Crusading journalist / egomaniacal hack Glenn Greenwald released Part Deux of his interview with noble whistleblower / foul traitor Edward Snowden yesterday:
Instead of engaging in the ritual Denunciation of the Firebaggers and Shaming of the Obots (which is so very last month), let’s focus instead on this one thing Snowden said:
Beyond that we’ve got PRISM, which is a demonstration of how the US government co-opts US corporate power to its own ends. Companies like Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, they all get together with the NSA and provide the NSA direct access to the back-ends of all of the systems you use to communicate, to store data, to put things in the cloud, and even just to send birthday wishes and keep a record of your life. And they give NSA direct access that they don’t need to oversee so they can’t be held liable for it. I think that’s a dangerous capability for anybody to have but particularly in an organization that’s demonstrated time and time again that they’ll work to shield themselves from oversight.”
The companies in question have all denied providing the NSA “direct access” to their data, so either they are mistaken, lying or obfuscating or Snowden is. Whom do you believe and why?
Bonus points for anyone who can answer without accusing someone else of being an emoprog or torture apologist.