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2026-02-10

minor updates 2026-03-04

What happened to the rest of the Snowden files?

Disclaimer

• Quick Note

Facts that are public consensus

• We know that Snowden took hundreds of thousands of classified files on a disk on his flight to Hong Kong.
• We know that atleast a few journalists like Greenwald and Poitras actually collected a large number of files in Hong Kong immediately.
• We know that they flew back immediately after receiving the files.
• We know that they gave a large number of files back to their editors respectively.
• We know that only a very small number of these files (less than 50) were ever published publicly.
• We know that Snowden flew to Russia immediately
• We know that Snowden didn't plan on permanently staying in Russia, but ended up stranded on purpose by US govt. He got atleast a bit lucky this way, because Russia was one of the few countries actually willing to offer asylum.
• We know that people from intelligence visited the offices of all these media houses, and destroyed all copies of the files they found, and interrogated a number of people.

Questions

• Did Greenwald and Poitras receive literally every single file Snowden took, or did Snowden also keep some files for himself? Did the editors of the Guardian and WaPo also receive literally every single file? How many people at these orgs received the files?
  • I seem to have a general prior that their editors probably received the files.
  • I seem to have a general prior that compartmentalisation at many of these media houses is shit, in a way that is hard to fix. But I also can't explain why I believe this, quickly. I'll do that later maybe.
• Why did Greenwald and Poitras choose not to release more files?
  • Was the reason closer to moral concerns, or political and reputational concerns for their own media houses?
  • Or are they actually still holding on to these files as a deadman's switch to protect Snowden?
  • Or is there something else going on?
• How many files were taken to Russia?
  • How much information from the files was memorised by Snowden himself, such that the Russian govt likely has it via interrogation even if Greenwald and Snowden didn't personally take the files?
  • If Putin did get a few files or a lot of files, how exactly did he use this information?
• Did intelligence successfully interrogate everyone? Did someone successfully lie to them and keep a copy of the files anyway? For instance either Greenwald or Poitras, or a staff member at these media houses.
  • (If any of these people are actually reading this, this is not an accusation. I'm genuinely curious because I lack data.)
  • I currently assign low but not negligible probability that someone slipped past the interrogation dragnet, as in they either lied or weren't interrogated hard enough.

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