dagblog - Comments for "On Snowden and Greenwald and how they muddied their own causes"

I made a ton of comments

PeraclesPlease — Mon, 01 Jul 2013 09:58:49 +0000

In reply to Anyway, can't we get back to

I made a ton of comments about this on your diary - the only ones you took up were the speculative stuff about how Martin Luther King would disapprove of Snowden or how Ellsberg was so much different from Manning & Snowden.

I think you just like the personality stuff. But thanks for the offer - am all blogged out right now.

Though I did just post a news item where a 4-star general leaked info on our cyber-attacks with Stuxnet where you can comment on the content of the activity & not the person.

Presumably he's not subject to as many ad hominems - a renegade hacker, narcissist, contractor with too much access, using people to expose them to life-damaging punishment, hasn't run to a repressive government or leaked data to them, doesn't have a girlfriend seen pole-dancing - though likely he did violate an oath in some way (even if upholding it in another) and didn't use the stated channels for escalating.

Nah, let's just stay with the

A Guy Called LULU — Mon, 01 Jul 2013 03:52:49 +0000

In reply to Anyway, can't we get back to

Nah, let's just stay with the fun stuff.

Ames spends 4600 words talking about how brave he and his Russian buddies were/are. This part does not have the ring of truth to me. Consider the contradictions when he says surveillance is a fact of life in Russia, a series of his meetings were being monitored, which he expected, unlike all his lesser peers as he snidely says. " Russia’s FAPSI agency employed some 120,000 snoops just to listen in on Russian phone calls. (I’ve always assumed the same happens here, but apparently other American journalists believed until recently that things operate the way we’re told in middle school civics classes.)". Then he says the intelligence authorities didn't even listen to the incriminating tapes but they did let the victim of their surveillance have them. Right! That's believable? Sounds like a concocted story to me. The first 4600 words are all about him, Ames, as a brave and conscientious journalist and his brave and dedicated friends who faced down Putin. Why? Because it was just the right thing to do.
He then spends 2800 words slamming Snowden and Greenwald for the hedonistic mistake they are guilty of, according to him, but I believe mostly the fault of others, of making themselves the center of the story. So, does Ames, who sounds to me like jerk venting over a grudge, have credibility in this instance? If so, consider his one judgment on the merits of the underlying action he pretends to be writing about:

As I’ve made clear, I’m a big supporter of his leaks. I don’t see how any of it endangers Americans — the biggest “victims” are the secrecy apparatus and the private contractors who profit off secrecy, surveillance and fear.

Anyway, can't we get back to

Ramona — Mon, 01 Jul 2013 02:15:25 +0000

In reply to It sounds like the issue is

Anyway, can't we get back to the issue of Obama's administration spying on Americans? There's a lot more detail that's come out in the last week while we've been following Escape from Devil's Island Part IV

Sure, we can. Why don't you blog about it? We'll all be sure to comment.

again, who's calling Snowden

artappraiser — Mon, 01 Jul 2013 01:47:01 +0000

In reply to It sounds like the issue is

again, who's calling Snowden a hero?

He is a hero.

--Julian Assange to George Stephanopolous, June 30, 2013

(link is to transcript of interview, page 4; quote is mid-page.)

I cited an article by Ames

Donal — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 23:46:29 +0000

In reply to On Snowden and Greenwald and how they muddied their own causes

I cited an article by Ames last year. He wasn't a fan of PussyRiot, and asserted that the average Russian was too trained to avoid trouble to care much about people that sought it out by having sex in public. At a chilly Age of Limits conference last month, Dmitry Orlov drew the ire of some feminists in attendance by not being a fan either.

I found the first part of the article interesting, but the back and forth with Greenwald put me in mind of the People's Front of Judea vs the Judean People's Front sort of thing. I did perk up when he called Greenwald a Libertarian, because Amy Goodman has Greenwald on Dem Now all the time without ever mentioning that.

According to his lawyer,

rmrd0000 — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 23:04:09 +0000

In reply to Lindh wasn't considered in a

According to his lawyer, Lindh was in the Taliban.

All I meant was the

artappraiser — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 22:34:53 +0000

In reply to Perhaps on #3 you could

All I meant was the post-Soviet-Union "new Wild West" gone bad, and how things developed after that into Putinism (with some oligarchs the enemy and others the friends, the church inserting itself into the vacuum, etc. ) That's what he's basically describing in his dissident stories.

Lindh wasn't considered in a

PeraclesPlease — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 22:02:39 +0000

In reply to John Walker Lindh was not

Lindh wasn't considered in a group AFAIK, so couldn't be treason against US as defined. Solo treason is not treason by our Constitution.

John Walker Lindh was not

rmrd0000 — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 21:51:11 +0000

In reply to You can only be a traitor in

John Walker Lindh was not tried for treason. John Brown was convicted of treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia not the US as I understand the events. Was Jefferson Davis a traitor.

Perhaps on #3 you could

PeraclesPlease — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 21:30:18 +0000

In reply to Just a couple of minor

Perhaps on #3 you could articulate how you see the danger of libertarianism vis-a-vis Russia, no need to rely on this guy. Your thoughts?