The Guardian journalist who first reported Edward Snowden’s disclosures of U.S. surveillance programs says the former National Security Agency analyst has “very specific blueprints of how the NSA do what they do.”

Glenn Greenwald says Snowden has “literally thousands of documents” that constitute “basically the instruction manual for how the NSA is built,” but that Snowden has insisted details from the documents not be made public.

Greenwald says he doesn’t think national security would be harmed if the secret documents were to be published, but he added that he did think revelations from them could harm the U.S. government.

Greenwald, who closely communicates with Snowden, spoke to The Associated Press on Sunday from Rio de Janeiro, where he lives.

(AP)