The journalists wanted to secure the archive outside Brazil as soon as possible, in case authorities tried to confiscate it. The next step was to figure out a faster and more secure way to receive all the source's material, which was still trickling onto Greenwald's phone via Telegram eight or nine days after the hacker made contact. “This is huge.” Once he had a sense of the material, Demori gave the project an enthusiastic green light. As he listened to Greenwald, his jaw dropped: “Oh my God,” he thought. “You need to be sitting down right now.” Demori, who was packing for a vacation, plopped down on his bed. Greenwald asked if Demori was sitting down.

That same Sunday, Greenwald called Leandro Demori, executive editor of the Intercept Brasil, part of the media group that Greenwald had cofounded after the Snowden leaks in 2014. Listen to the full story here or on the Curio app**. This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from. In 2018, a left-wing politician and close friend of Greenwald and Miranda named Marielle Franco had been assassinated in her car two former policemen were charged with her murder. And Miranda had taken his seat in the National Congress after his predecessor, Jean Wyllys, from the same party, had fled Brazil and given up his seat over death threats and homophobic abuse. Unlike in the Snowden case, Greenwald would be living in the same country as the authorities he would be exposing. And I was pretty convinced it was real.”įrom the start, Greenwald and Miranda discussed the dangers of working on the leaks. “That's when I realized this archive was enormous. “Every time I opened my Telegram app it was just going and going,” Greenwald says. When Greenwald went to bed that night, the files were still coming in they hadn't finished when he woke up in the morning.

Occasionally the source would interject, giddily telling Greenwald to look at a particular document. He told Greenwald it would take between 12 to 15 hours to finish uploading.Īfter the call, Greenwald began receiving files through his Telegram account-a huge number of them, one after another. “OK, I'm gonna just start uploading them to your phone,” the source said. The call was about four minutes long-Greenwald kept it short, but said he wanted to see the documents. He said he was using multiple proxies that made it nearly impossible for anyone to find him, and he was never going to set foot on Brazilian soil again. They'll never catch me,” the source boasted. “Are you being careful?” Greenwald recalls asking.

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