on the sunshine coast. it took the 52-year-old five months to row from chile. he had climbed mt. everest twice and climbed the highest summit on every continent. for all the news on al jazeera, go to www.aljazeera.com. there are enormos costs to having this ongoing surveil an. >> gleann greenwald has led the he said more revelation are yet to come? >> among the biggest stories are left to be reported. >> the journalist believes there is a limit to the public's right to know. everybody acknowledges some limited discriminating. it's out with a new book "no

place to hide" which details his first encounter with snowden on his trip to hong kong. >> everything we did needed constantly to be shrouded in extreme levels of secrecy. he joined me to talk about his work and answered questions from our viewers. >> let me start with the book and go back to the first time you met edward snowden in hong kong. the book reads like a spy novel at that moment. >> it was like living in a spy film essentially because we knew a couple of things, that this was certainly the biggest leak in national security history, that if the u.s. government found out what it was that he was doing that they would take very extreme mezto put a stop to it one way or the other but we didn't know much else. we didn't know whether the u.s. government knew anything or what they knew or whether hong kong an anything that was happening. everything that we did needed constantly to be shrouded in extreme levels of secrecy and snowden as a highly trained operative was very well versed

in how that needed to be done. context. >> you were surprised what he looked like? >>ists shocked by what he looked like. i had spent several weeks talking to him. i knew that he had access to enormous amounts of top secret material, that he had sophisticated insights and most of all knew he was prepared to spend the rest of his life in prison. so, i assumed that he was in his 60s or 70s. >> did that give you pause, that you might be writing articles that would in essence send him to prison? >> it made me need to know that he was making the choice with a full understanding of what the likely consequences would be and that the decision-making process was one grounded in rationality autonomy. i got that assurance pretty quickly. you did? >> yes. >> how did you do that? >> i sat him down and questioned him very aggressively for sec quan sec you've been hours in the hotel room on the first day. i insisted upon understanding the thoughts behind his

thoughts, the moral framework that led him to this reasoning that led to this decision and i needed to know it was co hasn't and cogevent and rational. out. >> do you think he rec niced all he might go through and has been through sense . there was a video clip in which i asked him what do you think are theling consequences for you for having made this choice? he said, i am going to be called a traitor by the united states government. i am certain to be charged with multiple felons. there will be people digging into all aspects of my life and my freedom of my life as i know it will never be the same. >> there is a moment when you talk about the impact on his girlfriend and his family. now? >> remarkably well. you know, he, when we were in hong kong, the working assumption was that he was going to spend the next several decades, probably the rest of his life in the cage in the american penal state. happen? >> all three of us thought that would happen.

he thought that would happen. and to now see him being able freelly to participate in the debate around the world that he helped to galvan eyes for him is something incredibly fulfilling. it is the case that he has had contact with his family cut off. he has been forced to be in a country that he didn't choose. his life has unraveled. at the same time, of all of the people i know in my life, the one who is most at peace and most fulfilled and probably the happiest is edward snowden because as he put it to me recently, he gets to put his head on his pillow every night that he took action in defense of his principles. >> do you talk to him on? >> regularly. >> what is his life like. >> he the reform movement, he is asked to speak at various events and increasingly doing that. he speaks to journalists. he always has been a person of the internet spending time indoors, orlando and he continues to do that. >> does he feel like a prisoner in russia? >> he doesn't. to the

extent that i know for myself that i spent 10 months feeling that i couldn'tsale travel back to the u.s. i did my reporting in brazil and felt like a free person in the sense i could do what i wanted within those confines so it deprives you of his freedom. he is aware he can't leave russia. he is not completely free but free when one come pays it to what we thought was going to be the outcome of his choice. >> we asked people to submit questions on the web? >> great. >> we have a couple. one in regards to russia. this is from gary in honolulu. he says, has mr. snowden expressed opinions regarding his life in russia in light of the annexation of crimea, support for pro-russian thugs and eastern ukraine, restraints on the media? >> i find that a bizarre question in part because he different choose to be in russia. but more so because people seek asigh lem in the united states year. i never heard anybody ask any of

