The trailer for Laura Poitras’ documentary about Edward Snowden, “Citizenfour,” is out:
Adam Weinstein at Gawker summed up my feelings about the Snowden controversy perfectly:
[W]hat troubles me about Snowden and his champions, just as surely as I’m troubled by the anti-Snowden crusaders and government-secrecy apologists: Their worlds are flattened landscapes of good and evil, and flatter us as the center of the frame, the potential victim—either our civil freedom is being siphoned from us, or our safety from anti-civilization attackers is. No space is permitted for both of these assertions to be a little true, or a little overblown.That’s not to say there’s a moral equivalency between Snowden and the government. The most powerful nation in human history, possessed of the most sophisticated weaponry and surveillance technology ever known, always deserves a hairier eyeball than a smarmy libertarian programmer.
Exactly right. When this topic comes up here, it invariably turns into a poo-flinging melee about “personalities” – Snowden’s, Greenwald’s and the personal characteristics of opponents in comments. It’s another form of binary thinking. (Only here at the blog, all of the accusations are absolutely true!)
Anyway, my prediction is the documentary will be a flop. Not even Benadryl Pumpkinpatch could work box office magic on the WikiLeaks film last year. People don’t have time to worry about this kind of shit when Ebola is coming to breakfast.
srv
It’s just another clear example of how both sides do it. We can look to David Brooks for an honest assessment.
danielx
Hirsute Ocular Globes? Benadryl Pumpkinpatch?!??
Clearly, Betty, yer on a roll this afternoon.
Should we assume you are not a member of the Cumberbitch clan?
Karen in GA
I don’t know about Bungeecord Cummerbund’s film career. Too many people hear about him and go, “who?” Good supporting actor — not a lead yet (if ever).
Great on TV, though.
Oh, and Adam Weinstein’s assessment of the NSA/Snowden thing? Co-sign.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
O/T and perhaps already noted, whoever could have expected this? I am shocked, as I’m sure everyone else is, to learn that:
big ole hound
YAWN, yesterdays news in the electronic era and this has been dissected to death. You’re right about Ebola coming for breakfast and our underfunded CDC being totally unprepared to handle the aftermath of hospital screw-ups. I hope the Tea Party is happy with un-funding government necessities. Was this in Louie Gohmert’s district. Hope so.
scav
@Karen in GA: Sortof depends on what your ideal for a “lead” actor is. Pumpkinpatch (that is my new instant favorite) does well at the sort of lead that is more character, not the more cutsey romantic lead edge of the pool. I liked his take on Vincent van Gogh and Hawking — no desire at all to see him do the equivalent of fluttering his eyelashes and nothing but. But that’s also my personal preference in movies seeping through and has nothing to do with intrinsic quality.
srv
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): My wingnut math says that proves only 6% of white people are racist.
More evidence we leave in a post-racial era that strives to protect our sacred institutions.
JC
Despite the disclaimer, I think this is another version of ‘both sides do it’, ‘both sides are equally responsible.
Now, she tries to obviate this:
That’s not to say there’s a moral equivalency between Snowden and the government. The most powerful nation in human history, possessed of the most sophisticated weaponry and surveillance technology ever known, always deserves a hairier eyeball than a smarmy libertarian programmer.
But the article comes off that way, in any case.
The fact is, the government lied, and lied, and lied, and lied. Even now, with Apple about to encrypt everything that it can, the government continues to lie.
That’s much more important than Snowden’s mental state.
She writes:
W]hat troubles me about Snowden and his champions, just as surely as I’m troubled by the anti-Snowden crusaders and government-secrecy apologists.
Most people of good conscience are not ‘apologists’ for Snowden, when they defend the information he has released, or defend him from the overwrought attacks of others. He can be a problematic dude, have his own pet peeves, and yes, probably needed a bit of dramatic personality – in order to be willing to go above and beyond, to release what he did, when no one else would put themselves on the line.
This is a more subtle version of ‘both sides do it’, when it has NOTHING to do with ‘both sides’. It has to do with, what is our government doing, and is it legal, ethical, and in congruency with the constitution and our right to privacy?
Cervantes
I do wonder what Adam Weinstein would have said about Ellsberg’s leaking of the Pentagon Papers and the reaction to that.
Statement [1] is of no importance. [2] is a “desperate” wish that is only less likely to be fulfilled if the wish in [3] is granted.
Maybe Weinstein needs to think things through a little more? I’m not sure.
As for this documentary Laura Poitras has made, if I do state a judgment about it, it won’t be on the basis of a trailer.
Keith G
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): If that is a topic worthy of polling, and I assume it is, I will wait for it to be handled with a bit more statistical validity before my panties get bunched up.
ranchandsyrup
takes some effort for me to stick to the merits on this topic and not the trappings. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Belafon
“Now it has all the powers of a breakfast!” – Garnet
Keith G
@Cervantes:
Is thoughtful writing part of Gawker’s mission statement?
Belafon
@Cervantes: I think Weinstein’s point is that this isn’t one or the other. I think Snowden belongs in jail for the way he leaked them.
Villago Delenda Est
Libertarians are fucksticks. At best, they can’t see the forest for the trees. At worst, they are the tools of tyrants far more unforgiving and oppressive than any they claim to oppose…whose greatest desire is to return the human race back to something resembling the dark ages…living and dying in the mud.
“Who’s that, then?”
“I don’t know. Must be a king”
“Why?”
“He hasn’t got shit all over him.”
SatanicPanic
@srv: Your logic is irrefudiateable
Villago Delenda Est
@SatanicPanic: I see what you did there.
srv
@Villago Delenda Est: But at least they’re civil libertarians.
Tommy
@Belafon:
Well we will have to agree to disagree on that point. At one level I agree. There are things our government does I have no business knowing. The world isn’t the TV show Homeland. There are in fact, many things that should be held as “secret.”
But then again you get to the point where everything can’t be that way. That as a citizen you and I should be able to decide. I think that is the problem Snowden ran into.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@JC: It’s pretty important that people understand a couple of things about this:
1. The encryption has a back door, or it wouldn’t be allowed. Great if your phone is stolen. Not so great if you’re doing things on your phone that you don’t want the NSA snooping upon.
2. You can be compelled under penalty of contempt of court to decrypt your phone (or provide the key for the government to do so) if you end up in the unfortunate situation of other branches of the government (i.e. law enforcement) taking an interest in what is on your phone. This can involve you languishing in jail until you do so, no matter how long that is.
wmd
Completely off topic – this trailer for a cross country foot race documentary is pretty well done. My son has been competing in this race for over a decade.
