What happened to the Snowden archive

The last Snowden archive document was published on May 29, 2019, marking the closing of the prolific leak source's archive. Prior to this, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, The New York Times, ProPublica, and The Intercept were among the news outlets releasing documents from the collection. Despite these efforts, no other media organization or institution has published a document from the archive since its closure.

Edward Snowden began reaching out to journalists as early as December 2012, initially contacting The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald and later collaborating with American filmmaker Laura Poitras. Snowden gradually shared the archive, starting with an encrypted file in March 2013 and transferring the complete collection to Poitras via an encrypted archive in May 2013.

Although copies of the archive were distributed to various journalists and institutions, the current status of these copies and whether they can be decrypted remains unclear. Neither The Guardian nor The Intercept has published from the archive since its closure, leaving the reason for the silence unexplained.