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This is happening in all the news media now. I listen to NPR every day and it's almost insufferable to listen to when they talk about the NSA leak. Very little

This is happening in all the news media now. I listen to NPR every day and it's almost insufferable to listen to when they talk about the NSA leak. Very little of the debate is about the actual NSA monitoring program itself, most of of the time they talk about why this leak happened and why Edward Snowden is a "strange" guy. It's completely unbelievable.

danielcampos93 13y ago
I fully agree. I find it ridiculous that everyone now is focusing on this man his life, his girlfriend and blah blah blah. The news that is going out about the actual program and what he caused is minuscule. I have seen far more articles and new pieces about how his credit cars are running out, how the Hong Kong government doesn't understand him, how his girlfriend didn't know anything, to that about the PRISM program. Unbelievable.
fragsworth 13y ago
Smearing him only strengthens the argument that this program shouldn't have been put in place to begin with. He had access to everything.
deelowe 13y ago
Was happening yesterday on my local talk radio station. "Isn't it a bit odd that this guy, a high school drop out somehow got into the NSA? Is he a plant? Isn't it odd that he's taking refuge in a COMMUNIST nation? I think he's a spy. How does a high school dropout get into the nsa?... High school drop out... High school dropout... communist... china..." etc.. Not very hard to see who controls the media these days.
- fragsworth 13y ago
  Doesn't smearing Snowden only justify his leaking of the information? If a communist-spy-high-school-dropout is able to access everyone's private information, what does this say of the NSA program that allowed him to do this?
- hga 13y ago
  He could be both telling the truth and working for/with/whatever the PRC. Others have noted the timing is convenient for the PRC's maximum leader visit here, where the latter was supposed to be confronted about their "cyberattacks" on us. ADDED: And now that, if there is some link, he presumably needs them a lot more than they now need him, he may find that his arrangement with them has ... changed.
  - joonix 13y ago
    I don't think it's fair that "conspiracy theorists" will dismiss conspiracy theories when they are perceived as defending the US.
  - maxerickson 13y ago
    If he thought he had an arrangement with China, he wasn't thinking clearly to begin with. A reasonable way for him to approach pretty much any government right now is that he submits to their custody and then has no idea what will happen next.
- JPKab 13y ago
  I wonder what these idiots throwing around the commie card think about the fact that Snowden donated money to Rand Paul.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- brown9-2 13y ago
  Are these not fair questions? I think most people are confused at how someone could expect to have their freedom of speech protected in a country controlled by China. Territories controlled by mainland China are not usually the first places you think of when you think "need to flee the US government". Similarly, I think most people are surprised at the ability of someone in his stated position to gain as much access as he said he has, and also at the reported size of his salary - because they are not familiar with what the salary scale is like in the world of government private contractors. Having questions is not the same as smearing character.
  - gohrt 13y ago
    The questions betray a high level of ignorance, however. Clearly, if you have a beef with the US Govt, you have to flee to a communist-country, not because you are a communist, but because those government can better resist the gravitational power of the US government. People tend to forget that "enemy of the US government" != "enemy of the USA". China, for all its problems, is not Hell unders dominion of Satan. Neither is the USA heaven under dominion of God.
  - rbanffy 13y ago
    It's likely your computer runs an OS made by a company founded by a college drop out. Hong Kong has been more protective of free speech tha n China. I also bet free speech that puts the NSA under a less than favorable light is heavily protected in China.
    - tjr 13y ago
