NYT Gives Damning-With-Faintest-Praise-Possible Profile of Glenn Greenwald After Surveillance Scoops

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The Grey Lady roused itself to profile Glenn Greenwald after his blockbuster stories of the last two days: the first on a secret court order now in effect for Verizon to provide the NSA on all telephone records in its systems, the second on the PRISM program, which has given the NSA direct access to servers of information giants including Google, Facebook, and Microsoft, since 2007. But the piece is mean-spirited, underplaying Greenwald’s credentials and coming too close for comfort to character sniping.

Start with first impressions: the headline, the opening paragraph, and the picture: “Blogger, With Focus on Surveillance, Is at Center of a Debate“:

SUB-GREENWALD-articleInline

After writing intensely, even obsessively, for years about government surveillance and the prosecution of journalists, Glenn Greenwald has suddenly put himself directly at the intersection of those two issues, and perhaps in the cross hairs of federal prosecutors.

So where do we start with this? First, Greenwald is introduced as a blogger, not a lawyer, and most important, a recognized expert on constitutional law and author of four books, including New York Times best sellers. Second, the depiction of him as intense and obsessive (warning! possibly dangerous!) puts his personality rather than his information and analysis in the spotlight. And that photo!

The article mentions three times in the first four paragraphs about how Greenwald is likely to have the Administration come after him, including:

“The N.S.A. is kind of the crown jewel in government secrecy. I expect them to react even more extremely,” Mr. Greenwald said in a telephone interview. He said that he had been advised by lawyer friends that “he should be worried,” but he had decided that “what I am doing is exactly what the Constitution is about and I am not worried about it.”

But notice how the emphasis is on the risk, as in the how the authorities may stomp on him, and not a peep on how his actions benefit the public. The article, remarkably, sidesteps the elephant in the room: what does this Administration conduct reveal about our democracy and our rights? The Times authors are more interested in telling us about how Greenwald had get down the curve on encryption tradecraft to handle these national security stories. And the Grey Lady picks up on his description of himself as an activist (which per the html and the headline in the browser frame appears to have been in the original headline) and manages to downplay that the through line of his work is Constitutional issues (only two mentions of the Constitution in the piece, one in the quote above, the other from a from a former roomie).

The Times also points out how, well, irregular Greenwald’s arrangements with his publishers have been:

Mr. Greenwald’s experience as a journalist is unusual, not because of his clear opinions but because he has rarely had to report to an editor. He began his blog Unclaimed Territory in 2005 after the news of warrantless surveillance under the Bush administration. When his blog was picked up by Salon, said Kerry Lauerman, the magazine’s departing editor in chief, Salon agreed that Mr. Greenwald would have direct access to their computer system so that he could publish his blog posts himself without an editor seeing them first if he so chose.

“It basically is unheard of, but I never lost a moment of sleep over it,” Mr. Lauerman said. “He is incredibly scrupulous in the way a lawyer would be — really, really careful.”

The same independence has carried over at The Guardian, though Mr. Greenwald said that for an article like the one about the N.S.A. letter he agreed that the paper should be able to edit it. Because he has often argued in defense of Bradley Manning, the army private who was charged as the WikiLeaks source, he said he considered publishing the story on his own, and not for The Guardian, to assert that the protections owed a journalist should not require the imprimatur of an established publisher.

Now there a fair bit of straight-up-the center information included as well, for instance, that Greenwald worked for Wachtell Lipton (appropriately described as “high powered”) and his former roommate now immigration lawyer Jennifer Bailey stressing how passionate he is about “equal justice and equal treatment” and does not fit neatly into conventional political categories.

But the “fair and balanced” protocol also allows for this sort of thing:

Gabriel Schoenfeld, a national security expert and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute who is often on the opposite ends of issues from Mr. Greenwald, called him, “a highly professional apologist for any kind of anti-Americanism no matter how extreme.”

And Andrew Sullivan, who is quoted in the middle of the piece on Greenwald’s tenacity in debate, is cited again just before the close of article:

Mr. Sullivan wrote in an e-mail: “I think he has little grip on what it actually means to govern a country or run a war. He’s a purist in a way that, in my view, constrains the sophistication of his work.”

Ah, the British “unsound” treatment.

The Times, sadly, has come a long and not at all good way since the days of the Pentagon Papers. And it isn’t just the famed l’affaire Judith Miller. Recall that the Times held off on publishing information about the Bush Administration warrantless wiretap program over a year, and hemmed and hawed when pressed on the question of whether it made the decision to hold back the story prior to the 2004 election (eventual answer, yes, with some less than persuasive justifications).

Given the Times’ greater fealty to Obama than to Bush, and the dearth of any reliable American media outlets to its left, no wonder Greenwald’s source(s) came to him and the Guardian. The Times’ reluctance to give Greenwald all the credit he is due reflects its inability to face up to what his scoops say about the sorry state of American journalism.

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134 comments

  1. dSquib

    I’m looking forward to the probing Frontline program going INSIDE THE MIND of intrepid blogger Glenn Greenwald, replete with clips of him raising his voice on Bill Maher and bloggingheads. Watch as the superficial look at the NSA revelations soon gives way to creepy speculation on Glenn’s private life, with input from assorted think-tankers and body language experts.

    Anyhow… Andrew “Sully” Sullivan is the greatest nincompoop in all creation. Not the greatest idiot, the greatest nincompoop. That word was meant for him. People actually doubt he is truly, really conservative because of a few party-line heresies and his fondness for Obama. Liberals loved him for his Palin-bashing, yet scratch beneath the superficial criticism and you’ll find his greatest misgiving with Sarah Barracuda was her potential to upset the delicate, blue-blood ascendancy within the Republican party. She is not “fit” for office. Never far below the surface of that well-bred exterior and outward display of centrist “reasonableness” is a man who can and will at any moment go a rant about “fifth columns of the decadent left!!” or “Jihadi hordes” or “human biodiversity”. Only here and now would anyone call him sensible. Had he stayed back in ole Blighty he’d be writing a forward for the second edition of Melanie Phillips’ “Londonistan”.

    1. wtf

      Yes, Sullivan is great. Just to restate what everyone already knows, he’s the fiscally “conservative” Conservative who was a prominent cheerleader for the invasion of Iraq. What was that–$3 TRILLION lost to end or ruin a couple hundred thousand lives? Mighty conservative that is. Got to cut a lot of safety net to pay for that colossal blunder. Yes, he’s the warmonger, afflicter-of-the-afflicted Christianist who points out motes in others’ eyes. If he had any shame–any “grip”–he would take a vow of silence.

