After months of preparation and negotiation, “Nightly News” anchor and managing editor Brian Williams met former NSA contractor Edward Snowden last week in Moscow for his first interview with a U.S. television network…
The exclusive, wide-ranging interview with Snowden, who received asylum in Russia after leaking classified documents from NSA servers, will air in a one-hour NBC News primetime special on Wednesday at 10 p.m. Eastern/9 p.m. Central.
“The interview was months in the making and cloaked in the secrecy of his life as a fugitive living in exile overseas,” said Williams. “As you will see and hear, Edward Snowden has a lot more to say.”
Snowden, now 30, is a former systems administrator for the CIA who later went to work for the private intelligence contractor Dell inside a National Security Agency outpost in Japan. In early 2013, he went to work for Booz Allen Hamilton inside the NSA center in Hawaii.
While working for the contractors, Snowden downloaded secret documents related to U.S. intelligence activities and partnerships with foreign allies, including some that revealed the extent of data collection from U.S. telephone records and Internet activity…
U.S. officials have asserted that Snowden may have taken as many as 1.7 million documents. Among the revelations from documents in the Snowden trove are the NSA’s bulk collection of phone and internet metadata from U.S. users, spying on the personal communications of foreign leaders, including U.S. allies, and the NSA’s ability to tap undersea fiber optic cables and siphon off data.
Look at the videos in the article as a preview. I hold about as much hope for unedited courage on the part of NBC as you might expect – or not. But, my DVR is set for 9PM, local MDT.
For example, the last paragraph in the article says, “This week, the House passed a bill to end the NSA’s bulk domestic metadata collection.” Well, No. The bill was so watered down that some of those who wrote the original bill voted against it. Just one more smoke-and-mirrors-act from Congress.