Treason isn’t one of the crimes Snowden has been charged with—the government wants to prosecute him under the Espionage Act—but both the praise and the joke point to why this Snowden Oscar mattered. What he did was useful, and dangerous.Worth watching... in my book, that's a high standard. And "Citizenfour" didn't meet it, nor did the Oscars show, nor did any of the movies that were nominated (except one, "Grand Budapest Hotel," which I noticed in the HBO "On Demand" listings).
That wouldn’t have been enough if the movie were bad. But "Citizenfour" is worth watching....
I liked the joke, because of its language precision and because it seemed at least a tad risky in the context of Hollywood celebrating itself. Or maybe it wasn't. Having given the award to "Citizenfour," Hollywood may have needed to get right with the Obama administration. "No, I don’t think Mr. Snowden was a patriot" is what Obama has said.
To get a link for this post, I googled "treason" and "patrick" — "patrick" because I didn't want to risk misspelling "neil" and I stopped before adding "harris" because I knew "treason" and "patrick" were enough to pull up the quote from last night in Google. This is pure happenstance:
And isn't Obama's "No, I don’t think Mr. Snowden was a patriot" a fascinating quote to recall after a week of chewing over Giuliani's Obama-not-a-patriot remark?
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I have very mixed feelings about what Snowden has done. I think he's a hero for telling us about the NSA spying, and a zero for some of the other stuff.
I thought the joke was good, and edgy for that crowd. Yet all the people who applauded Snowden are in love with Obama. I don't know if they even think about the incongruity.
MayBee said...
Yet all the people who applauded Snowden are in love with Obama.
I doubt that is true. I suspect there were plenty there who approve of Snowden but see President Obama as too far to the right.
The Grand Budapest Hotel was definitely worth watching. I haven't seen Birdman, maybe it is also worth watching.
Who am I kidding. With a subtitle line The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance how could it not be worth watching?
Does Scott Walker think that Snowden is a Christian? Because it seems Walker is now the media's go-to guy on that.
I am Laslo.
It was a good joke. Subtle and quick. The kind that make you think about it long after it happened.
the insistence on truth-telling and challenging the powerful is exactly what the Times ought to stand for. Always.....wait....not always...sometimes....it just depends.
"And isn't Obama's "No, I don’t think Mr. Snowden was a patriot" a fascinating quote to recall after a week of chewing over Giuliani's Obama-not-a-patriot remark?"
Yep,
There are just too many circles that need to be squared and no way to do it. So we elect circles one election cycle and squares the next with the actual country whipsawed in between.
I assume lawyers and accountants love it that way.
I liked the joke, because of its language precision...
It wasn't a bad joke, but should have been phrased such that the word before (t)reason ended in a 't'. For example, Edward Snowden couldn't be here; he said he had some important (t)reason. That makes the parsing ambiguous and lets the audience find the joke, rather than hitting them over the head with it.
Wait, truth was spoken at the Oscars?
All humor is conservative, but still.
If Obama had a son, he would be Snowden.
"I have very mixed feelings about what Snowden has done. I think he's a hero for telling us about the NSA spying, and a zero for some of the other stuff."
What's this "other stuff," "some of which" makes Snowden a zero to you?
"Yet all the people who applauded Snowden are in love with Obama. I don't know if they even think about the incongruity."
Are you referring to just the people in the audience last night, or all people? I think Snowden is a hero, but I think Obama is a zero. There are many others who see the difference between the two, which is vast. For all his rhetoric, Obama is an authoritarian and an avid servant of and general manager for the military/corporate/intelligence/financial services complex that is the American government.
CWJ said...There are just too many circles that need to be squared and no way to do it. So we elect circles one election cycle and squares the next with the actual country whipsawed in between.
I think there is good practical reason for that. We don't really want to be lead by the kind of people who want to lead us. So we keep shaking up the mix so nobody gets to go too far in the direction they want to go.
To use the "ship of state" metaphor, you can only turn the barge so fast. Since nobody's going to steer it quite they way we want, we don't give them enough time to complete the turn. Yesterday's guy turned it this way, today's guy turns it that way, and tomorrow's guy goes back again. Over time, we make a slow weaving route towards the destination we want.
"It was a good joke. Subtle and quick. The kind that make you think about it long after it happened."
Really? What is there to think about it? It seems rather obvious and easy, actually.
"Does Scott Walker think that Snowden is a Christian? Because it seems Walker is now the media's go-to guy on that."
Scott Walker, The Man Who Could Not Read Other Men's Minds.
Annoying. I thought he said reason, not treason, with some emphasis on the reason. I thought that was sorta funny. Treason? Not so much. I got the sense at some point he'd make a lame joke and then the joke was he'd wait a requisite amount of time for the non-laughter to die down? Improv?
"Scott Walker, The Man Who Could Not Read Other Men's Minds."
I think you get to wear a cape with that. And hopefully a cool utility belt.
I am Laslo.
Very few people are ever charged with treason. Even the Rosenbergs, the quintessential treason case in the public mind, were charged with espionage, not treason. Prosecutors charge what they think that they can prove. But morally, what Snowden did was treason, and we all know it, no matter what he ends up in front of a firing squad for.
I thought the show was well done and had a witty tone. That's what you get with a Neil Patrick Harris performance. He is not a comedian so much as a technician.
Harris was pretty good. He was crisp and witty in places and didn't get in the way of everything else. The problem with the show was the everything else, not Harris.
