TAO bricking the Syrian main router and MonsterMind implementing a sort of cyber-MAD system, are explicitly called out as exclusive revelations. They are important because:
* Until now, any loss of Internet connectivity in Syria has always been interpreted as "bad dictator censoring people". I'm not saying that's never been the case, but now we know the US can have more control on global internet infrastructure than we knew possible. Next time some "bad" middle-eastern country loses the internet, US propaganda will have a harder time making people believe it's all due to bad actors.
* As Snowden eloquently says, an automated response system has very serious ethical challenges. Automation is not flawless, we've learnt it in the '70s and '80s through a number of very close calls with nuclear missiles; and in such an ethereal world as the internet (where bits can be faked almost at will), aggressive response should probably never be automatic.
The article also fleshes out Snowden's career in a better way than most similar pieces, and heavily suggests that the "second leaker" theory has some legs (at one point, personally I thought the second leaker was actually a USgov operation to distract reporters from the Snowden trove and/or spend some capital to re-establish relationships with them; but if Poitras really lawyered up when asked, chances are that there's something else as well).
> I'm not saying that's never been the case, but now we know the US can have more control on global internet infrastructure than we knew possible.
About ten years ago we learned that a teacher at my faculty (maths and CS), a world class specialist in graphs theory and finding critical nodes at small world networks, was contacted by a US three letter agency. I've assumed since then that the US government could shut down the internet any time if they really, really wanted to do it.
I didn't consider that they would shut down whole countries as a result of bricking routers from unintended hacking errors, though. Reality keeps outdoing the wildest figments of imagination.
> if Poitras really lawyered up when asked, chances are that there's something else as well).
Or it is in her (and Snowden's) interest to not say exactly what came from where. If there is a second leaker, confirming it could create or increase the intensity of a witch hunt. If there is not, it would confirm that Snowden may have took more material than he claims.
Either way, there is no benefit to her answering either in the affirmative or negative.
There is also no benefit to answering herself, as she's likely already retained the lawyer because of handling this sensitive material.
> If there is not, it would confirm that Snowden may have took more material than he claims.
That's not really in their interest -- they have been very good at making the most out of the story, both from a political and personal point of view, so it would be in their interest to claim ownership of anything actually related to the leaked documents. The only reason I can see for covering the fact that there might not be another leaker, is if they (accidentally?) passed on the documents to somebody else and don't want to be legally accountable for that particular transaction. As long as Snowden was the only one moving stuff around, Greenwald and Poitras are mostly in the clear from a legal point of view, they are just reporters; the moment they provide them to third parties, they lose that protected status. However, this would not matter if their aim was just to involve another journalistic outfit like Der Spiegel (unless German law does not provide the same cover to journalism activities as US law), so I can't see why they'd want to have such a charade going on.
I personally find much more likely that there is a second (or even third) leaker but they don't want to put him/her under pressure, as you say.
