dagblog - Comments for "Why Glenn Greenwald’s new media venture is a big deal"

Read Emptywheel. 'nuff said.

Anonymous pp — Wed, 23 Oct 2013 16:13:04 +0000

Read Emptywheel. 'nuff said.

Among those who think that it

A Guy Called LULU — Wed, 23 Oct 2013 15:47:06 +0000

In reply to I hope that it works out too.

Among those who think that it may be a worthwhile undertaking even if Greenwald is associated with it there may have been questions about who else would be worth hiring. Here is one person's suggestions.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Hire-Suggestions-for-Glenn-by-Rob-Kall-...

I am gobsmacked with your

NCD — Wed, 23 Oct 2013 15:41:03 +0000

In reply to There is a non-public

I am gobsmacked with your non-tally of serious incidents of NSA abuse of innocent Americans.

I read somewhere there was a data entry misspelling/error with the Chechen bomber names/locations in some FBI/police database. The inability to identify the guy when they had video of him from the crime scene, and had interviewed him as a terror suspect, was typically pathetic police work.

As I have said before, the level of data retention at the NSA or FBI is self defeating. The huge ocean of useless data dilutes any important data to the level of insignificance. Plus you have the understaffed 'data entry' government or contract personnel bored to death with their jobs, which pay $14K a year, and they are bound to make errors if swamped with useless crappy data. They miss or make errors on the important information. Nobody checks it. Stuff like the 2 year previous FBI interview of the Boston bombers is lost or can't be found.

I have noted a simple FBI Rolodex of 'Guys the Russians warned us about who we interviewed in the last 2 years' would have worked better than a billion terabytes of phone numbers and email addresses to find the bombers. We have little to fear from the NSA nerds in Utah.

To me, you are someone who

A Guy Called LULU — Wed, 23 Oct 2013 03:51:46 +0000

In reply to To me, you are someone who

To me, you are someone who seems to do that, only recommending reading from sites that have an anti-war and/or leftist agenda, as if articles with those clear viewpoints are all you recommend reading. And only posting follow-up when it confirms something such sources previously suggested, but not when factual follow-up contradicts.

Did you edit this comment after originally posting it? I read it earlier just before leaving the house for work and I remember, maybe wrongly, that where you say "and/or leftist agenda" that you originally said "civil rights agenda". I do not consider myself as having a leftist agenda.

And only posting follow-up when it confirms something such sources previously suggested, but not when factual follow-up contradicts

When you spot some factual contradiction to something I have posted then please point it out. Seriously, and that is not intended as an assertion that I have never done so. But also, bringing thousands of pieces of evidence that a war was promoted with lies and wrong thinking, which can be done with any of our recent ones as well as with the charges of violations of our civil liberties, and finding out that a few pieces of that evidence were wrong does not change the overall fact of the matter and it does not make those telling lies and their defenders and apologists for the crimes any less guilty or any less wrong.

Regardless, You are right about the obvious fact that I do recommend many articles from sites or individuals that have an anti-war stance. Also articles that expose and analyze attacks on our civil rights or which defend those few who have put a lot of skin in the game exposing those attacks. That is because I am anti-war and pro civil rights and being so is a position I feel strongly and am willing to defend, but obviously there are many others who do it better so I link to a few of them.
Yes, I recognize that I am pushing a position. You often take positions on the style of various proponents of positions but rarely if ever give your own judgment on the issue at hand if that issue involves our wars or our governments spying on everyone, rather only on the style of someone which does not suit your taste. Attacking Iran, which a whole hell of a lot of people were afraid might happen because a whole hell of a lot of influential people were pushing for it, is an example of our different ways of considering issues. Your memory is quite good and I admire your record keeping and research skills so this should be easy. Can you show me a time when you have said either that yes, we should attack them, or no, we shouldn't? Or do you think it is somehow a holding of the intellectual high ground to not form or at least to not express an opinion which might be criticized in a style you do not like about the right and wrong of it.

