Politicians, Top Brass, Public Figures and Reporters get real time attention.
The rest of us? Archived against a future need.
Hopefully if he was investigating a big story regarding NSA he knew better than to use communication methods that were vulnerable. And it seems like he realized the big players that he was going up against, as well as their capabilities. Trouble is, there aren’t any secure communications methods. Even talking in person isn’t secure when they can know exactly when and where you’re going to be talking.