Greenwald spoke with WIRED prior to publication of his story late Tuesday night. In the story, Greenwald and colleague Murtaza Hussein identified five Muslim-Americans whose email addresses appeared on a lengthy surveillance target list. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden provided the list to Greenwald last year, which included more than 7,000 email addresses, at least 200 of which were tagged by the government as being "U.S. persons." In naming five of those in the Greenwald story, it's the first time that American targets of the government's surveillance, who were never arrested or accused of terrorist activity, have been identified.

In this frank interview with Greenwald, he explains the significance of the revelations. He also divulges why he delayed the story last week instead of publishing as planned, and discusses the possible existence of a mysterious "second leaker," and why it has taken a decade to finally get confirmation of surveillance activities that were first reported in 2005 and 2006 by the New York Times and USA Today.