I know little about Birdman except that it's a movie about Hollywood. So they gave the Oscar to a show about themselves. How surprising.
The Imitation Game is quite good. Somewhat overdramatic in a few places, but mostly true to what happened.
It is totally strange that Snowden is still living in Russia under the benefice of Vladimir Putin. Snowden is one of greatest useful idiots of all time.
I came across The Grand Budapest Hotel on cable by accident. Yes, quirky, but fun and interesting.
"But morally, what Snowden did was treason, and we all know it, no matter what he ends up in front of a firing squad for."
Sure, Snowden is a traitor. But he also did us a favor by revealing the miserable state of the NSA's internal security. If a guy like Snowden was able to obtain this information, every other hostile nation who wanted it already had it.
Which is why I suspect the Russians recruited him. Not for his secrets, which they already knew, but as a means of making those secrets public without revealing their own actual sources.
I agree with Bryan C. Snowden probably was recruited and encouraged by either the Russians or Chinese to do what he did. After all, Snowden, the great liberty lover, lives in Putin's Russia at the behest of Putin himself.
Snowden's revealing of some of the NSA's domestic spying programs was arguably whistleblowing, and was probably necessary. His disclosures regarding foreign espionage programs was straight-up spying, and for that he should get a polonium enema in the middle of Red Square. The US spies on other countries, including allies - no sh*sherlock, just like every country does.
"It is totally strange that Snowden is still living in Russia under the benefice of Vladimir Putin."
"I agree with Bryan C. Snowden probably was recruited and encouraged by either the Russians or Chinese to do what he did. After all, Snowden, the great liberty lover, lives in Putin's Russia at the behest of Putin himself."
Comments that reveal ignorance of the facts, mixed with surmise arising from...ignorance of the facts.
Snowden resides in Russia because he left Hong Kong and, en route to South America, where he hoped to find political asylum, his flight touched down in Russia. The U.S. canceled his passport, thereby stranding Snowden in the airport for weeks. Russia finally gave Snowden permission to stay in Russia for one year. As the first year neared its end, Russia extended his permission to stay for another year...which is now a few months from expiring.
Yeah, and the US even demanded a plane land (it was carrying the Ecuadorean president) because we suspected Snowden was on it.
Very bad behavior on our part.
Robert Cook- I disagree with his choice to reveal more about our espionage on foreign governments (altho support the decision to release the info we had tapped Merkel's personal cell phone).
Very few people are ever charged with treason. Even the Rosenbergs, the quintessential treason case in the public mind, were charged with espionage, not treason. Prosecutors charge what they think that they can prove. But morally, what Snowden did was treason, and we all know it, no matter what he ends up in front of a firing squad for.
If Snowden had concerns that his government is doing something illegal, there was already an outlet in place for him to make a complaint or register his concerns. Instead of doing that, he stole classified information and fled to the bosom our enemies. He’s a traitor. Full stop.
Robert Cook, it is a fact that Edward Snowden resides in Russia now and this only possible because of the actions and words of Vladimir Putin.
Russia is an authoritarian state.
YOU, learn the facts Robert Cook.
Lyle Smith,
I know the reported facts. Snowden is not--as you insinuate--in Russia at the behest or invitation or inducement of Putin; he was stranded there by the U.S., and Putin has approved his staying there twice for one year each. You have no information to confirm or even suggest Snowden is there working for Russia against the U.S..
"If Snowden had concerns that his government is doing something illegal, there was already an outlet in place for him to make a complaint or register his concerns."
How? Where? Take his complaints to the very people doing wrong? This is why whistleblowers are holy fools, compelled by their ethics to reveal wrong-doing in the organizations where they work, but always--ALWAYS--ignored and punished for it.
If Snowden had gone through "official channels," nothing would have been done, we'd have no idea our government is spying on every one of--all our electronic communications--and Snowden would be out of a job, possibly under criminal indictment.
Putin has a clandestine program going on in the Ukraine. It has quite a high body count, but, due to its clandestine nature, we will never know quite how high. And there will be no Russian Snowden to come forward and reveal its details.......Snowden is photogenic and can do a plausible impression of a sensitive idealist. And maybe he really is. But for all that, his activities have served to enhance Putin and his murderous agents and to diminish our own intelligence gathering. I can't point to any Americans whose lives have been materially damaged by NASA. I don't count tapping the phone conversations of the German Chancellor as a great tear in the American constitution. On the other hand, Putin's security services are responsible for lots of dead bodies in Russia and the Ukraine......If Snowden used his fame to speak out against Putin's misdeeds, he would have my total admiration and I would believe in his heroism. But I'm not holding my breath,
holdfast said...
"Snowden's revealing of some of the NSA's domestic spying programs was arguably whistleblowing, and was probably necessary. His disclosures regarding foreign espionage programs was straight-up spying...."
Whatever his intentions were, the question, I should think, is what actions he undertook. And the actions that he undertook were to disclose to our enemies vital details of our intelligence apparatus in ways that would permit them to evade that apparatus. That is giving aid and comfort to the enemy, and it would make little difference to me if he only gave away that information to our enemies as an incident to giving it away to the American people.