      1. NotTimothyGeithner

        It has been said on a number of occasions Obama is a regular read of Andy Sullivan.

    2. from Mexico

      dSquib says:

      Never far below the surface of that well-bred exterior and outward display of centrist “reasonableness”…

      That is the role played by these parvenu queers, exception queers, or court queers: to appear “reasonable.” The argument goes something like this: “Look, we’ve let the queers in. That demonstrates how reasonable and inclusive we are. We can’t possibly be as reactionary as you claim we are.” The price the parvenu queers must pay to get in, however, is a high one: They must check their humanity and morality in at the door on the way in.

      Martin Luther King had a running battle with the same type. As he wrote in “Give us the ballot – we will transform the South”:

      What we are witnessing today in so many northern communities is a sort of quasi liberalism which is based on the principle of looking sympathetically at all sides. It is a liberalism so bent of seeing all sides that it fails to become committed to either side. It is a liberalism that is so objectively analytical that it is not subjectively committed. It is a liberalism which is neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm…

      King is describing a rhetorical strategy which the psychologist Andrew M. Lobaczewski calls “reversive blockade.” As Lobaczewski explains in Political Ponerology:

      Emphatically insisting upon something which is the opposite of the truth blocks the average person’s mind from perceiving the truth. In accordance with the dictates of healthy common sense, he starts searching for meaning in the ‘golden mean’ between the truth and its opposite, winding up with some satisfactory counterfeit. People who think like this do not realize that this effect is precisely the intent of the person who subjects them to this method. If the counterfeit of the truth is the opposite of a moral truth, at the same time, it simultaneously represents an extreme paramoralism, and bears its peculiar suggestiveness.

      In “Behind the Selma March” King gives his response to the quasi liberals:

      I am concerned about this perversion of the facts and for the record would like to sketch in the background of the events leading to the confrontation of marchers and Alabama state troopers at Pettus Bridge in Selma…

      The goal of the demonstration in Selma, as elsewhere, is to dramatize the existence of injustice and to bring about the presence of justice by methods of nonviolence. Long years of experience indicate to us that Negroes can achieve this goal when four things occur:

      1) Nonviolent demonstrators go into the streets to exercise their constitutional rights.
      2) Racists resist by unleashing violence against them.
      3) Americans of conscience in the name of decency demand federal intervention and legislation.
      4) The administration, under mass pressure, initiates measures of immediate intervention and remedial legislation.

      The working out of this process has never been simple or tranquil. When nonviolent protests were countered by local authorities with harassment, intimidation, and brutality, the federal government has always first asked the Negro to desist and leave the streets, rather than bring pressure to bear on those who commit the criminal acts. We have always been compelled to reject vigorously such federal requests and have rather relied on our allies, the millions of Americans across the nation, to bring pressure on the federal government for protective action in our behalf. Our position has always been that there is a wrong and a right side to the question of full freedom and equality for millions of Negro Americans and that the federal government does not belong in the middle on this issue.

      1. from Mexico

        Another response King articulated to the quasi liberals and their call for “reasonableness” was this one from “The American Dream”:

        But I say to you, there are certain things within our social order to which I am proud to be maladjusted and to which I call upon all men of good will to be maladjusted.

        If you will allow the preacher in me to come out now, let me say to you that I never did intend to adjust to the evils of segregation and discrimination. I never did intend to adjust myself to religious bigotry. I never did intend to adjust myself to economic conditions that will take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few. I never did intend to adjust myself to the madness of militarism, and the self-defeating effects of physical violence. And I call upon all men of good will to be maladjusted because it may be that the salvation of our world lies in the hands of the maladjusted.

        Reinhold Niebuhr, writing in Moral Man & Immoral Society, explained what King was up against:

        A too uncritical glorification of co-operation and mutuality therefore results in the acceptance of traditional injustices and the preference of subtler types of coercion.

        As Niebuhr goes on to explain, there is a tendency on the part of some not “to recognise the elements of injustice and coercion which are present in any contemporary social peace.” These “coercive elements are covert, because dominant groups are able to avail themselves of the use of economic power, propaganda, the traditional processes of government, and other types of non-violent power.” The failure “to recognize the real character of these forms of coercion,” and the injustices which they hide, “places an unjustified moral onus upon advancing groups.”

        1. curlydan

          Love me some Reinhold Niebuhr! Great quote, and that book was an eye opener–one of the best I read in college. Of course, I had to find it myself, but I feel lucky I did.

  2. Malmo

    The corptocracy’s finest paper of record, The New York Times. They don’t report the news, they sell you the news. Only the most discering people know the difference.

    1. Richard Kline

      The hypocrisy which pervades the NYT is so pervasive the material therein has to be read as something produced in code. Yes, in the original drafts submitted there were facts, but in the final result they are rearragned, filtered, counterposed with garbage and nonsense, and overlain with the thickest of post-liberal, collaborationist cant to the point where the result cannot be read as meaninful on its face. Rather, anything in the times has to be unpackaged, shaved, crosschecked, and quite often discarded. The main function of anything appearing in the New York Times is propaganda.

      I’ll say that again and differently: the NYT is unquestionably propaganda and never anything else. —And that is the rag’s greatest use to its reader. One can see the lie one is supposed to accept put plainly under ones nose. By reading the lie over ones over ones shoulder in a mirror, it’s possible to see what the mildewing uppercrust Vichyists who run the thing _don’t_ want the public to know, to see that of which they are in fact afraid. I recommend the NYT to all for just this function. They have great scope, some actual talent working for them still (if nothing like in their heyday), and copious and excellent connections—all of which they use to salt the propaganda. So, friends, decode and filter the swill and you’ll have the news that’s ‘not fit to know.’

      1. Jim Haygood

        +1 for ‘overlain’

        Are you aware that brazen literacy is part of the PRISM disloyalty profile?

        1. Richard Kline

          Yes. Libertoids don’t care for it either, so rattling two cages with one pellet makes it a +2 attribute in my book. I’ll lay down my adjectival clauses when the unjust sit down quiet outside the firelight once more; and not before. : )

      2. ScottS

        Yes, in the original drafts submitted there were facts, but in the final result they are rearragned, filtered, counterposed with garbage and nonsense, and overlain with the thickest of post-liberal, collaborationist cant to the point where the result cannot be read as meaninful on its face

        Thus the snipe at Glenn that he didn’t have an editor at Salon. With no one to sprinkle the fnords in, his columns were unvarnished truth.

