140 When I later asked Kucherena in Moscow why Snowden changed his story in direct contradiction of what Kucherena had stated, he said “Wizner.” He was referring to Ben Wizner, a top-drawer ACLU lawyer based in Washington D.C. Wizner had joined the ACLU in August 2001 after graduating NYU law school and clerking for a Federal judge. At the ACLU, he became an effective foe of NSA surveillance. “I had spent ten years before this [Snowden leak] trying to bring lawsuits against the intelligence community,” he explained in an interview with Forbes in 2014. Prior to the Snowden leak, he had been consulted frequently by Poitras on government surveillance issues (and appeared in Poitras’ 2010 documentary “The Oath.”) He had also been engaged in a law suit aimed at exposing the NSA’s subpoenas for Verizon records. He had first learned about Snowden in early 2013, while Snowden was still working for the NSA, from Poitras. At that time, Poitras did not know Snowden’s real name, but she revealed to Wizner that she had found an anonymous source with access to U.S. government surveillance secrets. So he was not completely surprised when Glenn Greenwald, Poitras’ writing partner, asked him in July 2013 to contact Snowden in Russia. Snowden offered an opportunity for Wizner since the ACLU already had been pursuing a suit in Federal court against the government’s seizure of Verizon’s billing records. If he could induce Snowden to retain him and the ACLU, he could claim standing in Federal court to represent Snowden in the case. He also fully believed in the salutary benefit of Snowden’s revelations. They communicated over Skype, according to Kucherena. When they discussed Snowden’s legal situation in America, Snowden expressed an interest in obtaining some form of amnesty from prosecution in America. Wizner was willing to attempt to explore making a possible deal with the Department of Justice, but it would not be an easy task, especially if Snowden had turned over NSA documents