FlipYrWhig
@JC:
And most Snowden skeptics aren’t “government-secrecy apologists.”
srv
@wmd:
And I thought taking 6 months off for the PCT would be pretty slacky.
He could get a cosplay outfit and call it a jerb.
Roger Moore
@Belafon:
I think it’s more about what he leaked than how. Some of the stuff he revealed is about domestic spying programs that are either clearly illegal or only legal if they have quite detailed internal safeguards. That is something that is of great public interest, and Snowden did a public service by revealing it. He might have done better by revealing it differently, but I am willing to accept that the service of revealing it is more important than the details of how it happened.
Unfortunately, a lot of the material is about the NSA’s legitimate, legal purpose of spying on foreign governments and organizations. There’s a little bit there about whether or not Americans were bycatch in the net of foreign surveillance and whether the NSA was doing enough to protect them, but most of it is very simply about the NSA doing its job. Leaking that material is of no real benefit to the public and has the potential to undermine the NSA’s work. Snowden deserves to have the book thrown at him for revealing that stuff, regardless of the value of the leaks on domestic surveillance.
Betty Cracker
@Cervantes: You missed his point, which is that it’s not all black or white, nor should we expect it to be.
Cervantes
@Belafon:
But that does not resolve Weinstein’s contradiction: the more “desperately” one needs something to be provided, the less, not more, one should urge that providers be imprisoned. (Well, either that or the word “desperately” is meaningless.)
And did you notice that Weinstein called directly for imprisonment rather than an actual (never mind fair) trial? I can’t honestly say I was surprised by that.
[No comment.]
burnspbesq
@JC:
Well, that’s nice, but you kinda elided over something fairly important: Snowden has admitted committing multiple felonies. Greenie and Poitras are probably guilty of several felonies themselves.
Everybody involved in this mess has repeatedly violated Federal law. Taking a side in this mess seems like Hobson’s choice.
I like the idea of Greenie and Hayden as cellmates. That makes me chuckle.
Keith G
@Tommy: I agree with you. What ES did was an over-correction to a very pressing problem and over corrections by definition are problematic. Sometime they seem to be the most viable course of action.
Has our government ever been proactive? When was the last time our policy process sought out and corrected problems before some incident blew up necessitating consideration? The Snowden process may be fucked up, but often it is the only process we have.
Cervantes
@Betty Cracker: You’re right; he’s a subtle thinker.
burnspbesq
@Cervantes:
C’mon. That’s a silly thing to say. You really doubt that Snowden did the things he says he did? Or do you deny that they add up to violations of 18 USC 641 and 793?
Or are you denying that “he should go to jail” can fairly be read as “he should get indicted, stand trial, and if convicted he should go to jail?”
Cervantes
@burnspbesq:
No comment on most of the above but your final question is … astonishing.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@CONGRATULATIONS!: I thought it was pretty clear the NSA wishes there was a back door and the encryption people, like my sister, say otherwise. As Mr Snowden himself demonstrates the IT guy is always the weakest link in any security system.
burnspbesq
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Riley v. California ring any bells?
burnspbesq
@Cervantes:
Damn, you are one obtuse motherfucker.
Answer the motherfucking question, you shit.
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore:
This is what makes me cringe. Greenwald gets all hot and bothered over one of his releases about NSA spying on the Chinese. Yo, fuckstick: that’s what they’re SUPPOSED to be doing! Has nothing at all to do with domestic operations…however, it does demonstrate what the NSA can and does do overseas, and therefore what thye can do domestically if they’re allowed to run wild, which was pretty much what the deserting coward and the Dark Lord encouraged them to do, to keep “the country” (meaning the 1%) “safe” from “terrorists”. 9/11 struck at targets that were not inconsequential to the 1%, unlike some abortion doctor in Kansas, or some random tourists at the Olympics.
I still find it rather interesting that Snowden waited until a Dem was in the White House to get all bothered about all this. A Dem who by the way is blah. It’s also interesting that Greenwald has played footsie with known racist scum like Paul père et fils. On the surface, hey, it’s civil liberties. However, there is a subtext that can never be discounted.
Villago Delenda Est
@burnspbesq:
I must say that the ironing in such a scenario would be delicious.
evap
Maybe the Snowden story would be better if they made a Damages series about it. The series based on WikiLeaks was pretty good.
Botsplainer
Ooooooh – edgy, ominous name.
LOL
Trollhattan
@Villago Delenda Est:
Are those prison jumpsuits not permanent press? We really are cruel to our inmates.
Bobby Thomson
I hope you meant that ironically. I have a better chance of bedding Elizabeth Hurley than anyone commenting on this blog does of contracting Ebola.
srv
Gen. Dempsey keeps wandering off the reservation:
Betty Cracker
@Cervantes: I don’t know about that, but he is capable of deploying sarcasm and facetiousness in the service of making a point — and probably detecting them when used by others too!
JC
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
I would think being compelled by court, based on a legitimate court request, looked at by a judge who takes into account the specifics, is a good thing. Then it isn’t ‘snooping into everything’, and follows a transparent process.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Perhaps somone could explain to me how legally what Snowden did is different from say the IT guy at some ISP posting some customer’s e-mails to the internet because he didn’t like the guy? Beyond, did you see a primary source document like the movie Real Genius; everyone knows the NSA is evil.
I can see a pardon for Snowden because the NSA is a public institution and what they do is the public’s business. But saying it’s no crime because he didn’t like his employer sounds like it would render all communications security useless.
JC
@FlipYrWhig: Okay, fair point.
So you may be correct that a guy isn’t a perfect angel. Welcome to the human race, right?
Isn’t the illegal snooping, so much more important?
replicnt6
@Villago Delenda Est:
I really find this to be among the most asinine accusations that people around here make against Snowden. When Obama was elected he was 25. When he leaked the documents, he was just shy of 30. That’s a big fucking difference. He’d been in the intelligence industry for something like twice as long at that point. I’m really, really, inclined to think that he changed rather than sitting around waiting for a black dem to get into office.
piratedan
I wouldn’t have a problem for there to be a documentary on Snowden, his motivations, on the whistleblowing protocols and whether they are followed or abused (or that Snowden even took advantage of them or was aware of them). Don’t mind a discussion of the security state and it’s past abuses and the potential for abuse by those in charge or who want to be in charge, although in my mind isn’t that what Congress and the Senate are supposed to do on our behalf (ty and h/t to Sens Wyden and Udall). My problem is Poitras is a known collaborator in the story itself and I would have a difficult time believing that her own biases aren’t part and parcel of the piece. Any idea that she’s just an “interested observer” is simply bullshit.