    2. Jim Haygood

      In the halcyon early days of the spook agencies, when the Boomers were kiddies, the whole east coast media establishment was on friendly terms with them and could be relied upon to participate in government-initiated opinion molding.

      Likely the NYT still does (as in the Saddam’s WMDs debacle). But this article has the ring of having been dashed out under deadline pressure, with the only editorial guidance being the mentally-held question, WWJD: What Would John (Brennan) Do?

      After more than a half century of active presstitution, the courage and independence which backed the publication of the Pentagon Papers is long since gone, replaced by the grey necessity for a dying print business to serve as a compliant stenographer and PR Wire for the government.

      Thus the Times, imagining what would please John, hurls thuggish threats that Greenwald is liable to find himself in the dock alongside that seditious Manning figure [/sarc] whom he persists in supporting.

      Probably the NYT’s best hope of survival is that a well-disguised CIA front company will buy it and keep it leading and bleeding for awhile. Regardless of who’s in charge — spooks or mere civilian collaborators — know this: the MSM, like the government, is the Enemy.

      1. from Mexico

        Any scintilla of journalistic integrity the NY Times might have had disappeared the moment that Carlos Slim, not only Mexico’s but the world’s richest man, threw them a lifeline.

        What goes around comes around, and Americans are now going to learn what it’s like to live in a banana republic.

      1. Yves Smith Post author

        Holy shit. Kaufman really was looking to do a hatchet job, and Sullivan’s comments were more generous than the extracts in the profile would lead you to believe.

        1. Richard Kline

          Yes, and part of my point. The names on the byline at the Times still think they are doing actual journalism and commentary, outside of the obvious journagandists. It’s the publisher and the senior editing staff who cook the copy to fit the agenda. This fishwrap rots from the head. And “All the News that’s fitted to print,” I like that.

        1. dSquib

          More craven than you might expect, for me at least, and more naïve in a kind of way for Kaufman, as she’s clearly doing what is expected of her by her employers. It might not even seem unsound for her to start with an “angle” and go fishing.

      2. H. Alexander Ivey

        WTF was that!!!
        I thought I would need a court order Freedom of Information Act to get what appears to be, or should be, private emails. Instead I see this “private” communication openly available on the Web.

        The 1% and their mouth pieces just don’t care who sees them doing things that would shame their mother.

      3. Doug Tarnopol

        Yep; was about to post that link — really excellent. It also means Sullivan, whatever his faults, was pissed off enough to send the correspondence to Greenwald. The comparison between the article and the “research” that went into it is instructive.

    1. Ned Ludd

      When Michael Moore was on Bill Maher’s show, he made sure to tell Maher: “I’m not Glenn Greenwald. I, seriously, I understand. That’s why you usually win the argument.” Glenn Greenwald is the new Noam Chomsky. Every serious liberal needs to disavow him at some point.

  3. AbyNormal

    we should give Sully his due…he made it into the devil’s dictionary…

    Unwarranted repose of manner in a person of low degree.
    ~Laziness

  4. Chris Engel

    [x] Less than flattering pic/angle:

    [x] Diminutive use of “blogger” as label

    [x] Derogatory use of “activist” to damage journalistic credibility

    [x] Undue weight to opposition framing him as idealistic anti-American

    Survey says: HIT PIECE!

    1. ScottS

      I thought the “anti-American” bit was priceless. Yes, trust the NSA to keep the torch of liberty and freedom burning bright!

      Hey NSA! Get bent!

      1. Laura G.

        Oh, no, no, no. They did mention his ‘gayness’. It stated that he lives in Brazil with his partner, blah, blah…

  5. Working Class Nero

    Greenwald should turn down any and all invitations to speak in Sweden….

  6. JGordon

    About the NYT, this article proves that they are among the best of the media in the US–simply because the NYT at least still tries to appear credible, a thing that outlets like MSNBC and Fox have long since given up on. Their commitment to maintaining the facade should certainly be remarked upon and complimented.

    With that said, this story has a number of important implications that must be contemplated by any serious person. First and foremost, it should no longer be controversial that we live in a Fascist police state. I believe that it would be most helpful if people would begin referring to and thinking of the US as such–not as an attempt to cast aspersions against our Fascist, all-seeing rulers, but merely as a way to use the English language correctly.

    Second, I believe that most people will not give a crap about this at all. Generally speaking Americans are too drug-addled, too steeped in delusional corporate media propaganda, and too poorly educated by Fascist government-run schools (though private schools here are not any better) to even noticed that they are constantly being pissed-on by the corporate state. I mean hell, if the overwhelming majority of people approve of the Obama regime’s policy of indiscriminately slaughtering “suspected militants”, women and children overseas via drones (and they do), then certainly they will have no problem with a government that flagrantly operates outside of the bounds of its chartering document, the document that it theoretically derives its legitimacy from (and being government-educated only just enough to be minimally functional as bootlickers in corporate and government settings and not much more, is all way too complicated for them to understand anyway).

    So what we have deduced, quite rationally, is that we are no longer a nation governed by the rule of law but rather a nation governed by the threat of violence. And with realizing that, many would do well to rethink their political and economic views.

    1. der

      Agree, here in my urban hell hole few even read or think about anything other than a full weekend social life, the job is just a means to that end. To be found sitting alone on Saturdays worrying about “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” is to subject oneself to group diagnoses of “odd”. If it’s not an argument about guns or taxes then the conversation turns to petty gossip or of poorly enforced zoning regs. To even bring up the governments huge secret security state is to be met with blank stares and dismissed as a weak kneed commie.

      1. dSquib

        Every visit to the relatives I wonder, if and when local politics comes up, as it usually does, if I can convert their suspicions of city officials and on-the-take aldermen into skepticism of vast spy agencies, surveillance and police abuse, to no avail.

        Though corruption has certainly evolved the public perception of it hasn’t. The general image conjured is of more recognisable, bricks of money stored in the politician’s freezer level stuff. This NSA story won’t move people because they simply don’t know what it means, at all.

    2. from Mexico

      JGordon says:

      …it should no longer be controversial that we live in a Fascist police state. I believe that it would be most helpful if people would begin referring to and thinking of the US as such–not as an attempt to cast aspersions against our Fascist, all-seeing rulers, but merely as a way to use the English language correctly.

      [….]

      So what we have deduced, quite rationally, is that we are no longer a nation governed by the rule of law but rather a nation governed by the threat of violence. And with realizing that, many would do well to rethink their political and economic views.