The only serious argument that I've ever seen for Snowden's conduct not being treason goes like this: Treason can only take place in wartime. The notion of treason presupposes an "enemy," and because criminal penalties can only attach to prohibitions that are "sufficiently explicit to inform those who are subject to it what conduct on their part will render them liable to its penalties," Connally v. General Construction Co., 269 U.S. 385, 391 (1926), and as a result, it is only during a time of declared war that an "enemy" exists with sufficient definiteness to sustain a treason prosecution. Well, okay. That's a pretty good argument. But the problem is that it is mere reason; no one has yet adduced a shred of authority for the notion that either the original understanding of Article III, the statutory history of the treason statute (now codified at 18 USC § 2381), or the caselaw of any court so circumscribes treason.
Lyle Smith said...
"[I]t is a fact that Edward Snowden resides in Russia now and this only possible because of the actions and words of Vladimir Putin. Russia is an authoritarian state."
Those are facts, yes, but I don't think that they support the inference that Snowden is actively cooperating with the SVR, still less that his original acts of treason were suborned by any foreign power. I see no reason to doubt Snowden's insistence that his actions were motivated by a desire to reveal the PRISM program to the American people, and I think Cook's explanation of his subsequent movements is persuasive. I also think it plausible that Putin sees Snowden as a windfall; I am not a reflexive critic of Putin, but he doubtless enjoys the opportunity to stick a thumb in America's eye even if he gets nothing else out of it.
That having been said, however, I have no doubt at all that whatever material Snowden fled with is in fact now in the hands of SVR, and that this was the predictable result (and perhaps even the price) of his sojourn there. That the SVR almost certainly extracted that information does not necessarily imply Snowden's cooperation.
Robert Cook,
You do not know what you're talking about. Snowden voluntarily traveled to Hong Kong and then purposefully got on a plane to Moscow. He then purposefully entered Russia. Nothing like this happens in Russia without the say so of Putin.
Simon,
We do not know all the facts behind why Snowden did what he did. Nevertheless, intelligence experts seriously believe he was recruited by either the Russians or Chinese to commit espionage from inside the NSA.
And, of course the fact that he is now living in Russia and being used by Putin for agitprop, is as interesting as it is odd.
Listen, our Hollywood betters celebrate someone as odious and obviously deserving of punishment as Jane (F-ing) Fonda, ok, so it shouldn't surprise anyone that they're not too concerned that Snowden may have given aid and comfort to America's enemies in the course of providing the press and the Left evidence that the real enemy is America itself (as usual).
Putin rules the Russians using the KGB method of finding people in bad trouble with the law and granting them temporary asylum/non-prosecution in exchange for strict obedience to Putin. Of course Putin scoffed Snowden up in a New York second.
The corollary to that method is making continual offers of chances to get away with committing crimes. We call that Entrapment. But to the Russian KGB that's doing normal business.
If Snowden had gone through "official channels," nothing would have been done, we'd have no idea our government is spying on every one of--all our electronic communications--and Snowden would be out of a job, possibly under criminal indictment.
I agree with this.
Aren't there rumors the administration is considering pressing charges against General Petraeus for disclosing classified information to his girlfriend?
The girlfriend they know about because they read his private emails?
That seems like a shot across the bow to any would be whistleblowers to me. "Look, we'll indict one of our biggest hero for less"
mole alert.. ..be awhere
Lyle Smith said...
"Simon..., intelligence experts seriously believe he was recruited by either the Russians or Chinese to commit espionage from inside the NSA."
Sorry, I haven't seen any of that commentary; who do you have in mind?
"...intelligence experts seriously believe he was recruited by either the Russians or Chinese to commit espionage from inside the NSA."
Really? What "intelligence experts? Where do you derive your information? Free Republic? The NSA or other US Intelligence Agencies, who, by definition, are anti-American?
"Listen, our Hollywood betters celebrate someone as odious and obviously deserving of punishment as Jane (F-ing) Fonda, ok, so it shouldn't surprise anyone that they're not too concerned that Snowden may have given aid and comfort to America's enemies in the course of providing the press and the Left evidence that the real enemy is America itself (as usual)."
Oh-HO! I thought China and Russia were supposed to be or allies at the present time! (China had better be, given the amount of money we owe them!)
But morally, what Snowden did was treason, and we all know it, no matter what he ends up in front of a firing squad for.
Actually, Simon, the people who need to be in front of a firing squad are people like you.
That having been said, however, I have no doubt at all that whatever material Snowden fled with is in fact now in the hands of SVR, and that this was the predictable result (and perhaps even the price) of his sojourn there. That the SVR almost certainly extracted that information does not necessarily imply Snowden's cooperation.
The fact that Snowden stole classified information and brought it to Russia makes him 100 percent culpable for the SVR having it. He doesn't get to say “but I didn't mean for them to take it off my laptop” after the fact.
Robert Cook,
Learn about the world you live in. Former Naval War College professor and intelligence officer, and an Atlantic article
http://20committee.com/2015/01/12/snowden-and-russian-intelligence-an-update/
http://20committee.com/2014/06/03/the-snowden-operation-meets-echelon/
http://20committee.com/2014/05/30/the-snowden-operation-falls-apart/
http://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/06/edward-snowden-chinas-useful-idiot/276914/
So he was maybe going for a Johnny Carson lite parody?
Simon here is some more from my previous post:
http://streetwiseprofessor.com/?p=8417
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/06/16/us_fears_china_may_have_manipulated_edward_snowden_118829.html
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/edward-snowden-nsa-leaker-chinese-spy-1446757
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2013/06/errors-edward-snowden-global-hypocrisy-tour
Thorley, I agree with you that he's culpable, but that wasn't the point in contention. I understood Lyle's position (perhaps erroneously?) to be that Snowden either is cooperating with the SVR now or has been working from them from the get-go, and that the facts of his presence in Russia and the character of the Russian government substantiate this position. I don't think that those facts support that position.