      It's likely your computer runs an OS made by a company founded by a college drop out. Despite some amazing success stories, I suspect that the public perception of someone who drops out of college (or high school) tends to lean toward assuming marginal intelligence and little aptitude for skilled labor.
      - Taylorious 13y ago
        I would attribute dropping out of HS/college more to laziness, apathy, or not wanting to be part of the traditional system, not anything related to intelligence. Its not because I know a lot of intelligent HS dropouts, but because I know TON of stupid people with college degrees. I mean like people working minimum wage crap jobs and not trying to change their life, despite having a bachelors degree.
- cpeterso 13y ago
  btw, Snowden didn't work for the NPR. He was a contractor.
- rayiner 13y ago
  I guarantee you that the "who is Snowden working for?" story appeals to more people than the "how do we get the NSA to stop this?" story. Pretty much everyone that grew up in Reagan's America is more concerned about Russia and China than the NSA. Indeed, that front would be unified bloc, with the 65+ crowd along with the usual hawkish conservatives, if not for the sole fact that this was revealed under Obama's watch. This fractures the usual conservative response. They're still paranoid about whether China or Russia is behind this, but at the same time they hate Obama, so...
  - dctoedt 13y ago
    > this was revealed under [sic] Obama's watch Pet peeve: It was ON Obama's watch (it's a Navy term [0]). </pedantry> [0] http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/on_one's_watch http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/on_one's_watch
  - talmand 13y ago
    I like how you took such a simple concept and somehow turned it into partisan politics. Bravo.
  - pests 13y ago
    Don't forget the first company signed up in 2007 under Bush's watch.
  - mindcrime 13y ago
    I guarantee you that the "who is Snowden working for?" story appeals to more people than the "how do we get the NSA to stop this?" story. Sad but true. :-(
- shubb 13y ago
  I think this is just due to the form of a news article. "The mistake was made by IBM Technical expert Julia Smith, 38, from Palm Springs, Colorado. Julia, who graduated from Stanford in 2001 was described by neighbors as serious and career focused". Age, place of birth / residence, education, marital status, character. Journalists will mention as many of these as they can easily find out (and they have established ways of easily finding out). When they find something unusual, in these things they are checking anyway, it becomes that persons defining characteristic, a hook for the story.
- jayfuerstenberg 13y ago
  Watching Snowden's video it's self evident how learned and intelligent he is. I don't much care whether or not he finished high school. It isn't the single measure of intelligence. Morality is the quality by which I'd rather measure him.
Homunculiheaded 13y ago
This reaction is actually scarier to me than the initial surveillance. NPR and NYT are usually sources of very solid journalism, the fact that they would drop the real story for some gossip about Snowden implies that someone is able to successfully exert pressure on these organizations. The surveillance alone leaves the possibility that one agency has started to go to far, but this more systematic reaction indicates that the trouble is deeper and more wide-spread.
- Taylorious 13y ago
  Or NPR, The NYT etc. aren't as good a sources of news as you think, and you just haven't noticed until they covered a story in your domain that you are passionate about. I used to listen to NPR everyday. In my opinion they are one of the better sources of news in America, but they are far far far from unbiased. They are very good at making it look like they are showing all sides, but they are in fact presenting things in away that supports their ideological bent.
  - gohrt 13y ago
    Yes of course, but NPR's ideological bent in the past was seen to be not of the "government stooge" variety.
  - pstuart 13y ago
    I would argue that they try very hard to appear "objective" and sometimes drop the ball in order to achieve this. Whenever they mention gun control or cannabis legalization (too very liberal subjects) there is never any questioning of the craziness of the opponents of such efforts, just that it is happening. That said, they are still far from perfect but preferable to most other sources.