      This has always been a quandry to me, the use of language in the United States. In France, for instance, they call fascists and neo-Nazis for what they are: fascists and neo-Nazis. We see the words used freely, for example, in the first video in this news report on the beating death of a young gay man in Paris:

      http://www.france24.com/en/20130606-activist-brain-dead-paris-skinhead-attack-meric-neo-nazi

      In the US, this would not be designated a political crime, but as an anti-gay hate crime, and anyone invoking the words “fascist” or “Nazi” would immediately be bashed over the head with Godwin’s Law.

      1. from Mexico

        Maybe by letting identity politics exile ideological politics from the discussion, we’ve done ourselves a disservice.

          1. from Mexico

            The fact that both Greenwald and Sullivan are gay just goes to illustrate the limits of identity politics.

            And Obama, probably one of the most authoritarian, dictatorial and brutal persons to ever set foot in the White House, is black.

            It just goes to show that these little boxes we put people in are all but meaningless. Or as Martin Luther King put it in his “I have a dream” speech: “I have a dream my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

          2. from Mexico

            Also there is one hell of a knock-down drag-out battle going on in San Francisco within the LGBT population, which has become nationwide, over Bradley Manning’s treatment by the Pride SF board, as these news stories report:

            http://www.ebar.com/news/article.php?sec=news&article=68820
            http://www.nbcbayarea.com/video/#!/news/local/Supporters-Push-Manning-for-Pride-Grand-Marshal/209769621

            Pride SF named Manning a grand marshall and then, supposedly because it was flooded by calls in protest, withdrew the honor. Or at least that was the Pride SF board’s first reason for withdrawing the honor, as the Pride SF board has changed its story several times since then.

            The anti-Manning brigade makes quite a good showing in the anonymity of cyberspace, on comment threads for instance, but when it comes to actually producing warm bodies to make the anti-Manning case at a public meeting, they could produce only three live bodies, compared to about 150 pro-Manning bodies.

          3. JGordon

            But Lambert, in reading the work of Jared Diamond, Christopher Hedges, Dmitry Orlov, and Chris Martenson, among others, I have come to the inescapable conclusion that not only will things not get better, but that we are already far down the path of a predetermined (by the study of history and biology and ecological and such, not by God or anything absurd like that) sequence of events that will inevitably lead to the decline and eventual collapse of the American empire.

            Those who are clued into that fact will much better emotionally and physically situated to survive and prosper through the tumultuous times that are just ahead. And it’s not like living with massive surpluses of energy and even more massive, all-seeing government looking after everything we do is especially difficult or unhealthy; it’s just that Americans are not psychologically used to living within their means and having liberty, and the sitch to that state of being will be very chaotic and traumatic (and lethal) for most. The work that I do is a recognition of that reality as well as an attempt to mitigate it by making people’s lives bearable after the collapse all in one.

          4. JGordon

            Well that was a bit grammatically off, sorry. I mean to say that the way we are living now, with all this abundance and surplus energy is not healthy. We have been habituated to abundance and we’ve generally gotten the idea that it’s our birthright, whether overtly or not.

            All I am saying is that letting that stuff go; it will just be a reversion to the natural state that all animals and humans through history have had to deal with. And regarding our global empire and domestic police state, I’m honestly not especially worried about those things. Really, they’ll have some unpleasant death throes for a while, but in the end they’ll just sort of evaporate on their own once the supply of oil is sufficiently restricted. All standing up to and caring about whatever those incompetent, paranoid idiots are doing is gaurantee a good hammering from them before they go down.

            Therefore a rational and proactive solution that people can start implementing in their own lives today (and one that I advocate and practice) is to just ignore whatever central state and it’s corporate masters are doing and to focus instead on rebuilding local community and enhancing local resiliency, through urban agroforestry projects and time banking and what not. When people discover that they can eat and interact with their neighbors without the intermediation of global economic interests (which is a very difficult concept for Americans in particular to understand), suddenly people begin to feel much more empowered and competent with their own lives, and whatever such and such a lying politician or corporate oligarch is doing becomes much less of a concern (for those who are informed anyway).

            Honestly though, since most Americans are utterly oblivious to anything that’s going on in the world, and none of the stuff I said above would amount to a hill of beans with them, I’ve found it useful to camoflauge my efforts in various ways (freely discussing the imminent collapse of society does tend to put a bit of a damp on the mood I’ve noticed). But the people I know will certainly be surprised when they go to the store for food and there’s nothing ont he shelves, and then come home to discover that their yard that I’ve been spending a bit of time on here and there is full of food.

          5. JGordon

            Ah well, I’m supposed to be working in someone’s (my design) permaculture project right now while I’ve been typing this (thus the unusual IP address!) So I have not had time to be especially grammatical just now. Oh well!

          6. Lambert Strether

            @JGordon That sounds to me like a personal version of ideological (and not identity) politics. (After all, the plants don’t care about your identity; they only want to be happy as plants are happy). It also sounds to me like doing politics pre-figuratively, i.e., don’t do stuff on the way to changing the system that you wouldn’t want built into the system you’re trying to build…. So have at it say I.

    3. David

      JGordon, I really liked what you said here:
      “So what we have deduced, quite rationally, is that we are no longer a nation governed by the rule of law but rather a nation governed by the threat of violence.”

      This immediately made me think of this clip from a talk by Derrick Jensen:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kk7pnKedpEU

      This insight is critical I think – our culture, our society operates on violence and/or the threat of violence, and unfortunately I think this has been the case from the beginning (If you don’t believe me just ask a Native American or African American what they think). I feel it’s also important to understand that violence isn’t just physical assault against another human. Violence takes many different forms and can be perpetrated physically against other people, animals, and the natural world. It can also be psychological and manipulative in it’s attempt to shape behavior and beliefs.

      The current administration’s attacks against whistleblowers have gone a long way towards influencing other would-be whistleblowers from coming forward, certainly a form of psychological violence. No physical assault necessary in this case…

      1. Lambert Strether

        One might hope that Stein’s Law will, ultimately, prevail. Hegemony through the operations of civil society is both more efficient and more effective than rule maintained by the (outright) violence of the state. For whatever reason, the 1% seems to be abandoning that strategy. If you think, rather than 1% + 99%, matters are more like (0.01% + .09%) + (19% + 80%), with the political class being part of the 19%, then the (0.01% + .09%) are about to throw the 19% under the bus under the “First they came for…” rule. Not that the 19% knows this, because it can’t happen here.

  7. Ignacio

    Sounds like a green card from the NYT to the NSA to prosecute GG for obssesive behaviour.

  8. Inverness

    Consider how staff writers for the in-crowd NYT and New Yorker (Remnick, Packer) behaved: they legitimized the Bush regime. Greenwald’s ability to think independently apparently makes him just a blogger.

