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Glenn Greenwald pushes back hard on latest Edward Snowden “revelations”

99 points by Libertatea 13y ago

colin_jack 13y ago
Its a pity that those who want to get the NSA and GCHQ revelations out of the news are succeeding and it make me wonder about these sorts of pieces. Defending Greenwald/Snowden has merit but it shouldn't be swamping the more valuable NSA/GCHQ content as much as it has.
- rayiner 13y ago
  Why do human interest stories always swamp other content? Writing about a person is a basic tool of journalistic story telling. Nobody wants to get every juicy update on what we know about an inanimate computer system.
speeder 13y ago
Shoot the messenger! No, nuke the messenger! Torture the messenger! Message, what message?
- mtgx 13y ago
  It's getting worse. Now we're turning the story from Snowden to Greenwald. It's sad to see that even the media doesn't want to protect itself anymore. Well I hope they won't count on our support later, when they come arresting more of them for publishing any sort of leak and "harming national security".
  - eightyone 13y ago
    It is definitely getting worse. I had MSNBC on last night as background noise and heard several pundits speculate that Snowden may have sold or given information to China or Russia.
    - pyre 13y ago
      That's what they do though. They have to fill the air time with something so they fill it with wild speculation. Unfortunately, this ends up leading the public discussion around by the nose.
      - griffordson 13y ago
        Yes, by why are they speculating about the crimes that Snowden and Greenwald may have committed rather than the crimes that members of the Establishment may have committed? They could just as well fill that time with wild speculation about what people with access to the data could be doing with it. In fact, that would be even more entertaining and given the bipartisan disdain for these secrete laws among the proletariat, it would likely improve ratings even more. In fact, normally that is what they fill their time with. MSNBC speculates wildly about members of the GOP while Fox speculates wildly about members of the Democratic party. Why is this case different? What should that difference tell us?
  - RyanMcGreal 13y ago
    The traditional media are pissed off that Greenwald, a blogger, broke this story from under their noses.
- eli 13y ago
  HN is just as guilty as everyone else. People are interested in the messenger because it's a genuinely interesting story -- a real life spy thriller! The fact that the NSA spies on internet communications, on the other hand, has been known (at least in principle) for years.
  - ihsw 13y ago
    Spying isn't a problem, hypocrisy is. While the USG decries terrorists and unfriendly state-actors as a major source of cyber-warfare, the US are most certainly at the heart of it as well. This seems like the build-up to a war and the United States government has mobilized unimaginable resources devoted to offensive capabilities, and there's an eerie sense of escalation that's reminiscent of the Cold War.
    - LoganCale 13y ago
      Spying is a problem too.
  - wslh 13y ago
    I see two stories, both valid. The story about the messenger is a lesson of the times to come where few people can make a lot of difference. I am not talking about whistleblowing, I am talking about a more radical approach like hacking country facilities around the world to uncover and discover crimes and unethical actions. It's obvious that this power can be used for good or bad. Do you remember the last time in history where a single person without any weapons or military training has such big impact? You don't even need followers. I am really excited! (uh, NSA is reading HN too).
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
danso 13y ago
I know this is going to get me labeled as a Snowden "demonizer" by those who take the G.W. Bush approach of "you're either with us or against us"...but these specific allegations, if true, should not be taken as just trivialities. The OP seems to be implying the possibility that Snowden purportedly took the Booz Allen job with the explicit purpose that of exposing what he perceived as NSA's unethical practices. Now, replace "Snowden" with...well, a hypothetical whistleblower, and "Booz Allen" and "NSA" with [company/institution you respect] e.g. Henry Ford joined Tesla Motors to get the access to documents that prove that Elon Musk is cutting corners just as Ford suspected. There have been unfair and trivial criticisms of Snowden, but this particular angle is not completely trivial. Note, however, that even if true, it does not dismiss Snowden's claims or findings...but it's the kind of pre-condition that must be weighed as it would be in any controversy.
- tokenizer 13y ago
  Complete Speculation. Is there video evidence that he said this? But yes, even if true, lets hold proles to the word of the law, while writing new laws that demonize all whistleblowing and the exposing of corruption. I find it funny how we always get into the character attacks. Lets talk about the leaks. Bradley Manning -> Traitor Julian Assange -> Rapist Edward Snowden -> Spy(?)/Traitor/Ethical Person who knew about the abuses and attempted to follow through with uncovering them? You can call it by different names all you want, but ultimately we can either support the act, or demonize the individuals.
  - danso 13y ago
    OK, if the accusation is false, then there's not much to talk about...it's just a smear. I was only speaking of the condition in which this accusation is true. If so, it does not mean that Snowden was wrong or that he is being nefarious. However, it's not just an ancillary demonization...at least for those of us who interpreted his story to be of someone who turned because of what he saw to be unjust practices. In otherwords, he's less of a whistleblower, more of a muckraker. Both are capable of bringing about needed reform
    - 13y ago
durana 13y ago
Anyone know the details of the encryption system that Snowden wanted set up between him and Greenwald?
- JoachimSchipper 13y ago
  Just PGP; Google "greenwald snowden pgp" for many confirmations.
logn 13y ago
That's a nice article to read. Happy to see this as a conclusion: “They are trying to shift attention away from what the U.S. government has done onto what the people who have reported it have done.” Seriously. It would be like if someone trespassing on OJ Simpson's property caught video of OJ harming people with a knife and then the public focusing on how terrible of a person the trespasser is, ignoring the fact that it's incredible video evidence of a much more serious crime. Further, it would be as though the trespasser only trespassed in the first place because he heard loud screams from the property. In other words, Snowden's a whistleblower, but I think the media and gov't have succeeded in ruining the term 'whistleblower'. Whistleblowers almost by definition have to violate certain laws, but our protection laws were supposed to make that ok. It's highly complex and more so for people in intelligence whistleblowing on intelligence matters. That's why Snowden's also a hero.
Thomas_Ellers 13y ago
Isn’t a lot of this hatred of Greenwald jealousy-based. The Bestselling book, all the media attention, the overnight blog success, etc? I’d be the first to say his style can be bombastic and he can be overly aggressive. But nobody denies that he’s very smart, and among liberal bloggers at least, very moderate and rational in his view, and unusually willing to engage debate. So it’s hard to figure out what there could be about me that generates such strong emotions.
- revscat 13y ago
  That may be part of the explanation, but I very much doubt it constitutes a significant part. Whenever the omnipotence and/or moral authority of the bureaucracy is challenged the media rushes to its defense. The typical way it does this is to vilify those who raised the objections. See: labor unions, Martin Luther King, jr., Michael Moore, WikiLeaks/Julian Assange, Al Gore, Joe and Valerie Wilson, Thomas Drake, #occupy, Bradley Manning, and now Snowden and Greenwald. I'm sure there are other examples.
nano111 13y ago
ter·ror·ism : The use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.
malkia 13y ago
Isn'it bit funny that NSA was not able to catch the communication between the two of them, before the security channel was initiated

