
Eric Holder says Edward Snowden performed a 'public service' - abhi3
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/05/30/politics/axe-files-axelrod-eric-holder/index.html
======
dandare
It is unbelievable how (self)censored the mainstream media/politics discussion
is. Keith Alexander lied to the congress on record, whistleblowers before
Snowden were jailed for blowing the whistle and there was absolutely no chance
he could reveal/fix any illegal wrongdoing by the government via the official
whistleblowers channels. He did not run away and ruin his sweet life for the
lulz, there was clearly no other way. Why is this argument not immediately
raised every time some clown uses the "he broke the law, he has to face the
music" argument?

~~~
StanislavPetrov
>Why is this argument not immediately raised every time some clown uses the
"he broke the law, he has to face the music" argument?

Corporate media outlets exist to disseminate propaganda, not seek consistent,
logical answers to important questions. They seek to frame the debate in the
context constructed by Wall Street and Washington and redirect anger and angst
so that people fight against each other instead of against their masters.
That's why "identity politics" has become so resurgent in recent years, as the
class divide has sharpened and the middle-class has withered. As long as
people are polarized and can be pitted against each other on the basis of
race, ethnicity, or sexuality, they aren't united against the oligarchs. Its
the same exact strategy used by prison guards to maintain control of the
prisons. Pit the blacks against the whites against the hispanics and the
prison guards can observe safely from the walls. The guards only face a threat
from the prisoners when they are united against those who keep them in
bondage.

Snowden represents the greatest threat in that regards. If you support
Snowden's actions, you are explicitly acknowledging not only that the law is
dog shit, but that Snowden was justified in breaking it because of how
incredibly repressive the government is. He represents the ultimate
repudiation of the system that runs the entire country and most of the world.
The corporate media is the voice of this system.

~~~
slg
>Corporate media outlets exist to disseminate propaganda, not seek consistent,
logical answers to important questions...

Do you honestly believe this? How do you think an article like this gets
written? Do you think that there is some secret puppet master that dictated
the talking points of this article or that every journalist including the one
who wrote this article is in on some huge conspiracy? Are those options really
more likely that some journalists simple have different opinions than you?

~~~
StanislavPetrov
If you hire David Duke to write about race relations you don't have to tell
him what to write. You hire David Duke because you know exactly what you are
getting.

~~~
slg
You are really equating every journalist working for a mainstream media
company with the former head of the KKK? I'm not sure how I should even
respond to crazy allegations like that.

This has been one of the annoying side effects of Snowden. Suddenly one
conspiracy theory proved to be true, so now some people think that any
conspiracy theory has a chance to be true. Soon we end up with people
suggesting that tens of thousands of journalists in American are hand picked
by the "masters" solely to "disseminate propaganda".

~~~
StanislavPetrov
>You are really equating every journalist working for a mainstream media
company with the former head of the KKK? I'm not sure how I should even
respond to crazy allegations like that.

Perhaps the concept of an analogy is alien to your world, so I'll try to make
it simpler for you. If you hire someone whose views are well known to write
for you, you have a pretty good idea of knowing what you are going to get
without having to offer specific instructions. If you hire Robert Kagan to
write a foreign policy column in your newspaper, you don't have to send him a
secret message urging him to back an invasion. He already backs every
invasion. Understand?

As far as your vapid conjecture about conspiracy theories go, the media is
literally littered with writers who have either been directly paid, or who
stand to gain (financially and otherwise) for endorsing certain positions.
These are not conspiracies, its standard practice.

Whether these media pundits are paid by the White House to endorse their
policies:

[http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-01-06-wi...](http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-01-06-williams-
whitehouse_x.htm)

Or secretly instructing retired military "analysts" on news networks on how to
shape the narrative:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/us/20generals.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/us/20generals.html)

And when you don't parrot the party line, they get rid of you, like they did
to Phil Donahue when he was critical of the Iraq invasion:

[http://billmoyers.com/2013/03/25/the-day-that-tv-news-
died/](http://billmoyers.com/2013/03/25/the-day-that-tv-news-died/)

Or when government officials limit press access to only those reporters who
are willing to offer the official narrative:

[http://www.ap.org/Content/AP-In-The-News/2013/News-media-
pro...](http://www.ap.org/Content/AP-In-The-News/2013/News-media-protest-
White-House-press-access-limits)

In short, you are delusional or woefully under informed if you don't think
that the media narrative is controlled and shaped by the powerful interests
that run this country.

