive.

The work was published in July 2016 as Against the Law: Countering Lawful Abuses of Digital Surveillance in the Journal of Open Engineering.

This research does not demonstrate that every smartphone shutdown is fraudulent.

It demonstrates that independent hardware monitoring can be useful when software reports alone are not considered sufficiently trustworthy.

Practical security is about realistic threats

Snowden says he uses measures such as switching devices off and placing equipment inside Faraday cages, which are designed to reduce electromagnetic signals passing through them.

He also argues that absolute security against a determined intelligence agency may be unrealistic.

The practical objective is to reduce unnecessary exposure and limit what an attacker could learn from compromising a particular device.

For most people, he considers routine commercial tracking and application data collection more relevant than unusually sophisticated attacks requiring specialized intelligence resources.

This distinction prevents privacy advice from becoming a contest to imagine the most elaborate possible compromise.

15. Why Companies Hold So Much Power Over Personal Information

The business model turned personal behavior into a commercial asset

Rogan observes that companies such as Google and Facebook built enormous businesses around information users did not fully understand they were providing.

Snowden agrees that the value of personal information extends beyond advertising.

Once companies accumulate extensive records about behavior, location and relationships, those records can become economically and politically powerful.

They can shape advertising, influence consumer choices and support decisions made by institutions that individuals may never directly encounter.

Snowden argues that governments and companies benefit from different forms of opacity.

Governments can classify programs.

Companies can conceal data practices behind complicated software, lengthy terms of service and contractual conditions few people realistically examine.

He criticizes treating acceptance of such agreements as proof that users meaningfully understood or consented to every possible use of their information.

He also objects to companies reserving broad rights to modify contractual arrangements after users become dependent on their services.

The result is an uneven relationship: users need basic digital services, while providers determine many of the conditions under which their behavior is recorded.

Later FTC cases confirmed that sensitive location data was being traded

Subsequent American regulatory investigations provide concrete examples of the industry Snowden was describing.

In December 2024, the Federal Trade Commission announced allegations against Gravy Analytics and its subsidiary Venntel concerning the collection and sale of sensitive location information.

The FTC alleged that their data practices could expose visits to medical facilities, religious institutions and other sensitive places.

The agency stated that the companies claimed to process more than 17 billion location signals from approximately one billion devices daily.

Those figures were company-related claims described in the FTC proceeding, not an independent census of uniquely identifiable people.

In January 2025, the FTC finalized restrictions on Gravy Analytics and Venntel.

The regulator also finalized an order against Mobilewalla, following allegations that the company had acquired and sold sensitive location information without appropriate consumer protections.

According to the FTC, Mobilewalla had obtained advertising identifiers linked with precise location information on an enormous scale.

These investigations provide an important independent development after Snowden's interview.

Sensitive location surveillance is not limited to government intelligence agencies.

Commercial data brokers can assemble extensive records through advertising systems and mobile applications, sometimes without consumers understanding that the information is being collected and sold.

16. The Legal Problem With Giving Information to Companies

A telephone case from 1979 shaped modern privacy law

Snowden identifies the third-party doctrine as one of the most consequential legal principles affecting digital privacy.

The doctrine generally holds that certain information voluntarily conveyed to third parties may receive weaker Fourth Amendment protection.

One influential decision was Smith v. Maryland in 1979.

The case involved a criminal investigation into threatening or harassing telephone calls.

Police used telephone-company information to identify numbers dialed by a suspect without obtaining a conventional search warrant for that particular information.

The Supreme Court held that the suspect lacked a reasonable expectation of privacy in the dialed numbers under the circumstances of the case.

Snowden argues that the principle became increasingly problematic as technology changed.

The original case concerned limited telephone records associated with a particular investigation.

Modern companies can hold information about enormous portions of a person's daily life.

Email providers possess communications records. Mobile carriers possess location information. Applications generate behavioral histories. Online services retain search and usage data.

