Author: Peter Maass

I was born and raised in Los Angeles. In 1983, after graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, I went to Brussels as a copy editor for The Wall Street Journal/Europe. I left the Journal in 1985 to write for The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune, covering NATO and the European Union. In 1987 I moved to Seoul, South Korea, where I wrote primarily for The Washington Post. After three years in Asia I moved to Budapest to cover Eastern Europe and the Balkans. I spent most of 1992 and 1993 covering the war in Bosnia for the Post.

My New Job at First Look

This is just a quick note to announce that I have joined First Look Media as a senior writer. I’m quite delighted and excited to be working with Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill, Laura Poitras and many others at First Look. For more, here’s the announcement.

New Mexico ACLU

Albuquerque, New Mexico
A speech at an ACLU event focusing on surveillance in the digital era. Event starts at 6 pm. Ticketed event. For more info, please contact http://www.aclu-nm.org/borc2013/2013/10/

Foreign Policy Association

New York, NY
Talk on surveillance in the era of the NSA and Edward Snowden, and the challenges to both the first and fourth amendments. Tickets required. Contact otr@fpa.org or 212-481-8100 ext. 223 or visit https://off-the-record.org/. Event will be held at the New York Bar Association, 42 West ... (Read more)

Boston College Law School

Newton, MA
Panel discussion with Tim McLaughlin and Gary Knight about our joint exhibit, “Invasion: Diaries and Memories of War in Iraq,” which will be on display at Boston College from October 28-November 20. Panel starts at 6:30 in East Wing Room 120 at the law school, 885 Centre ... (Read more)

Institute for Public Knowledge

New York, NY
A panel discussion on “The State of Surveillance: Legal, Cultural and Technological Perspectives,” with Clay Shirky, Eyal Press, Carrie Cordero, Faiza Patel and Peter Maass. At NYU’s Global Center for Academic and Spiritual Life, 238 Thompson Street, C-95 Lecture Hall. ... (Read more)

Behind the Cover Story: How I Reported on Poitras, Greenwald and Snowden

The following is a question-and-answer interview published on the New York Times Magazine’s blog, “The 6th Floor.” Rachel Nolan conducted the interview.

RN: Everyone wants to talk to Snowden, and, failing that, everyone wants to talk to the two people talking to Snowden. How did you ... (Read more)

The Secret Breakers: How Laura Poitras Helped Edward Snowden Spill His Secrets

The New York Times Magazine
August 18, 2013

This past January, Laura Poitras received a curious e-mail from an anonymous stranger requesting her public encryption key. For almost two years, Poitras had been working on a documentary about surveillance, and she occasionally received queries from strangers. ... (Read more)

The Snowden Interview

In the course of reporting my profile of Laura Poitras for The New York Times Magazine, I conducted an encrypted question-and-answer interview, for which Poitras served as intermediary, with Edward J. Snowden. Below is a full transcript of that conversation.

Peter Maass: Why did you seek out Laura ... (Read more)

On Leakers, Heroes and Traitors

Julian Assange, Bradley Manning and, now, Edward Snowden. Heroes or traitors? My latest story in The Nation argues that character questions of this sort serve as distractions ... (Read more)

‘We Steal Secrets’ Misses the Leak for the Leakers

The Nation
June 18, 2013

Here’s a recipe for diluting the debate about our surveillance state: start talking about the foibles of the leakers and whistleblowers.

Consider the case of Edward Snowden, who worked as a contractor for the National Security Agency and leaked secret documents revealing ... (Read more)