In news that I’m sure will have everyone here incredibly sad, Glenn Greenwald; professional contrarian; faux erudite bullshit artist; asshole; seemingly unaware Russian intelligence dupe; professional victim of everyone else’s intolerance, shortsightedness, stupidity, and inability to appreciate his brilliance; and person running an investigative journalism venture built on his reputation of publishing information provided by leakers; but unable to actually protect one of the leakers because he never actually established any standard operating procedures to vet and protect leakers and he and his crack team are morons; has quit The Intercept. Why you ask? Because The Intercept had betrayed the high ideals and standards that Greenwald established, but apparently failed to inculcate with Pierre Omidyar’s money.
Take it away Glenn!
My Resignation From The Intercept
The same trends of repression, censorship and ideological homogeneity plaguing the national press generally have engulfed the media outlet I co-founded, culminating in censorship of my own articles.https://t.co/dZrlYGfEBf
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 29, 2020
"But the pathologies, illiberalism, and repressive mentality that led to the bizarre spectacle of my being censored by my own media outlet are ones that are not unique to The Intercept."
I'll be doing my journalism at Substack for now. Subscribe here:https://t.co/dZrlYGfEBf
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 29, 2020
As you can imagine, he wasted over 10,000 words in his diatribe against the publication he established with someone else’s money for not letting him do whatever it is he wanted to do because they are all a bunch of partisan hacks and don’t understand Glenn’s genius for producing overwrought garbage.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Open thread!
Open Thread: Joe Biden Live In Broward County
mrmoshpotato
Too bad.
So sad.
Fuck ’em.
ETA – Hey Upchuck Todd! Your turn!
germy
I predict he’ll double his income with his substack blog. His hungry fans will subscribe.
germy
The Moar You Know
I don’t normally ever go libertarian, but if Greenie wants to spew his shit with no filter, he can damn well pony up the ten bucks for a domain name and a couple hundred a year for hosting and set up his own website.
I humbly suggest: fuckovereverybody.com
NickM
“Unaware Russian intelligence dupe”? Who’s naive now, Kay?
germy
@The Moar You Know: See comment #2
Chyron HR
I don’t get it. Joe Biden touched his face therefore he’s the REAL superspreader?
Cacti
It always amazed me how admirers that MFer had here.
When did the man ever have a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g good to say about a Democrat?
catclub
So he barely got started writing it.
germy
Amir Khalid
Oh noes!! What is to become now of poor Glem Greenwald?
catclub
@Cacti: He opposed torture by the GWBush admin. I definitely approved of that.
eclare
I voted today. Took eight minutes in Memphis TN.
Cacti
@catclub: So what?
Betty Cracker
I don’t know much about Omidyar (the money behind The Intercept), but I got the sense he was trying to do a good thing when he founded that media company, but he made a huge mistake handing the reins to Greenwald. Maybe it can fulfill its mission with that drama llama out of the way. Or maybe it’s too late.
WereBear
How can we miss him if he won’t go away.
Cacti
Glenn just needs to get the Kremlin money for his next media venture.
Elizabelle
Door, ass, etc. You know the drill. The evil that men do, though … outlasts their flouncing off.
I will take this good news, though!
germy
oldster
If GG’s own bad behavior was not enough to make you fed up with him, then consider this:
Bari Weiss just tweeted in support of his courage and integrity.
It’s a shame, really — back in the stone ages of the web, circa 2002 or so, I valued his contributions. Then again, that’s when Sullivan was still sort of bearable, too.
The years change people; good people go bad. Except Weiss, who was bad from the start.
Elizabelle
@eclare: A friend in Northern Virginia waited two hours today. In the rain and wind. But she voted. Yea Margaret!!
Hob
Yes Glen, I’m sure the editor told you “remove all criticism of Joe Biden” and did not have any more specific issue with what you wrote. That is totally a thing that happened.
I guess Glen is counting on either the editors not bothering to rebut him publicly with details of what actually happened, or his remaining fans being so loyal to him that they won’t care.
dm
That photo is Biden doing that French “eyelid pull” gesture — meaning, I gather, “you don’t fool me” or the colorful “pull the other one, it’s got bells on”, kind of an appropriate response to Greenwald’s 10,000 words.
MattF
@germy: Yeah, ‘pornographer’ is the WTF icing on the Greenwald pie.
dmsilev
It’s not a true Greenwald diatribe unless he then went on to add notes I through LXVII.
Cacti
Abridged version: I demand that my editor let me spam Russian psyops!
-Comrade Greenwald
Mary G
@WereBear: This. I never could read his stuff. Now do the other guy who pushed the Tara Reade fantasy, and they might have a chance of being a real media outlet.
germy
@dmsilev:
gwangung
@Betty Cracker: I researched Omidyar for work, and his heart is definitely in the right place, but his judgement was considerably off here
(ETA: He’s kinda in the high tech corporatist liberal lane….)
germy
eclare
@Elizabelle: Respect! The lines were long the first few days, but except for one location, shortened after that. Plus we have a lot of locations, 26.
Ken
I suspect the actual phrasing was closer to “remove the actionable slanders”.
japa21
That last tweet exposed the fact that GG has no self-awareness. He said he’ll “be doing my journalism at Substack for now. ” Since when has he ever actually done any journalism in the pure sense of the word.
MattF
And, in other news, people are having medical issues at a Trump rally… because it’s hot in Florida.
Benw
I guess Glenn feels The Intercept has really slid down the slope
dmsilev
Meanwhile, Florida Man has moved from killing his followers via frostbite to killing his followers via heat stroke:
Adam L Silverman
@NickM: My name isn’t Kay. And I’m not naive.
Betty Cracker
@gwangung: Good to know. Thanks!
Baud
I think a lot of the youngs get their news from The Intercept, so hopefully this will be a good thing long term.
Slappy Kincaid
Greenwald is the poster child for undiagnosed histrionic personality disorder.
Mary G
@dmsilev: Fewer votes for Twitler. He maybe shouldn’t have encouraged them to vote in person Tuesday, then froze some in Omaha and is steaming them in Florida.