~~~
nickpsecurity
Good list. Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent has a good presentation on this
stuff. Just gotta filter out... maybe do a whole edit for others... all his
philosophical stuff to leave just the tactics and evidence of media
manipulation. Those are the real gold of the movie.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHa6NflkW3Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHa6NflkW3Y)

------
woodman
What a load of BS. He praises him for "raising the debate", but condemns him
for "...the way he did it -- was inappropriate and illegal..." then going on
to invite him to "Go to trial, try to cut a deal."

The issue has been brought up many times, with no positive change, because
there was no massive dump of incredibly embarrassing evidence. All those
hoping for some kind of Obama surprise turn around in the unprecedented level
of whistleblower prosecution: you are setting yourself up for disappointment.

~~~
w3ightl355
"...the way he did it -- was inappropriate and illegal..."

What the government was doing (and still is) is inappropriate and illegal.
Can't Holder understand or accept the fact that this is why Snowden chose the
option that he did? Of course, were matters of law are concerned, I'm not sure
Holder is a good source - he after all, let the biggest heist in the civilized
world go without consequence to those involved.

------
jwarren116
I find Holder's remarks to be ironic. After Operation Fast and Furious [0], I
would be tempted to say there's more blood on Holder's hands than on Snowden's
hands.

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fast_and_Furious](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fast_and_Furious)

~~~
dandare
This is outrageous. Thanks for the link.

------
alexandercrohde
What a confusing remark. He says that both it is a "public service" "but still
must pay a penalty." I don't understand what that means, why should one pay a
penalty for a public service?

I also think this line "America's interest" is thrown around a lot. Are we
talking the interest of Americans? Or interests of the American government? It
seems more and more now the two are at odds with each other...

~~~
_petronius
'The state is the name of the coldest of all cold monstrosities. It lies
coldly, too; the lie that creeps out of its mouth is this: "I, the state, am
the people."' (Nietzsche)

Politics likes to treat the notion of the state as interchangeable with its
people, and although I don't think the US is alone in this, it certainly seems
to have made an art out of it at times.

------
droithomme
"I think there has to be a consequence for what he has done.""

I agree with Holder on this. Snowden should get a ticker tape parade, the
Congressional Medal of Freedom, and the Nobel Peace Prize.

~~~
lewisl9029
I also agree with this. He should get all that, in addition to a proper trial
in court for some of his misconducts, because while I do believe he performed
a great public service that sparked a hugely beneficial conversation regarding
privacy and government secrecy, he also neglected one of his basic
responsibilities as a whistleblower by offloading all the documents he could
get his hands on to the press in their original forms without even reading all
of them [1], instead of exercising his own discretion and leaking only those
documents that he had personally confirmed was of public interest, and
performing his own due diligence by redacting any irrelevant sensitive
information in those documents to the best of his abilities.

While I can sympathize with the fact that he was probably under a tremendous
amount of stress at the time, that probably led to this unfortunate decision,
a whistleblower like Snowden simply shouldn't have placed so much blind trust
in the media. Letting this slide without _any_ consequences would set a
dangerous precedent, regardless of how well the ends justified the means in
this case.

[1] [http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/06/edward-
snowde...](http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/06/edward-snowden-john-
oliver-last-week-tonight-nsa-leaked-documents)

~~~
gizmo686
Snowden didn't release documents to "the media", he gave them to two
particular journalists (Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras), who did perform
due dilligence before releasing documents. This is a well established practice
that helps protect against the bias of the leaker from interfering with an
objective judgement of what should be redacted.

~~~
lewisl9029
While I still disagree that Snowden's blind trust in those two particular
journalists (whom I referred to as "the media", not to discredit these two
journalists in particular, but because I was trying make a more general
statement) was justified considering the massive scale of his leak and the
fact that he was quite literally dealing with matters of national security, I
admit that the trade-off between having more objectivity in what gets redacted
vs the risk of leaking damaging confidential information of no public interest
is an interesting one that I hadn't considered. Do you have any references for
why this might be considered an established practice?

~~~
woodman
> he was quite literally dealing with matters of national security

Do you think that Al-Qaeda is a greater threat to national security than a spy
agency run amok? Justifying prosecution with such logic... it reminds me of
the story about the burglar suing the home owner because he injured himself
while illegally on the property.

