Journalist Glenn Greenwald is once again rejecting claims that he and National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden are endangering American efforts to fight terrorism — and he’s using recent reports that the NSA might have spied on German Chancellor Angela Merkel to prove his point.
“What we revealed is that this spying system is devoted not to terrorists, but is directed to innocent people around the world,” Greenwald told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an interview that aired Monday. “None of this has anything to do with terrorism. Is Angela Merkel a terrorist?”
“This is clearly about political power and economic espionage. And the claim that this is all about terrorism is seen around the world as what it is, which is pure deceit,” he added.
Greenwald insisted that his reporting and Snowden’s leaks are exposing the unnecessary expansiveness of the NSA spying program.
“Every terrorist who is capable of tying their own shoes has long known that the U.S. government and the U.K. government are trying to monitor their communications in every way that they can,” Greenwald said. “That isn’t new. We didn’t reveal anything to terrorists that they didn’t already know.”
Amanpour’s full interview with Greenwald will air Monday evening on CNN.
