New US spying revelations coming from Snowden leaks

BRASILIA - Reuters

Brazil-based Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald says that he has 15,000 to 20,000 unrevealed documents from the National Security Agency. AFP photo

Glenn Greenwald, the American journalist who published documents leaked by fugitive former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, plans to make new revelations “within the next 10 days or so” on secret U.S. surveillance of the Internet.

“The articles we have published so far are a very small part of the revelations that ought to be published,” Greenwald on Aug. 6 told a Brazilian congressional hearing that is investigating the U.S. internet surveillance in Brazil.

“There will certainly be many more revelations on spying by the U.S. government and how they are invading the communications of Brasil and Latin America,” he said in Portuguese.

Very long and complex

The Rio de Janeiro-based columnist for Britain’s Guardian newspaper said he has recruited the help of experts to understand some of the 15,000 to 20,000 classified documents from the National Security Agency that Snowden passed him, some of which are “very long and complex and take time to read.”

Greenwald told Reuters he does not believe the pro-transparency website WikiLeaks had obtained a package of documents from Snowden, and that only he and filmmaker Laura Poitras have complete archives of the leaked material.

Greenwald said Snowden, who was in hiding in Hong Kong before flying to Russia in late June, was happy to leave a Moscow airport after being granted temporary asylum, and pleased that he had stirred up a worldwide debate on internet privacy and secret U.S. surveillance programs used to monitor emails.

“I speak with him a lot since he left the airport, almost every day. We use very strong encryption to communicate,” Greenwald told the Brazilian legislators. “He is very well.”

“He is very pleased with the debate that is arising in many countries around the world on internet privacy and U.S. spying. It is exactly the debate he wanted to inform,” Greenwald said.