    - kbenson 13y ago
      The fact that you imply that there is craziness of the opponents without any justification makes me think that you may be unable to see any bias they have because it's in the same direction as yours. You may be thinking of specific examples with crazy behavior, so this may be justified reasoning, but from the detail you've given it's hard to know.
vectorpush 13y ago
I am also a daily NPR listener and have noticed the exact same bias. I honestly expected better from NPR and it saddens me to observe such a clear agenda to push a specific narrative.
- cema 13y ago
  NPR has an agenda. Easier to notice when mine is different, I guess.
  - vectorpush 13y ago
    I'm a news junkie and my sources run the gamut, but on most topics, NPR is by far the most impartial source of American journalism; they lean to the left to be sure, but I can't think of anything closer to the center.
    - cema 13y ago
      I don't expect a center, but I welcome consistency. If I know the spin, I can try to unspin.
stinkytaco 13y ago
Just to play devil's advocate: We don't really know much about this situation. Just what Snowden (and the press) have decided to tell us. This could be "Collateral Murder" all over again, a decidedly one sided view of the situation (after all, it's a bit far fetched to think the NSA is monitoring basically all US Internet traffic through some backdoor program that would be difficult to implement secretly). If you buy that we can't possibly know the whole story, his character and motivation is definitely worth exploring.
- jessaustin 13y ago
  In what way was Collateral Murder, "a decidedly one sided view of the situation"? Were an unarmed Good Samaritan and his unarmed children not shot? Did the Good Samaritan and the unarmed injured man he was attempting to save not die as a result of the shooting?
  - stinkytaco 13y ago
    It's one sided because it was edited by someone with an obvious bone to pick with no context. Frankly, the name itself is editorialized. What's sad is that we could be looking at a terrible incident, but that fact that it was released out of context with an obvious political motive (and name) discredits it.
    - namdnay 13y ago
      This argument is shot down by the fact that they released the unedited video at exactly the same time on the same website.
      - stinkytaco 13y ago
        That doesn't make the edited version, or the name, any less unconscionable for an organization that wanted to find the truth. To quote Stephen Colbert, it was "emotional manipulation". If they wanted to address a point they should have put out the 39 minute version as is or release to to a news organization. Instead they decided to selectively highlight things, give it an inflammatory name and try to drum up some donations from it. That makes it suspect in my eyes and hopefully the eyes of reasonable people everywhere. Doesn't mean that I think what happened was right or than I'm trying to defend those soldiers (we can have that argument elsewhere), but that as a reasonable person the editing and name should raise a giant red flag that makes me ask further questions. I feel the same about this situation. The dramatic talk ("they might render me") and the fact that we're looking at this in a very narrow, uninformed context means we should question everything, including his credibility.
cbs 13y ago
I was surprised on the drive home yesterday when they interviewed his neighbor. He didn't win the local chilli cook-off, dude just revealed multiple gigantic surveillance operations. There's got to be someone more relevant to interview, right? Is this just a path of least resistance thing, where anybody with anything worth hearing about this story refuses to speak to the news?
- rsl7 13y ago
  he was quiet and kept to himself? Never really fit in?
drzaiusapelord 13y ago
>why Edward Snowden is a "strange" guy Well, PRISM does have his surfing history. Who isn't "strange" when put under the microscope of data analysis?
prostoalex 13y ago
Just this morning they had a conversation on the correct way to use the term "whistleblower". Technically it's someone exposing illegal activity, but hey, we have this secret court issuing this secret order, which makes it all fine and legal, so the term does not apply to Snowden.
- marssaxman 13y ago