Simon,
That he's in Russia is NOT evidence that he was employed by Putin to steal and leak documents. What it is suspicious, and totally undercuts the notion that Edward Snowden is some kind of hero for liberty.
Your belief that Snowden in good faith to his beliefs about what the NSA was doing isn't ground in fact either. That's your choice to believe his word.
The truth of the matter is that Snowden got away with the documents and ran to China and the Russia. That makes it plausible that he was working with one of the two countries.
Sure, maybe he's the guy he says he is, but there's stuff going on to suggest otherwise.
Hopefully, one day we'll know.
In the meantime, Snowden should come back to the U.S. Personally, I think his life is in danger while in Russia. Who knows what Putin will do with him, in time.
Lyle,
A few observations on the pieces that you cited.
In the IBT piece, Mikko Hypponen theorizes that Snowden may have been a Chinese asset because (1) Snowden speaks Chinese, and (2) the timing of the leak. Neither seems persuasive. But Hypponen acknowledges another point that cuts against his theory: Snowden met with reporters before joining BAH. That’s true, that’s part of the conventional narrative: Snowden became disillusioned and so shopped for a journalist through whom to leak and a way into the intelligence community for material to leak. But if Snowden were a Chinese asset, as Hypponen suggests, why was he looking for journalists to publish secrets, as Hypponen recognizes? Moreover, as Snowden himself pointed out (quoted in the IBT piece), were he a Chinese asset, why didn’t he just fly directly to Beijing, “mission accomplished”? Furthermore, I might wonder, were he a Chinese asset, why did he then flee to Russia? If Hypponen has answers to those questions, the IBT doesn’t recount them.
The RCP piece doesn’t claim that Snowden was a Chinese asset; it frets that Snowden, having made his original leak for the reasons that he claimed, might now defect to China, which likely saw him as a recruitable asset in possession of intel of value to China. But that has been overtaken by events: Eight days after it was published, Snowden fled not to Beijing but to Moscow.
The “Streetwise Professor” confesses that he doesn’t seriously entertain the possibility of Snowden being an idiot rather than a pawn, and so is concerned only with the question of whether he was a pawn of Moscow, Beijing, or both. But there are problems with that, too: If Snowden was an asset of Moscow, Beijing, or both, first we’re stuck with the same obvious questions of why he didn’t just flee directly to one or the other, and second, why did he then try to flee Moscow for South America, as Eichenwald reminds us in the Vanity Fair piece that you cited?
It seems to me that Cook’s explanation of Snowden’s movements (and lack thereof) is the most plausible account. I think that Snowden acted for precisely the reasons that he claims, and has been trying to make the best of limited options ever since. The differences between Cook and I on this (I think I’m right in saying) are that I would still haul Snowden up for treason based on his original disclosures regardless of any subsequent events, and that I think that regardless of his intentions or desires in the matter, he is responsible (and perhaps criminally culpable) for SVR’s acquisition of classified material on our intelligence apparatus. Is it possible that Snowden is an asset of some foreign power? Sure. That case has yet to be made persuasively, but it’s possible. At this time, however, I think it’s much more likely that Snowden is just every bit as stupid as he appears. In the absence of conclusive evidence, the question may come down to this: Just how stupid are you willing to believe that an American progressive could be?
@lyle smith:
None of the links you provide offer any evidence that "intelligence experts seriously believe he was recruited by either the Russians or Chinese to commit espionage from inside the NSA."
They are simply commentaries by one blog site and a writer for the Atlantic who each take a disapproving view of Snowden's actions.
Lyle Smith said...
"That he's in Russia is NOT evidence that he was employed by Putin to steal and leak documents. What it is suspicious, and totally undercuts the notion that Edward Snowden is some kind of hero for liberty."
Ah. I apologize; I suppose that I misread that because I don't have any notion that Edward Snowden is some kind of hero for liberty. I think that he committed treason. But I don't think that he's a traitor, if I may make that distinction: I think that Edward Snowden thinks that Edward Snowden is some kind of hero for liberty. And while you're certainly right that it really boils down to my choosing to take his word on that point, the reason that I choose to do so is because there's no convincing evidence that suggests otherwise. His flight to Russia and his continued presence there are susceptible to more plausible explanations, and while I certainly agree that evidence can be suggestive without being convincing, confirmation bias tends to make people find behavior suspicious when they already suspect the person and more ambiguous when they don't. (That's why I am cautious about “Streetwise Professor”'s comments: Someone who decided at the get-go that Snowden was a foreign asset is bound to find his subsequent behavior suspicious.)
I have in mind always Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
Okay, I missed the second list of links you provided.
A quick scan of these does not offer any further definitive suggestion that "intelligence experts" believe Snowden to have been a possible Chinese or Russian spy. They are simply conjecture by those who disapprove of Snowden's actions.
Robert Cook,
Those articles are from intelligence experts or are grounded in talking with U.S. experts or officials.
So, yes, some U.S. intelligence experts and officials believe Snowden was working with the Russian and/or Chinese spy agencies.
Robert Cook said...
"[Lyle, n]one of the links you provide offer any evidence that 'intelligence experts seriously believe he was recruited by either the Russians or Chinese to commit espionage from inside the NSA.'"