  9. Ned Ludd

    Anyone notice that Glenn Greenwald is in Hong Kong? (see upper-right of video) He mentioned last Thursday that he was “travelling all day” but never mentioned any speaking appearances. On Sunday, he apologized that “The combination of extensive travel and being quite consumed with a story I’m working on has prevented me from writing for the last couple of days.”

    Maybe (and this is speculation) the only safe way to meet the source(s) for his NSA stories was to travel to Hong Kong. In other words, maybe he traveled to one police state to escape the watchful eye of another police state.

    Few Americans believe that they live in a police state; indeed many would be outraged at the suggestion. Yet the everyday fact that the police have the right to monitor the communications of all its citizens – in secret – is a classic hallmark of a state that fears freedom as well as championing it.

    1. Ned Ludd

      The text showing that Greenwald is in Hong Kong appears after the split-screen with Piers Morgan transitions into video of just Greenwald. The only other TV interview that Greenwald had yesterday was also on CNN.

      Will any of the MSNBC hosts interview Greenwald? The last time Greenwald was scheduled to be on the channel, it was on Friday evening, on Chris Hayes’ show. Hayes canceled Greenwald at the last minute and instead interviwed Roger Cressey, to talk about the bombings in Boston. Cressey is the Vice President at Booz Allen Hamilton, “one of the nation’s largest intelligence contractors with particularly strong ties to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the NSA.” Cressey also advised Obama during his first presidential campaign.

      In contrast, Bill Moyers, who was not originally scheduled to interview Greenwald, “reached out to Glenn Greenwald, who, as a former constitutional and civil rights litigator, keeps his critical and contrarian eye on potential conflicts between national security and individual liberty.”

        1. Ned Ludd

          Thanks for the link. From what Pete Williams says (and who knows how much of the story he knows and how much he is revealing†), I would guess that the PRISM surveillance program is using glass prisms to “split signals from each network into two identical copies”, which The Washington Post wrote about back in 2007.

          With optical splitters, the NSA could copy all network activity. The NSA could also copy the replication process, where companies make their own frequent copies of their own data, often to an offsite data center, for recovery purposes (in case of disaster) and to improve the fault-tolerance of their systems. This would give the NSA access to all the company’s stored data.

          If the NSA is using optical splitters to copy all digital communication, then whether the NSA has “direct access” to the servers is a matter of interpretation. They do not have physical access. They might not be able to log into the servers, control the servers, send information to the servers, or send requests to the servers. However, everything the servers do and store is directly copied to the NSA, so they have direct access to all of the servers’ information.

          † Pete Williams, the NBC News Justice Correspondent, was Dick Cheney’s press secretary and Cheney’s legislative assistant when Cheney was in Congress. According to the NBC News website, “In 1989, when Cheney was named Assistant Secretary of Defense, Williams was appointed Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs.”

          1. Ned Ludd

            To use Williams’ analogy from the video: if the United States Postal Service copied all of the mail passing through a post office, and gave those copies to the NSA; and if the USPS also regularly copied all of the mail stored at a post office, and gave those copies to the NSA; the USPS could still truthfully say that they were not giving the NSA direct access to the mail. The NSA could not alter any postcard, destroy any letter, mar any envelope, or abscond with anyone’s birthday card. All they would have would be copies. They would have no direct access to the mail itself.

  10. Timothy Gawne

    With respect, this is a distraction.

    What we should be asking ourselves is why, when all of this has been pretty much common knowledge since Bush, is there suddenly all this ‘shock’ about the government monitoring our phone calls? This is years-old news.

    I submit that the recent flurry of scandals has been manufactured as cover to distract us from the cheap-labor open-borders immigration bill. Immigration ‘reform’ will massively increase legal immigration to unprecedented levels. Many of the provisions have NO NUMERICAL CAPS. American workers will, before too much longer, be competing for jobs with billions of impoverished people from all over the world.

    The rich want immigration ‘reform’ more than anything. Every dollar an hour that American wages can be suppressed will net them trillions of dollars in profits – not to mention almost total social control (nothing boosts the power of the rich as much as conditions where getting fired means being permanently condemned to a life of poverty. Why else is Mark Zuckerberg spending crazy money to pass it?). Naked capitalism indeed!

    Immigration ‘reform’ failed last time because of a popular outcry. This time the corporate press, instead of trying to jam it down our throats, is trying to remove almost all references to it and putting up a bunch of relatively minor scandals.

    Predictions: if immigration ‘reform’ passes these scandals will drop from the mainstream press so fast it will make your head spin. In ten years the population of the United States will be increased by over 50 million, and in the next ten years, by over 100 million, and wages will tank. Because nobody beats the law of supply and demand.

    1. JCC

      TG: “What we should be asking ourselves is why, when all of this has been pretty much common knowledge since Bush, is there suddenly all this ‘shock’ about the government monitoring our phone calls? This is years-old news.”

      Some of this has been “common knowledge” but most of the “commoners” haven’t really believed it and usually accepted the Gov’t explanation that it only regards overseas phone calls. Most people don’t call anyone overseas and of the few the few that do participate in overseas calls, the majority are those that recieve calls from their son, daughters, brothers, and sisters that are deployed by our military.

      “They” wouldn’t tap those phone calls, would “they”?

      The fact is Greenwald broke a large story on DOMESTIC surveillance.

      I happen to work in the IT field and when I mention the NSA Hub in San Francisco to friends and how overseas routing of digital data works, even those in the same field as well as others are pretty surprised to hear that, and many tell me I’m exaggerating.

      This is not a distraction.

      The real problem is that most will treat it that way.

      (Where is that numbering system for trolls located again? It seems to me the above is classified as the “Nothing to see here, it’s been happening for years” category)

    2. Tokai Tuna

      Exactly, bugging phones has such a 60-70s feel to it. Today we’ve got it all monitored, twittered, facebooked, tracked, data mined, blogged, porned. Forget about the idea of the 4th amendment, your key strokes are in real time baby. Plus people need to be occupied, and motivated to keep calm.
      Here I am NSA! Here I am NSA! Hi FBI! Hi FBI! etc

      1. Tokai Tuna

        @Timothy Gawne

        Unfortunately, you have immigration completely wrong. The giant sucking sound has nothing to do with protecting ‘Murican workers, or nationalistic sensibilities.
        Right now American workers are being played because of immigration law. Let people come and go as they please. Ask yourself why lawmakers will never allow this to happen and you’ll begin to have a more enlightened view of labor. The crys of preventing hordes from crossing the border are completely decoded as the cry of antisocial profit.