Mandalay
@burnspbesq:
You are dealing with a fucking troll. A polite, well-behaved poster, but a troll nonetheless.
He wants everyone else to jump to it and answer all of his questions, but responding to others….not so much.
JC
@burnspbesq: There are always laws against whistleblowing. The government has blown up with milllions upon millions of things that are now ‘classified’.
The only way to release the needed information, which has revealed the illegal snooping, was by breaking the law. Right?
Tommy
@srv: Mark my words. We’ll put troops on the ground. Maybe just what we have now but it will expand.
Mnemosyne
@JC:
Clearly, you are not a civil libertarian. Civil libertarians think that all court processes are illegitimate and the government should not be allowed to access any of your information even if they have a valid warrant.
And we’re not even talking about FISA court stuff here, where you can legitimately argue that there’s not enough transparency because they can search your stuff without you knowing. Civil libertarians like CONGRATULATIONS! are now arguing that if the cops come to your door with a signed warrant in hand to do a search, you should be under no obligation to cooperate and should not have to decrypt anything.
eldorado
choosing to be held in contempt for not turning over encryption keys is still an viable option, although not a great one. but at least it’s a choice, and better than not being able to have secure encryption at all.
Keith G
@replicnt6: It’s a wonderful blanket charge that can be used on so many. Don’t take away his best club.
Villago Delenda Est
@replicnt6: Given Snowden’s stated comments about what should happen to those who violated secrecy laws prior to his own decisions to leak shit from Hong Kong and Moscow, his motivations seem…well, on the surface, very noble.
However, I never discount the partisan/race angle any more with anything at all, given what we’ve seen over the past six years.
Not asinine…very skeptical. You’re of course free to disagree, but I don’t put anything past white supremacist filth. Nothing.
Bobby B.
I come for the politics, I stay for the poo flinging.
Tree With Water
I’ll say it again: if I were POTUS, I would award Snowden a Medal of Freedom. As to Greenwald, more power to him, but he was simply the messenger.
Calouste
@Villago Delenda Est: “Civil libertarians” are always about civil liberties for them. Show me a civil libertarian who cares about civil liberties for other people that don’t affect themselves, like a white male caring about voting rights or reproductive rights or discrimination in general, and I show you a liberal.
askew
@Tommy:
Not with Obama as President we won’t. With President Hillary, I expect she’ll start multiple wars during her presidency. Obama’s resisted calls to put boots on the ground throughout his presidency. He’ll have no problem resisting again.
Downpuppy
This is all just horribly misguided.
Ed Norton, not Bumbershoot Crumblebuns.
Botsplainer
@Mnemosyne:
Better yet, they think there should be no statutory requirements for tech backdoors. Contempt power only in order to force compliance with decrypting requests – which means that to deal with the ugly shit like kiddie porn, racial violence plots or money laundering, we’re going to have to turn ordinary, garden variety contempt into a potential felony (which, considering racist libertarian douchebags like Griftwald, could be more feature than bug).
Citizen_X
@srv:
Grrrr. Then (in Iraq) send in the Iraqi Army.
In Syria, I have no clue how that’s supposed to work. “Oh, hai Mr. Assad. Don’t mind us, we’re just fighting in your country. Pls don’t bomb us, ‘kay?”
I don’t know how the present policy is supposed to work, either, but I don’t see how you possibly commit ground forces in Syria without getting sucked into someone else’s three-way civil war.
Calouste
@Mnemosyne:
FTFY.
Just ask the “civil libertarian” in your scenario what should happen to the guy that burgled their home. The only ones principled enough to not to want to have him convicted are the ones who want to shoot him themselves.
Botsplainer
@eldorado:
The contempt penalties for someone holding out on evidence of his kiddie porn, human trafficking, child molestation, money laundering or racial violence plots are currently laughably low and worth taking to the motivated criminal. To deal with those things we’ll get to hand cops and prosecutors a set of potential contempt laws that are felony level.
It’ll be the War on Drugs times 10.
Cervantes
@Betty Cracker: What is this portentious point Weinstein is making? That all is not black and white in this world? I had noticed that, you know, some time in the first half of the previous century.
@burnspbesq: Answer what question? The one I called “astonishing”?
JC
@Mnemosyne: Well, just because we all love quoting the Constution (when we think it supports our points):
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
The above isn’t perfect, it’s easy to ‘affirm’ something by a law officer that isn’t true, it’s easy for a judge to be convinced, etc. But the Supreme Court agrees, thankfully. Our digital lives deserve to be searched, only upon a warrant being issued.
Elizabelle
The Libertarian candidate in the Iowa Senate race died in a plane crash last night.
RIP Dr. Butzier.
I wonder if this helps or hurts Joni Ernst, who sounds like James Inhofe in a skirt. Would like to see Braley edge her out. She’d be toxic in the Senate.
Iowa Old Lady
@Elizabelle: I just saw that. The pollsters must be going crazy.
Betty Cracker
@srv: The general’s job is to assess situation A and come up with the most effective strategy for achieving objective B, regardless of the politics of it. It sounds like he’s doing his job.
Luckily for us, no politician — not President Obama, not possible future President Hillary or President Cruz or President Santorum — is going to reinvade Iraq or invade Syria. Bush the Lesser screwed that pooch but good for at least a generation or two. Probably the ONLY benefit we will ever derive from that miserable clusterfuck is the likelihood that it will not be repeated in our lifetimes.
FlipYrWhig
@Citizen_X: Dempsey is just doing the “nothing is off the table” thing. The last round of this induced hyperventilation from Hayes, Maddow, et al. But there’s no other answer. It’s like that joke from “Dumb and Dumber”: “So you’re telling me there’s a chance!“
JC
@Botsplainer: I hadn’t thought about it like that before.
However, like I said above – Our digital lives deserve to be searched, only upon a warrant being issued.
So a ‘backdoor’ isn’t a solution, for a lot of practical reasons. One, the backdoor would probably lose in court.
Also – aren’t you basically saying that secure encryption helps criminals?
There are lots of reasons to believe this is wrong.
Lastly – if digital products DON’T offer strong encryption, or are forced into having a backdoor – eventually, the world will stop buying american products that don’t offer security and privacy.
So these companies will lobby strongly on this issue.
I suppose it is like anything else that a suspect refuses to cooperate about. You have to use other methods?
