Snowden's Box: Trust in the Age of Surveillance

In the summer of 2013, the world was riveted by Edward Snowden's leak of millions of classified documents detailing the US government's massive and secret electronic surveillance program, in which the NSA had infiltrated tech companies, communication systems, emails and phones to spy on, among others, its own citizens. But this digital-age story had an analog side--Snowden mailed printed-out documents to the journalists Jessica Bruder and Dale Maharidge, who hid them in barrels, in an outhouse, and in a tree. Thus began an education in surveillance and counter-surveillance for these two experienced reporters, who were nonetheless completely ignorant about the lack of privacy they--and all of us--now have.

The beautifully written story of Snowden's approach to Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald, the hurried, stumbling, increasingly paranoid, and sometimes comic efforts they made to understand what was unfolding, and the lessons these leading journalists draw from this episode make for riveting reading.