Hi, this is Lindsay Graham, host of American Scandal.

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A listener note,

this episode previously aired in 2022. It's a weekday afternoon in late 2012.

Edward Snowden is carrying a desktop computer through a long and empty hallway.

The walls are reinforced with concrete, and the lights overhead are bright, fluorescent, and buzzing with menace.

Snowden pauses to set down a large computer and catch his breath.

He wipes away a beat of sweat from his forehead, and then Snowden shakes out his arms.

He grabs the computer again and continues down the corridor, hoping he won't run into anyone.

As he hurries down the hallway, Snowden tries to reassure himself that he's going to be fine.

He's 29 years old,

pale and lanky, looking a lot like the other guys here in this government installation outside Honolulu. The building is buried deep underground, underneath an old pineapple field.

Everyone working here had to say goodbye to the Hawaiian sun and accept that they aren't going to get

much of a tan.

So Snowden knows he doesn't look out of place, and it's not that suspicious for him to be carrying an old computer. He's an analyst with a national security agency, the kind of guy who

spends his entire day on a computer. And this underground building is where he works.

Still, Snowden can't help but feel a rising panic that's threatening to overwhelm him.

He's about to carry out a dangerous plan.

Snowden is going to blow the whistle on the United States government.

...