As a very smart former lawyer, I have no doubt that he's going to ask every question, knowing full well the answer to the question and that those testifying on behalf of the NSA are going to be left with no choice but to lie either directly or through some sort of doublespeak. They should assume that everything he asks or talks about is backed up by evidence.

Only one of two things are likely to happen on Wednesday. He discusses the truth and they admit it or he discusses the truth, they deny it, he provides evidence to the contrary that confirms both the truth and that those at the NSA blatantly lied to Congress. Either way, there is no way this can go down well for those protecting these abuses of Constitutional rights.

I'm really looking forward to this hearing.

Ok, conspiracy theories gone crazy here but here goes...

GreEnwald is exposed down there in Brazil. A petty street robbery gone bad, a car accident, or a simple "sudden" heart attack, could all make this into a nothing event.

People in this kind of position have habits of "committing suicide" from the "stress":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kelly_(weapons_expert)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Gareth_Williams

I would put money on the act that Gareth Williams worked on, or knew about both Tempora and Prism.

   "Williams' working life, after graduating with a first 
   in mathematics in 1996 aged 17, was spent in Cheltenham
   at GCHQ, Britain’s signals intelligence agency. He joined
   in 2001 after completing a PhD in computer science at
   Manchester University. His final role in GCHQ had been
   designing "practical applications for emerging
   technologies".

   In 2007, he applied to become a secret agent by 
   transferring to SIS, the UK's human intelligence agency 
   responsible for spies and spy recruitment. He was put 
   through a series of aptitude and skill tests. He failed.
   He also attended Black Hat 16 the same year, according 
   to an SIS witness, presumably also then staying on to 
   attend Defcon."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/05/03/gareth_williams_inqu...

Maybe he was Snowden part 1: the failed mission.

End conspiracy theory...

Possibly, however someone in Greenwald's position is almost certain to employ private security and drive in an armored car in Rio de Janeiro. I'm certain he's avoiding situations where scenarios that you listed can play out. It's not hard to do if you have decent money in Brazil. Greenwald is also likely to have friends in Brazil with security resources that could be shared with Greenwald, given that they would be aware of the danger Greenwald has put himself in because of his journalism.

The greatest risk would be bribery of his security personnel to provide a "backdoor" for an assassination. If that were the case, it definitely wouldn't look like one of the scenarios you described. It would be obvious that it is a targeted assassination.

FWIW: I'm Brazilian, have lived in both Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo and have had known many people with private security and armored cars there.

Actually I think that something happening to Greenwald would make matters much worse for the NSA. They would immediately be suspected by everyone on the planet whether they were involved or not, Greenwald would become a martyr, the leaks would certainly come out regardless, and any shred of credibility they had left would be gone forever.

Martyrs are only possible if the populous see them as such.

In today's world you need the media to treat him as a martyr to make him one in the general public's eyes. There is currently a smear campaign against him stating things like, "he is no longer just a journalist, but actively aiding and abetting the enemy", "aiding a fugitive", "helping to commit treason", gay with a green-card-denied-gay-lover, etc

The knives are out. He would be a martyr to a few that cared. The ambivalence in the masses to this subject is truly scary.

Greenwood is being treated like Applebaum and the other Wikileaks personnel surrounding Assange. They are viable targets as they are aiding dissenters that are determined, effective and dangerous to the status quo.

I don't actually believe that the US is going to try and remove Greenwald from the picture now, but not for the reasons you state.

The dam is breached so he is no longer a real threat. The usual process now is to control the response, public opinion and any senators that might raise any opposition.

They are very very good at it; well practiced and effective. You don't go up against the combined resources of the United States government and expect to win. This is like a gnat attacking an elephant.

If Greenwald strikes any more than a flesh wound on the US government then I'd be surprised. They are already back to business as usual and now with the added cart blanche, which is the knowledge that the public know they are being spied on, but the NSA now know that most of them don't give a shit, as long as they can still read status updates on Facebook.

Well if you're going to put all that effort into a conspiracy, why assume he's actually in Brazil?

This seems to have been the plan all along, and it's working brilliantly. As Greenwald said in the recent Majority Report interview [1] we are still "near the beginning of the revelations," so I think we're going to continue catching high officials in the middle of lies.

[1] http://majority.fm/2013/07/25/725-glenn-greenwald-the-impact...

Please, take the time to read the article.

> “In fact, we don’t monitor emails. That’s what kind of assures me is that what the reporting is is not correct. Because no emails are monitored now,” [Senator] Chambliss said. “They used to be, but that stopped two or three years ago. So I feel confident that there may have been some abuse, but if it was it was pure accidental.”

They've essentially admitted that Greenwald's information is accurate, they're just claiming that Greenwald is late to the party and they've already dealt with the problem in secret.

It's interesting, because if you go back over the testimony I'm very sure that all of the NSA denials will be in the present tense. So it's quite possible that the NSA has not been lying at all, they've just been counting on us to fill in "That has never happened" when all they've said is "we do not [currently] do that."

Snowden left the NSA a few months ago. If the monitoring of emails had truly ceased 2-3 years ago, I would have expected that information to already have been aired since Snowden and the classified material he has is likely to be current enough to corroborate this claim.

But, "two or three years ago" is a strangely broad phrase to use for something as huge as monitoring emails. Why did they not say "that stopped in the middle of 2011" or something like that?

I did read the article. There's a lot more information to be released. Snowden took thousands of documents that he hand selected. Greenwald has said that there are more NSA programs to be exposed.

4. No actual consequences for anyone demonstrated to be lying.

Until officials are held accountable, why wouldn't they continue lying and denying? It's starting to get to the point where I'm more angry at congress members who should provide oversight, than the lying officials themselves.

As a simple example, if I'm an NSA official and contrast how James Clapper experienced absolutely no real consequences for perjuring himself [1], with how Snowden has been treated for rocking the boat, I honestly don't know what decision I would make.

[1] http://www.salon.com/2013/06/12/how_james_clapper_will_get_a...