  In secret, with the secret court and the secret order, perhaps he's not a whistleblower, but in public, where we don't know about that secret court or that secret order, he sure is a whistleblower. Yay for having a secret legal system.
  - talmand 13y ago
    Since it's all such a big secret then perhaps the existence of the material cannot be proven, therefore he leaked nothing.
Bulkington 13y ago
"It's completely unbelievable." Entirely believable. Without access to the security apparatus, and without being able to make sense of what little has been revealed, what else are the news media going to chatter on about? The question is whether it truly matters that Snowden has grand delusions and a sketchy resume. I think he's harming his professed cause by putting himself in front of the story, because all parties with an interest in not being embarassed over this -- and these are some big players -- are going to distance themselves from him. And that means somehow justifying his employment while at the same time suggesting he had to leave because he was incompetent. I find this an interesting side story, and it will always be the problem in protecting secrets: People can't be trusted. What to do? More machines, of course. And this is exactly where the NSA programs are heading. And this is exactly what we should be debating: If impersonal data crunching machines are doing 99.99999% of the work and ignoring virtually everything, is it an invasion of privacy? Snowden is just a reminder to the minders that they still have work to do to guard against rats, or patriots, depending on your view. But, for now, Snowden's grandstanding is the distraction that the media can happily cover and that the average Facebook user can understand. So there's no conspiracy here, just the usual incompetence on all sides. Only it's traitorous to open the the trillion dollar curtain and offer a glimpse at the wizards behind the US security theater.
- grey-area 13y ago
  He had to do this to control that conversation. Otherwise if he tried anonymous leaks, the first time we heard his name it would be on a news report based on gov sources going something like 'high school drop out and suspected drug user ed showdown is on the run from the FBI, after stealing classified government information vital to the fight against terrorism, and has fled to the protection of comminist china. We're unsure as yet which rogue state or terrorist organisations he plans to sell the data to. Is he the worst traitor and terrorist sympathiser the world has ever known or is he simply a confused data janitor? You decide, after the break.' As it is the discussion from the likes of brooks or cnn hasn't risen much above that level. I agree no conspiracy though - its fairly easy for the gov to guide the conversation by controlling what info they release, but he has turned this technique against them. So I completely understand why he wanted to get in front of that story with a cogent statement of his beliefs and background, though I hope he has saved some more pertinent information to leak in order to steer the conversation back to where it should go - onto the NSA and their abuse of the powers they have been given, including lying to their oversight committee, and the secret laws and secret courts which have facilitated that.
cema 13y ago
Why is it unbelievable? Let me rephrase: is it more unbelievable than the regular NPR programming? I have not noticed much change, but I may be biased against partisanship.
markvdb 13y ago
The Guardian (.uk), Der Spiegel (.de), Le Monde (.fr), La repubblica (.it), The Mail and Guardian (.za). Quite a few well respected news media outside the US are less dependent on the parties involved. Or you could just read The Onion of course.
leot 13y ago
Democracy Now! is often too lefty for my tastes, but they do a terrific job on stories where the MSM is likely to be biased. They're particularly good and independent gov't leak stories.
__--__ 13y ago
On a slightly different note, you remind me of my parents. They believe almost everything they read in the newspaper or see on the news. And yet, whenever they're directly involved in any local news, they always complain that the news coverage is completely wrong. I try to suggest to them that maybe ALL news coverage is wrong to some degree, but they don't want to hear that. > I listen to NPR every day and it's almost insufferable to listen to when they talk about the NSA leak. To me, NPR is insufferable to listen to 99% of the time. Just Sayin'.