You are free to stay above the fray regarding these things while you criticize and mock my opinions and I will continue to express my feelings on things I believe call for it. Killing tens or hundreds or hundreds of thousands is such a case.
You also mock as hero warship a defense of Manning or Snowden when the defense includes the claim that what they did was not just 'right' but also required courage. I reject the mockery but at the same time wonder if there is anyone you currently admire in public life that is risking their life or freedom or career or anything else of real value and who rises further in your admiration because they are doing a hard thing.

There is a non-public

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 23 Oct 2013 02:24:26 +0000

In reply to Americans put their life

There is a non-public intelligence apparatus. that was approved by our elected officials.

That's the apparatus the administrations have been dismantling, ignoring, going around, saying they don't have to follow because it encroaches on Executive Privilege.

Even the specific Congressmen who wrote all the new loose Patriot Act rules are disgusted with the excessive eavesdropping and the way the Act's been abused. But not you.

You assume if they can gather even more data they're going to stop even more bombings? Then how come they couldn't stop attack bombings in Iraq & Afghanistan? Why didn't they stop the Boston Marathon bombing or have some clue from the guy's Russian/Dagestan travels? What were they missing after all the new looser FISA amendments and extended Facebook / email / VOIP scanning, aside from the childish unbelievable excuse that they were too busy surveilling a bunch of disorganized hippies at Occupy Wall Street?

Lulu was just pointing out

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 23 Oct 2013 02:19:36 +0000

In reply to Hey, it wasn't me that

Lulu was just pointing out that early press reports had been superseded by other info, a point he and I'd made way back when. Yet NCD clings to the notion that Snowden directly leaked to the Chinese even after [seemingly] refuted because he gave info to journalists and thus who knows? - a bizarre shotgun approach the government used in the Manning's trial.

Yes, you've made the same point about Greenwald time and again. There was a big attack-a-thon around here on Greenwald about the time Articleman was putting up his various dozens, one from when Quinn still posted if I recall correct. Aside from annoying style (which can be said for Krugman, TBogg, Kos, Sullivan, DailyHowler, Grayson, Gore, Tom Friedman, Bob Woodward and most Republicans...), I've yet to have someone point out effectively where Greenwald's facts or conclusions are off in any significant way - such as Krugman's "the Euro will crash any moment now".

Re: "As does lauding journalists as heroes to follow in their every opinion, whether they are Krugman or Hersh or Greenwald" - has someone been lauding Greenwald as a hero? I'm happy & supportive when Grayson or Greenwald or Krugman fight back against effective Republican spin or conventional beltway mediawhore wisdom, but that doesn't mean their facts & conclusions are 100% - just more useful than a luke-warm John Kerry proclamation.

Americans put their life

NCD — Tue, 22 Oct 2013 23:43:26 +0000

In reply to This is a pretty humorous

Americans put their life online on Facebook, carry smart phones, use free email services, and huge multi-national corporations like Google/Apple/Microsoft run algorithm$ to track one's purchases, likes, friends, emails and GPS location.....and I am supposed to get all worked up about some retired General running government 'anti-terror' algorithms on billions of emails/phone numbers?

Gobsmack me with real news and real incidents about how the 'surveillance state' and NSA villains and malefactors have cruelly and unjustly harmed innocent Americans....?

And then say how a Prez is supposed to prevent the next underwear bomber or Boston bombing without some sort of non-public intelligence apparatus....?

Your link appears to refer to

NCD — Tue, 22 Oct 2013 23:01:53 +0000

In reply to But I did not refer to

Your link appears to refer to different files, in possession of an editor of The Guardian:

The editor of the Guardian recently boasted online that he was taking precautions to prevent UK security services having access to the files of vital national security that he had sent out of the remit of the UK court to the New York Times. Security services are still trying to decrypt these files,

The point remains, that if Snowden has given his (hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands) of files wholly or partially away, he cannot guarantee squat as to what happens to them.

Snowden, in his 'guarantees' (see above) was blowing hot air to cover his personal ass as to any 'traitor' attacks on him, related to possible file acquisition by the Chinese or Russians.

Which adds to the perception, as he settles down in Russia, that, as Orlando said recently, guys like Snowden should never have had access to this stuff to begin with.