Mandalay
@Villago Delenda Est:
It’s interesting how many see a clear divide between domestic surveillance and international surveillance. They may concede that perhaps there has been some government overreach domestically, but concern over spying on other nations gets a lofty dismissal, typically with a response like “But they are doing it to us as well!”. But that is not necessarily the case at all, and in any case our international spying can do more harm than good.
Do you think Angela Merkel will simply forget that all her personal phone calls were monitored? Do you think that action hasn’t harmed how Germany views the United States? And how hypocritical does America look to China when we whine about software and movie piracy, and then get caught spying on their corporations?
Those who argue that international spying is OK because it’s legal are not looking into the issue very deeply. Firstly, while those actions may be legal here, that does not make them legal over there, nor does it automatically make them moral. But above all, many of those actions are just lousy, stupid and counterproductive.
Elizabelle
@Iowa Old Lady:
And Dr. Butzier’s name will remain on the ballot, since voting has already begun.
Gin & Tonic
@Botsplainer: Any “tech backdoor” that can be used by a non-evil government to prosecute for child porn can be used by an evil government to track down and imprison (or worse) political dissenters. As was written so eloquently by Phil Zimmerman over two decades ago:
C.V. Danes
There are indeed people who wish us ill. That is true.
It is also true that there are people who cannot distinguish between those who threaten us as a nation from those who are merely utilizing the time-honored tactic of being a public nuisance (e.g., civil disobedience) to keep our democracy healthy.
And it is also true that there are people for whom the most “sophisticated weaponry and surveillance technology ever known” is merely a means to extend their power and grease the palms of their friends in the intelligence-industrial complex.
What Snowden exposed, love him or hate him, is how out of control things can get when the people in groups two and three above are given a blank check with no oversight. And given that what has been released is just the tip of the iceberg, then we’re pretty far down the rabbit hole for sure.
Betty Cracker
@Cervantes: I’ve never said it was an earth-shattering insight, only that is seemed to go over your head. Weinstein opens with three dramatic, over-the-top and seemingly contradictory statements that you proceeded to unpack as if they were straight-up policy pronouncements / clinical diagnoses. The entire point of his piece is that none of the narratives is 100% true or 100% false.
replicnt6
@Villago Delenda Est:
Again: many intervening years between arguing for castration of whistleblowers and leaking classified documents.
Huh. And here I thought skepticism was based on questioning assertions that are made without evidence. Apparently, I’ve gotten it all backwards. Skepticism is apparently attributing motivations to people for which you have approximately zero evidence.
C.V. Danes
@Mandalay: This, exactly. But what I thought was interesting was the genuine outrage that the data security community had towards the NSA. The NSA is an intelligence agency, folks, not a security agency. It is, and always will be, the enemy of data security. To accept it into the security fold as a friend was truly to invite in the wolf in sheep’s clothing…
Tree With Water
@Betty Cracker: “Luckily for us, no politician — not President Obama, not possible future President Hillary or President Cruz or President Santorum — is going to reinvade Iraq or invade Syria”.
“..When I’m in the middle of a dream, staying in bed, float upstream..”.
You keep dreaming about no war no more, B.C., it’ll do you no harm. But I think you’re kidding yourself.
FlipYrWhig
@C.V. Danes:
Except for the part about how the check isn’t blank and there is oversight. If it’s too weak, then tune up the oversight. And put more writing on the check.
The NSA can fit icebergs into rabbit holes now? Diabolical!
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
Eight people broke into an FBI office in Media Pa and revealed the existence of COINTELPRO. Some went underground, and none of the eight were ever caught. Apparently they were cowards who wouldn’t admit to what they had done and accept the punishment.
C.V. Danes
@Gin & Tonic:
Short answer: YES! Because whatever you say can and will be used against you. Period.
Villago Delenda Est
@Elizabelle: Dang.
Cue up infowars for conspiracy theories on how this guy’s plane managed to malfunction.
Mandalay
@Betty Cracker:
You have way more faith in our politicians than I do. And I don’t doubt for a moment that a future President Clinton or Cruz would be delighted to put boots on the ground in Syria over some absurd pretext, or even just a dip in their poll numbers. Those fuckers are every bit as cold and ruthless as ISIS. The only difference is that they do their beheadings in private.
C.V. Danes
@FlipYrWhig:
Wow. Really? So that huge data processing center the NSA just built was paid for with bottle caps? And the oversight committee thoroughly reviewed and questioned every warrant that the NSA tossed at them before they approved every…single…one?
That’s not oversight. That’s kabuki.
Raven
I kept getting dizzy so I dragged my at to the doc! At least they have hgtv on.
Villago Delenda Est
@replicnt6: The dude is white, he’s a dudebro. He’s aligned with Greenwald, who seems to have a problem with Barack Obama personally.
That’s reason to wonder what all contributed to his decision to choose to flee overseas to make his stand…to territory controlled by two of the main rivals of the US, committing acts that he had previously been quoted as saying deserve the harshest punishment.
Iowa Old Lady
@Raven: I’m glad you went. And hgtv is much easier on the blood pressure of waiting patients than fox or CNN
C.V. Danes
@Mandalay: You’re on a roll!
Villago Delenda Est
@Mandalay: Are the Chinese our allies, as formalized by treaty?
Uh, no.
Betty Cracker
@Tree With Water & @Mandalay: Oh, I’m not ruling out war forever, just saying the US is unlikely to kick that same hornet’s nest twice. We might invade Venezuela, but I think the Vietnamese are safe! Not because of the humanity and intelligence of our politicians but because they want to keep getting reelected.
Elizabelle
@Villago Delenda Est:
This is so mean, but for me, the “Dang” was learning it was the Libertarian candidate. Sane people and pigs as the Lord made them would sleep better tonight. Mean, mean, mean Elizabelle.
Private planes are not always real good to politicians.
Come on. How sad would any of us be to hear a Koch brother had choked on a peeled grape? Ernst is bad enough to be fair game.
ETA: and I realize that goes double for rightwingers thinking of our libtard messiah. The dark one.
(Trivia question: what rightwing nutjob’s physician son expired earlier this year, or last, in the crash of a small plane he was piloting?)
C.V. Danes
@Villago Delenda Est:
If I may hazard a guess, it’s because he didn’t want to be disappeared to a coffin-sized cell in Syria…
C.V. Danes
@Elizabelle:
I wouldn’t be very sad. Not sad at all :-)
Raven
Oh No:
Elizabelle
@C.V. Danes:
Or treated like Bradley, now Chelsea, Manning.
Her treatment shames America.