Adam L Silverman
@MattF: Heat index in the greater Tampa Bay area – Tampa, St. Pete, Clearwater, Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties – maxed out at 101 today. And it was probably higher at the event because they were in a paved parking lot, which was radiating heat back. It has been unpleasant here all week.
Baud
@Slappy Kincaid: Well, he was until you diagnosed him.
Betty Cracker
@MattF: 87 degrees is nothing in Central FL, and it’s not all that humid today. They’re probably febrile and keeling over from COVID, which is spreading rampantly throughout the state since the governor started listening to Trump’s quack doctor and curtailed/lied about testing.
Baud
Covid, hypothermia, heat stroke. How will Trump harm his supporters tomorrow? Tune in to find out!
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev: That understates it. The heat index maxed out around 101 in the area today. It’s now down to a cool, crisp 99. And given they were in a paved parking lot that was radiating heat back, I’d expect that the ambient heat index at that location was well above 101.
dr. bloor
@dmsilev: Up next: Trump channels Jack Nicholson in Batman; next rally to feature giant balloons filled with lethal gas.
Adam L Silverman
@Baud: Only if Ryan Grim, who is their Washington Bureau Chief, also leaves. He spent a lot of time trying to make Tara Reade happen.
germy
Just One More Canuck
I’m confused – does ‘censorship’ mean the same thing as ‘we won’t publish your unsupported bullshit’?
hitchhiker
I confess to being guilty of lacking the imagination to appreciate his brilliance.
Bye, Glenn.
Turns out you’re just one more mediocre white guy.
David ?Booooooo!? Koch
Me, from nearly 7 years ago
Me, from five years ago
Shakti
@MattF: The rally is streaming live on the local news.
I find it more than a little silly that Floridians aren’t prepared for the heat. There are probably a bunch of sunburnt idiots too.
Baud
I wonder how Reality Winner is feeling right now.
Ken
@Just One More Canuck: I’ll repost this from the thread downstairs: xkcd.com/1357
Based on that, he’s not being censored.
David ?Booooooo!? Koch
With Griftwald gone, with Taibbi gone, with Sully gone, it’s going be up to Ryan Grimm to do all smearing of the Biden/Harris administration.
dmsilev
@Baud: I believe that after water and fire, the next entry in the sequence is earth. So, tomorrow’s headline will be “Trump rally attendees buried by rockfall”. On Saturday, a freak tornado will hit that rally. And on Sunday, of course, it will be the luminiferous ether. That one will be ugly.
cope
The good news is that UPS found Tucker “TV dinner” Carlson’s missing book report and will be returning it posthaste.
MattF
@dmsilev: And then, on Monday, the Avatar appears.
Sab
@Betty Cracker: Too much airconditioning. these days. When I was a kid in Fl in the 1960s 87degrees wasn ‘t very hot.
dmsilev
@MattF: That’s where we’re heading, yes. If we’re really really unfortunate, it will be the movie version rather than the TV version.
Baud
@cope:
Is that snark, or did Tucker submit the next installment of his sham story?
Kent
So did everyone else to the left of say…Mitt Romney. So what?
MattF
@cope: Sigh. Every time I see the character string ‘Tucker Carlson’ my brain turns it into ‘Fucker Carlson’.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman: Surely you can’t be serious.
Ken
They may not all be Floridians. There have been reports that some people are treating him like a Grateful Dead tour, which is appropriate during a pandemic.
Oklahomo
@Adam L Silverman: Not to mention the heat generated by a crowd itself.
Kent
And imagine how crappy Greenwald’s article must have been if it didn’t meet the editorial standards of the Intercept. Must have been putrid.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Sinkhole works too.
germy
Three people have been killed following a knife attack in a church in Nice. The incident occurred at around 9am local time this morning. A police source has suggested that one of the victims, a woman, was decapitated in the attacks which saw many others injured. The French anti-terrorist prosecutor’s department is investigating the attack, which took place in Notre Dame church – the largest Roman Catholic church in the city.
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev: They cancelled his Fayetteville, NC rally today because of wind.
Cacti
@Kent: I’m guessing it was less a matter of poor quality than one of actionable libel.
Carlo
I must say, I do feel a bit conflicted about Greenwald. He is incredibly annoying, it’s true, and his dogmatism about Russian election interference discredits much of his perspective. On the other hand, I believe that he performed an invaluable service to the country in shepherding the Snowden Revelations to publication – I wish only they had a greater impact than they did in restraining our out-of-control surveillance society. Greenwald was right to sound the alarm, and I still believe we will regret not coming down hard on the NSA and the rest of the securocracy.
GG treasures his self-image as the only virgin in the whorehouse of journalism, which makes him view his contrarianism as a value, rather than as a tactic to be deployed in service of his values. As a consequence he hits a lot of poorly-chosen targets. It’s a pity, really, because gadfly reporters can be very valuable citizens, even when they’re assholes (Seymour Hersh coms to mind…)
Old School
@Baud: Not snark.
LuciaMia
Dont forget the remnants of the hurricane.
cope
@Old School: What are the chances Tucker will claim the most crucial page or pages are missing?
raven
@Adam L Silverman: It was intense this morning here, we lost power for a few hours.
Ian
I’m calling some serious BS right here. I can’t read one paragraph of a story about Biden without someone trashing him, and GG can’t write a critical piece on Biden? Is there any corroboration of his shtick?
Martin
That’s exactly what Kay would want us to believe.
dmsilev
@Adam L Silverman: Probably just as well. WaPo election update ticker has this story:
Ken
You remind me of this XKCD, which remarkably enough has nothing to do with the election. Though the way the forecast treats next Tuesday has me nervous…
Brachiator
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
I have noticed a number of YouTube political videos in which “true progressives” ramble on about how Trump and Biden are the same. Typically these are idiots who will be quite comfortable under a Trump reign of terror. For these fools, it is total faux revolution or nothing.
It is just wild to see that the more that Trump treats his base with open contempt, the more they love him.
germy
Ken
I can’t find it now, but earlier today I saw a story about a man who fell through a sudden sinkhole in NYC, into a pit of rats. They didn’t mention his political affiliation.
