journalist and "wired" contributor james bamford has written extensively about u.s.veillance for decades, and is the author of this latest story, which appears in the september issue. he joins me now from rio de janeiro. >> ifill: james bamford, you say in your piece you feel like off kinship with edward snowden. why didn't he talk to you? >> well, gwen, nice being on the program. the reason i think we had a bit of a kinship is, interestingly, i worked also for n.s.a. in hawaii when i was in the navy. i was assigned to a unit that was basically part of the n.s.a., and i worked there during the vietnam war for basically two years out of three years i spent in the navy. then after i left the active duty and was in the reserves while i was in law school, i discovered at one of the listening posts they were eavesdropping on u.s. citizens. so i blew the whistle on that to the church committee and actually testified in closed session before the church committee. so these were some of the things that i think we had a bit in common. he was far more of a whistleblower than i