Techonomy is proud to present KeenON, a series ofinterviews by techonologist and author Andrew Keen that explores the intersection of tech, business, and culture.

It isnt surprising that Edward Snowden chose then Washington Post reporterBarton Gellmanas one of the earliest recipients of his leaked NSA documents. Gellman is the author of abest-selling bookabout Dick Cheney as well as manyinfluential articlesabout the war on terror, and thus was a natural choice for Snowden when he sought a trustworthy journalist to publicize the PRISM materials.

So was Snowden a hero? Not surprisingly, Gellman wont be drawn into such a clichd analysis. What he does insist, however, is that Snowden was an important figure who has sparked a massively important conversationone, in his words, with legsthat is still going on today. Its a subject, Gellman insists, that has not only changed the way that Silicon Valley companies like Google and Twitter do their data business with the U.S. government, but may have changed the nature of journalism. Indeed, its such a vital subject that Gellman himself is currently writing a book about what he calls our surveillance-industrial state of affairs. The book, he says, will break new ground in how we imagine our electronically networked world.

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KeenON: Journalist and NSA Expert Barton Gellman