Old School
@cope: Probably pretty good. If it’s not missing yet, Biden will probably get a hold of Obama’s time machine and take it then.
germy
@Ken:
I’ve always imagined that’s the way I’ll go.
Shakti
@Betty Cracker: I don’t know if it’s Covid, but something’s seriously wrong if people are passing out in 87 degree heat at this time of year. It’s not even humid!
There’s a rally for Biden in Tampa at 6:30 pm. Drive in, not breath and sweat on each other. But it’s also cooler, lmao.
Anonymous At Work
@David ?Booooooo!? Koch: Most liberal publications have a few “Heighten the Differences” Liberals (“Don’t dare call us Democrats!) that will gladly collaborate as well.
Betty Cracker
The Intercept strikes back! An excerpt:
Heheheh!
RandomMonster
Unaware Russian dupe or paid Russian asset? You make the call.
germy
Ian
@dmsilev: If that happens I will need to re-evaluate everything I ever learned about 6th century Byzantine religiious scholars.
Is that you, zombie John Philoponus?
Cacti
That phrase could describe pretty much anything that’s ever come from Greenwald.
dmsilev
@Ken:
Indiana Jones punched a lot of Nazis. I’m guessing he’s a Democrat.
cope
@Ken: Report on sinkhole rats from Channel 2. Sounds like a Poe story.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbXb5zRpYYk&feature=emb_logo
NickM
@Adam L Silverman: a joke and a quote from The Godfather. I’m a big fan- no offense intended.
RSA
Greenwald:
I think it thrived, rather, because of readers who agreed with the particular views he was expressing, not because of all the rest.
I also think it’s odd that, for him to quit, it wasn’t enough for The Intercept’s practices to have allowed a source to be revealed. He mentions Reality Winner half a dozen times, mostly to say, “Not my fault!” But when it’s his own ox being gored…
Brachiator
@Ken:
Holy crap! Talk about a waking nightmare.
Fortunately, there was a hospital right across the street.
Pandemic, with a side of rats.
dmsilev
@germy: Seems like an amicable parting of the ways….
Peale
@David ?Booooooo!? Koch: They still have Lee Fang.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
As opposed to, you know, all the stories he wrote for us over the years.
sdhays
I read (well, skimmed) a few blog posts Greenwald made back when he was at Salon.com, but he was so ridiculously verbose that I stopped bothering. Who would have thought that Mr. “I’ll use 10,000 words to say what a barely decent writer would say in 500 or less” would chafe under editorial supervision?
Does this mean that I should stop ignoring that The Intercept exists anymore? Are they actually legitimate? As long as Greenwald was running it, I just assumed it was about as useful from a news perspective as Breitbart.
Shakti
@Ken: There’s a lot of people in Central Florida who didn’t grow up in any part of Florida. Lots of ex-Michiganders, New Yorkers. The Quebecois tend to snowbird (they also love driving.)
It cracks me up that all these people move down here but can’t survive without aggressive A/C and they build these little hot boxes without cross ventilation.
Kilgore Trout
@cope: Rescheduled Delivery Date: Wednesday, November 4th
patroclus
Dear Leader Greenwald’s “reasons” are hilarious! Virtually every liberal blog I have read all year routinely has posts and comments that criticize Joe Biden – sometimes justifiable; often not. Virtually all of us here at BJ favored someone else in the primaries and routinely dissed Joe for various reasons. We still routinely second guess him and his strategy. And GG claims that his editors refused to publish his smears “unless he removed all criticism.”???? I sincerely doubt that. Editors requesting changes is “censorship”????? I was impressed by the Dear Leader in 2005-06, but that was 14 years ago. Since then, he’s gone way downhill. At his next grift, I’m pretty sure he’ll double down on anti-Biden smears; that’s his shtick now…
bjacques
That photo of beady-eyed Greenwad reminds me of Carl Lepper the narc of National Lampoon’s High School Yearbook.
different-church-lady
@Adam L Silverman: Well, they could cancel every one of his rallys for that.
azlib
Takes real talent to resign from your own platform.
The Moar You Know
@Brachiator: He’s always known that. Remember this classic?
“I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.”
He could grab a belt-fed machine gun and shoot every single supporter at a rally and they’d laud him for his “remarkable new paradigm of voter outreach”.
Mike S
I remember the OUTRAGE that ensued when he left the great orange satan because people wouldn’t let him get away with the same kind of bullshit. He had his defenders who claimed that “censorship” went against what dKos was all about. Of course many of those very same people continued to post similar BS going so far to send links to some of their stories to FOX News during the 2016 election so they could get those “even the very librul Daily Kos thinks the emails matter.”
That’s when dKos became an occasional visit for me instead of my main lefty blog.
different-church-lady
@Ken: On the other hand, we already know the rats’ political affiliation.
Humanities Prof
@cope: I want dibs on “Sinkhole Rats” as a band name.
Betty Cracker
Sounds legit.
WaterGirl
@azlib: He’s not leaving The Intercept. The Intercept left him! :-)
trollhattan
Maybe he can invest some off-time developing a sense of humor. He could make Nader seem like a Borscht Belt pro by comparison.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: That was laugh-out-loud funny. The “excited chatter” was what really made it.
Elizabelle
@eclare: What state do you live in?
I am in Virginia. Personally, I voted early in person maybe 3 weeks ago, near the end of the day. Virginia runs such smooth elections. We opened for in person early voting on Friday, September 18. I just waited a while for the lines (which were long the first few days) to subside.
May we all be John Lewis’s earthly assistants in pushing for — and winning — a nationwide Voting Rights Act. Every state should be easy, and count votes fairly. Screw the Republicans and their sabotage. Take it out of their hands.
terry chay
@Carlo: You’ll have a different perspective of even that incident when it is revealed that Snowden was a Russian asset and Greenwald committed crimes (and created Kompromat on himself) when he “shepherded” Snowden, leading to his self-imposed exile in Latin America and his anti-Democratic Party hysteria today.
