Greenwald on ‘coming’ leak: NSA can obtain one billion cell phone calls a day, store them and listen
The NSA has a “brand new” technology that enables one billion cell phone calls to be redirected into its data hoards, according to the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald, who told a Chicago conference that a new leak of Snowden's documents was ‘coming soon.’ - Calling it part of a “globalized system to destroy all privacy,” and the enduring creation of a climate of fear, Greenwald outlined the capabilities of the NSA to store every single call while having “the capability to listen to them at any time.” Greenwald was the first journalist to leak Snowden’s documents, having travelled to Hong Kong to review them prior to exposure. “What we're really talking about here is a globalized system that prevents any form of electronic communication from taking place without its being stored and monitored by the National Security Agency,” he said. While he underlined that the NSA are not necessarily listening in on the full billion calls, he pointed out their capability to do so and the lack of accountability with “virtually no safeguards” which the NSA were being held to. The Guardian journalist made hints that he was sitting on further details of the NSA’s billion-call backlog, which he’d keep under wraps until the documents full publication, which he said was “coming soon.” He additionally suggested future exposures to come from Snowden, while lauding the sheer risk the whistleblower took in revealing the NSA’s covert surveillance program.