practically include comprehensive coverage of the United States.” As a result, he wrote. “The

83 practically include comprehensive coverage of the United States.” As a result, he wrote. “The amount of US communications ingested by the NSA is still increasing.” He further offered to substantiate her worst fears about the growth of NSA surveillance’ “TI know the location of most domestic interception points, and that the largest telecommunication companies in the US are betraying the trust of their customers, which I can prove.” He even proffered, evidence implicating President Barak Obama in illegal surveillance. “There is a detailed policy framework, a kind of martial law for cyber operations, created by the White House. It’s called presidential policy 20,” he wrote her. It was an 18-page directive that Obama had signed four months earlier in October 2012. Snowden was offering to reveal to her the up-to-date evidence of a surveillance state in America presided over by the President himself. It was what she had been searching for three years. How could she, as an activist film-maker, resist such a sensational offer? He further explained to her that he had placed great trust in his discretion. “No one, not even my most trusted confidante, is aware of my intentions, and it would not be fair for them to fall under suspicion for my actions,” he said. Poitras must have found it flattering that a total stranger was willing to disclose to her in emails what he would not tell even his “most trusted confidante” about his intentions to commit an illicit breach of U.S. national security. It was an extraordinary risk he was taking. After all, “Citizen 4” had no way of knowing who she else she told about him. She had long been concerned, with good reason that the U.S. government was out to get her. An unknown person offering to supply her with secret documents could be attempting to entrap her. So he could not preclude she would not consult with others about the offer he was making her. Since her current documentary project included interviews with Assange, Appelbaum and three ex-NSA executives, intelligence services with sophisticated surveillance capabilities might also have taken a professional interest in her communications, as Poitras herself had suspected. Even if Snowden was somehow able to use his position as a system administrator at Dell to ascertain that the NSA did not have Poitras under surveillance, he could not be sure that other agencies, such as the Russian and Chinese intelligence services, were not be monitoring his communications with Poitras. It was, however, a chance Snowden evidently was willing to take. Snowden, in any case, did not intend to conceal his identity for more than a few months. He told Poitras he had a specific purpose in allowing her to name him in her film. Indeed, he said it was essential in his plan to prevent others, including presumably his “most trusted confidante,” from being suspected by law enforcement of helping him in his enterprise. He prevailed on her to accommodate his plan, saying: “You may be the only one who can prevent that, and that is by immediately nailing me to the cross rather than trying to protect me as a source.” His choice of the imagery of crucifixion suggested that, like Jesus Christ, he was willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of others. In keeping with their operational security regime, he said that he would first send her an encrypted file of documents that she would not be able to read. Only after his conditions were HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_020235