He’s just doing what he’s doing to avoid prosecution and jail time. His has only been one of disservice and cowardice.
cope
I miss regular doses of Tbogg. It’s almost enough to make me become a twitter person…almost.
Ruckus
@MattF:
That’s OK, his original name was Fucker Carlson but he changed changed it on principle. Principally because everyone laughed at how aptly named he was.
mrmoshpotato
Well said. (Click through to not fuck the margins.)
germy
thread:
David ?Booooooo!? Koch
Who wrote this: Steven Miller, The Proud Boys or Griftwald
Quinerly
@David ?Booooooo!? Koch: Epic!!!
mrmoshpotato
@Ken:
And we shall call them Dumpheads.
Jay
@oldster: I agree with you. I really appreciated Greenwald’s blog in early 2000’s.
Juju
@Baud: @45. I’m going to guess the second hive of Murder Hornets.
Slappy Kincaid
@Baud: Well, I am a problem solver. Says so on my business card.
MattF
Trump thinks people who pass out at his rallies are losers.
Carlo
@terry chay: I don’t understand you. The “crimes” committed by Snowden and Greenwald (and Poitras) were no different, in my opinion, from those committed by Daniel Ellsberg and the New York Times with The Pentagon Papers. They exposed real government wrongdoing, and performed a valuable service to the nation.
As far as I’m concerned, if Snowden and Greewald were spies, they were working on my behalf, and on that of millions of other US citizens unaware of the pervasive surveillance to which they are subjected by their government.
It is not necessary to admire what GG has become in order to concede the real service that he has performed. It’s called “giving the Devil his due.”
WaterGirl
@MattF: What a disgusting creature. To even have your brain go there – “if they aren’t my fans, should we even help them? haha” is awful.
At the rally for Obama and BIden in Springfield, IL, the day Obama announced Biden as his VP, it was super hot and people were passing out. I was so hot had so much sweat running down my face that my vision was blurry.
At one point, Obama (who had a great view of the audience from the stage) stopped his speech and asked folks to help the lady that was passing out and needed water.
Yes, Obama had staffers who were there to help people. So quaint! :-)
Geminid
It does not surprise me that The Intercept would not publish Greenwald’s hatchet job on Joe Biden. There has been a noticeable shift the past few weeks by leftist rags away from “lesser of two evils” griping, and towards acknowledging the existential threat trump represents. And I sometimes follow a notable Charlottesville twitter firebrand. I’ll call her “Red Molly” (just on account of her red hair). Last spring, she seemed to take the tara reade allegations as a matter of fact. But during last week’s debate, Molly said she was yelling “c’mon man!” at trump right along with Biden.
different-church-lady
@Carlo: They were not crimes of espionage. They were crimes of misrepresentation.
cain
Joe is using the wrong finger to scratch his cheek.
Watching Greenwald fucking off is great. The return volley by the Intercept has been great as well! I think there will be much celebration tonight.
Gin & Tonic
@Carlo:
It was a long time ago, and I am forgetful. Which non-extradition country did Daniel Ellsberg flee to?
Ohio Mom
I always feel bad for Reality Winner, and suspect there is more than a dash of misogyny in how her plight is overlooked.
eclare
@Elizabelle: I am in Memphis TN. TN does not want me to vote, but Memphis (Shelby Co) does. Yes, voting rights need to be a focus. I once waited two hours to vote in (surprise!) Atlanta, I lived in John Lewis’ district. Here it’s been easy every time.
different-church-lady
Developing: Talks with Fox News have broken down over whether the new show will be called “Greenwald and Carlson” or “Carlson and Greenwald”
Citizen Alan
@Carlo: I remain deeply embarrassed that I ever thought Snowden was anything other than a Russian asset and a God-damned traitor. YMMV.
different-church-lady
@Betty Cracker:
Well no wonder Greenwald couldn’t abide by it.
patroclus
@Gin & Tonic: Well, I was alive then and I remember Ellsberg having the courage of his convictions and staying in the U.S. to face whatever music he had coming. He was prosecuted for violating the Espionage Act of 1917 and because of governmental misconduct and illegal gathering of evidence, the prosecution was dismissed without prejudice in 1973. Snowden and Greenwald, by contrast, fled to Russia and Brazil respectively, and, to my knowledge, have never returned. Whether meritorious prosecutions of them exist is therefore unclear at present and my guess is that it will remain so for the remainder of their lives.
dm
@Carlo: forget it, Carlo. People here have made up their minds, and the reality is that we just can’t know. The evidence that Snowden did harm to the people of this country, if it exists, is classified — and so is any evidence that exonerates him. I don’t really think there’s much point in arguing something as fundamentally unknowable.
As to your point about Ellsberg, I agree. As does Ellsberg (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/10/edward-snowden-united-stasi-america)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/daniel-ellsberg-nsa-leaker-snowden-made-the-right-call/2013/07/07/0b46d96c-e5b7-11e2-aef3-339619eab080_story.html
Carlo
@Gin & Tonic: Not that it has any bearing on the similarity between Ellsberg’s and Snowden’s acts of conscience, but since you ask, Ellsberg was on the lam for 13 days before surrendering to the U.S. Attorney on the case. He was tried under the Espionage Act, a despicable law which effectively denied him a defense, and which would also be trotted out against Snowden, were he to return. Ellsberg good fortune was that the misconduct of Nixon’s Plumbers in burglarizing his psychiatrists office came to light during his trial. He might still be in the pen otherwise. I doubt Snowden would be so lucky.
If your point is that a whistleblower should be willing to spend the rest of his days in a Federal Pen for disclosing misconduct covered by the Espionage Act, I only hope you are never offered that choice yourself.
geg6
@Gin & Tonic:
This. Fucking coward who outed himself as a traitor.
RaflW
Intercept EIC Betsy Reed has responded. She called him “a grown person throwing a tantrum” and that his resignation letter is teeming with distortions.
But as someone who has mostly ignored The Intercept, I’m just here for the popcorn smells.