99 points by Libertatea 13y ago

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

rayiner 13y ago
Why do human interest stories always swamp other content? Writing about a person is a basic tool of journalistic story telling. Nobody wants to get every juicy update on what we know about an inanimate computer system.

speeder 13y ago

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

mtgx 13y ago
It's getting worse. Now we're turning the story from Snowden to Greenwald. It's sad to see that even the media doesn't want to protect itself anymore. Well I hope they won't count on our support later, when they come arresting more of them for publishing any sort of leak and "harming national security".
- eightyone 13y ago
  It is definitely getting worse. I had MSNBC on last night as background noise and heard several pundits speculate that Snowden may have sold or given information to China or Russia.
  - pyre 13y ago
    That's what they do though. They have to fill the air time with something so they fill it with wild speculation. Unfortunately, this ends up leading the public discussion around by the nose.
    - griffordson 13y ago
      Yes, by why are they speculating about the crimes that Snowden and Greenwald may have committed rather than the crimes that members of the Establishment may have committed? They could just as well fill that time with wild speculation about what people with access to the data could be doing with it. In fact, that would be even more entertaining and given the bipartisan disdain for these secrete laws among the proletariat, it would likely improve ratings even more. In fact, normally that is what they fill their time with. MSNBC speculates wildly about members of the GOP while Fox speculates wildly about members of the Democratic party. Why is this case different? What should that difference tell us?
- RyanMcGreal 13y ago
  The traditional media are pissed off that Greenwald, a blogger, broke this story from under their noses.
eli 13y ago
HN is just as guilty as everyone else. People are interested in the messenger because it's a genuinely interesting story -- a real life spy thriller! The fact that the NSA spies on internet communications, on the other hand, has been known (at least in principle) for years.
- ihsw 13y ago
  Spying isn't a problem, hypocrisy is. While the USG decries terrorists and unfriendly state-actors as a major source of cyber-warfare, the US are most certainly at the heart of it as well. This seems like the build-up to a war and the United States government has mobilized unimaginable resources devoted to offensive capabilities, and there's an eerie sense of escalation that's reminiscent of the Cold War.
  - LoganCale 13y ago
    Spying is a problem too.
- wslh 13y ago
  I see two stories, both valid. The story about the messenger is a lesson of the times to come where few people can make a lot of difference. I am not talking about whistleblowing, I am talking about a more radical approach like hacking country facilities around the world to uncover and discover crimes and unethical actions. It's obvious that this power can be used for good or bad. Do you remember the last time in history where a single person without any weapons or military training has such big impact? You don't even need followers. I am really excited! (uh, NSA is reading HN too).