danielcampos93 13y ago

I fully agree. I find it ridiculous that everyone now is focusing on this man his life, his girlfriend and blah blah blah. The news that is going out about the actual program and what he caused is minuscule. I have seen far more articles and new pieces about how his credit cars are running out, how the Hong Kong government doesn't understand him, how his girlfriend didn't know anything, to that about the PRISM program. Unbelievable.

fragsworth 13y ago

Smearing him only strengthens the argument that this program shouldn't have been put in place to begin with. He had access to everything.

deelowe 13y ago

Was happening yesterday on my local talk radio station. "Isn't it a bit odd that this guy, a high school drop out somehow got into the NSA? Is he a plant? Isn't it odd that he's taking refuge in a COMMUNIST nation? I think he's a spy. How does a high school dropout get into the nsa?... High school drop out... High school dropout... communist... china..." etc.. Not very hard to see who controls the media these days.

fragsworth 13y ago
Doesn't smearing Snowden only justify his leaking of the information? If a communist-spy-high-school-dropout is able to access everyone's private information, what does this say of the NSA program that allowed him to do this?
hga 13y ago
He could be both telling the truth and working for/with/whatever the PRC. Others have noted the timing is convenient for the PRC's maximum leader visit here, where the latter was supposed to be confronted about their "cyberattacks" on us. ADDED: And now that, if there is some link, he presumably needs them a lot more than they now need him, he may find that his arrangement with them has ... changed.
- joonix 13y ago
  I don't think it's fair that "conspiracy theorists" will dismiss conspiracy theories when they are perceived as defending the US.
- maxerickson 13y ago
  If he thought he had an arrangement with China, he wasn't thinking clearly to begin with. A reasonable way for him to approach pretty much any government right now is that he submits to their custody and then has no idea what will happen next.
JPKab 13y ago
I wonder what these idiots throwing around the commie card think about the fact that Snowden donated money to Rand Paul.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
brown9-2 13y ago
Are these not fair questions? I think most people are confused at how someone could expect to have their freedom of speech protected in a country controlled by China. Territories controlled by mainland China are not usually the first places you think of when you think "need to flee the US government". Similarly, I think most people are surprised at the ability of someone in his stated position to gain as much access as he said he has, and also at the reported size of his salary - because they are not familiar with what the salary scale is like in the world of government private contractors. Having questions is not the same as smearing character.
- gohrt 13y ago
  The questions betray a high level of ignorance, however. Clearly, if you have a beef with the US Govt, you have to flee to a communist-country, not because you are a communist, but because those government can better resist the gravitational power of the US government. People tend to forget that "enemy of the US government" != "enemy of the USA". China, for all its problems, is not Hell unders dominion of Satan. Neither is the USA heaven under dominion of God.
- rbanffy 13y ago
  It's likely your computer runs an OS made by a company founded by a college drop out. Hong Kong has been more protective of free speech tha n China. I also bet free speech that puts the NSA under a less than favorable light is heavily protected in China.
  - tjr 13y ago
    It's likely your computer runs an OS made by a company founded by a college drop out. Despite some amazing success stories, I suspect that the public perception of someone who drops out of college (or high school) tends to lean toward assuming marginal intelligence and little aptitude for skilled labor.
    - Taylorious 13y ago
      I would attribute dropping out of HS/college more to laziness, apathy, or not wanting to be part of the traditional system, not anything related to intelligence. Its not because I know a lot of intelligent HS dropouts, but because I know TON of stupid people with college degrees. I mean like people working minimum wage crap jobs and not trying to change their life, despite having a bachelors degree.
cpeterso 13y ago
btw, Snowden didn't work for the NPR. He was a contractor.
rayiner 13y ago
I guarantee you that the "who is Snowden working for?" story appeals to more people than the "how do we get the NSA to stop this?" story. Pretty much everyone that grew up in Reagan's America is more concerned about Russia and China than the NSA. Indeed, that front would be unified bloc, with the 65+ crowd along with the usual hawkish conservatives, if not for the sole fact that this was revealed under Obama's watch. This fractures the usual conservative response. They're still paranoid about whether China or Russia is behind this, but at the same time they hate Obama, so...
- dctoedt 13y ago
  > this was revealed under [sic] Obama's watch Pet peeve: It was ON Obama's watch (it's a Navy term [0]). </pedantry> [0] http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/on_one's_watch http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/on_one's_watch
- talmand 13y ago
  I like how you took such a simple concept and somehow turned it into partisan politics. Bravo.
- pests 13y ago
  Don't forget the first company signed up in 2007 under Bush's watch.
- mindcrime 13y ago
  I guarantee you that the "who is Snowden working for?" story appeals to more people than the "how do we get the NSA to stop this?" story. Sad but true. :-(
shubb 13y ago
I think this is just due to the form of a news article. "The mistake was made by IBM Technical expert Julia Smith, 38, from Palm Springs, Colorado. Julia, who graduated from Stanford in 2001 was described by neighbors as serious and career focused". Age, place of birth / residence, education, marital status, character. Journalists will mention as many of these as they can easily find out (and they have established ways of easily finding out). When they find something unusual, in these things they are checking anyway, it becomes that persons defining characteristic, a hook for the story.
jayfuerstenberg 13y ago
Watching Snowden's video it's self evident how learned and intelligent he is. I don't much care whether or not he finished high school. It isn't the single measure of intelligence. Morality is the quality by which I'd rather measure him.

Homunculiheaded 13y ago

This reaction is actually scarier to me than the initial surveillance. NPR and NYT are usually sources of very solid journalism, the fact that they would drop the real story for some gossip about Snowden implies that someone is able to successfully exert pressure on these organizations. The surveillance alone leaves the possibility that one agency has started to go to far, but this more systematic reaction indicates that the trouble is deeper and more wide-spread.