(eta: @germy has the receipt)
trollhattan
@David ?Booooooo!? Koch:
Costco October sale on superlatives, all stuffed into a single paragraph. An unmanageably endless paragraph.
mrmoshpotato
Wearing pants again feels weird. That is all.
patroclus
@dm: People should NOT forget the case and most here have absolutely NOT made up their minds; which certainly includes me. Nonetheless, I am prevented from knowing whether Snowden and Greenwald harmed the country (or if they didn’t) because of their abject cowardice in refusing to remain in their supposed countries to face whatever prosecutions might be forthcoming. Ellsberg himself, who has received the Olaf Palme Award for “exceptional moral courage,” has written movingly of how he was inspired by Randy Kehler, who was prosecuted for draft resistance, who courageously faced the music for living up to his convictions. When faced with a similar moral choice, Snowden and Greenwald merely fled the country.
Gin & Tonic
@patroclus: @Carlo:
My point, of course, was rhetorical. I happen to believe, though, that Ellsberg was a man of conscience [“I did this clearly at my own jeopardy and I am prepared to answer to all the consequences of this decision”], and Snowden was an agent of a foreign government [statement accepting consequences not found.] As @dm points out, we are unlikely to know the truth, at least in the foreseeable future.
WereBear
I once worked with a native NYER who was terrified of bugs. I was the one who dashed her Florida dreams with some wiggly facts about the semi-tropics.
Ken
@WereBear: “Eek! A giant cockroach!!!”
“No, ma’am, that’s only a palmetto bug.”
Another Scott
@Cacti: Putin’s sooo 2016. His time has passed.
The real up-and-coming tyrant for 2021, who’s punching above his weight when it comes to pissing people off and breaking the international order, is Erdogan.
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@terry chay: @Carlo: Ellsberg didn’t:
Shortly after Snowden got to Moscow in AUG 2014 we lost the ability to see what they were doing because they had gained the ability to know how we were watching them and suddenly changed what they were doing. All as Putin was attacking Ukraine and beginning his campaign of political warfare against the US, the UK, and several other of our EU and NATO allies. The whole civil liberties, the NSA is spying on Americans, the surveillance state is out of control was the cover story. And the news media bought it lock, stock, and barrel.
Does the NSA and the US Intel Community need vigorous oversight? Yes. Does spending years denigrating the US Intel Community, what it does, how it does, why it does it, how it is overseen create an opening that allows for Americans to be exploited by attacking them in ways that when exposed would rely on Americans having both confidence in the Intelligence Community and how it conducts itself, confidence that had been destroyed by a concerted active measures campaign run through Wikileaks, which is a Russian intelligence asset? Yes.
Assange seems to have been in from the beginning. Greenwald and Poitrois were may have started off as naive amateurs high on their own press and reputations being played by actual professionals, but six year’s later the “we were just helping a whistleblower who is being unfairly denigrated” schtick doesn’t just wear thin, it is itself disinformation and agitprop. If they’re this stupidly credulous no one should involve themselves in whatever it is they claim they’re doing. And if Snowden is just an innocent whistleblower being wrongly persecuted, he can come home and have his day in court and we can all see what comes out of the discovery process, direct, and cross examination. But Snowden won’t, because he can’t, because he is what he always ways: someone who betrayed the US to a hostile foreign actor for money. Which is why he has now been awarded permanent residency in Russia. A status that will be allowed to continue until he is no longer of any use to Putin’s strategic objectives.
pat
Stayed in a hotel in New Orleans one time where the cockroaches in the bathroom were bigger every day.
Carefully opened the suitcases outside when we got home, shook everything out.
MisterForkbeard
@sdhays: The Intercept is still full of very lefty contrarian idiots, though it also does run some good stories.
Ryan Grim is still their DC bureau chief, which means all their politics work is slanted towards Bernie and against Biden even now. If Greenwald wanted to write something that Ryan Grim wasn’t comfortable with, it was really bad
BruceFromOhio
Anyone can write an opinion piece. Perhaps yours weren’t worth the trouble anymore.
Ken
@Adam L Silverman: What happens when Snowden’s no longer of use to Putin’s strategic objectives? A tea-drinking accident?
danielx
@mrmoshpotato:
Be sure to let Baud know how that feels.
danielx
Et tu, Brute?
Geminid
Daniel Ellsburg copied a classified Pentagon history of the origins of the Vietnam War and gave it to the New York Times. If Snowden had just passed on the details of the domestic surveillance program to a newspaper- yes, he would have gone to prison, for maybe twice as long as Reality Winner or Bradley Manning. But my understanding is that Snowden did not just extract materials relating to the surveillance program, but als downloaded a large amount of other national security materials, and carried it all to the Chinese, who would have extracted it whether he consented or not, and could decide what to let him carry on to Russia. If that is so, Snowden laid himself open to the same life sentence Navy personnel and an FBI agent are serving for espionage, and he knew it. I doubt if he ever leaves Russia.
dm
@patroclus: Read Ellsberg’s op-ed piece in The Washington Post (link above),
Or, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/01/edward-snowden-nsa-surveillance-patriot-act-whistleblowers-daniel-ellsberg :
I don’t really feel qualified to question Ellsberg’s assessment in this.
Adam L Silverman
@Ken: I don’t know and frankly I don’t care.
WereBear
@Ken: “And when you spray them, they fly at you.”
Another Scott
@Benw: He probably wants to go down to the delta, but I doubt he’s reached his limit.
I’m trying to think of a parallel construction, but Zeno’s calling and if I don’t leave now I won’t get there.
Cheers,
Scott.
Carlo
@patroclus: I am at a complete loss. What do you mean you don’t know whether “they harmed the country”?
They revealed an enormous stack of indisputably real technical documents that showed pervasive domestic surveillance of all electronic communications in the U.S. Surveillance that was unknown to the public, and only legal under the modern theory of “if White House and DOJ lawyers have a meeting and write a memo that says it’s legal, then it is” (the torture legalization methodology).
I’m still appalled and dispirited at the fact that people do not regard this as the scandal that it so clearly is. Apparently, the fact that it happened during the Obama administration blinded a lot of progressives to the danger. That danger is clearly illustrated by two thought experiments: (1) What would have happened to the U.S. if J. Edgar Hoover had had access to that kind of surveillance? (2) Suppose Trump is re-elected, and it occurs to Barr that the dividing walls between DOJ and NSA are no longer necessary, where do we hide?
