Snowden has information to hurt US, more than anyone else: Journalist

National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden has in his possession enough information to cause more damage to the US government than "anyone else has ever had in the history" said Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian columnist who first unveiled the former Booz Allen Hamilton employee's disclosures on US intelligence hacking. 

According to Greenwald, the US government needed to handle Snowden with extreme care because he had the potential to do further damage to the country, though thqt was not his goal. Greenwald was speaking to the Argentinan newspaper, the Nacion.

Greewald added Snowden's objective was to expose software that people around the world used without knowing what they were exposing themselves to, without consciously agreeing to surrender their rights to privacy.

He added, Snowden had a huge number of documents that would be very harmful to the US government if they were made public.

According to Greenwald the information in the documents  revealed exactly how the NSA went about doing what it did.

According to Greenwald "literally thousands" of documents taken by Snowden constituted "basically the instruction manual" for how the NSA was built.

On Friday, Snowden, 30, emerging out of hiding in a Moscow airport, said he was willing to meet president Vladimir Putin's condition to stop leaking US secrets if it meant Russia would grant him asylum until he could move on to somewhere in Latin America.

It is believed the whistleblower is stuck in the transit area of Moscow's main international airport, where he arrived from Hong Kong on 23 June, and although he had asylum offers from Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia, it would be difficult for him to get to any of those countries as his US passport had been revoked.

According to Greenwald, Snowden remained "calm and tranquil," despite his predicament.

He said he had not sensed any remorse or regret or anxiety over the situation that he was in. He added, Snowden was of course tense and focused on his security and his short-term well-being to the best extent that he could, but he was resigned to the fact that things might go terribly wrong.

Greenwald said he was worried that interest in Snowden's personal saga had detracted from the impact of his revelations, adding that Snowden deliberately rebuffed nearly all requests for interviews to avoid media scrutiny. He added he was  "concerned" about Snowden's personal safety.