83 practically include comprehensive coverage of the United States.” As a result, he wrote. “The amount of US communications ingested by the NSA is still increasing.” He further offered to substantiate her worst fears about the growth of NSA surveillance’ “TI know the location of most domestic interception points, and that the largest telecommunication companies in the US are betraying the trust of their customers, which I can prove.” He even proffered, evidence implicating President Barak Obama in illegal surveillance. “There is a detailed policy framework, a kind of martial law for cyber operations, created by the White House. It’s called presidential policy 20,” he wrote her. It was an 18-page directive that Obama had signed four months earlier in October 2012. Snowden was offering to reveal to her the up-to-date evidence of a surveillance state in America presided over by the President himself. It was what she had been searching for three years. How could she, as an activist film-maker, resist such a sensational offer? He further explained to her that he had placed great trust in his discretion. “No one, not even my most trusted confidante, is aware of my intentions, and it would not be fair for them to fall under suspicion for my actions,” he said. Poitras must have found it flattering that a total stranger was willing to disclose to her in emails what he would not tell even his “most trusted confidante” about his intentions to commit an illicit breach of U.S. national security. It was an extraordinary risk he was taking. After all, “Citizen 4” had no way of knowing who she else she told about him. She had long been concerned, with good reason that the U.S. government was out to get her. An unknown person offering to supply her with secret documents could be attempting to entrap her. So he could not preclude she would not consult with others about the offer he was making her. Since her current documentary project included interviews with Assange, Appelbaum a