Whatever “damage” Snowden did to U.S. national security is clearly outweighed by the benefit to our polity in making us aware of the danger.If we ignore it, that makes us idiots, but it does not make him a traitor.
dm
@Adam L Silverman: Since you are talking about the Aug 2014 “loss of the ability to see what they were doing” in a public forum you must have untainted open-source references for this. Can you share those?
I was under the impression that the House investigation into the harm Snowden did came up largely empty-handed, but I admit to not having chased the reference down and seen for myself.
Carlo, we can’t weigh the harm Snowden did to the security of the American people (see Adam’s comment about the loss of methods) against the good that he did for the freedom of the American people (revealing the domestic surveillance programs in a way that ultimately caused Congress to take action).
patroclus
@dm: Well, I feel qualified to disagree with Ellsberg. The longer Snowden stays in Russia, the less support he will have and the less popular he will be. Because it demonstrates that not only is he a coward who does not have the courage of his convictions but that he might really be guilty of harming his country. If he is an innocent whistleblower, then he would have the right to due process of law; including discovery and cross-examination as well as effective assistance of counsel. That should be enough for him to make his case; whatever it is.
Greenwald has less to fear. He didn’t steal the keys and the passwords. Why does he not return? Why not have the courage of his convictions and actually make a legal point in an adversarial process that he could well win? He could well be a martyr to the freedom of the press and make all the points he wants in a real high profile media trial. What makes him so cowardly?
jnfr
I feel pretty sure that Greenwald, Sullivan, and Weiss won’t all be making $500k/yr writing on substack.
different-church-lady
@Carlo: They received a bunch of fantasy PowerPoint decks.
Don’t know if word has gotten ’round to you, but the Flavor Aid has some questionable chemicals in it.
Eunicecycle
@WereBear: My parents lived there after they retired and I remember there being little lizards everywhere that freaked me out. They didn’t bite or anything but they would just fall from the ceiling or crawl around in the car. Very startling.
Adam L Silverman
@dm: Here’s one link, which I’ve posted before.
https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/intel-heads-edward-snowden-profound-damage-us-security/story?id=22285388
ETA: Though it is from JAN 2014 and largely deals with what al Qaeda had learned about our methods and therefore been able to circumvent them. You’ll notice in the article at the link that DNI Clapper, when asked if they same issue existed with Russia, immediately indicated he needed to answer it in a classified setting.
Sab
@WereBear: Also too anoles. When I moved there at six I was charmed. I know literally dozens of Ohioans who moved there as retirees and came back north because of the scary lizards.
I did not like lying in bed at night smelling palmetto bugs (they do have a strong odor) and hoping they kept their grip on the ceiling, but I was never afraid of them. My seatmate in first grade had a pet one in a jar on his desk that he fed and watered for months. It was at least an inch long.
M31
I remember walking around a trim, sedate Florida suburb and coming across one single housing lot that hadn’t been cleared and built on yet. It was 30 feet tall solid jungle greenery and buzzing with loud and large insects and I’m sure chock full of reptiles lying in wait.
different-church-lady
@jnfr: Didn’t Sullivan make a decent penny for himself just selling expensive newsletter subscriptions to a small-but-dedicated fan base?
Sab
@Eunicecycle: Anoles!
low-tech cyclist
How many years has it been since Greenwald jumped the shark? I’m guessing 10 +/- 2, but my memory’s fuzzy.
All I know is, my days of not taking him seriously came to a middle quite some time back, and have pretty much stayed there.
Eunicecycle
@Sab: yes! I couldn’t think of what they were called! They were kind of cute, but I just couldn’t stand how they would fall on me. And yes I’m from Ohio!
dm
@patroclus: Fine. You can take it to the man himself:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/30/daniel-ellsberg-snowden-fair-trial-kerry-espionage-act
since he basically addresses the same sentiments when they were uttered by John Kerry.
Now, I happen to think that Ellsberg’s assessment is probably colored by his conviction that whistleblowing is such an unalloyed good that he may be blind to things that Snowden did wrong. Nonetheless, I think his argument is a good one. It’s not like we haven’t seen whistleblowers mis-treated in recent memory.
patroclus
@Carlo: I mean what I said. Savvy observers have long known that the U.S. intelligence agencies have the technology and, in fact do, spy on everyone they can, including Americans and everyone else. It’s been the central plot line of countless movies; decades before Snowden and Greenwald and numerous media reports, for decades, have made this clear. What I don’t know is what adam said – what specifically did Snowden give to the Chinese and the Russians? How much more harmful was that? Did it really lead to the Ukraine fiasco? How so? If the government has a case for espionage, they should be required to prove it in court. That’s our system. Snowden and Greenwald only make themselves look more guilty by fleeing. The longer they stay away, the more guilty they look.
Sab
@Eunicecycle: So you had the same ceiling issue I did, but mine was with bugs and yours was with lizards.
debbie
@MattF:
Who will win at the Trump rallies: Heat stroke or pneumonia? //
Bobby Thomson
“Unable to protect?”
Like he wanted to. She was working against his interests.
Another Scott
@Carlo: Ellsberg published a report that he had a hand in writing and knew something about.
Snowden was a computer tech with delusions of greatness who hoovered up everything he could get his hands on, with little to no understanding of what the information was about and why it was classified.
There’s really no comparison.
(I could begin a rant here, but we’ve hashed out this stuff many times over the years already.)
Cheers,
Scott.
low-tech cyclist
And best of all, they’re abundant in central Florida.
Ken
I maked thousands every week in my home with Internet! Becom a media influencing!! Visit my blog on substack to find out who!!! Never leave your couch again!!!!
debbie
@Old School:
Hopefully, they’ll mail it to him, and the USPS won’t get it to his door until 11.4.
Eunicecycle
@Sab: yep, there are many reasons I wouldn’t move to Florida and anoles and bugs are 2 of them.
Ken
More like 2 trillion of them.