~~~
lewisl9029
> Do you think that Al-Qaeda is a greater threat to national security than a
> spy agency run amok?

Most definitely not. And I'm not sure how you could have gotten that
impression if you actually read my posts instead of taking that single
statement out of context.

For the record, I applaud Snowden for his revelation of the NSA's overreach. I
just happen to also believe that he could have handled the leak in a much more
responsible and defensible manner by carefully reviewing each document that he
leaked to ensure they were relevant to the case he was making, and redact any
non-relevant sensitive information that could be damaging to national
security, instead of just dumping thousands of documents that he never read
and delegating to the media what should have been his own responsibility as a
whistleblower.

He definitely deserves much praise for his bravery and for sparking the
resulting conversation about privacy and government overreach, but we
shouldn't let that blind us from the potential dangers of the approach he
took.

~~~
woodman
I did read your entire post - several actually. So if you were not referring
to the slide with Al-Qaeda related operational details (referenced in your
John Oliver link), what did he neglect to redact? If that is not the thing you
want to see him prosecuted for, can you state it more clearly? I assume you
aren't wanting him prosecuted for "the potential dangers of the approach he
took", such hypotheticals would be an even more dangerous precedent.

We aren't going to agree though, as I believe that he should have dumped it
all - unrestricted public access. Whatever potential good end a kindly king
can apply state secrets is far outweighed by the potential abuses (a great
imagination isn't required, lots of historical examples exist).

~~~
lewisl9029
> So if you were not referring to the slide with Al-Qaeda related operational
> details (referenced in your John Oliver link), what did he neglect to
> redact?

The thousands of documents that he didn't even read (or even try to redact)
before he handed them off.

> We aren't going to agree though, as I believe that he should have dumped it
> all - unrestricted public access.

You're right. We'll have to agree to disagree.

------
mmaunder
I think this is a trial balloon and Holder is acting as a stalking horse for
the Obama administration. They're setting up to pardon him if the public
approves.

~~~
woodman
More prosecutions under the Espionage Act than every prior administration
combined... I don't see a pardon in the cards. Also, a trial balloon wouldn't
be Holder calling for a trial - that has been said many times by many
politicians for a long time.

~~~
arcticfox
How many of those were legitimate though? Except for a very small handful of
high profile cases, I have absolutely no idea about the rest of them so I'm
genuinely curious.

~~~
woodman
I suppose that depends on how you define "legitimate" in this context. If you
mean communist infiltrators, none; if you mean government workers leaking
information to journalists, all.

[https://www.propublica.org/special/sealing-loose-lips-
charti...](https://www.propublica.org/special/sealing-loose-lips-charting-
obamas-crackdown-on-national-security-leaks)

------
meursault334
I hope Obama does something to resolve both the Snowden situation and get
Chelsea Manning out of prison before he leaves office. I can't see what the
downside is to him of doing the right thing at this point.

~~~
gogopuppygogo
Manning isn't the same as Snowden. Lumping them together is a disservice to
what Snowden did.

Manning volunteered for the military and gave up some rights as a result. He
then distributed data that put lives in danger because he didn't think to
clean it up.

Snowden was a private citizen, one who felt his country was not going down the
right path. He took time to hatch a plan and release data that he believed
wouldn't risk the lives of others.

Snowden deserves a medal not prison.

~~~
nickpsecurity
No, Snowden did exactly what Manning did with the data except took the time to
read and organize it per several interviews. Despite being able to filter to
domestic only, he instead dumped all NSA's secrets (including foreign
operations) he had onto _foreign_ journalists. That's risking operators' lives
esp if a foreign, intelligence service our human assets target decides to
target those media organizations. Given their results on defense contractors
and banks, I'd bet on the foreign spooks getting the Snowden files except for
where they were airgapped, guarded day & night in person, and only used by
long-time vets.

So, operations blown, tactics exposed, and foreigners having our data on
foreign operations. Yes, he burned the shit out of U.S. operations on top of
his domestic whistleblowing which I applaud. An example of someone who didn't
burn us would be Binney who, knowing all kinds of capabilities, just leaked
specific programs and data that were unconstitutional and a threat to
citizens' rights.

