Welcome to The Dig. My name is Daniel Denver, and I'm broadcasting from AS220 in Providence, Rhode Island.

President Bush and Obama both presided over an expansive war on terror and national security state with a lethal and global reach.

Often, permanent war and warrantless snooping

have become the bipartisan consensus backdrop

of American politics, an immutable feature

of everyday life rather than outrageous abuses

to be resisted or at least debated.

Soon, Donald Trump will become president,

meaning that a man brazenly indifferent to the rule of law will be in charge of a killing and surveillance machinery that is already quite lawless.

Today, we are joined by Glenn Greenwald, a co-founding editor of The Intercept and one of the reporters who Edward Snowden entrusted with secret NSA documents exposing mass surveillance.

Glenn is one of the country's leading critics of the national security state and the establishment

media and political figures who helped pave the way for Trump's win.

Glenn, welcome to the dig.

It's great to be with you. Thank you for inviting me.

You've been a vocal critic of mainstream media's penchant for hyping a new Russian threat based on thin or entirely false evidence.

Under the false banner, there's the Washington Post story that Russia hacked into an American electric utility.

And there are other story conveying allegations that websites with critical perspectives were Russian

propaganda outlets.

Then there's the DNC email hack story, which seems to fall under the thin category.

Can you walk me through what's going on right now in terms of the media reporting on on on on on this Russian threat well so I think there are two

aspects to it it became a really important part of the Clinton campaign to link

Donald Trump to Russia to suggest that he had unknown and and unseen loyalties to the Kremlin.

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