What do you do with the the WSJ piece cited by the "Sterewise Professor"?
intelligence experts seriously believe he was recruited by either the Russians or Chinese to commit espionage from inside the NSA
Correction: they claim that. What they believe is unknown. We're talk about people who are paid, in part, to spread disinformation in service of their other goals. The intelligence community has an interest in making Snowden's life as difficult as possible -- both to punish somebody who crossed them and to discourage others from doing the same.
Here is what we DO know: intelligence experts believe the NSA was right to do what it did. This places them in the category of "enemies of America", so far as I am concerned.
Want to participate in treason? Work for the NSA.
To simplify further: professional liars claim Snowden is working for the Russians or the Chinese.
They could be telling the truth, but you'd have to be pretty dumb to take them at their word.
There's nothing there to support that. You are reading conjecture as something more definitive. I read their comments as an effort to smear Snowden, and to thereby discredit the information he has made available to us.
Remember, these conjectures are coming from people who work for or are sympathetic to the criminal institutions who have been and are spying on all of us, and the rest of the world.
It's important to note, Snowden did not provide intelligence to the Chinese or the Russians. He provided his revelations to journalists, who have in turn provided the information to news agencies to publish for everyone to read. Agree or disagree with these actions though you may, this does not reveal a spy at work but a man who--right or wrong--believed he had an ethical obligation to bring this information to the public.
Simon,
I don't really disagree with you. Even if Snowden was recruited by the Russians or Chinese, they may have recruited him precisely because he is a true believer in the NSA being a malevolent institution. It's quite possible he has no idea he was used. Based on lot of his comments, Snowden doesn't strike is particularly intelligent or learned. He has said some woefully ignorant things about China and Russia, and he's still living in Russia with the help of Putin.
And his principles don't seem well grounded. His political views and such seem to have bounced from extreme to the other.
I am pretty sure Snowden is completely clueless to being used as agitprop by Putin. Putin letting Snowden videoconference with fawning fans in America and around the world, is genius on the part of Putin. It's a great way to sow discord and make it harder for western spy agencies to snoop on Putin and others. And I am sure Putin had a laugh when Snowden said something about him holding Putin to account for his words about maintaining an open society in Russia with no spying. LOL!!!
"What do you do with the the WSJ piece cited by the 'Sterewise Professor?'"
It reads like something planted by the CIA or NSA. Which, in case you don't know it, they do all the time to inject their propaganda into the body politic.
Robert Cook said...
"I read their comments as an effort to smear Snowden, and to thereby discredit the information he has made available to us."
To what end would one seek to discredit Snowden's revelations when the administration has subsequently confirmed them?
"It's important to note, Snowden did not provide intelligence to the Chinese or the Russians. He provided his revelations to journalists, who have in turn provided the information to news agencies to publish for everyone to read."
That's not quite correct. Snowden disclosed certain material publicly through journalists. What additional material he took with him, and whether it was voluntarily disclosed to or involuntarily taken by either the MSS, SVR, or GRU, are quite different questions.
To what end would one seek to discredit Snowden's revelations when the administration has subsequently confirmed them?
One obvious reason is that most of the NSA's defenders are Republicans, and wouldn't trust Obama if he told them the sky was blue.
Robert,
The guy who writes at the XX Committee blog is an expert in foreign intelligence. He's a former intelligence officer who up until last year was teaching naval officers at the Naval War College.
Saying he's off base, is like saying Althouse is off base in commenting about the U.S. Constitution.
I thought China and Russia were supposed to be or allies at the present time! (China had better be, given the amount of money we owe them!)
Oh, the classified info he released widely only went to China and Russia? And from there somehow can't and won't find its way into the hands of our enemies (since I'm sure even you understand we have some of those)? Come on, Robert, you're not that stupid.
Revenant said...
"[To what end would one seek to discredit Snowden's revelations when the administration has subsequently confirmed them?] One obvious reason is that most of the NSA's defenders are Republicans, and wouldn't trust Obama if he told them the sky was blue."
So these Republicans: (1) Believe Snowden's allegations, but (2) don't believe the administration when it officially confirms those allegations, and rather (3) believe anonymous sources in the intelligence community when they deny the allegations? The coherence of such a posture is not readily apparent.
Saying he's off base, is like saying Althouse is off base in commenting about the U.S. Constitution.
Argument from authority fallacy.
Intelligence experts, like Constitutional law professors, are routinely wrong in their areas of expertise.
The coherence of such a posture is not readily apparent.
Unsurprising, given that you specifically constructed it as a straw man to knock down.
Snowden uncovered a massive criminal conspiracy by US government officials against the American people. People who want that criminal conspiracy to continue, e.g. you, thus have an interest in discrediting anything and everything about Snowden.
That's why baseless assertions like "he's guilty of treason", "he endangered Americans", and "he's working for the Russians or the Chinese, we haven't decided which yet" keep getting thrown around.
It is the old stunt of repeatedly mentioning a foe along with some imaginary wrong act, so that the association of the foe with the act, however baseless, gains a foothold in the public mind. It also serves the purpose of keeping the public's attention focused on Snowden rather than on the actual criminals and traitors in our intelligence community.
I loved Grand Budapest Hotel.
I think Wes Anderson and the Coen brothers, at their best, create films that have an original aesthetic while still being accessible.
I enjoyed Birdman's mixture of magical realism and dark comedy.
There was some good stuff in Boyhood as well, but I thought it was uneven overall.
Revenant said...
