

Glenn Greenwald pushes back hard on latest Edward Snowden “revelations” - Libertatea
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/06/24/glenn-greenwald-pushes-back-hard-on-latest-edward-snowden-revelations/?tid=rssfeed

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logn
That's a nice article to read. Happy to see this as a conclusion:

 _“They are trying to shift attention away from what the U.S. government has
done onto what the people who have reported it have done.”_

Seriously. It would be like if someone trespassing on OJ Simpson's property
caught video of OJ harming people with a knife and then the public focusing on
how terrible of a person the trespasser is, ignoring the fact that it's
incredible video evidence of a much more serious crime. Further, it would be
as though the trespasser only trespassed in the first place because he heard
loud screams from the property.

In other words, Snowden's a whistleblower, but I think the media and gov't
have succeeded in ruining the term 'whistleblower'. Whistleblowers almost by
definition have to violate certain laws, but our protection laws were supposed
to make that ok. It's highly complex and more so for people in intelligence
whistleblowing on intelligence matters. That's why Snowden's also a hero.

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colin_jack
Its a pity that those who want to get the NSA and GCHQ revelations out of the
news are succeeding and it make me wonder about these sorts of pieces.
Defending Greenwald/Snowden has merit but it shouldn't be swamping the more
valuable NSA/GCHQ content as much as it has.

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rayiner
Why do human interest stories always swamp other content? Writing about a
person is a basic tool of journalistic story telling. Nobody wants to get
every juicy update on what we know about an inanimate computer system.

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speeder
Shoot the messenger! No, nuke the messenger! Torture the messenger! Message,
what message?

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eli
HN is just as guilty as everyone else. People are interested in the messenger
because it's a genuinely interesting story -- a real life spy thriller!

The fact that the NSA spies on internet communications, on the other hand, has
been known (at least in principle) for years.

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ihsw
Spying isn't a problem, hypocrisy is. While the USG decries terrorists and
unfriendly state-actors as a major source of cyber-warfare, the US are most
certainly at the heart of it as well.

This seems like the build-up to a war and the United States government has
mobilized unimaginable resources devoted to offensive capabilities, and
there's an eerie sense of escalation that's reminiscent of the Cold War.

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LoganCale
Spying is a problem too.

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durana
Anyone know the details of the encryption system that Snowden wanted set up
between him and Greenwald?

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JoachimSchipper
Just PGP; Google "greenwald snowden pgp" for many confirmations.

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Thomas_Ellers
Isn’t a lot of this hatred of Greenwald jealousy-based. The Bestselling book,
all the media attention, the overnight blog success, etc? I’d be the first to
say his style can be bombastic and he can be overly aggressive. But nobody
denies that he’s very smart, and among liberal bloggers at least, very
moderate and rational in his view, and unusually willing to engage debate. So
it’s hard to figure out what there could be about me that generates such
strong emotions.

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revscat
That may be part of the explanation, but I very much doubt it constitutes a
significant part. Whenever the omnipotence and/or moral authority of the
bureaucracy is challenged the media rushes to its defense. The typical way it
does this is to vilify those who raised the objections.

See: labor unions, Martin Luther King, jr., Michael Moore, WikiLeaks/Julian
Assange, Al Gore, Joe and Valerie Wilson, Thomas Drake, #occupy, Bradley
Manning, and now Snowden and Greenwald.

I'm sure there are other examples.

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danso
I know this is going to get me labeled as a Snowden "demonizer" by those who
take the G.W. Bush approach of "you're either with us or against us"...but
these specific allegations, _if true_ , should not be taken as just
trivialities.

The OP seems to be implying the _possibility_ that Snowden purportedly took
the Booz Allen job with the explicit purpose that of exposing what he
perceived as NSA's unethical practices. Now, replace "Snowden" with...well, a
hypothetical whistleblower, and "Booz Allen" and "NSA" with
[company/institution you respect]

e.g. _Henry Ford joined Tesla Motors to get the access to documents that prove
that Elon Musk is cutting corners just as Ford suspected._

There have been unfair and trivial criticisms of Snowden, but this particular
angle is not completely trivial. Note, however, that even if true, it does not
dismiss Snowden's claims or findings...but it's the kind of pre-condition that
must be weighed as it would be in any controversy.

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tokenizer
Complete Speculation. Is there video evidence that he said this?

But yes, even if true, lets hold proles to the word of the law, while writing
new laws that demonize all whistleblowing and the exposing of corruption.

I find it funny how we always get into the character attacks. Lets talk about
the leaks.

Bradley Manning -> Traitor

Julian Assange -> Rapist

Edward Snowden -> Spy(?)/Traitor/Ethical Person who knew about the abuses and
attempted to follow through with uncovering them?

You can call it by different names all you want, but ultimately we can either
support the act, or demonize the individuals.

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danso
OK, if the accusation is false, then there's not much to talk about...it's
just a smear. I was only speaking of the condition in which this accusation is
true. If so, it _does not_ mean that Snowden was wrong or that he is being
nefarious. However, it's not just an ancillary demonization...at least for
those of us who interpreted his story to be of someone who turned because of
what he saw to be unjust practices.

In otherwords, he's less of a whistleblower, more of a muckraker. Both are
capable of bringing about needed reform

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tokenizer
I can understand where you're coming from. The definitions are outdated.

With the government being able to request your confidential sources, and with
the government being able to see all forms of electronic communication, my
idea of a whistleblower is the following:

"Anyone who peacefully and in good faith informs the public of government or
corporate wrongdoing."

You can definitely agree that Snowden did not violently do this, and we can
debate whether or not he has done this in good faith, however, people should
be innocent until proven guilty in a free society.

So my opinion right now is that he is a whistleblower. If the government can
_prove_ that he is a spy or is subverting the government for nefarious
purposes, then the actions they're committing would be justified, but as of
now, they are not in the slightest.

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malkia
Isn'it bit funny that NSA was not able to catch the communication between the
two of them, before the security channel was initiated

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nano111
ter·ror·ism : The use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political
aims.