those people who have asylum in the u.s. how do you feel about seeking asylum from a country that invaded another country of 26 million people or erected a torture for over a decade in guantanamo because it is not to declare which country you love the most. it's to seek protection from persecution at home. he didn't choose russia. it's odd to demand he be accountable for it abuses. i think the point of why he is there, he is forced to be there prison. >> he could have chosen to come back to the united states? >> he could do that now. >> if you were to come back to the sdmrus, with the u.s. media and political elites, when they are in public, they say, he should man up. if he thinks that he did the right thing, come back to court and make his case before a jury. the reality is, which they know but hide when speaking publically is that the way the law works, if you are accused of violating the espionage act, the

fact you worked as a whistleblower in court under those charges and so, it is not a fair trial or fight. his conviction would be virtually guaranteed. there is no reason why he should meekly submit to that. >> we have from linda, she said how many agents had to be removed because their cover had been blown and they were in danger? none. none that the u.s. government identified. the u.s. government makes these claims without any evidence every time there is unwanted disclosures going back to daniel els bergenhagen and it turns out evidence. >> that's the case here. >> coming up, has he published information that could put people in danger? my conversation with glenl greenwold continues in a moment.

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drunk this week on "talk to al jazeera," the cost and

rewards of publishing classified nsa documents. my guest, glenl greenwold. >> what's it like to be called a traitor and a hero? >> if you are going to do journalism and you want to do adversarial journalism, you have to expect you will anger a lot of people. if you are not prepared for that, you probably shouldn't go into journalism. >> you are critical of mainstream journalism in america. what's your biggest beef? >> the idea of why there is a free press is supposed to be that journalits are an adverse earlier force to those who we'lled power and for a variety of reasons over the last several decades, the american immediate qua has become subservient to and hep to those in power rather than adversarial to it and it has neutered journalism. >> you believe in a new form of adversarial journalism. is it -- does it include your

opinions on things and your opinions of -- like the nsa, let's say. there are a lot of people who say, so, what do you think the nsa should do? should it exist? >> i don't know of anybody who believes of all forms of surveillance should be abolished illegitimate. >> you don't know? >> i don't know anyone who does including myself. i think everybody acknowledges some limited, targeted, discriminating oversight driven surveillance is justified. i made my opinions clear as part of the journalism which isn't actually a new form of generalism. if you look at american journalism for the last two centuries, it's been crusading journalism where they don't deceit fully say they have no opinions. they acknowledge them and say you can rely on the facts i am reporting and ultimately, that is what determines the credibility of a journalit. >> mainstream journalism might include. the pulitzer committee.

you won a pulitzer prize. what was that like for you >> gratifying and vindicating given the debates that have arisen. and it was a little bit disconcerting to be honest about why this sort of establishment journalism is giving this award. i think it was good for the story and for what he had ward snowden did. >> it also, i mean, there were some people who thought you might be arrested the next time you came back to the united states. do you think getting the pull it's certain and the awards you have received recently helped? >> i do. you know, part of why i was willing to return to the u.s. when we did was because our plane landed when there was a roomful 300 journalists waiting for our arrival waiting to receive awards for the journalism that the u.s. government would have had to arrested us for conducting. it made the costs too high for that. >> you went with "the guardian." they went with your story. it wasn't easy. becaused upon your book, you describe a very difficult

process of getting "the guardian" to publish the information. start? >> the real issue is when i started this reporting, i had only been at the guardian for eight months. i hadn't done much reporting with the other edits because i generally work exclusively on my own, independently. there was no relationship with trust. i didn't know how aggressive they were willing to do. they different know how i was going to handle the story. in retrospect, there really wasn't all that much delay on the part of the guardian. at the time, it seemed as though there was. when i wrote the story, i wanted it done that minute. and, ultimately, i think the guardian did report the story very aggressively and intrepidly and that was a big part of why it made a big impact. >> you have made a points of mainstream publications, new york times, washington post go to the united states government before they print things. you don't like that. it isn't so much i am opposed to

the idea of advising the government. what i dislike about the process is one that results in the suppression of information that the public ought to know because it's news worthy has has happened so many times before. >> can you describe the excitement and the fear that you felt when you had this information in your hands? and you knew that this was going to go public? journalist? >> it was really overwhelming. i mean on the one hand, there was a huge amount of excitement. i have been working on surveillance and nsa issues many years and the difficulty has been you don't have the instruments to make the public aware of what is going on. suddenly in my laugh -- lap, there were all of the instruments in the world i could ever dreamed of having but i knew it was an enormous responsibility to the source, to the public, to my colleagues at the "guardian". >> why not dump all of the information to the public and minds? >> for one thing, edward snowden didn't want that.

