What Happened to the Snowden Archive
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- The Snowden archive, containing hundreds of thousands of classified NSA documents, was distributed to major media outlets, but and all stopped publishing documents by 2019, despite large portions remaining unpublished.
- The Guardian destroyed its London-based Snowden archive in 2013 under government pressure and stopped publishing documents in 2014, with financial and editorial reasons given, but also under government consultation and a restrictive agreement with Snowden.
- The Washington Post, holding a smaller portion, stopped publishing in 2014, with Gellman citing 'cold storage' and security concerns for not sharing further.
- The New York Times and ProPublica published only a few documents and stopped in 2015, with unclear agreements with the Guardian and no public explanation for halting.
- Der Spiegel published around 140 documents until 2015 but never explained why it stopped, though it collaborated with Poitras and faced weekly NSA pressure.
- The Intercept, founded to report on the archive, stopped publishing in 2019, citing financial constraints and Greenwald's intent to seek partners, but the decision was controversial, with Poitras objecting and the archive's closure never fully explained.
- Greenwald and Poitras still hold complete copies of the archive, but neither has published from it since 2019, with reasons including legal risks, security challenges, and a shift to academic institutions that failed to materialize.
- The Intercept's closure of the archive in 2019 was attributed to budget cuts and changing priorities, but allegations of secretiveness and disagreements between editors suggest other factors, with no outlet publishing Snowden documents in the public interest since then.
- The Snowden archive contains over 99% unpublished documents, but most outlets stopped due to costs, fading news value, or security concerns, though some propose academic institutions as new custodians, but none have taken over.