C.V. Danes
@Betty Cracker:
You mean thrice? We already kicked it twice, in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I would never underestimate the ability of our leaders to triple and quadruple down on a failed strategy, because it’s not about reality with these folks. It’s about ideology. They make their own reality, remember?
FlipYrWhig
@C.V. Danes: In other words, there’s oversight, but you don’t like the oversight. That’s not the same thing as no oversight. You’re probably not a Bob Cesca fan but here’s something that appeared from him earlier today:
He’s being pointed, of course, and counter-spinning, but it lends another perspective.
More at this link: Glenn Greenwald’s Nothing to Hide Challenge is Pretty Damn Stupid
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
No. The general’s job is to obey orders from his commander in chief. Military action exists to achieve political goals, so it must take political constraints into account. If Gen. Dempsey doesn’t think he can achieve his goals given those political constraints, it’s his job to take it up with the President, or to testify to his disagreement when called upon by Congress. It is insubordinate to launch a media campaign to try to undermine his orders.
Tree With Water
@Betty Cracker: Again, I don’t understand that- and I mean at all- but here’s to hoping you’re right [lifts beer stein in salute].
C.V. Danes
@FlipYrWhig:
No, what I said is that it’s kabuki; the theatrical appearance of oversight. Worse than no oversight, really.
Roger Moore
@C.V. Danes:
Actually, it’s both. It’s supposed to have a dual mission of electronic surveillance against other countries and protecting the US government from electronic surveillance by other countries. If the NSA is putting backdoors into public encryption standards that are supposed to be used by the government, it’s allowing one half of its mission to take priority over the other.
Mandalay
@Betty Cracker:
A fair point – Bush only lost the 2004 election because he caused a giant clusterfuck in Iraq, and if he hadn’t done that Kerry would not been elected president.
The American voter is no fool.
replicnt6
@Villago Delenda Est:
Yeah, I’m sticking with my original assessment: asinine.
FlipYrWhig
@C.V. Danes: “Worse than no oversight?” I really don’t think that’s what the facts suggest. I think it’s probably pretty easy to get a judge to sign off on a warrant, but I also think that’s true at every level of the justice system. I’m sure there are potential ways to add adversarial elements to the approval system–IANAL of course–but if we were really living in a cross between Terry Gilliam’s Brazil and The Matrix I think it’d be a bit more evident.
Elizabelle
@C.V. Danes:
I’m kinda hoping for it. I’d peel the damned grape.
Iowa Old Lady
@Elizabelle: It’ll be… interesting to see Ernst and Braley give sad condolences.
ETA: Do you anticipate a conspiracy theory? The plane was sabotaged?
Keith G
@Villago Delenda Est:
(Your comments re: Snowden)
Earlier you typed, re : Snowden:
Now the internet is big. I often miss stuff. Since this claim seemed a bit spurious, I gave it a go. I searched “Edward Snowden white supremacist” and then “Edward Snowden racist”
Slim pickings, partner. One audio of a fringy-type guy engaging in the most truncated attempt at reasoning I have heard since dropping acid at my freshmen dorm in the 70s. But like I said, I miss stuff (might be the acid). So, you got any real foundation to your attack that ES is a white supremacist or even just a garden variety racist?
.
Mandalay
@Villago Delenda Est:
You are still completely missing the point. Whether the Chinese are our allies or not is irrelevant. The issue is whether it is in our national interests to spy on Chinese corporations, given the consequences that follow if we get caught.
Germany was our ally, yet we chose to spy on Angela Merkel’s personal phone calls (and incidentally it was leak from your buddy Snowden that exposed it). US politicians, including Hillary Clinton, deplored the practice, and we have since committed to stop doing it. Why? Because it was not in our national interest to continue spying on her; the harm done to our relationship with Germany would far exceed any benefits we gained from spying on an ally. More bluntly, it was a really dumb thing to do.
The same argument applies even more strongly to China. We need their cooperation on issues before the UN Security Council. We do a huge amounts of trade with them. They are an economic partner as well as an economic rival. We don’t have to like them, but we do have to get along with them. And it makes no sense to engage in spying if the risk/reward ratio is so skewed against spying.
Botsplainer
@Iowa Old Lady:
Private plane, Multiple lines of bad weather across the Midwest for the past 10 days, probably several severe buffeting events.
Mechanical error or metal fatigue, my best guess.
Trollhattan
@Roger Moore:
Although, per the GOP it’s every (Democrat) president’s job to “listen to his generals” and do everything they tell him. John McCain told me so.
Gin & Tonic
@Mandalay: I suspect the Chinese would be shocked if the US were *not* spying on them.
Gravenstone
@Iowa Old Lady: Reality: a high probability the pilot was fatigued due to excessive hours spent travelling on the campaign trail. Tin foil version: government stooge (fill in blank here) had him whacked to benefit X.
Trollhattan
@Elizabelle:
That’s too bad.
As to where the votes would go, scratch any Libertarian and he/she bleeds blue Republican blood.
Tree With Water
Way off topic,but it needs to be said: Joe Buck, Harold Reynolds, and the third tenor make an outstanding broadcast team. Go Giants…
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@replicnt6:
How so, Dr. Freud? Or is it rather Dr. Frist, long-distance diagnosis and all?
Mnemosyne
@JC:
Right, but what I’m trying to tell you is that there are now people who think that they shouldn’t have to submit to a search of their phone or computer even if there is a properly Constitutional warrant issued. They feel that all government action — even action that conforms to the Constitution — is illegitimate.
ETA: As I understand it, the Supreme Court decision backs me up — they said that you can only search someone’s phone with a proper warrant and can’t go on a fishing expedition. The argument made above is that the government shouldn’t ever be allowed to search your phone, even with a proper warrant
Mike in NC
@Mandalay: Whatever presidential ticket the GOP pukes up for 2016 will hire the very same advisors — John Bolton, Donald Rumsfeld, Bill Krystol, etc. — who were hired by Mitt Romney, i.e., neoconservative lunatics hellbent on dropping bombs on somebody. They’ll be weighing plans to invade Iran using the bases we’ve built in the surrounding countries.
skerry
@FlipYrWhig: Ask Diane Roark about Congressional oversight.
Iowa Old Lady
@Botsplainer: In the reality based world, yes.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937:
And what did the Media Eight release that related to legal surveillance of actual criminal suspects? Did mafiosi read the releases and realize that they had to change their ways of communicating with each other?
replicnt6
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Wait, you need a physical exam to assert that people change over time? Huh.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@replicnt6:
Psychological or psychiatric exams are now done remotely?