Taylorious 13y ago
Or NPR, The NYT etc. aren't as good a sources of news as you think, and you just haven't noticed until they covered a story in your domain that you are passionate about. I used to listen to NPR everyday. In my opinion they are one of the better sources of news in America, but they are far far far from unbiased. They are very good at making it look like they are showing all sides, but they are in fact presenting things in away that supports their ideological bent.
- gohrt 13y ago
  Yes of course, but NPR's ideological bent in the past was seen to be not of the "government stooge" variety.
- pstuart 13y ago
  I would argue that they try very hard to appear "objective" and sometimes drop the ball in order to achieve this. Whenever they mention gun control or cannabis legalization (too very liberal subjects) there is never any questioning of the craziness of the opponents of such efforts, just that it is happening. That said, they are still far from perfect but preferable to most other sources.
  - kbenson 13y ago
    The fact that you imply that there is craziness of the opponents without any justification makes me think that you may be unable to see any bias they have because it's in the same direction as yours. You may be thinking of specific examples with crazy behavior, so this may be justified reasoning, but from the detail you've given it's hard to know.

vectorpush 13y ago

I am also a daily NPR listener and have noticed the exact same bias. I honestly expected better from NPR and it saddens me to observe such a clear agenda to push a specific narrative.

cema 13y ago
NPR has an agenda. Easier to notice when mine is different, I guess.
- vectorpush 13y ago
  I'm a news junkie and my sources run the gamut, but on most topics, NPR is by far the most impartial source of American journalism; they lean to the left to be sure, but I can't think of anything closer to the center.
  - cema 13y ago
    I don't expect a center, but I welcome consistency. If I know the spin, I can try to unspin.

stinkytaco 13y ago

Just to play devil's advocate: We don't really know much about this situation. Just what Snowden (and the press) have decided to tell us. This could be "Collateral Murder" all over again, a decidedly one sided view of the situation (after all, it's a bit far fetched to think the NSA is monitoring basically all US Internet traffic through some backdoor program that would be difficult to implement secretly). If you buy that we can't possibly know the whole story, his character and motivation is definitely worth exploring.

jessaustin 13y ago
In what way was Collateral Murder, "a decidedly one sided view of the situation"? Were an unarmed Good Samaritan and his unarmed children not shot? Did the Good Samaritan and the unarmed injured man he was attempting to save not die as a result of the shooting?
- stinkytaco 13y ago
  It's one sided because it was edited by someone with an obvious bone to pick with no context. Frankly, the name itself is editorialized. What's sad is that we could be looking at a terrible incident, but that fact that it was released out of context with an obvious political motive (and name) discredits it.
  - namdnay 13y ago
    This argument is shot down by the fact that they released the unedited video at exactly the same time on the same website.
    - stinkytaco 13y ago
      That doesn't make the edited version, or the name, any less unconscionable for an organization that wanted to find the truth. To quote Stephen Colbert, it was "emotional manipulation". If they wanted to address a point they should have put out the 39 minute version as is or release to to a news organization. Instead they decided to selectively highlight things, give it an inflammatory name and try to drum up some donations from it. That makes it suspect in my eyes and hopefully the eyes of reasonable people everywhere. Doesn't mean that I think what happened was right or than I'm trying to defend those soldiers (we can have that argument elsewhere), but that as a reasonable person the editing and name should raise a giant red flag that makes me ask further questions. I feel the same about this situation. The dramatic talk ("they might render me") and the fact that we're looking at this in a very narrow, uninformed context means we should question everything, including his credibility.

cbs 13y ago

I was surprised on the drive home yesterday when they interviewed his neighbor. He didn't win the local chilli cook-off, dude just revealed multiple gigantic surveillance operations. There's got to be someone more relevant to interview, right? Is this just a path of least resistance thing, where anybody with anything worth hearing about this story refuses to speak to the news?

rsl7 13y ago
he was quiet and kept to himself? Never really fit in?