Treating corporate possession as an automatic reason for weaker constitutional protection becomes increasingly consequential as more of everyday life depends on digital intermediaries.

The Supreme Court recognized a limit in 2018

An important development predating the Rogan interview was the Supreme Court's decision in Carpenter v. United States.

In June 2018, the Court ruled that government acquisition of extensive historical cell-site location information generally constitutes a Fourth Amendment search requiring a warrant.

The case concerned Timothy Carpenter, whose wireless carriers supplied 12,898 location points covering 127 days.

The Supreme Court's opinion recognized that long-term records of a person's movements create privacy concerns different from those associated with older, narrowly limited business records.

The ruling did not abolish the third-party doctrine.

It established that the doctrine could not simply be applied mechanically to all modern location information.

This supports an important part of Snowden's argument: technological scale can transform the privacy significance of records that appear individually routine.

The problem is not only whether surveillance is legal

Snowden argues that governments can conduct troubling surveillance even when they comply with statutes.

A legislature can expand the legal conditions under which information may be collected.

Courts can approve programs under those laws.

Businesses can design terms that permit extensive data gathering.

But legality does not automatically settle whether an arrangement is reasonable, proportionate or compatible with democratic expectations.

Snowden's position is that information about people's movements, relationships and private behavior remains personal even when a corporation holds the relevant records.

He challenges the assumption that an individual's privacy interest disappears simply because the information is stored by a service provider.

17. Why Snowden Called His Book Permanent Record

The title of Snowden's memoir reflects a wider concern about the disappearance of ordinary forgetfulness.

Earlier generations often lived without every social interaction, mistake, journey or personal relationship leaving a searchable digital record.

Modern life increasingly creates records automatically.

Phones preserve movements.

Applications record behavior.

Social networks retain photographs, messages and opinions.

Services may maintain records long after the original purpose for collecting them has passed.

Snowden and Rogan discuss the consequences for children growing up with social media.

A statement made at 13 might be rediscovered years later and judged without considering the person's age, circumstances or subsequent development.

Snowden regards this as an important change in the relationship between individuals and institutions.

In a democracy, governments are supposed to be accountable to citizens, while individuals ordinarily retain substantial freedom from unnecessary official examination.

He argues that modern information systems can reverse the relationship.

Institutions accumulate detailed records about individuals while their own operations remain difficult to inspect.

That information imbalance connects intelligence surveillance, commercial data collection and the permanent records people leave throughout their lives.

18. Why Snowden Ended Up in Russia

He says Russia was never his intended destination

Snowden left his position in Hawaii and traveled to Hong Kong before the 2013 disclosures became public.

He later departed Hong Kong and became stranded in Moscow.

During the Rogan interview, he insists that Russia was not his intended destination.

His account is that he was attempting to continue toward Latin America when American authorities canceled his passport, preventing him from completing the journey.

He received asylum in Russia and eventually secured longer-term residence.

Snowden also cites the July 2013 incident involving Bolivian President Evo Morales's aircraft.

Morales's plane was diverted to Vienna amid suspicions that Snowden might be aboard.

Authorities searched the aircraft and found that he was not there.

Contemporary reporting on the incident confirms that the search and diplomatic controversy occurred.

Snowden regards the incident as evidence of how aggressively the United States pursued him.

What daily life in Moscow looked like in 2019

Snowden describes initially maintaining extremely strict personal security after arriving in Russia.

He feared surveillance, detention and potential retaliation.

Over time, his routine became more ordinary.

By 2019, he says he used public transportation, visited restaurants, went shopping and participated in everyday activities.

He was recognized only a few times each year.

According to Snowden, recognition occurred disproportionately in technology stores, where customers were more likely to know his appearance.

He describes no hostile public encounters with people who identified him.

Nevertheless, he preferred anonymity and disliked losing personal privacy.

Despite living in Russia for more than six years, he had not become fluent in Russian.

Most of his professional communication and work continued in English.

He denied being financed by the Russian government

Snowden rejects allegations that the Russian government was paying him.

