put her. But because they were exchanging private text messages

go | HOW AMERICA LOST ITS SECRETS put her. But because they were exchanging private text messages by then, he would not have needed to consult her public journal. Snowden was certainly aware that he would soon be the object of a manhunt that could involve those with whom he was acquainted. He instructed Poitras to mask their e-mail communications in cyber- space “so we don’t have a clue or record of your true name in your file communication chain.” Such precautions were necessary, he explained to her, because “every trick in the book is likely to be used in looking into this.” The journalists arrived the evening of June 2. The Mira hotel can be entered by guests both through a ground- floor lobby with a restaurant and a smaller third-floor lobby that connects to the Mira shopping mall. The instructions that Snowden sent Poitras on her arrival were an exercise in control: “On timing, regarding meeting up in Hong Kong, the first rendezvous attempt will be at 10 a.m. local time. We will meet in the hallway outside of the restaurant in the Mira Hotel. I will be working on a Rubik’s cube so that you can identify me. Approach me and ask if I know the hours of the restaurant. I’ll respond by stating that I’m not sure and © suggest you try the lounge instead. I’ll offer to show you where it is, © and at that point we’re good. You simply need to follow naturally.” According to Greenwald’s account, Snowden changed the plan to the upper lobby. “We were to go to the third floor,” Greenwald writes. “We were to wait on a couch near a ‘giant alligator’ ” which Poitras said was a room decoration. (A hotel executive told me that the hotel knew of no plastic alligator on the third floor but possibly it had been temporarily parked there by a hotel guest.) They were then to give the recognition signal. Although these instructions provided the atmospherics of “an international spy thriller,” as Greenwald described them, Snowden hardly needed any spy tradecraft to recog- nize Greenwald and Poitras because there were many photographs of them on the Internet. In any case, they gave the recognition signal, twice, in the des- ignated place, and a young man walked over to them holding a Rubik’s Cube. Greenwald noted, “The first thing I saw was the unsolved Rubik’s Cube, twirling in the man’s left hand.” The man said, “Hello,” and introduced himself as “Ed Snowden.” Greenwald was particularly surprised by Snowden’s boyish looks. | | Epst_9780451494566_2p_all_r1.z.indd 90 ® 9/29/16 5:51 Pa | | HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019578