"Snowden uncovered a massive criminal conspiracy by US government officials against the American people. People who want that criminal conspiracy to continue, e.g. you, thus have an interest in discrediting anything and everything about Snowden."
Setting aside the questions of the criminality vel non of the NSA programs and what my view of them is (you assume that I favor them, but the reason for that assumption is unclear), perhaps you might explain what interest supporters of the programs might have in discrediting Snowden given that the government has admitted the truth of his disclosures? Absent that admission, I would understand the notion that it makes sense to discredit Snowden's allegations if one wants the programs to continue: Discredit the messenger and maybe people won't believe the message. What I don't understand is what possible interest you think those supporters might have in discrediting the messenger after the government has acknowledged that the message is true?
The assertions that Snowden committed treason are, as I've said above, straightforward: One commits treason by giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Snowden gave aid and comfort to the enemy. There is no doubt whatsoever about that: He obtained and make public information that made it possible for the enemy to evade surveillance by the American intelligence apparatus. As I've said above, there is a serious but problematic defense charge: Treason can only be charged in a time of declared war. But not serious is the implicit defense on which most Snowden defenders rest: That Snowden didn't intend to disclose that information to the enemy, he intended to disclose it to the American people. But that makes no difference. Certainly it makes no difference to the moral question, but it probably makes no difference to the criminal question, either, because in both contexts, reckless indifference to foreseeable consequences is a substitute for actual intent. What Snowden did was treason. Whether he is ever arrested and tried for it is immaterial.
Incidentally, one reads with amusement Mr. Greewald's displeasure at Mr. Harris' joke. He is hardly a disinterested observer: If what Snowden did was treason, he is an accessory. Why he wasn't arrested and taken into custody the moment he set foot on American soil is as much a mystery to me as his delusion that Hollywood generally and NPH specifically are sinister agents of some kind of fantasy McCarthyite agenda.
Setting aside the questions of the criminality vel non of the NSA programs and what my view of them is (you assume that I favor them, but the reason for that assumption is unclear),
Simon, when I mentioned earlier that you deserved to be in front of a firing squad, I meant it.
Please fuck off and die. The only traitor here is you.
That's nice, but I asked a question, and if you won't answer the question, instead falling back on a personal attack, the implication is that you can't answer the question. So let's try it again: You claim that the supporters of the NSA programs have a continuing interest in discrediting Snowden's revelation that survives the government's confirmation that what he revealed was true. ("Snowden [revealed a government program]…. People who want that [program] to continue … thus have an interest in discrediting anything and everything about Snowden" (emphasis added).) What is that interest?
Snowden is a scum, thief and traitor. How long was he employed by NSA before he made off with the theft? Days? Weeks at the most? He's a treasonous spy, and none of the moronic anti-government justifications by the RonPaul-nuts obscure that fact. He's a Michael Moore American, a Barack Obama American. They'll open the gates to our enemies and enjoy the destruction of our country because we "deserve it".
I'd be endebted to anyone who can tell me of any American who was materially damaged by the NSA spying program. Jennifer Lawrence has far more to fear from hackers than from the NSA. On the other hand, there are lots and lots of dead people courtesy of the Russian intelligence services. It damages Snowden's case irreparably that he has sought asylum there. If you object to the Vatican's stance on gays and women's rights, you don't go to ISIS territory to broadcast your case.....I don't think Snowden is any kind of paid agent, but he might just as well be.
William,
Well said and thoughtful.
William, I wrote a piece closer to the time that argued (inter alia) that one interesting effect of the revelations was to divide the GOP, insofar as conservatives and libertarians have quite different views on the proper scope of the state. Part of the concern, particularly among libertarians, is a straightfoward neuroticism toward government doing anything; another part of it, more reasonable and more broadly-held, is an "it could happen here" fear something like what traditionalguy articulated earlier--"Putin rules the Russians using the KGB method of finding people in bad trouble with the law and granting them temporary asylum/non-prosecution in exchange for strict obedience to Putin." Couldn't the NSA programs be used to furnish ammunition for such misbehavior here, people have wondered aloud? After all, they would point out, just look at the IRS scandal. The continued character of the Republic is not a given, and it isn't unimaginable that a President would use his office against his enemies. That's not bad, I think, it's a serious concern, but the problem is that it's only one side of the balance, and we don't know, we can only speculate what's on the other side of the balance. Unsatisfying though it is, that leaves the proper locus of decision in the White House, not because I necessarily agree with the program (as Rev supposes) or disagree with it, but because I can't acquire enough information to make that determination.
"The assertions that Snowden committed treason are, as I've said above, straightforward: One commits treason by giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Snowden gave aid and comfort to the enemy."
Who is the enemy? From my point of view, it is the NSA, the CIA, and the other intelligence agencies we don't know the names of who are spying on every one of us all the time. From THEIR point of view, the enemy is the American people.
Snowden provided the American people with information we must have and which we have a right to have, given that we are fucking paying the salaries of the creeps in our rogue spy agencies, and we are paying for all the nefarious activities against us perpetrated by these agencies. Snowden is an American hero.
"Snowden disclosed certain material publicly through journalists. What additional material he took with him, and whether it was voluntarily disclosed to or involuntarily taken by either the MSS, SVR, or GRU, are quite different questions."
There's been no evidence to suggest this to be the case. To the degree it has been suggested or surmised, it is by those inclined to assume the worst of Snowden, or by those intent on painting him as a villain.