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

danso 13y ago

I know this is going to get me labeled as a Snowden "demonizer" by those who take the G.W. Bush approach of "you're either with us or against us"...but these specific allegations, if true, should not be taken as just trivialities. The OP seems to be implying the possibility that Snowden purportedly took the Booz Allen job with the explicit purpose that of exposing what he perceived as NSA's unethical practices. Now, replace "Snowden" with...well, a hypothetical whistleblower, and "Booz Allen" and "NSA" with [company/institution you respect] e.g. Henry Ford joined Tesla Motors to get the access to documents that prove that Elon Musk is cutting corners just as Ford suspected. There have been unfair and trivial criticisms of Snowden, but this particular angle is not completely trivial. Note, however, that even if true, it does not dismiss Snowden's claims or findings...but it's the kind of pre-condition that must be weighed as it would be in any controversy.

tokenizer 13y ago
Complete Speculation. Is there video evidence that he said this? But yes, even if true, lets hold proles to the word of the law, while writing new laws that demonize all whistleblowing and the exposing of corruption. I find it funny how we always get into the character attacks. Lets talk about the leaks. Bradley Manning -> Traitor Julian Assange -> Rapist Edward Snowden -> Spy(?)/Traitor/Ethical Person who knew about the abuses and attempted to follow through with uncovering them? You can call it by different names all you want, but ultimately we can either support the act, or demonize the individuals.
- danso 13y ago
  OK, if the accusation is false, then there's not much to talk about...it's just a smear. I was only speaking of the condition in which this accusation is true. If so, it does not mean that Snowden was wrong or that he is being nefarious. However, it's not just an ancillary demonization...at least for those of us who interpreted his story to be of someone who turned because of what he saw to be unjust practices. In otherwords, he's less of a whistleblower, more of a muckraker. Both are capable of bringing about needed reform
  - 13y ago

durana 13y ago

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

JoachimSchipper 13y ago
Just PGP; Google "greenwald snowden pgp" for many confirmations.

logn 13y ago

That's a nice article to read. Happy to see this as a conclusion: “They are trying to shift attention away from what the U.S. government has done onto what the people who have reported it have done.” Seriously. It would be like if someone trespassing on OJ Simpson's property caught video of OJ harming people with a knife and then the public focusing on how terrible of a person the trespasser is, ignoring the fact that it's incredible video evidence of a much more serious crime. Further, it would be as though the trespasser only trespassed in the first place because he heard loud screams from the property. In other words, Snowden's a whistleblower, but I think the media and gov't have succeeded in ruining the term 'whistleblower'. Whistleblowers almost by definition have to violate certain laws, but our protection laws were supposed to make that ok. It's highly complex and more so for people in intelligence whistleblowing on intelligence matters. That's why Snowden's also a hero.

Thomas_Ellers 13y ago

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

revscat 13y ago
That may be part of the explanation, but I very much doubt it constitutes a significant part. Whenever the omnipotence and/or moral authority of the bureaucracy is challenged the media rushes to its defense. The typical way it does this is to vilify those who raised the objections. See: labor unions, Martin Luther King, jr., Michael Moore, WikiLeaks/Julian Assange, Al Gore, Joe and Valerie Wilson, Thomas Drake, #occupy, Bradley Manning, and now Snowden and Greenwald. I'm sure there are other examples.

nano111 13y ago

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

malkia 13y ago

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