drzaiusapelord 13y ago

>why Edward Snowden is a "strange" guy Well, PRISM does have his surfing history. Who isn't "strange" when put under the microscope of data analysis?

prostoalex 13y ago

Just this morning they had a conversation on the correct way to use the term "whistleblower". Technically it's someone exposing illegal activity, but hey, we have this secret court issuing this secret order, which makes it all fine and legal, so the term does not apply to Snowden.

marssaxman 13y ago
In secret, with the secret court and the secret order, perhaps he's not a whistleblower, but in public, where we don't know about that secret court or that secret order, he sure is a whistleblower. Yay for having a secret legal system.
- talmand 13y ago
  Since it's all such a big secret then perhaps the existence of the material cannot be proven, therefore he leaked nothing.

Bulkington 13y ago

"It's completely unbelievable." Entirely believable. Without access to the security apparatus, and without being able to make sense of what little has been revealed, what else are the news media going to chatter on about? The question is whether it truly matters that Snowden has grand delusions and a sketchy resume. I think he's harming his professed cause by putting himself in front of the story, because all parties with an interest in not being embarassed over this -- and these are some big players -- are going to distance themselves from him. And that means somehow justifying his employment while at the same time suggesting he had to leave because he was incompetent. I find this an interesting side story, and it will always be the problem in protecting secrets: People can't be trusted. What to do? More machines, of course. And this is exactly where the NSA programs are heading. And this is exactly what we should be debating: If impersonal data crunching machines are doing 99.99999% of the work and ignoring virtually everything, is it an invasion of privacy? Snowden is just a reminder to the minders that they still have work to do to guard against rats, or patriots, depending on your view. But, for now, Snowden's grandstanding is the distraction that the media can happily cover and that the average Facebook user can understand. So there's no conspiracy here, just the usual incompetence on all sides. Only it's traitorous to open the the trillion dollar curtain and offer a glimpse at the wizards behind the US security theater.

grey-area 13y ago
He had to do this to control that conversation. Otherwise if he tried anonymous leaks, the first time we heard his name it would be on a news report based on gov sources going something like 'high school drop out and suspected drug user ed showdown is on the run from the FBI, after stealing classified government information vital to the fight against terrorism, and has fled to the protection of comminist china. We're unsure as yet which rogue state or terrorist organisations he plans to sell the data to. Is he the worst traitor and terrorist sympathiser the world has ever known or is he simply a confused data janitor? You decide, after the break.' As it is the discussion from the likes of brooks or cnn hasn't risen much above that level. I agree no conspiracy though - its fairly easy for the gov to guide the conversation by controlling what info they release, but he has turned this technique against them. So I completely understand why he wanted to get in front of that story with a cogent statement of his beliefs and background, though I hope he has saved some more pertinent information to leak in order to steer the conversation back to where it should go - onto the NSA and their abuse of the powers they have been given, including lying to their oversight committee, and the secret laws and secret courts which have facilitated that.

cema 13y ago

Why is it unbelievable? Let me rephrase: is it more unbelievable than the regular NPR programming? I have not noticed much change, but I may be biased against partisanship.

markvdb 13y ago

The Guardian (.uk), Der Spiegel (.de), Le Monde (.fr), La repubblica (.it), The Mail and Guardian (.za). Quite a few well respected news media outside the US are less dependent on the parties involved. Or you could just read The Onion of course.

leot 13y ago

Democracy Now! is often too lefty for my tastes, but they do a terrific job on stories where the MSM is likely to be biased. They're particularly good and independent gov't leak stories.

__--__ 13y ago

On a slightly different note, you remind me of my parents. They believe almost everything they read in the newspaper or see on the news. And yet, whenever they're directly involved in any local news, they always complain that the news coverage is completely wrong. I try to suggest to them that maybe ALL news coverage is wrong to some degree, but they don't want to hear that. > I listen to NPR every day and it's almost insufferable to listen to when they talk about the NSA leak. To me, NPR is insufferable to listen to 99% of the time. Just Sayin'.