"The guy who writes at the XX Committee blog is an expert in foreign intelligence. He's a former intelligence officer who up until last year was teaching naval officers at the Naval War College.
"Saying he's off base, is like saying Althouse is off base in commenting about the U.S. Constitution."
I'm not saying he's off base; I'm saying he does not like what Snowden has done, and as an ex-spook who is probably friendly with many current and former spies, he is partisan FOR the intelligence institutions, and inclined to put forth purposefully negative interpretations and conjecture as to Snowden's motives and actions. There are other ex-spies, (and probably many current ones) who applaud Snowden's actions.
"If what Snowden did was treason, he is an accessory. Why he wasn't arrested and taken into custody the moment he set foot on American soil is...a mystery to me...."
Well, that's the question, isn't it? IS what Snowden did treason?
That aside, as a journalist, Greenwald, et al, may publish material received from their sources and are extended protections under the freedom of the press clause of the First Amendment.
As to the question of who(among the American people) have been harmed by the unceasing spying on all of us perpetrated illegally by the NSA (and, presumably, other US spy agencies), we have all been harmed. Our right to privacy has been violated, our Constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures have been violated. Even if no citizen can be identified who--to date--has been snatched by the government as a result of this spying activity, the potential is there that is could happen anytime, either to individuals or to masses of Americans. There is nothing to stop the government from snatching any of us at any time, using information gleaned from their illegal spying to fabricate charges against us--if it is in their interest to do so--and there is nothing to stop the government from confiscating our financial assets, given that they have the knowledge to access our accounts at any time.
The Constitution was written in suspicion of government, in recognition that men in power will tend to abuse that power; that Americans accept this lawless perpetual spying on us without concern reveals how asleep we are, how unaware that the greatest danger to any population at any time is not foreign enemies but their own government, if left unchecked. It's like a cancer that lies unannounced in one's body: even though one's health may seem perfectly fine, one is, in fact, in mortal danger. That one doesn't know it does not diminish the danger, but makes it more certain, more harmful, as no steps are taken to arrest the metastasis, and when discovered, it is often too far gone to remedy.
Robert Cook said...
"Who is the enemy?
That is the gravamen of the "only in time of declared war" theory of treason. In our tradition, we insist that "a fair warning should be given to the world in language that the common world will understand, of what the law intends to do if a certain line is passed," that "[t]o make the warning fair, so far as possible, the line should be clear," and "because of the seriousness of criminal penalties ..., legislatures, and not courts, should define criminal activity. This policy embodies "the instinctive distaste against men languishing in prison unless the lawmaker has clearly said they should." United States v. Bass, 404 U.S. 336, 347-48 (1971) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted); see United States v. Santos, 128 S. Ct. 2020, 2025 (2008); United States v. Thompson, 484 F.3d 877, 881 (7th Cir. 2007) ("ambiguity in criminal legislation [must] be read against the prosecutor, lest the judiciary create...offenses that have never received legislative approbation, and about which adequate notice has not been given to those who might be ensnared"). Aside from its novelty, the principal difficult with applying that theory is that while the enemy was amorphous and dispersed, no reasonable person could have been under any illusions that the United States was and remains at war with (indeed, besieged by) a coalition that is usually labelled "radical islam." There are difficulties with that label, certainly, but no one in her right mind misses the forest in the hunt for the trees.
Claims that in the "point of view" of the CIA etc., "the enemy is the American people," are really just paranoid nonsense--baseless, febrile accusations of bad faith with no basis in evidence or reason.
Robert Cook said...
"There's been no evidence to suggest [that material taken by Snowden has fallen into the hands of MSS, SVR, or GRU]."
Nor is there any evidence that the SVR poisoned Mr. Litvinenko. But it did.
Robert Cook said...
"[A]s a journalist, Greenwald, et al, may publish material received from their sources and are extended protections under the freedom of the press clause of the First Amendment."
The first amendment prohibits prior restraint; whether it also prohibits subsequent punishment (and if so, how far and under what circumstances) is a separate question. I'm not a first-amendment specialist, though, so I will defer if someone else wants to talk about caselaw on that point.
"Claims that in the "point of view" of the CIA etc., "the enemy is the American people," are really just paranoid nonsense--baseless, febrile accusations of bad faith with no basis in evidence or reason."
Given that they have been and continue to violate our constitutional rights and illegally spy on us, and that they have lied to Congress about this in order conceal this from we, the people, who they are supposed to serve and to whom they are supposed to be answerable, to state they see us as enemies--and that they are the enemies of the American people--is to state plain fact. (That the CIA has been involved in fomenting coups around the world, overthrowing governments--leading to deaths and torture of those deemed "enemies" of the new states we have helped erect--and in carrying out assassinations, they are enemies of the world.)
Robert Cook said...
"As to the question of who(among the American people) have been harmed by the unceasing spying on all of us perpetrated illegally by the NSA (and, presumably, other US spy agencies), we have all been harmed. Our right to privacy has been violated, our Constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures have been violated."
There is no general right to privacy in the Constitution, so that couldn't have been violated, and the programs as described do not violate anyone's Fourth-Amendment rights. They involve obtaining metadata from third-parties. If the FBI hacks your computer and obtains your internet browser history sine warranto, the FBI has violated your Fourth-Amendment rights. If Facebook has a cookie that tracks your internet browsing and reports it to Facebook servers where it is stored, Facebook has not violated your Fourth-Amendment rights, because the Fourth Amendment doesn't regulate private actors. If the FBI then hacks that Facebook server and obtains that record of your browsing, Facebook presumably has a Fourth-Amendment claim against the FBI, but you don't.
