The German magazine Der Spiegel published a partial interview on Monday with Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who remains in legal limbo in a Moscow airport. The interview, conducted by a cybersecurity expert, took place before Mr. Snowden’s disclosures about far-reaching government surveillance programs. Der Spiegel reports that the interview was part of an effort by Laura Poitras, a documentary film producer, working with Mr. Snowden to gauge his credibility.
In it, Mr. Snowden describes cooperation between the N.S.A. and foreign intelligence services as well as with multinational companies based in the United States, which he said, “should not be trusted until they prove otherwise.â€
He was asked what happens after a computer user becomes the focus of N.S.A. surveillance.
They’re just owned. An analyst will get a daily (or scheduled based on exfiltration summary) report on what changed on the system, PCAPS 9 of leftover data that wasn’t understood by the automated dissectors, and so forth. It’s up to the analyst to do whatever they want at that point â€" the target’s machine doesn’t belong to them anymore, it belongs to the US government.