Hey, it wasn't me that

artappraiser — Tue, 22 Oct 2013 21:14:55 +0000

In reply to This is a pretty humorous

Hey, it wasn't me that brought up the issue of confirmation bias, it was Lulu accusing NCD of it. And silly me, I guess, I thought pointing out that others, like me, might see more confirmation bias in Lulu's favored media than in what NCD choses to do and say here, might be doing a favor along the lines of aiding better communication (not to mention persuasion skills for those who have activist goals in their activities on the internet, which I decidedly do not.)

Leave me out of any Snowden vs. anti-Snowden tag team matches, puhleez. Have zero interest in agitprop from either side (hero/devil.)

Personally, on the post topic, I will say that I have never liked Greenwald's outrage-at-length-continually-updated-and-hardly-edited style of journalism, nor have I ever liked most forms of rant. All turn me off, I get hard of hearing all of a sudden. (As does lauding journalists as heroes to follow in their every opinion, whether they are Krugman or Hersh or Greenwald.) And if Omidyar's plans are to encourage and expand on that, I will be staying with forms like The Guardian-it's thanks but no thanks.

This is a pretty humorous

PeraclesPlease — Tue, 22 Oct 2013 19:36:51 +0000

In reply to To me, you are someone who

This is a pretty humorous piece of ad hoc "I like the way this guy rolls so I'll back his methods". Sure, if Lulu supported the surveillance state he might go reaching for sources that back General Alexander lying to Congress. In the months since he did so he's been thoroughly discredited and is now being whisked through the "need to spend more time with his family" exit door, but it's Lulu's fault that he doesn't bite on renegade surveillance state spin. NCD is skeptical of those he wants to be skeptical of, and embraces those he wants to embrace - hardly skeptical of promises and heroes when they're fighting terruh undercover and keeping their sources and legal justification ever hidden.

It's fine to dislike Snowden and his actions - to each his/her opinion - but continually misrepresenting him or taking the conspiratorial whisper view against him is hardly laudable. Greenwald himself pointed out the absurdity of saying his boyfriend had an open password unlocking everything in the face of British intelligence submitting a subsequent request for a password to open everything. I of course expect everyone to defend themselves and self-promote, no matter how Clinton-esque, Palin-drone or Bush-league their logic might be, but at some point pigs and quack theories don't fly. I've also come to believe mightily in the power of winning the first press cycle, as a well-placed initial lie will survive countless refutations.

And while I applaud your filing stories from different magazines, it doesn't de facto make any arguments any stronger - over the years I've seen Andrew Sullivan never cease to draw self-satisfied, braindead donkey-in-a-rut conclusions from a vast variety of interesting quasi-intellectual sources. While I appreciate e.g. Foreign Policy for background color, I can't say it ever gobsmacked me as refutation of whatever dozen other sites I read might have read, or perhaps the more important tools: common sense, adherence to logic, devil's advocate, Occam's Razor, an occasional leap of fancy, experience & skepticism in human behavior, and a sad acceptance that both money & bullshit walk, talk and move mountains in this world.

As for "anti-war" it's been a decade or more since we had any sane approach to use of military power and diplomacy. Obama had it partially right with his "dumb wars" comment, ignoring the good that threat of war without doing it might have (though maybe has learned that trick as regards Syria, potentially even Iran). It's hard to see what war Lulu is missing the boat on, that might be interpreted as a "good war" or even an ambivalent one worth giving the benefit of the doubt. We've had a crass liar & manipulator as our ambassador in Yemen pulling the strings, our efforts in Iraq & Afghanistan were horridly ineffective aside from first invasion [including the mythical Petraeus supposedly training local troops to take over for us as we leave], Pakistan is a mess giving us a new black eye reputation for poor use of drones, while our military expansion into Africa is a topic as undiscussed as pre-May surveillance. I'm sure if I read enough conservative magazines I'll be half-convinced there's a pony in there somewhere, but these are people who thought Romney was going to pull out a big victory and that shutting down the government would win them huge plaudits and that cutting the deficit would produce jobs. How many times do we need to go to these types of beltway grownups to get their spin when they've been proven wrong time and again?