By Brian Barrett,Zoë Schiffer
Publication Date: 2026-06-11 23:37:00
Brian Barrett: Noah, you are a celebrated and revered national security journalist. You are. They have long been concerned with national security and, for lack of a better word, real espionage issues. You were in deep. How does that compare in terms of source handling in terms of the process here? Because it really rhymes, right?
Noah Shachtman: Over and beyond. Look, I was in Iraq a few times at WIRED back then. I went to Afghanistan. I reported on all intelligence agencies for WIRED. And I’ve never had a situation like this, where people were so afraid and took such elaborate measures to avoid being outed as a source. In spy movies there’s something called a “brush pass” where someone pretends to bump into you or hug you or whatever and slips some information into their pocket. As far as I know, nothing like this has ever happened in real life, at least not to me. During the story it finally happened in real life.
Brian Barrett: Wow.
Noah…