Cacti
And even now, knowing everything we know now, there are still members of the flying monkey brigade who insist that Moscow Ed Snowden was anything other than a spy for a hostile foreign power.
jnfr
@Ohio Mom:
I think about that too, every time GG comes up.
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
This should be GG’s elevator statement.
2liberal
Rats sinkhole story
In case it hasn’t been provided by another juicer
Carlo
@patroclus: Under the terms of the Espionage Act, the idea of “proving” anything in court is so hilariously off-base as to call into question why a trial is required at all. No substantial defense is permitted, and certainly not any statements about government abuse of surveillance power. That law is a cold war relic designed for the sole purpose of throwing people perceived as threats to national security down a hole with no possible legal defense.As I wrote earlier, Ellsberg would still be in that hole had Nixon not overreached. So long as that is the law under which Snowden would be tried, any discussion of “his day in court” is either ignorant or in bad faith.
jnfr
@different-church-lady:
I don’t know about that. His Dish blog did pretty well for quite a while but he about killed himself and his staff doing it. I don’t think his thinking and/or writing have gotten better since.
But maybe there’s always a pool of rich folks to fish from.
debbie
@Carlo:
If I recall correctly, Ellsberg released previously unknown information showing that Nixon had ignored Congress’s direction not to invade Cambodia and had conducted a secret war—both illegal acts. I’m not aware of any new information in Snowdon’s and Assange’s actions, other than to be too fucking lazy to redact names, putting those people’s lives at risk.
I apologize if I’m misremembering.
James E Powell
@Ohio Mom:
I feel there is also a healthy dose of contempt for her social class.
debbie
@different-church-lady:
Their intertwined initials might make a lovely logo for the program.
patroclus
@Carlo: The Espionage Act was enacted in 1917 and had nothing to do with the Cold War, which started after WWII. Federal courts sitting in law and equity are amply capable of conducting fair trials in accordance with due process of law standards. The Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure would be applicable; including the discovery process, cross-examination and effective assistance of counsel (all of which were available to Ellsberg and he got the charges dismissed). Eschewing the legal process as Snowden has is yet another example of his cowardice. You agree with him – I don’t.
Baud
Voters on Melber interesting but immensely frustrating.
Wyatt Salamanca
Per CNN – Racist Chickenshit David Perdue has pulled out of his Sunday debate so that he can appear at a Trump rally instead.
Baud
@Wyatt Salamanca:
Haha. Trump has to stump in Georgia.
ETA: I hope voters punish Perdue for that.
Sab
@Eunicecycle: Also too it is extremely flat.
Sab
@Martin: Kay would never want us to believe that Adam Silverman is naive.//
dm
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks. In 2014 I might have said, “well, of course Clapper would say that”. From the perspective of 2020, I’m more favorably disposed.
Here’s a better reference for the next time someone asks you this question: HPSCI “Review of the unauthorized disclosures of former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden” (https://fas.org/irp/congress/2016_rpt/hpsci-snowden.pdf).
James E Powell
@Wyatt Salamanca:
After what Ossoff did to him, can you blame him?
Besides, his re-election depends on his standing among Trump voters.
Morzer
You know, there MUST be an opening for a magazine – call it The White Moderate – edited by Greenwald and Sullivan…
Ken
FTFY.
Eunicecycle
@Baud: yes the two women who went from Bernie to Trump??? Just couldn’t vote for Hillary??
burnspbesq
Even at his best, blogging about civil liberties issues 2005-07, Greenie was dunked on consistently by Marty Lederman.
All big law firm hiring committees make mistakes from time to time, but Wachtell Lipton made a doozy when they hired Greenie.
dm
@Wyatt Salamanca: After the way Jon Ossoff wiped the floor with him at Wednesday’s debate, I’m not surprised.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/10/29/1990617/–It-s-not-just-that-you-re-a-crook-Senator
“It’s not just that you’re a crook, Senator, it’s that you’ve voted to take away Georgian’s medical insurance four times.”
(ETA: James Powell beat me to it.)
EmperorofIceCream
@Adam L Silverman: thank you for this response. We have allowed a lot of very bad actors to flourish because we have been too willing to think in simple binaries of good or bad. With 7 billion people on the planet the right answer is usually ‘it’s complicated.’ The more I learn about what Snowden did (and how he has behaved) the more I accept your much better informed judgment on this. And I couldn’t agree more with @patroclus: what did we really learn that anyone remotely paying attention didn’t already know? Everyone is spying on us and we’ve never had more of ourselves available for inspection than now. I have frankly been as or more worried about the depth of the commercial aspects of this than the governmental one but with incipient fascism it’s all pretty f’ing scary.
Baud
@Eunicecycle:
Holding my tongue for 5 more days.
burnspbesq
@Carlo:
Cold War relic? You mean the Espionage Act of 1917?
Sab
I don’t think what happened to Reality Winner was misogyny. It was slapping down an amateur newbie. She had a security clearance. There are law firms you can leak through safely to leak stuff. She didn’t even know enough to do that. She had a security clearance. She knew there were penalties, and for a reason.
I admire her. I feel horribly sad for her. But there is a way you safely leak and she didn’t bother to find out. Don’t leak to the Intercept with Russian ties. She had a security clearance! For God sake learn the ropes!
Unfortunately she is a necessary object lesson for the next naive kid.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Carlo:
Oh, horseshit. Requiring retention of data and a warrant process to root through it (as opposed to unanswerable corporations hoovering it up to sell to any and everybody) isn’t evil, and frankly, would have helped dissuade foreign election interference and white supremacist plots.
something fabulous
“I’ll be doing my journalism”?! Who says that?
piratedan
jaysus, here we are in 2020, trying to beat back the Fascists out of positions of power; who were placed there with wide-ranging assistance of Vlad’s minions and cash, who leveraged social media and engaged in essentially a cyber war with the US. Yet, people still want to argue whether Snowden giving the keys to the IC infrastructure kingdom away to the Russians and the Chinese was an “act of conscience”
fuck…..
burnspbesq
Fun fact: Greenie was hired by Wachtell the same year that George Conway made partner.