        1. Kurt Sperry

          If capital can flow freely between countries, why shouldn’t labor? Imagine a world where people are free to leave a poorly run country to live in a better run one.

          1. Lee

            Capital is more and more a rootless abstraction, without language, family, community, citizenship, culture, ideals, history….the list could go on. To compare capital or the tiny few who control most of it with human beings either as individuals or as a whole is at best profoundly unrealistic.

            A principal result of the globalization of capital has been to undercut the gains won by labor in some nations by having them compete against workers in other nations with fewer rights and therefore less power . Or, in the case of immigrant workers, import those willing to work for less and hope they lack the good sense or the legal means to organize.

    3. from Mexico

      As MSNBC explains in the linked report above, the “oh we’ve known about this for years” line that you’re parrotting is one of the politicans’ talking points.

      And as it points out, fascism is a bipartisan effort in the US, Diane Feinsten and Linsey Graham being two of the most outraged by the fact this information leaked out.

      1. Tokai Tuna

        Well politicians aren’t completely dishonest. You and I, our digital existence is extensively surveilled, period.

        1. Kurt Sperry

          I’m in a sense glad they are listening to us. Hi NSA my name is Kurt Sperry, I live in Bellingham, Washington and I hate you and your fascist authoritarian methods.

          Think about it, there is very little useful purpose to put the knowledge that you are hated. What are you supposed to d with that information? Being surveilled is perhaps the only remaining way we can communicate to our government today.

          So, again, fuck you surveillance state.

  11. roots

    It becomes a little more obvious with each passing day that the Federal government looks upon the people as the enemy and “hates us for our freedoms” and will do whatever it takes to clamp down.

    1. sierra7

      Our “domestic policies” mirror our dastardly brutal foreign policies….
      The more brutal those become, the more repressive our “government” must react to suppress any dissent….until,….until…..until…..
      All hell breaks loose…..

  12. Klassy!

    Awww.. cut the NYT some slack. After all, they restrained themselves from writing “Cato Libertarian”.

  13. ltr

    The New York Times editors simply despise actual liberals. I am constantly amaezed at how mean-spirited the articles are with respect to conscience driven people such a Glenn Greenwald.

    1. NotTimothyGeithner

      Its not liberals they despise as much as people trying to be decent human beings. Glen reminds them they are tribalists like the Republicans with different imagery. Their disdain of the Republicans is base on tribal differences, not one of values because they have no values beyond their tribal identity. Greenwald has committed the ultimate sin which isn’t not fighting the other tribe tooth and nail but suggesting value, morality, and self worth don’t involve tribes at all. Nader committed this sin too.

        1. NotTimothyGeithner

          I thought of Zell Miller and his endorsement of W. or Lieberman’s behavior during the Impeachment sage. Neither of those men denied the tribal system even though they embraced the other tribe, so they aren’t treated as pariahs by the elite.

  14. ambrit

    Friends;
    Given the NYTs function as mouthpiece for the status quo, could this piece, with its repeated mentioning of the ‘dangers’ Mr. Greenwald is incurring, be a trial balloon for a new McCarthy Commission?
    “See? We warned him, and he wouldn’t stop,” the Editorial staff of the NYT sadly opined after the news of infamous Bolshie blogger Glen Greenwalds arrest for “suspicion of aiding and giving comfort to the enemy” was finally released yesterday. Readers will no doubt remember Mr. Greenwalds ‘mysterious’ disappearance from a flight from Naarita to Los Angeles three months ago.
    It’s getting so you can’t fly on big planes in safety anymore, much less small ones.

    1. petridish

      My thoughts exactly. The NYT has a way of becoming confirmation of the stories the government wants to sell–the smoking gun could become a mushroom cloud– eventhe NYT says so.

      Greenwald has been writing like this for a long time. I am surprised he has lasted as long as he has. It was just a matter of time before the Greenwald mess needed to be cleaned up.

      Next up, Jeremy Scahill.

      1. sierra7

        Good on you for mentioning Jeremy Scahill….
        His new book:”Dirty Wars”
        http://www.amazon.com/Dirty-Wars-Battlefield-Jeremy-Scahill/dp/156858671X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1370619926&sr=1-1&keywords=jeremy+scahill

        His new documentary also of the same name opening today across good theaters……

        I keep holding my breath for this young, courageous person….his exposure of infamous Blackwater was really great……even for those of us that are so thoroughly jaded……..

    2. ScottS

      Exactly what I was thinking. “Communists in every woodpile!”

      The only thing to be settled is what the “ism” will be. “Terrorism” has given TPTB a lot of miles, but Glenn isn’t Muslim or Arab so it’s hard to stoke the xenophobic fires with that. A Constitutional lawyer doesn’t fit the mold of “domestic terrorist” either. And Glenn is far from a socialist, so we can’t paint him with that brush.

      I guess “blogger” will have to do for now. Bloggers in every woodpile!

      1. JTFaraday

        But the NYT piece is not selling the “X in every woodpile” line with respect to Greenwald.

        It is selling the singularly eccentric lone wolf crazy person line. It also figuratively moves the target right over the image it creates.

        I find this a very disturbing piece, as I’ve found pretty much all the targeting of Greenwald. Although I must say this one has a little bit more.

        It will be interesting to see how the lynch mob already calling for his head react to this new level of not so hidden threat from the court stenographers.

        1. ScottS

          They can try selling the “lone gunman” angle only until others join in. How many lone gunman can you have before it becomes an absurd sobriquet?

  15. JJ

    I thought we had a blueprint of how to run the government called the Constitution. Mr Sullivan almost seems to imply that “understanding what it takes” is far more significant than mere constitutional principles (which seem to be seen as obstacles?)

    One question for Mr Sullivan and those he allegedly speaks for would be are these sorts of programs the only way to accomplish the goals (always assuming the goals are legitimate). Always assuming they would bother to ask such questions. Or or are they merely the easiest and most convenient for the government because they recognize, for the most part, people (including Congress) will accept even the most egregious construction of the Constitution if its argued from practicality with the subset of “at least we are doing something” as an unstated but all important justification.

  16. Dan Kervick

    The focus on risk is a built-in justification for their own failure as a newspaper. Perhaps Greenwald can turn that opening paragraph around, return the favor for the concern and write his own lede about the New York Times:

    After writing intermittently, even passively, for years about government surveillance and the prosecution of journalists, The New York Times not-so-suddenly finds itself a million miles away the intersection of those two issues, and quite safely off the radar screen of even the lowest ranking interns in federal prosecutors’ offices.