He says he earned money through speaking engagements, university appearances, interviews and related professional activities.

He did not operate a conventional YouTube channel at the time.

Rogan suggested that such a channel might work, given the show's existing audience, but Snowden did not commit to creating one.

Snowden's statement about his income explains his account of how he supported himself.

It does not independently establish all his financial arrangements or every aspect of his relationship with Russian authorities.

Russian citizenship changed his legal status after the interview

In 2019, Snowden described holding permanent residence in Russia under an arrangement he compared to a renewable green card.

He acknowledged that Russian authorities retained significant power over his ability to remain in the country.

His legal position subsequently changed.

On September 26, 2022, President Vladimir Putin granted Snowden Russian citizenship.

In December 2022, Snowden's lawyer said he had obtained a Russian passport and taken the required citizenship oath.

These developments were reported by Reuters.

His naturalization altered the legal context of the risks he had described in 2019, particularly the possibility of losing his residence status.

It did not resolve the outstanding dispute between Snowden and the American government.

19. Snowden's Criticism of Putin and Russian Politics

Living in Russia did not mean endorsing its government, he argued

Snowden rejects the proposition that accepting refuge from a government requires supporting its policies.

He says he has criticized Vladimir Putin, Russian surveillance laws and political repression.

He cites publicly sharing footage alleging ballot stuffing in Russian elections.

He also discusses Alexei Navalny and opposition-linked organizations facing raids and investigations.

Snowden defended the right of political opponents to organize and participate in public life without retaliation.

He says Russian state media criticized his remarks.

One report from RIA Novosti, according to Snowden, questioned why someone permitted to live in Russia would criticize its authorities.

Snowden responds that silence would not guarantee his protection.

In his view, compromising his principles would be pointless if the government retained the ability to act against him regardless.

These statements establish positions Snowden expressed in 2019. They should not be treated as a complete account of his subsequent public comments about Russian politics.

He warned against exaggerating Putin's power

Snowden argues that Western political discourse sometimes portrays Putin as an almost impossibly effective strategist.

He believes exaggerated descriptions of Russian power can serve Putin's interests by making the country appear internationally feared and influential.

At the same time, Snowden distinguishes between criticizing Russian government actions and condemning Russian citizens.

He argues that ordinary Russians should not be considered personally responsible for every decision made by their leaders.

The same distinction, he says, should apply to Americans and their government.

This is part of his broader belief that governments should be evaluated through their conduct rather than treated as identical to the populations they govern.

His comparison of American and Russian election interference has a research basis

Snowden argues that attempts to manipulate foreign elections are not exclusive to Russia.

He references research identifying approximately 81 American interventions and 36 Soviet or Russian interventions in foreign elections over a historical period.

The underlying figures come from political scientist Dov H. Levin's research on partisan electoral interventions between 1946 and 2000.

Levin's work examined attempts by great powers to influence foreign electoral outcomes.

His 2016 academic paper found that the United States and the Soviet Union or Russia intervened in approximately one out of every nine competitive national executive elections during that period.

The 81-to-36 comparison was also explained by Levin in a 2017 interview.

These are counts under the study's particular definition of partisan intervention.

They are not comprehensive measurements of every intelligence operation, cyberattack or attempt at political influence by either country.

Nor do the figures establish that all interventions were equally consequential.

Snowden uses the comparison to argue that covert interference is a longstanding feature of great-power politics rather than a practice unique to one government.

Fear helps political leaders consolidate authority

Snowden connects Putin's political durability to Russia's economic instability during the 1990s.

He argues that economic collapse and public insecurity create demand for leaders promising order, stability and national strength.

He draws comparisons with political developments involving Donald Trump, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and parts of Europe.

His argument is that fear can make populations more willing to accept concentrated government authority.

Leaders can promise protection from terrorism, foreign enemies, instability or economic decline.

Snowden sees a recurring danger when emergency powers survive long after the original emergency.