I know pseudo-scientific, conventional wisdom bullshit when I see it, and you didn’t even try to hide it. Big fucking difference? Prove it.
Cervantes
@Betty Cracker:
That’s your read — fine by me.
What I saw was the usual nonsense, exemplified by the opening you admire so much but also by the following:
First he offers up vapid albeit “precise” complaints about both “Snowden and his champions” and “anti-Snowden crusaders and government-secrecy apologists,” implying there is no other (or legitimate) position in the debate. Then he quickly backs off, saying there’s no “moral equivalency” between the two sides he names — in which case maybe he should be asking which side he’s on. And finally, just imagine the industrial-strength numbskullery it takes to even compare a multi-billion-dollar, decades-long, taxpayer-funded, domestic and foreign surveillance program versus the “smarminess” of some programmer.
It’s the usual nonsense, nothing more.
replicnt6
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
You need proof that people change over time? I dunno. Look around? Maybe you haven’t learned anything, changed any opinions over time or matured a whit. But that’s not typical.
Trollhattan
@Mike in NC:
Isn’t that the truth? They change the packaging but the product remains the same at least as far back as Ronaldus Maximus. It’s Classic Coke with a Prestone chaser (channeling my inner C. Pierce) in a “Blue, no, wait, red, nah, we did red–yellow this time!” Solo kegger cup.
Corner Stone
If there’s a better example of ridiculous bullshit masquerading as some kind of wise insight and a piercingly thought provoking measured take on this specific issue, I have not seen it.
raven
@Iowa Old Lady: Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo diagnose, we likey “benign”
Cervantes
@Mandalay: What on earth makes you think I’m waiting with bated breath for you to answer my questions? You’ve made the same complaints before and you were told (not by me) that they don’t make any sense. They still don’t.
Corner Stone
Oversight? Who the fuck can say there’s been meaningful oversight and keep a straight face?
The FISC offered a determination that the actions were most likely unconstitutional. There’s been something like a 99.997% approval rate for FISA requests. The fucking CIA has been spying on the Congressional committees tasked with “overseeing” the intelligence community. Senator after Senator has gone on record to say variations of, “Shit. Even I didn’t know it was that damn bad.”
Come the F on with that oversight bullshit.
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig:
Somebody actually said this? Cesca is a god damned jokehole.
replicnt6
@Corner Stone:
I recently watched “In the Loop,” a comedy based on the US trying to persuade the UK to join the Iraq adventure. There was a line in there I just loved which seems apropos to the conversation about oversight: “Now you may not believe it, and I may not believe it, but by god it’s a useful hypocrisy.”
Betty Cracker
@Cervantes: You really don’t get it, but that’s okay.
janeform
@raven: Awesome!
Iowa Old Lady
@raven: Wow. Big words.
Corner Stone
@Betty Cracker:
Seems to me he gets it just fine. He used the word “vapid” in the description, and that’s as good a summary of this piece as possible.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: That’s not a good moment.
Obviously the whole non-hysterical part of the debate is how to make oversight meaningful. There are more checks and layers and so forth than there used to be, it seems. Could there be more? I’m sure. That’s why I would say, as you would too, I think, “let’s strengthen oversight.” Cool, bring it! But a lot of the arguments start to verge on “there’s no oversight because The Government is by its very nature a remorseless leviathan-panopticon seeing all, devouring everything in its path, and spitting out the bones.”
cokane
I actually have zero problem with what Snowden did. I just wish Greenwald didn’t regularly commit journalistic malpractice in his reporting. Gelman, the NYT and Poitras all seem to have done a fair and most importantly, accurate job. Greenwald deceives. Unfortunately his stories are now the most widely shared NSA leak stories.
boatboy_srq
@Roger Moore: WHEN matters here as well. Snowden was apparently planning to publish from at least 2006, yet he waited. Why? Did he play dudebro who thought his Randian hero would become pResident in 2012 (that’s my vote, but hey I’m just one underinformed observer)? I can’t help but look at the whole incident’s timing as nothing more than a Paulbot temper tantrum because his guy lost.
And the flight to HONG KONG of all places really took the cake. Ignorant, chock full of preconceived notions of the world, misinformed and generally libertarded.
Intel desperately needs major reform. The DHS was a colossal bungle, should never have been created, and deserves dismantling at the earliest opportunity – but taking the whole database of activity and dropping it on a major news outlet isn’t a productive way of stimulating debate: there are way too many people who think that reasonable intelligence gathering is not only justifiable but necessary, and who look at that kind of massive data dump as compromising national security beyond what’s necessary, who’ll be inclined to line up behind the wingers instead of dealing with the issue to make for an effective response.
@Villago Delenda Est: I commute to work with Snowden clones every day. I swear they’re turned out of a Tyrell Corp factory someplace. Ask any one and they’ll say they’re “defending our Freedumbs” – but ask them from what and they get all pantytwisted, especially if the conversation involves Presidenting While Black or Presidenting While Female. Racist, sexist pigs, all of them, with a pretty veneer of get your Gummint hands off my data.
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig:
I don’t concede the premise you lay out, but rationally evaluating the outcomes we actually know about, every modern leaker who isn’t Snowden was arrested and/or jailed. Every journalist who had a leaker as a source has been pursued and/or harassed by the govt. The govt denies FOIA requests citing state secrets. They get the courts to deny standing in trials using state secrets. They spy on the duly elected representatives who are supposed to oversee them and their purse strings, and when busted on it do the Jay Z shoulder dust off. Why isn’t Brennan in jail? Or at least freakin out of a job?
This doesn’t even make any sense to say we’re all standing around the drum circle chanting for “better” oversight. There isn’t any! And Cesca and whoever else can tick off the names of PCLOB, and etc and then flat out fail to point to anything that’s changed due to the existence of such meaningful “oversight”.
It reminds of that buffoon Milt Shook when he tried to say the president couldn’t veto the NDAA because a “detention bill” didn’t exist.
Betty Cracker
@Corner Stone: I think he misunderstands it as much as it’s possible to misunderstand something. Here’s an example; quote from Cervantes:
Wrong, Wronger, Wrongy, McWrongful. Weinstein’s whole point is that, while the debate tends to break down along those poles, there are other legitimate positions in the debate, which is the exact opposite of what Cervantes says in the above quote.
It’s as if I said, “I like green, and I like yellow, but blue is my favorite color,” and Cervantes said, “Betty only likes green and yellow! How can she deny the appeal of blue?” That’s how wrong it is.