Geminid
@Wyatt Salamanca: trump will treat Perdue much better than he treated McSally and Ernst. No need to wonder why.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Carlo:
Snowjob should swing from a rope. So should Greenwald.
I’d pay to watch that shit.
burnspbesq
@James E Powell:
I got an email from the Warnock campaign earlier today citing a poll showing him within shouting distance of winning the seat outright. That would be too cool for words.
Sab
@Ohio Mom: She had a security clearance and did not know what she was doing. She leaked to the Intercept. She seems like a sweet kid but naive.
You check your naivete at the door when you get a security clearance. There are rules with laws with big teeth backing them.
burnspbesq
@Carlo:
Grow up.
burnspbesq
@Sab:
I’m looking forward to seeing those teeth to which you refer ripping open Jared Kushner’s carotid artery’s.
WaterGirl
@Wyatt Salamanca: Well Ossoff did kind of run over Perdue with a fully loaded semi, and then repeatedly back up to do it again.
All well-deserved, and non-violent, of course.
Omnes Omnibus
???? No one tells you how to safely leak classified data when you get a clearance. They just investigate the shit out of you.
TriassicSands
If it’s great journalism and no one reads it, the problem is probably with the readers*, not the journalism.
* I guess that should be non-readers.
OGLiberal
@Cacti: As others have said, it was speaking out against Bush when the media (and to be clear, he was not the “media” back then so not really a “maverick”…he was just a dude with a blog) was frightened to death of saying anything untoward about the “decider”. Taibbi is another tool like this – great on the financial crisis BS but clearly a Putin apologist in the years after. They both suck. Actually, they both have investigative talents that could be well used but they can’t get past the Putin cloud. Yay, Vlad!
WaterGirl
@burnspbesq: Maybe we can help put Warnock over the top. An outright win would be sweet. And helpful.
Raphael Warnock, Georgia Senate (special election)
Ohio Mom
Sab,
I’m not defending Reality Winner, I’m complaining that whenever people rag on (rightly) Greenwald, they leave out his role in her story.
Adam’s post up top, where he includes that Greenwald screwed her over, is the exception.
Omnes Omnibus
@Sab: @Ohio Mom: I will step up and defend her. If she was naive, Greenwald had a responsibility to make sure she knew the risks of what she was doing and, more importantly, to make sure he did everything is his power to make sure that she wasn’t harmed. He failed on both counts.
Adam L Silverman
@Ohio Mom: @Sab: I feel bad for her as well. And I say that as someone with one of those fancy clearances. Especially because what she got out was actually important information that people needed to know despite it being highly classified. And she was incredibly naive. If she went looking where she didn’t have authorization to be, which she did, as soon as she saw what she saw, she needed to get out, get outside the SCIF, and call a national security attorney – like Mark Zaid – who handles whistleblowers and who could’ve handheld her through getting the information who needed it though the official whistleblower process. She was too young and too naive to know or realize that was how she had to proceed. And now she’s paying a higher price for it than anyone actually involved in what she disclosed. I would hope that if Biden is elected he will commuter her sentence if not pardon her.
Sab
@Omnes Omnibus: Sure he had a responsibility, but he was a reporting hack and would ignore that. That is the whole point of warnimg these kids. The law has alligator teeth and reporters are rarely your friends.
These kids need to know this. And the press will not tell them.
OGLiberal
You know what gets me about these Trumper freaks? They all love their guns. I don’t know if they all own them but they act like they do or want to. You let an authoritarian dude/family get power and that’s probably one of the first things they are going to take from you. Dems are pussies on gun stuff. If you love your guns that’s the people you should be supporting, not authoritarians with no ideology/policies beyond themselves who will take guns aware from everybody. Are these people so stupid as to not see this or does their “can’t be giving the browns free shit” blind them to this very realistic future reality if their dudes keep control?
Sab
@Omnes Omnibus: The rigorous clearance process should have warned her.
I am not blaming her. I would just really like to make it clear to others after her that this is very very dangerous, and there is a right way to do it and she did not know it and did not do it.
Sab
@Omnes Omnibus: No . They tell you not to leak it under penalty of very tough laws.
Omnes Omnibus
@Sab: I got a TS/BI when I was 24. No one warned me about anything.* She saw something she thought was wrong and tried to fix it. Greenwald could and should have protected her but chose not to bother. I know who I am giving the lion’s share of the blame. YMMV.
*Maybe there was pro forma shit on the forms, but who reads that?
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Ken: yay cockroaches who fly…the ones who n Guam were Enormous…and the tree snakes. Good times
BethanyAnne
Cockroaches are free cat toys.
Geminid
@Omnes Omnibus: I sometimes wonder if Greenwald intentionally burned Reality Winner, to help trump and serve the Russians. But maybe I’m being too cynical….
laura
@Geminid: Please do not misgender Chelsea Manning.
David ?Booooooo!? Koch
Best October Surprise, evah
Dmbeaster
@Carlo: Carlo, become familiar with the arguments and data points about whether Snowden was a Russian asset, and whether or not he gave data to China and/or Russia ( which he denies).
For me, his decisions to go to Hong Kong and Moscow were weird, and Moscow in particular. The story is that Hong Kong got dicey, so it was recommended that he go to Ecuador (by Assange I believe). But he allegedly got stalled in Moscow when the US cancelled his passport.
No one goes to Ecuador from Hong Kong via Moscow. It looks like a stupid cover story for fleeing to Moscow.
I do not know whether or not Greenwald crossed lines. But the issue is whether he behaved as Assange is alleged to have done in his criminal indictment, as opposed to the legal behavior of the NYTimes in the Pentagon Papers case.
Dmbeaster
@debbie: This is not accurate. The Pentagon Papers only covered events through 1967. It did reveal illegal bombing in Cambodia by LBJ. Nixon did the same later.
Dmbeaster
@Carlo:
Alleged justification for revealing secrets has never been a defense to these crimes. Ellsberg expected to go to prison for leaking the Pentagon Papers. He got off only because Nixon’s ratfuckers burgled his psychiatrist’s office to get dirt on him.