For him, this is the central political lesson of the post-September 11 period.

20. The US Government Sued Snowden Over His Book

Permanent Record was more than an autobiography

Snowden released Permanent Record in September 2019.

He says he did not want to write a conventional memoir focused entirely on his personal experiences.

His larger subject was the transformation of technology and government after September 11.

The book connects his upbringing, intelligence career and disclosures to the development of modern surveillance systems.

Its publication created an immediate legal confrontation.

On September 17, 2019, the Justice Department filed a civil lawsuit alleging that Snowden had breached confidentiality and prepublication-review obligations he accepted while working for the CIA and NSA.

The government also challenged income from certain speeches concerning intelligence matters.

The dispute concerned money, not removing the book from sale

Snowden interpreted the lawsuit as an attempt to punish him financially and discourage future disclosures.

He argued that the First Amendment prevented the government from simply banning publication.

The Justice Department described the dispute differently.

It said Snowden had failed to submit the manuscript for required prepublication review and that the lawsuit sought to recover proceeds from activities violating his contractual obligations.

The government explicitly stated that it was not seeking to prohibit distribution of the book.

The case subsequently produced a concrete financial result.

On September 29, 2020, a federal court entered judgment exceeding $5.2 million against Snowden.

The order covered financial proceeds associated with Permanent Record and 56 specified speeches.

According to the Justice Department's October 2020 announcement, the court had found that Snowden breached contractual and fiduciary obligations.

The civil judgment was separate from the criminal charges connected to his disclosures.

The ruling establishes that the government's financial action was successful in court. Whether such enforcement discourages legitimate whistleblowing is a separate policy question.

Why he chose Joe Rogan instead of another television interview

Snowden says his publisher wanted him to reach a large audience while the legal dispute surrounding the book intensified.

He had already appeared on conventional television programs, including an interview with Brian Williams.

But he disliked the constraints of short broadcast segments.

Complex subjects such as constitutional rights, classified surveillance and intelligence oversight cannot always be explained meaningfully in answers lasting only a few seconds.

Snowden became interested in Rogan's podcast because its long-form format allowed subjects to develop through conversation.

Rogan's previous interview with Bernie Sanders particularly impressed him.

Snowden appreciated that Sanders had been given time to explain his views rather than being reduced to brief sound bites.

Rogan's audience had been requesting the interview for years

Snowden recalls discovering that Rogan's listeners had repeatedly urged him to appear on the show.

Neil deGrasse Tyson had previously helped Snowden establish a presence on Twitter.

Snowden says he used desktop computers rather than mobile devices for Twitter because of his security preferences.

When he first examined Rogan's profile, however, the show's visual branding discouraged him.

The unusual avatar, featuring Rogan's face and a third eye, did not initially suggest the politically serious discussion Snowden expected to have.

After examining the interviews themselves, he changed his opinion.

The episode became an example of the distinction he repeatedly emphasizes: public images and institutional reputations can be misleading, and substantive understanding requires examining what people actually say and do.

21. Loyalty to the Government Versus Loyalty to the Public

Snowden rejects blind institutional loyalty

Snowden argues that patriotism should mean serving a country's people rather than automatically defending its government.

He distinguishes loyalty to constitutional principles and public welfare from obedience to officials.

He uses the FBI's historical surveillance and harassment of Martin Luther King Jr. as an example of why established institutions cannot always be assumed to act justly.

The FBI treated King and other civil-rights activists as potential security concerns and conducted intrusive surveillance against them.

Snowden regards the episode as evidence that intelligence powers can be used against legitimate political activity.

The existence of an official authorization or an institutional mission does not settle whether the conduct is morally defensible.

He therefore rejects the idea that violating an institutional oath automatically establishes that someone acted against the interests of their country.

His position is that loyalty becomes harmful when it shields misconduct from accountability.

Snowden does not oppose legitimate intelligence operations

Despite his criticism, Snowden does not argue that governments should disclose every national-security secret or abandon intelligence collection.