~~~
us0r
>foreign journalists

Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald are American citizens?

~~~
nickpsecurity
Guardian and Der Spiegel were what I was thinking about. Greenwald is now in
Brazil. Poitras is enemy of U.S. military who previously did exposes on
foreign activities and certainly would publish even legit secrets. My comment
might need some clarification but it's still accurate. More so after
Greenwald's stunt of running with the stuff to Brazil to start his own
publication.

~~~
diyorgasms
>Poitras is enemy of U.S. military

Poitras is pretty clearly not a fan of the US military, but I don't think
she's been declared an "enemy combatant". Calling her an "enemy" of the
military is disingenuous. The US military does plenty of horrific and
inexcusable things, and criticizing those who commit clear war crimes does not
make someone an "enemy".

~~~
nickpsecurity
What are you even talking about? I said she's an enemy of the U.S. military.
That encompasses many things she can do to disrupt U.S. military. One is leak
its classified secrets about operational capabilities _in use against legit
opponents_. All of them were fine with doing that. Over and over. Definitely
an enemy combatant on cyber side or Espionage Act contender otherwise. I don't
mean technical interpretations of it either: straight-up describing targets,
tools, and techniques to our enemies. That's exactly the kind of thing it was
conceived for.

Yeah, she's an enemy of the U.S. military for sure. If you need balance, she's
not the person to trust for review and reveal. On other hand, if it's domestic
stuff... the actual whistleblowing... she's one of best people to handle it
because she won't shut up. Just got to do some redactions before turning it
over to reduce damage. She and Greenwald did the one's I'd have been concerned
about on domestic leaks, mainly protecting the workers. So, that wasn't a
problem.

------
d33
The thing is that he should be rewarded for the public service, not punished.

------
_shed
What a bunch of hypocrites! Meanwhile some of the people who sent us to Iraq
are getting medals. Disgusting.

------
0xcde4c3db
Sometimes I wonder if keeping the Snowden hero/traitor debate in the media is
some kind of psyop to keep us from actually talking about the stuff that he
revealed.

------
internaut
I'm wondering if they're getting ready to pardon him, perhaps with a provision
like spending 10 years under house arrest or losing his citizenship. I don't
think this could happen under Clinton but Obama might issue a last minute
pardon as they tend to do when they leave office. Failing that it is possible
Trump might do it as a sign of pragmaticism. He's the only one who could sell
it to his supporters, the same might be true of Obama for his people.

Now that time has passed both factions agree it was all inevitable, case of
when and not if. That leaves Snowden hanging there as an awkward reminder.

~~~
mikeyouse
> Failing that it is possible Trump might do it as a sign of pragmaticism.
> He's the only one who could sell it to his supporters, the same might be
> true of Obama for his people.

Donald Trump would literally hang Snowden:

 _“I think Snowden is a terrible threat, I think he’s a terrible traitor, and
you know what we used to do in the good old days when we were a strong country
— you know what we used to do to traitors, right?” Trump said, Politico
reported._

~~~
mtgx
Donald Trump says a lot of things on which he doesn't follow through.

~~~
mikeyouse
I'm sure that's reassuring to those who he's promised to kill.. It wasn't a
one-off comment though, he reiterated his Snowden beliefs a few months ago:

 _“When you just asked the question about Snowden, I will tell you right from
the beginning, I said he was a spy and we should get him back,” Trump said.
“And if Russia respected our country, they would have sent him back
immediately, but he was a spy. It didn 't take me a long time to figure that
one out.”_

Trump thinks he's a Russian spy who should be hanged for treason.

~~~
o0-0o
You think he's not a spy?

~~~
CameronBanga
Serious question. Why do you think he is one? What that he's done is in anyway
consistent with the work of a spy?

~~~
anonbanker
If you look up Snowden's history, you'll see that before he was working for
Booz Allen Hamilton, he was a CIA asset. He was literally a spy before going
into the private sector.

So, if you're a CIA asset, and then you leak NSA data from the private sector,
are you still a CIA asset, or are you a defector and "former spy"?

------
kilo9
Snowden is a Hero. And there are few of those around.

------
asimpletune
The timing of this statement from Holder is convenient, considering the VICE
HBO special that aired last night about Snowden.

------
pessimizer
Holder attempts to both have cake, and eat it.