he came to me and actually demanded that we enter into an report reported. if he wanted to do that, he won't have needed me. he could have uploaded those to the internet, himself. i think his belief -- and it's actually a belief that i share -- is that the impact from these disclosures is higher because we took the time to report the stories one by one, explain to the public what their meaning was, did reporting around them and let the public digest each individual story rather than just dumping them all on one. >> is there information in there that could put people in danger? >> anything is theoretically possible. we have made the decision to with hold some information. >> because it was too sensitive? >> wasn't news worthy and had the potential to create halfway for innocent people. that was the process we engaged in for every document we released. as to weigh those considerations. >> how many more documents? >> many more stories to go. i can't quantify them for you. among the biggest stories that are left to be reported, obviously there were a lot of

new stories in the book. there are still many left that we will continue to report. >> you have one big story spairmth coming at the end and you and edward snowdune deny discussed that. >> it's a story we haven't deliberately saved it for the end. the story is a very complicated story to report. it takes a lot of time and there is legal sensetivities. but i do think it will help to shape how the story is remembered for many years to come because it answers some central questions about how surveillance is conducted that aren't answered. >> you think you are out of states? >> i think there is a risk for some of these impending stories the nsa is angry about. i think by and large, the cost for the u.s. government to take action against me or other gennists is too high for them to be willing to inquire. >> the man at the center of a global debate, glenl greenwald talks about how his life has changed. changed.

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her resignation for healthcare.gov, and you didn't take it. so i wonder if it's very widespread. so is lopping off the head of it really the best step to take going forward? what i'm asking, is there a political reason for removing him, other than going straight to the problem? >> well, at this stage, i want someone at the va who is not spending time outside of solving problems for the veterans. i want somebody figuring out

every minute of every day, have we called every single veteran has waiting, and have they gotten a schedule? are we fixing the system? what kind of new technology do we need? have we made a realistic assessment of the wait times right now, and how are we going to bring them down? if we need more money, how much more money do we need to ask from congress? and how am i going to make sure congress delivers on that additional funding? >> that's what i want somebody at the va focused on. not how are they getting second guessed, and speculation about their futures and so forth and so on. and that's what rick agreed to as well.

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>> a realistic time for how they're going to get an appointment. those are things that don't require rocket science. it requires execution and discipline and focus. there have been broader issues that we're going to have to tackle. and the information systems inside of the vha. those are going to have to be changed. and that will cost money and time. and it will have to be implemented. they are providing service and medical treatment to our veterans when they get in the system. but they don't have, apparently, the state-of-the-art operations that you would want to see, for example, in a major medical center or hospital. now, keep in mind, those of us who are outside of the va

system, and try to get an appointment with the doctor in the private sector, and try to get an appointment for a scheduled hospital visit, there are probably wait times as well. so what we have to do is figure out what are realistic benchmarks for the system. and my suspicion is that with, not only with the veterans from iraq and afghanistan coming back, but also, the aging of our vietnam vets, may have more doctors visits, and it may be reflected in the budget, which i have consistently increased, even during fiscally tight times. there >> every saturday join us for exclusive, revealing, and surprising talks with the most interesting

people of our time. rosie perez >> i had to fight back, or else my ass was gonna get kicked... >> a tough childhood... >> there was a crying, there was a lot of laughter... >> finding her voice >> i was not a ham, i was ham & cheese... >> and turning it around... >> you don't have to let your circumstance dictate who you are as a person >> talk to al jazeera only on al jazeera america >> i'm ali velshi,

the news has become this thing where you talk to experts about people, and al jazeera has really tried to talk to people, about their stories. we are not meant to be your first choice for entertainment. we are ment to be your first choice for the news. . >> welcome to al jazeera america. i'm john henry smith. here are the stories we're following for you. the u.s. makes a deal for sergeant bow bergdahl's release. there has been an i am bar go between the united states and cuba for years, but more and more the united states is working with the cuban market. >> this kid with mental health issues has three firearms and 400 runs is unreasonable. >> earlier i spoke with richard martinez, whose son died in the santa bar