National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden possesses enough information to cause more damage to the United States government than “anyone else has ever had in the history” of the country, according to the journalist who first reported the former contractor’s leaked documents.

Glenn Greenwald, a columnist for The Guardian newspaper who first reported on the intelligence leaks, told Argentinian newspaper La Nacion that the U.S. government should exercise extreme care with Snowden because he has the potential to do further damage to the country.

“But that’s not his goal,” Greenwald told the newspaper. “His objective is to expose software that people around the world use without knowing what they are exposing themselves to, without consciously agreeing to surrender their rights to privacy. He has a huge number of documents that would be very harmful to the U.S. government if they were made public.”

Greenwald also told The Associated Press that disclosure of the information in the documents would “allow somebody who read them to know exactly how the NSA does what it does, which would in turn allow them to evade that surveillance or replicate it.”

Greenwald said “literally thousands” of documents taken by Snowden constitute “basically the instruction manual” for how the NSA is built.

“In order to take documents with him that proved that what he was saying was true he had to take ones that included very sensitive, detailed blueprints of how the NSA does what they do,” said Greenwald, adding that the interview took place about four hours after his last interaction with Snowden.

Greenwald believes the disclosure of the information in the documents would not prove harmful to Americans or their national security, but said Snowden has insisted they not be made public.

“I think it would be harmful to the U.S. government, as they perceive their own interests, if the details of those programs were revealed,” said Greenwald, who has previously said the documents have been encrypted to help ensure their safekeeping.

On Friday, Snowden, 30, emerged after weeks of hiding in a Moscow airport and said he was willing to meet President Vladimir Putin’s condition that he stop leaking U.S. secrets if it means Russia would grant him asylum until he can move on to somewhere in Latin America.

Snowden is believed to be stuck in the transit area of Moscow’s main international airport, where he arrived from Hong Kong on June 23. Although he has had asylum offers from Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia, the logistics of reaching whichever country is complicated since his U.S. passport has been revoked.

Despite his predicament, Snowden remains “calm and tranquil,” Greenwald said.

“I haven’t sensed an iota of remorse or regret or anxiety over the situation that he’s in,” said Greenwald. “He’s of course tense and focused on his security and his short-term well-being to the best extent that he can, but he’s very resigned to the fact that things might go terribly wrong and he’s at peace with that.”

Greenwald said he worried that interest in Snowden’s personal saga had detracted from the impact of his revelations, …read more

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