--- title: The Inside Story of the Five Guys Who Set Out to Reform the NSA description: On Friday, Aug. 9, 2013, at 3 in the afternoon, President Barack Obama held a press conference. Two months earlier, Edward Snowden, a contractor with... canonical: https://time.com/4246094/the-inside-story-of-the-five-guys-who-set-out-to-reform-the-nsa/ author: Fred Kaplan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-03-03T11:49:08.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-31T09:18:13.114Z article:section: Politics og:title: The Inside Story of the Five Guys Who Set Out to Reform the NSA og:description: On Friday, Aug. 9, 2013, at 3 in the afternoon, President Barack Obama held a press conference. Two months earlier, Edward Snowden, a contractor with... og:url: https://time.com/4246094/the-inside-story-of-the-five-guys-who-set-out-to-reform-the-nsa/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Inside Story of the Five Guys Who Set Out to Reform the NSA twitter:description: On Friday, Aug. 9, 2013, at 3 in the afternoon, President Barack Obama held a press conference. Two months earlier, Edward Snowden, a contractor with... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # The Inside Story of the Five Guys Who Set Out to Reform the NSA by [Fred Kaplan](https://time.com/author/fred-kaplan/) ## Fred Kaplan Mar 3, 2016 11:49 AM UTC by [Fred Kaplan](https://time.com/author/fred-kaplan/) ## Fred Kaplan Mar 3, 2016 11:49 AM UTC On Friday, Aug. 9, 2013, at 3 in the afternoon, President Barack Obama held a press conference. Two months earlier, Edward Snowden, a contractor with the National Security Agency, had leaked tens of thousands of highly classified documents, revealing that the NSA was intercepting phone calls and emails of millions of Americans, in apparent violation of the law. _Read the full story_ [_here_](http://time.com/darkterritory/)_._ The Inside Story of the Five Guys Who Set Out to Reform the NSA ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4246094/the-inside-story-of-the-five-guys-who-set-out-to-reform-the-nsa/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4246094/the-inside-story-of-the-five-guys-who-set-out-to-reform-the-nsa/"},"headline":"The Inside Story of the Five Guys Who Set Out to Reform the NSA","datePublished":"2016-03-03T11:49:08.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-31T09:18:13.114Z","description":"On Friday, Aug. 9, 2013, at 3 in the afternoon, President Barack Obama held a press conference. Two months earlier, Edward Snowden, a contractor with...","url":"https://time.com/4246094/the-inside-story-of-the-five-guys-who-set-out-to-reform-the-nsa/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Fred Kaplan","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/fred-kaplan/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4246094/the-inside-story-of-the-five-guys-who-set-out-to-reform-the-nsa/","name":"The Inside Story of the Five Guys Who Set Out to Reform the NSA"}}]}] ```