FlipYrWhig
@cokane: I think Snowden is the one who gets Greenwald all worked up on the big question of whether the capability to do something is equivalent to the occurrence of the doing of that same something. So the story went from “Look at all the ways this stuff could be abused if someone had a mind to do so!”, which is a more than valid concern and which should generate a bunch of hearings about how to prevent that abuse and limit the number of people inside and outside the gov’t who could play havoc with the stuff if they had it — to “Too late, we’re all already being abused, especially you!” which doesn’t seem to match the facts. I fault them both for that turn.
Barry
@JC: “Despite the disclaimer, I think this is another version of ‘both sides do it’, ‘both sides are equally responsible.”
Yes, and should be filed with ‘I’m not a racist, but…’.
Cervantes
@Betty Cracker:
Feel free to show me where, in what words, he makes this (his) “whole point.”
Corner Stone
@Betty Cracker:
That is as far from his point as it could possibly be. Sorry, Betty, but IMO you have completely missed the boat on this one.
Here:
Ok, fine. I grant that to you, Adam. Now where in your article did you delineate any such angle or argument? Oh, you didn’t? You just spewed some vapid BS that you dislike the way the two sides (as so thoughtfully and nuance-laden were described by you), and their seeming all or nothing-ism?
Tell me that’s not the vapid usual nonsense?
And
Ok, let’s see. If I’m lying to myself about Snowden, what is the spectrum of possible consequences? And if I’m lying to myself about the govt?
This doesn’t even make sense, Betty.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone:
Not entirely true. For example, “Gellman’s article reveals a summary of a now infamous 86-page October 2011 decision by the FISA court, which determined that a then-brand new NSA operation was unconstitutional and must be discontinued.”
(Cesca copy-paste autolink sez: Read more at http://thedailybanter.com/2014/10/glenn-greenwalds-nothing-hide-challenge-pretty-damn-stupid/#8pdjpPD0qruslfA4.99)
I liked the idea of a privacy-rights advocate representing the public interest in any of these broad dragnet kinds of searches. I think there need to be narrowly tailored warrants and a big rethinking of what privacy means now that we live in the Internet and leave breadcrumb trails everywhere we go, so metaphors about “pen registers” and all that don’t feel accurate or persuasive. I’m just being headstrong about the idea that there’s _no_ oversight. There’s oversight. I’m sure there should be more oversight, and that Congress should push for it, and that the executive branch is unlikely to hem itself in without being pushed by the other branches.
OK, need to spend less time on this, back later maybe.
Barry
@Belafon: “I think Snowden belongs in jail for the way he leaked them.”
As opposed to some mythical better way? ‘Cause the only way that the US government was not going to go after him was if he never leaked.
Barry
@FlipYrWhig: “And most Snowden skeptics aren’t “government-secrecy apologists.””
I disagree on this one.
Barry
@burnspbesq: “Well, that’s nice, but you kinda elided over something fairly important: Snowden has admitted committing multiple felonies. Greenie and Poitras are probably guilty of several felonies themselves.
Everybody involved in this mess has repeatedly violated Federal law. Taking a side in this mess seems like Hobson’s choice.
I like the idea of Greenie and Hayden as cellmates. That makes me chuckle.”
Well, I like the idea of you bent over, with everybody getting one stroke of a studded belt.
As for violating numerous Federal Laws, we are in a situation where the government can give you a secret court order from a secret court, and it’s a ‘Violation of Federal Law’ to tell anybody.
More people in the US have gone to prison for exposing torture than for torture.
Barry
@burnspbesq: “Damn, you are one obtuse motherfucker.
Answer the motherfucking question, you shit.”
Mr. Lawyer losing his temper with an internet commenter?
You must really have trouble in court, with witnesses.
Barry
@burnspbesq: “I like the idea of Greenie and Hayden as cellmates. That makes me chuckle.”
The point is, Mr. Bothered about Violations of Federal Law, is that Hayden has zero chance of being charged, unless he is caught molesting a child, and probably not even then.
Because not all ‘Violations of Federal Law’ were created equal.
Rafer Janders
@Mnemosyne:
This phrase you keep using, civil libertarian, I do not think it means what you think it means….
Seriously, do you think the ACLU thinks that all court processes are illegitimate?
Barry
@JC: “I would think being compelled by court, based on a legitimate court request, looked at by a judge who takes into account the specifics, is a good thing. Then it isn’t ‘snooping into everything’, and follows a transparent process.”
The NSA doesn’t need a court order, and the FBI can get secret orders from secret courts.
And that’s just those agencies which we know of, and those methods which we know of.
LT
Yeah but Snowden actually doesn’t flatten that landscape, as he has clearly shown in numerous interviews. And “He talkin grandiose!” is a weak form of “shoot the messenger”. Daniel Ellsberg sounded “grandiose” too. Most whistleblowers do. And there will always very unfortunately be Dems like Weinstein and Betty Cracker and Bob Cesca to act like it means anything.
Meanwhile, because of Snowden, we know:
Grandiose talkin flatlander!
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/22/us/2011-ruling-found-an-nsa-program-unconstitutional.html?pagewanted=all
Mnemosyne
@Rafer Janders:
Please show me where the ACLU supports some people’s declarations here that the police should never be allowed to look at your cellphone even with a warrant. I’ll wait here while you find the cite.
Also, I would not call the ACLU “civil libertarians,” although they do defend civil liberties. You’re concentrating on the wrong part of the phrase — civil libertarians aren’t that much different than the other flavors of libertarians, especially in their dislike of any form of government.
LT
@Cervantes: Exactly, like Betty, Weinstein is all over the place, leaving himself plenty of wiggle room. It’s why Johnson and Cesca contantly feel the need to say something like “this doesn’t mean I support NSA’s wrongs!” while constantly smearing people who go after those exact wrongs.
Denali
I think Snowden should have received the Nobel Peace Prize. So there.
Corner Stone
@Denali: Why do you think the government is evil!? For that is the only opinion you can have if you do not condemn Snowden.
LT
@Denali: I think so too.
I think US intel agencies have been measureably horribly awfully net negative for the world. Their roles in suppression of popular uprisings against horrible tyrants one great big glaring example. Vietnam War another. FBI/NSA infiltration and suppression of civil rights groups in 1960s and 1970s another.
Net negative. Imagine those tens of billions a year actualy spent toward a, you know, better world.
LT
Nixon had Gordon Liddy and Howard Hunt et al. to break into Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office to get information to smear Ellsberg.
Here we have Weinstein and Betty Cracker et al. diagnosing Snowden’s emails for same.
Progress?
Corner Stone
@LT: I doubt she’s G Liddy. I just think this was a miss.