He accepts that legitimate investigations may require secrecy.

He supports targeted surveillance against identifiable threats, including terrorist operatives and foreign military officials.

He distinguishes monitoring a specific person's communications for a justified intelligence purpose from collecting information indiscriminately about millions of ordinary people.

He also accepts that undercover identities and active operations may need protection.

His disagreement concerns the boundaries of state authority, the proportionality of surveillance and whether citizens have sufficient information to challenge abuses.

That distinction is central to understanding the interview. Snowden is not presenting an argument that governments should possess no intelligence capabilities.

He is arguing that extraordinary capabilities require limits that cannot be secretly rewritten whenever they become inconvenient.

22. John Perry Barlow and the Responsibility to Act

Freedom of the press became part of Snowden's work

Snowden discusses his involvement with the Freedom of the Press Foundation, where he served as president of the board.

He also recalls his friendship with the late internet-rights advocate John Perry Barlow.

Barlow had helped shape debates about digital freedom and the relationship between technology, institutions and individual rights.

Snowden quotes an observation he attributes to Barlow:

“you can't awaken someone who's pretending to be asleep.”

The remark captures Snowden's frustration with institutions that may understand the consequences of surveillance but have strong reasons not to acknowledge them.

He believes commercial and government organizations sometimes recognize the human significance of collected data while treating it publicly as a technical or administrative issue.

The problem, in his view, is not always ignorance.

Sometimes the difficulty is persuading institutions to admit facts that threaten their existing interests.

Snowden says he did not act because it was safe

During the interview, Snowden repeatedly returns to the personal consequences of exposing government secrets.

He acknowledges that he lost the life he expected to have.

He had previously enjoyed a well-paid technical career, access to important government systems and prospects for further advancement.

He could have continued working in Hawaii while privately disagreeing with surveillance programs.

Instead, he chose disclosure and accepted the possibility of imprisonment, exile and professional loss.

He also acknowledges that remaining silent would have been easier.

His explanation is that waiting for other people to correct the problem had become a way of avoiding responsibility.

He says:

“I didn't come forward to be safe.”

He rejects the idea that political or social improvement depends entirely on exceptional individuals appearing at the right moment.

Instead, he argues that ordinary decisions can create opportunities for other people to act.

One individual may expose evidence. Journalists may investigate it. Lawyers may challenge the resulting practices. Courts may rule on the legal issues. Legislators may change the laws.

No single person has to accomplish everything.

What the interview ultimately establishes

Snowden's account contains allegations, personal recollections, ethical judgments and predictions. These should not be confused with the independently documented findings that followed his disclosures.

But several important parts of the underlying story have been established through public records.

Secret surveillance programs expanded after September 11. Senior government lawyers questioned aspects of their legality. Congress later created new surveillance authorities and protections for cooperating telecommunications companies.

An independent oversight board found that the bulk telephone-records program lacked a viable statutory foundation and had limited demonstrated value.

A federal appeals court subsequently ruled that the program exceeded the authority Congress had granted.

NSA records also documented thousands of compliance incidents, while later operational failures contributed to the suspension of the telephone-records program that replaced the original bulk-collection model.

Outside government, subsequent FTC proceedings demonstrated that commercial companies could also acquire and sell sensitive information about people's movements on an enormous scale.

These findings do not prove every accusation Snowden makes. They do establish that the conflict he described was grounded in real systems, real legal disputes and documented institutional behavior.

The remaining question is not whether governments should ever conduct surveillance.

It is whether citizens can meaningfully control the powers exercised in their name, particularly when the relevant technology, legal interpretations and operational decisions are hidden from public view.

Snowden ends with an argument about personal responsibility rather than technological inevitability.

He believes people cannot eliminate every risk from their lives, but they can make decisions that gradually improve the institutions governing them.

His final distinction is between seeking perfect individual safety and creating a society in which people protect one another through accountability, lawful limits and the freedom to challenge authority.