  17. ltr

    “Given the Times’ greater fealty to Obama than to Bush, and the dearth of any reliable American media outlets to its left, no wonder Greenwald’s source(s) came to him and the Guardian. The Times’ reluctance to give Greenwald all the credit he is due reflects its inability to face up to what his scoops say about the sorry state of American journalism.”

    Are you ever right, sadly. I love you and Glenn Greenwald.

  18. Tom Stone

    “Blogger” is a derogatory term to many. I write for a Real Estate Blog about the Sonoma County market and very recently offered to write about a fine estate I encountered that has a superb 4 acre garden. The response was ” We don’t want our property exposed on social media”. The fact that the ONLY halfway decent journalism in the USA these days takes place on blogs seems to have resulted in a “Respectable” media that never rocks the boat. Yves, thanks for what you have dome here, It’s been a daily read for me for years.

    1. Tokai Tuna

      Why wouldn’t they want the Estate on social media? Price?
      Ridicule? Envy? Nice homes are nice homes, everyone knows that. There is more than enough so that everyone can indeed have their own “estate” but you won’t hear that much anywhere. Strange, car dealers and realtors are all over social media as far as I can tell.

    2. Yves Smith Post author

      I’m waiting to see if the popular media starts presenting bloggers negatively. So far, we are largely missing in action. But the chief baddie in the movie Contagion was a blogger. If/when we see more of that, we’ll know there’s another ratchet up in thought control underway.

      1. reslez

        The network TV show Hannibal also features an evil blogger, this one a duplicitous woman. This cartoonish figure idolizes serial killers and deceives the righteous police in her ravenous hunger for blog hits.

  19. Ray Phenicie

    “The Times’ reluctance to give Greenwald all the credit he is due reflects its inability to face up to what his scoops say about the sorry state of American journalism.”

    Sorry state indeed; Pravda – Russian: Правда;’Truth,’ – the official state/party paper of Communist Russia, could be no more craven in disseminating the official ‘truths’ of the State than are the official Truth sources in today’s American society. We have the New York Times, the Washington Post, Associated Press (a sometimes actual speaker of truth to power), CNN, Reuters, CBS, NBC, ABC, and of course Fox News; all speaking the party line anyway. So why do they pretend to get upset when their keepers, housed along the Potomac tidewater, yank on the chain?

    These so called news sources play a game of pretending to be watch dogs, but if we count the number of times they don’t bark we know who their masters are and where those keepers are housed.

    1. from Mexico

      I’ve heard it said that the difference between Pravda and the NY Times is that everyday Russians knew Pravda was a propaganda rag, whereas most everyday Americans still believe the NY Times is a newspaper.

  20. washunate

    I think it might shock the NYT crowd how irrelevant they are.

    They’re not even up on the Glenn Greenwald bashing. Democrats have been going after him for years.

  21. Brooklin Bridge

    Yves, your sensitivity to tone is just plain nifty and particularly appreciated here. Greenwald deserves it and it’s wonderful that he gets it in this article.

    Let’s face it, this almost certainly will cost him. These direct revelations are a slap in the face to the administration and others in power and as such will be (if not already are) a real sacrifice on Greenwald’s part given freely to a stupefied public out of deep love for justice and liberty. Given what has happened to Assange, Manning, and others, Glen’s eyes are clearly wide open.

    And the mean sprited snipes from the NYT and others that you hone in on so well eliminate doubt about the death of the traditional media. We all knew the administration and government has been spying on us, Greenwald simply makes it formal, and by the same token we all knew that traditional journalism and media are gone, but your observations – those of the lowly blogger – help establish it formally.

    And I think the commenters who suspect professional jealousy on the part of compromised rags such as NYT are dead on. Writing for the NYT or the Washington Post is like trying to get your voice to soar out of a tomb.
    Such a shame. They were so useful for starting fires in the wood stove come fall.

  22. Dr. Pitchfork

    Mr. Sullivan wrote in an e-mail: “I think he has little grip on what it actually means to govern a country or run a war. He’s a purist in a way that, in my view, constrains the sophistication of his work.”

    Yeah, like when President Jefferson flip-flopped and supported a renewal of the Sedition Act. This purity-vs-harsh-reality canard is especially popular with conservatives and other would-be tough gals.

      1. Dr. Pitchfork

        Very interesting exchange — what’s with the speculation that Greenwald has trouble keeping friends? Effing weird.

  23. Ned Ludd

    These are the questions that Leslie Kaufman, The New York Times reporter, asked Andrew Sullivan.

    Leslie Kaufman

    Needed in the next two hours, daily deadlines and whatnot.

    So if you can:
    1) He obviously had strong opinions, but how is he as a journalist? Reliable? Honest? Quotes you accurately? Accurately describes your positions? Or is more advocate than journalist?
    2) He says you are a friend, is this so? I get the sense that he is something of a loner and has the kind of uncompromising opinions that makes it hard to keep friends, but could be wrong.

    Would love your thoughts on both or either of these questions.

    Leslie

    Greenwald just posted Sullivan’s entire response, which Sullivan emailed to Kaufman. Kaufman or someone else at The Times cut off the beginning of one of Andrew Sullivan’s sentences, just to remove anything positive about Greenwald. From Sullivan’s email:

    His passion is a great antidote to the insidery access-driven village of Washington journalism, but at times, I think he has little grip on what it actually means to govern a country or run a war. He’s a purist in a way that, in my view, constrains the sophistication of his work.

    1. ScottS

      You obviously don’t understand journalism — start with your conclusion first then find details that support it. You know, the inverted pyramid.

      And the NYT wouldn’t exist except for “access-driven journalism” so they can’t let that snipe stand.

    2. Martin Finnucane

      This person is a journalist? These are “when did you stop beating your wife” questions, and not even posed to the subject (victim) of the article (hatchet job.) And on top of that, there’s the high school clique-ishness.

    3. Ms G

      ” … and whatnot.”

      ” … I get the sense … but I may be wrong.”

      Agree with comment re “this is a journalist?!”

    4. dSquib

      Oh wow!

      She gets the impression that Glenn is something of a loner? I get the impression that every NYT reporter keeps an aberrant character template on Word along with their trend piece templates.

      Actually, I can well imagine that Glenn does not have many “important” friends, doesn’t like to hang out at trendy D.C. eateries and develop “beneficial relationships”, i.e. “loner”.

