Glenn Greenwald wins George Polk Award AX050_4BB3_9.JPG

News media mobbed Glenn Greenwald in New York last April before the George Polk Awards luncheon. Greenwald shared a Polk Award for national security reporting and later won The Pulitzer Prize for his work on leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

(AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews )

Welcome back to Spy Games Update, your Saturday morning briefing on the week's top national security stories.

We begin with journalist Glenn Greenwald, who recently picked up a Pulitzer Prize and a George Polk Award for the stories he wrote from leaked documents by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. He appeared recently on the Colbert Report (video).

Comic Stephen Colbert opened with this: "Your new book is called 'No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State.' OK, are you looking for a place to hide?"

To which Greenwald said through laughter, "I'm not, no. But if I were, there would be none in this surveillance state."

Then this from Colbert: "Until you told me, there was nothing for me to be bothered about. Aren't you kind of the problem?"

"I am," Greenwald said, laughing. "I do plead guilty. You know, I mean, of course ignorance is bliss."

The Washington Post reported on Thursday that the CIA might be months away from approving release of the U.S. Senate report on its terrorist interrogation techniques in the wake of 9/11, which some – including U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. – have described as "torture."

"The filing, submitted by the Justice Department, asked the court for additional time for the CIA to review the Senate report and determine how much of it can be declassified," The Post reported.

In New York, a jury is deciding the fate of Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, the fiery hook-handed cleric also known as Abu Hamza al-Masri, who is accused – among other things – of trying to set up a terrorist training camp on a sheep ranch in Oregon.

"The one-eyed, handless preacher faces 11 criminal counts, including assisting Yemeni militants who took a group of Western tourists hostage in 1998. U.S. prosecutors have also charged him with sending followers to Oregon to establish a training camp and to Afghanistan to assist al Qaeda and the Taliban," Reuters reported in its story on Thursday.

The New York Times carried an intriguing story last Saturday on a police detective unit that once roved New York City scouting for Muslims to help them spy on, well, fellow Muslims.

"The men, all Muslim immigrants, went through similar ordeals: Waiting in a New York station house cell or a lockup facility, expecting to be arraigned, only to be pulled aside and questioned by detectives," The Times reported. "The queries were not about the charges against them, but about where they went to mosque and what their prayer habits were. Eventually, the detectives got to the point: Would they work for the police, eavesdropping in Muslim cafes and restaurants, or in mosques?"

And lastly, The Associated Press notes that the Pentagon – in what is being described as an unprecedented move – wants to transfer Pvt. Chelsea Manning (formerly Pvt. Bradley Manning) to a civilian prison for treatment of her gender disorder.

"Manning was convicted of sending classified documents to anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks," the AP noted in its story on Wednesday. "The soldier has asked for hormone therapy and to be able to live as a woman."

That wraps it up for this week's Spy Games Update, m'friends. We'll see you next Saturday – at precisely 07:10:07 – with our compendium of top stories on terrorism, intelligence gathering, cyber security, espionage and other national security issues.

-- Bryan Denson