The framers regulated the means with which they were familiar by which government could acquire information. But the vast changes in society and technology that have happened in recent years have obsoleted those means. Thus, the police can't peep through your windows to see your pot farm, and as we learned from Kyllo, they can't "peep through your windows" virtually using infra-red. But if you post a video on Facebook showing off your home pot farm, you have put that information into the public eye, and they are as free to use it as anyone else. So the game has changed, and that leads to an understandable but erroneous desire to stretch and distort the Fourth Amendment so that it covers things that it doesn't cover. But I don't see that flying.
Simon,
You sound like an apologist for the illegal surveillance on all Americans by the NSA (and presumably, other agencies). "It's only metadata"--they claim--yet those in the know say the metadata allows them to know or determine a great deal of personal information about those being surveilled, (which, to repeat, is all of us).
You may not wish so spend an hour of your time listening to a podcast interview with journalist Robert Scheer about government surveillance and the danger it poses, but if you are so inclined, click on this highlighted text.
Actually, the interview with Robert Scheer takes up only the first 25 minutes of the 58 minute podcast.
I don't take sides on whether the NSA programs are wise or not. My position is, as I have said above (and said at the time) is not that the benefits outweigh the costs, but that we do not have and cannot get sufficient information to make that judgment.
I listened to the Scheer piece, and it's not very good. It's so completely and pervasively wrong in its premises, assumptions, analyses, and conclusions that I wouldn't even know where to begin to critique it, and I don't think it's worth it. Perhaps just this observation, which goes to the heart of the matter: The founders were concerned with the power of the government to invade a man's home, as Bob says, but there is no doubt at all that if a man stood in the public square and undertook illegal activities in public view, it was no encroachment of his privacy to notice those activities. What has happened over the last few decades is that people have voluntarily given up their privacy; if the people take to building glass houses, the constable is not obliged to avert his eyes.
But we can still imagine how these developments project back onto the technology of the founding era. Imagine that it's 1800, and two conspirators who live across the town square from one another are writing letters to one another, which they carry back and forth. The Fourth Amendment clearly requires a warrant for the police to break into their houses and seize the letters, or indeed to grab the letters as the men walk back and forth. But now imagine that instead of sending letters, the men wait until nightfall, light a lantern in each of their windows, and then converse back and forth using morse code. (An anachronism, I realize.) Would anyone suppose that the Fourth Amendment requires a warrant for the police to sit in the town square and transcribe these communications?
"I listened to the Scheer piece, and it's not very good. It's so completely and pervasively wrong in its premises, assumptions, analyses, and conclusions that I wouldn't even know where to begin to critique it, and I don't think it's worth it. Perhaps just this observation, which goes to the heart of the matter: The founders were concerned with the power of the government to invade a man's home, as Bob says, but there is no doubt at all that if a man stood in the public square and undertook illegal activities in public view, it was no encroachment of his privacy to notice those activities. What has happened over the last few decades is that people have voluntarily given up their privacy; if the people take to building glass houses, the constable is not obliged to avert his eyes."
You dismiss the Scheer interview as "pervasively wrong" in all its aspects, yet you don't bother to point out in any way how it is so "pervasively wrong" (by which I assume you mean it is also "self-evidently" wrong). You simply assert that "people have voluntarily given up their privacy." Well, they have, to the degree they put their own personal information out there on social media such as Facebook, Linked In, etc., but do you assert that all our activity conducted on or via the internet or by other electronic means is, de facto, an act of surrender by the public of its rights to (and expectations of) privacy, that it is akin to standing in the public square and shouting out our thoughts and intentions? This is ludicrous. Until Snowden's revelations were made available, I doubt most people would have known, or assumed--or believed--that the government was scanning all their electronic communications, all the time. I'm sure many today still are not conscious of this.
Most people do have an expectation of privacy in their communications, however ill-founded this expectation may, unfortunately, be.
Scheer points out that people don't even realize their freedom has been taken from them. I made the point above that our obliviousness to the danger of perpetual and universal spying on us by our government is akin to a cancer that resides unannounced within us, but which will one day manifest itself in overtly harmful manner. And so it will be.
Perhaps people do have an expectation of privacy, but that isn’t sufficient under current doctrine (which is itself somewhat stretched), which requires a reasonable expectation of privacy. That’s why the court has rejected precisely the Fourth Amendment claim at issue in the NSA case: A third-party holds metadata on you, so do you have any Fourth-Amendment interest in that data? No, hold United States v. Miller, 425 U.S. 435 (1976), and Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735 (1979). Perhaps that seems as ludicrous to you as Katz does to me, but it has, like Katz, nevertheless been settled law for decades.
I say “pervasively” not to mean “self-evidently” but “in every detail,” that it is flawed from top to bottom and left to right. By way of analogy: It’s tough to respond to an argument couched in a made-up language, and bridling at doing so can’t occasion the response “but you didn’t answer his point.” Your last paragraph is a good example of the problem: Scheer thinks “that people don't even realize their freedom has been taken from them.” That’s not only incorrect on its own terms, it’s incorrect at its base: People do think that some freedom has been taken away from them, that’s what the fuss is about, but in fact no freedom has been taken away from them, and the underlying paranoia (made explicit in the trite reference to Eisenhower’s “military-industrial complex” speech.
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