  24. sierra7

    What is interesting is the dichotomy of presentation of beliefs by two constitutional scholar/lawyers, President Obama and Glenn Greenwald.
    The differences are just starkingly contrapoint! (as in music)
    Our president is “using” the Constitution for the end result of outright repressive measures to contain dissent and Mr. Greenwald is using the same paper in the defense of the people for which, I believe it was intended.
    (But, of course, without the Bill of Rights the American Constitution is just another piece of paper with no authority whatsoever)

    1. from Mexico

      Really.

      Whereas Obama enshrines the NY Times and uses the Constitution to wipe his ass with, for Greenwald the Constitution is sacred and the NY Times is toilet paper.

  25. Klassy!

    I’ve flagged the preferred Obot response as something along the lines of “Does anyone believe this is news? This has been going on since 2001.”

  26. washunate

    The silence of MMTers advocating for government spending on spying to promote full employment is deafening. The national security state IS the budget deficit.

  27. Dr. Pitchfork

    “If people can’t trust not only the executive branch, but also don’t trust Congress and don’t trust federal judges to make sure that we’re abiding by the Constitution, due process, and rule of law, then we’re going to have some problems here,” Obama said.

    No shit, Sherlock. This is the classic Obama “judo” tactic — acknowledge some of your critics points, present them in a rigid or simplistic form, and then claim the high road of prudence and pragmatism. Also, say things like “folks” and “I hear you” or “I uderstand that, BUT…”

    In this case that just won’t work. Indeed we don’t trust POTUS, SCOTUS or Congress. Damn right we’re going to have some problems.

  28. diane

    On a related note (re Terrerist!!!!! Lone Wolves!!!!! , such as Glenn has been deliberately depicted, by despicable coward$), I am going to ‘step out on a limb’ here, and call the timing of the following news, malevolent, deliberate and utterly despicable. Obomber must be having daily chats with Pulseless Dick Cheney:

    06/07/13 APNewsBreak: Government plans to end remaining gray wolf protections across most of Lower 48

    BILLINGS, Mont. — The Obama administration on Friday proposed lifting most of the remaining federal protections for gray wolves across the Lower 48 states, a move that would end four decades of recovery efforts …

    Wolves are not, never have been, antisocial towards their own species.

  29. Eureka Springs

    So many odd points to raise on rehashing this old information. First of all it never ceases to amaze me how government has all the secrets, all the power, and yet it’s the the most paranoid, most likely to create havoc.

    Second, it’s the entire system which is failing us, both parties, the executive, both houses and perhaps most of all the courts.

    I would love to work up more outrage over this but what’s the best that could possibly happen? An internal investigation to nowhere with a report all blacked out in a couple of years. Maybe, just maybe some new feckless regulation the secret boys with secret budgets and lots of guns could drive a titanic through in broad daylight? A whole new secret court process like the Church committee created?

    No… we’ve passed the long train of abuses… it’s just preparing to back up, run over us again and again…. until we finally say no more… hard reboot anew.

    1. JerseyJeffersonian

      Yes, indeed. And for anyone who may have missed the reference, here’s the entire sentence from which this phrase was extracted, one from the Declaration of Independence in which Thomas Jefferson was winding up to unload the Bill of Particulars against the further submission of the Colonies to being ruled by the British Empire:

      “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.”

      We own the rights, and they are inalienable. Anybody who thinks that they GRANT us OUR rights are cut from the same cloth as King George the Third and Lord North. We’re now in the same position that Benjamin Franklin was in, when after years of efforts to advance the grievances of the Colonies against their Imperial Masters, he was ultimately mocked for his temerity. Petitioning had gotten him nothing but abuse, because those Imperial Masters would not be importuned by this honest, loyal citizen. No, they treated him, and all of his arguments as so much rubbish, to which they intended neither to listen nor to respond. In this historical moment, we are all like Benjamin Franklin, standing in front of our jeering masters, being ridiculed for our efforts. Decision time, my friends.

  30. EmilianoZ

    Come on people, let’s stop all this paranoia.

    If you have nothing to hide, if you’re perfect citizen, perfect in all aspects of your life, then you have nothing to fear.

    1. todawgs

      I’m not perfect, so I guess in this ‘democracy’, I should be monitered by this government. What about people in wheel chairs? What about people with speech impediments? What about…………..

    2. MaroonBulldog

      I hope you intend your remark to be ironic, because this sentiment has a bad history which you need to learn about if you don’t: “If you haven’t done anything wrong, why should you be afraid of the police?” So asked Adolf Hitler. The question answers itself when you know who is leading the police.

  31. rob

    The whole idea of this as “new news”, is a lark.
    Another good source of what is happening and what it means comes from the NSA whistleblower ,Bill Binney.The former NSA head of technology who has made rounds on shows like democracy now, and other real news sources, about the illegality of what the gov’t is doing,collecting, and what it means. He spoke of how the technichal ignorance of those in congress, is what allows “congressional oversight”, to be a game by those who know the difference in actual terms and technologies.These congressmen don’t know enough to ask real questions.They don’t know enough to decipher technical answers. And they don’t know why it matters.
    So the lark obama is using about “congressional oversight”, is just a sleight of hand to confuse the average citizen.

    Thank you, to real journalists like glen greenwald, and yves who really do fill the role of the fourth estate.

  32. todawgs

    Thank You Glen Greenwald!!! I may be an old retired fat man on Social Security income, but if there is anything I can do within my power to help you with anything-you let me know.

  33. Fred Smith

    Greenwald makes his living trolling the left. That’s all people need to know.

    1. AbyNormal

      You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.
      harlan ellison

  34. dSquib

    Leslie Kaufman tweets:

    Glenn Greenwald explained: Blogger, With Focus on Surveillance, Is at Center of a Debate nyti.ms/11kVSrx— Leslie Kaufman (@leslieNYT) June 7, 2013

    Explained! Scratching your head over why anyone would publish leaked information the government was keeping secret? An explainer!

  35. skippy

    RE: Greenwald’s purist meme… Not available for sale, conditioning, nudging, south park facebook friends list machinations, or helicopter rides with door open…

  36. Cybele

    “By deception, thou shalt do war.” The motto of Mossad.

    “By total information awareness, thou shalt do class war.” The motto of the .001

  37. Barmitt O'Bamney

    While I agree with the NY Times editors that President Obama has no credibility left on the subject of domestic surveillance, I was forced to remember with a twisted smile that the NY Times is the same paper that delayed publication of the original Bush warrantless wiretap orgy for about a YEAR in the run up to the 2004 election, publishing it only after Bush was safely reelected over Kerry, or re-enfraudulated, or whatever actually happened back there. I haven’t seen this funny use of the word “credibility” mentioned anywhere yet. Just hoping others will derive some grim yuks from it, too.

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