LT
@Corner Stone: Not actually literal. But such attempts to take down Snowden via reaching analysis of emails is on par with other take down examples. Straw men, dishonest, and/or ugly, silly.
Rafer Janders
@boatboy_srq:
That is some foresight, since Snowden didn’t begin work as an NSA contractor at Dell until 2009. So in 2006 he was apparently planning to publish information that he wouldn’t become aware of and wouldn’t have access to until 2009? That takes planning…..
Another Holocene Human
Maybe it turns into a conversation about personalities because both of the principles seem to be firmly on the NPD spectrum and have repeatedly drawn attention to themselves, attempted to shape and sell their image in the media and to activist groups they hope to influence, and have over and over again, especially Greenwald, made the story about them and not about, you know, the truth. GG, for one, makes a point of obscuring the truth in his press releases.
Greenwald actually reminds me more and more of Chuck Johnson (and his “got news”) every day, although Chuck Johnson is way more gross and nasty in every way.
Rafer Janders
@Mnemosyne:
They don’t support that, because that’s not what civil libertarians support.
No. No. You’re trying to redefine a long-established and well-known word, for somewhat obscure reasons. Words have meanings. ACLU attorneys (of whom I know many) would generally describe themselves as civil libertarians (with a small “l”) but not as Libertarians (with a big “L”). A civil libertarian is, most generally, someone who supports civil liberties and individual rights (such as the right of free speech, right of free association, right to marry, right to vote, etc. etc.) against repressive government oppression.
Omnes Omnibus
@Rafer Janders:
Correct. While some civil libertarians are Libertarians, many are liberals.
LT
@Another Holocene Human:
“They forced me to talk about how icky they are! I can’t even SEE the NSA’s wrongs because of them!”
Corner Stone
@Another Holocene Human:
…because people who don’t want to hear this keep steering it into discussions about narcissism and grandiosity and, and, and…
JC
@Mnemosyne: Yes, and that doesn’t make sense in my view either, so I believe I agree with you.
AxelFoley
Just coming in to say fuck Snowden and his supporters.
Carry on.
Corner Stone
@AxelFoley: Hey ONT! Good to see you!
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne:
No. Just no.
Cervantes
@Barry: Chronic inebriation.
Not everyone agrees, but it’s my working hypothesis.
Keith G
@boatboy_srq:
Look, I don’t think it’s that bad to be an “under informed observer”. It’s when one choses to ignore competent reporting on an issue where problems begin.
Let’s go to the record:
(Sean Wilentz in The New Republic)
Now the above article does not paint Snowden in any glory whatsoever. He sounds like a real pustule, but he is not vying for Mr. Congeniality or Progressive of the Year. It does seem to be the case however that his dissatisfactions with data collection began late in Bush’s term and his ability to act out to address his concerns developed after Obama took office.
He has been no fan of Obama for many reasons, but it seems quite disingenuous (or willfully ignorant) to claim that he held fire on Bush just so he could dump on the Black President as some here like to purport.
Cervantes
@Barry:
Right.
Along the same lines, I was hoping you-know-who would elaborate his astonishing question — wake me if he does.
That’s not actually bad; it just looks bad — or words to that effect.
Wasn’t someone arguing above that it was just the way these people exposed torture that got them in trouble?
LT
@Keith G: Using Sean Wilentz to paint Ed Snowden as a “real pustule” is almost funny:
Farrel:
Corner Stone
@Keith G:
It’s the kind of ridiculous bullshit that permeates the “flattened” territory. The idea that Snowden had something and was itching to publish but he was waiting for a black man with a D behind his name to be elected is tantamount to tinfoil brigade.
Corner Stone
@LT:
And just like Scott Ritter may be a deeply flawed individual, it didn’t mean his detailing the truth about Iraq and WMD’s was somehow not correct.
Corner Stone
@Cervantes:
!
Denali
@Corner Stone,
I do not think government is evil; I think the people who decided the government has the right to listen to my telephone conversations, monitor my email and my Facebook posts, and track my Goggle searches, are evil.
Corner Stone
@Denali:
In a world gone mad, we will not spank the monkey, but the monkey will spank us.
LT
UN special report on internet surveillance just coming out:
Flatlander!
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/15/internet-surveillance-report-edward-snowden-leaks
Corner Stone
@LT: I, for one, condemn the United Nations for flattening the debate landscape.
Cervantes
@Corner Stone:
Easy for you to say.
Give me a better hypothesis.
Corner Stone
@Cervantes: Terminal smugness?
Cervantes
@Corner Stone:
Smugness implies a sense of superiority, which in this case is belied by the stark insecurity of his outlandishly abusive language.
Corner Stone
@Cervantes: But he went to Duke and is a lawyer?
How could that be?
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Keith G:
of course it would. let me guess…white guy?
Carolinus
@Mandalay:
Yes. Once it was revealed German intelligence intercepted, identified and stored the private communications of a number of senior US officials, like SoS Clinton & Kerry, I imagine Merkel decided her feigned outrage for domestic consumption had outlived its usefulness. Besides, Germany is currently extremely dependent on US and UK intelligence cooperation, and in the wake of current events (their citizens returning in large numbers from Syria and Iraq), they’re not about to jeopardize that.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@replicnt6:
No, I need proof that Edward Snowden changed over time. I know people who haven’t changed a bit from the time we were together in middle school in the late ’70s, and I know people who have changed quite a bit. Some of the latter changed for the better, others for the worse- and some of them changed at sixteen and haven’t changed since, while others have changed multiple times. It seems a convenient argument- albeit one based on purely anecdotal evidence- that since you think that you changed between twenty-five and thirty that Snowden must have changed during that period in his life.
Tangentially, this and this
.
Joe Buck
Well, I want to see it, and don’t think that speculation about whether the documentary will be a flop matters much.
We should be hearing a lot more about Laura Poitras than we do. Greenwald initially blew Snowden off; Poitras was the first person he successfully persuaded to take his story seriously, and Poitras persuaded Greenwald. Poitras doesn’t inject herself into the story the way Greenwald does.
John N
Of all the people who I want to see pay for their crimes, Snowden is probably at the bottom of the list. I don’t really see why we need to look backward here, since it’s our policy that we don’t do that. It’s in the past! We don’t look backward, right? We only move forward together! It would undermine confidence in our institutions if we ever held anyone accountable for anything, so I don’t see why Snowden should be some special exception to that.
Cervantes
@John N:
Possibly because of his smarminess. It’s icky, or so I’m told.
Corner Stone
@John N:
We’ll get through this…together!