Posted on 06/12/2013 9:17:30 AM PDT by don-o
Is Edward Snowden a hero or a traitor? I don't care. You read right: I don't give a whit about the man who exposed two sweeping U.S. online surveillance programs, nor do I worry much about his verdict in the court of public opinion.
Why? Because it is the wrong question. The Snowden narrative matters mostly to White House officials trying to deflect attention from government overreach and deception, and to media executives in search of an easy storyline to serve a celebrity-obsessed audience.
For the rest of us, the questions seem to be:
Are the two programs revealed by Snowden legal and constitutional?
Are the programs effective? The government says yes, but most Americans don't trust government. The Obama administration claims National Security Agency spying helped foil a plot in New York, but that claim has been convincingly disputed.
What else is the government doing to invade our privacy? Until a few days ago, paranoids were people who claimed Washington had cast a vast electronic net over our communications. Who isn't a bit paranoid now?
Why did the U.S. government for years debunk what they called a myth about the National Security Agency seizing electronic data from millions of Americans?
Why did the leader of the U.S. intelligence community mislead Congress in March by answering a question about the program in the "least untruthful manner" -- a phrase that would make George Orwell cringe.
Why do Democratic lawmakers who criticized President Bush for exploiting the post-9/11 Patriot Act now defend President Obama for curbing civil liberties?
Why do Republicans who defended Bush now chastise Obama for ruthlessly fighting terrorists?
Rather than fierce oversight, why did the White House and congressional leaders restrict full knowledge of the programs to a few elites, and stage, for the rest of Congress, Potemkin briefings?
Why does a secret federal court almost always side with the government's requests to seize information.
Why didn't the president find a way before the leaks to tell the public in general terms what he was doing and why? Obama ran on a pledge of government transparency, opposed Bush-era surveillance tactics, and denounced the "false choice" between security and liberty.
No sane American would deny the president and the national security community the best tools to fight a fast-evolving and shadowy enemy. It would be foolish to demand full disclosure of programs that require secrecy. And most Americans, according to polls, are open to trading some privacy for security.
But before perpetuating and immortalizing the Surveillance State, we need to remember that the precedents set today apply to the next president -- and the ones that follow, perhaps men and women who aren't as dedicated to democratic institutions as both Bush and Obama are.
It would help if the Obama administration would stop misleading the public, eroding trust in government that is already at record lows. Four stories today suggest how badly the truth has been victimized.
Scott Shane and Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times documented how intelligence officials for years have denied the existence of programs revealed by Snowden: "Disclosures on N.S.A. Surveillance Put Awkward Light on Previous Denials."
"Awkward light" is a polite way of describing a lie.
Glenn Kessler slapped three Pinocchios on James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence who spoke a least-untruthful way: "Debates Over NSA Should be Free of Semantic Muddling."
Semantic muddling is a polite way of describing – well, you get it.
Jack Shafer of Reuters wrote an insightful piece that puts Snowden's actions into context with the government's self-serving leaks. "… He's done in the macro what the national security establishment does in the micro every day of the week to manage, manipulate and influence ongoing policy debates," Shafer wrote.
Finally, syndicated liberal columnist David Sirota challenged the views of "Permanent Washington" in an analysis arguing that NSA's actions are illegal and unconstitutional.
He called the Snowden case "a commentary on how political self-interest and partisanship now trumps everything else – even the law of the land."
Love him or hate him, we all owe Snowden our thanks for forcing upon the nation an important debate. But the debate shouldn't be about him. It should be about the gnawing questions his actions raised from the shadows.
In the end, fear and politics likely will prevail, as it has in America's past. Washington elites will close ranks to protect the Surveillance State, to trample out transparency and to mislead the public. Maybe we can talk first?
“Why do Republicans who defended Bush now chastise Obama for ruthlessly fighting terrorists?”
Because 0bambi is fighting Tea Partiers, not Terrorists.
Why people want to live in a police state is insane.
This is what some have wanted for many years. Protest it, I say.
I listened to lanny davis spinning on the NSA story this morning. His smoke was that 1. it started on Bush’s watch, 2. no one is doing anything illegal, and 3. it’s prevented another 9/11.
The squishy moderate interviewing him (I forget the name) failed to take him to task on any of these fallacious points. And that’s how it is all going to settle to the bottom. Too many sheeple think that it’s OK for someone to go through your undies drawer - as long as it’s done in the name of Defending America.
What else is the government doing to invade our privacy? Until a few days ago, paranoids were people who claimed Washington had cast a vast electronic net over our communications. Who isn’t a bit paranoid now?
The likes of Michael medved ore one of the following:
1. A fool. I don’t think so.
2. A tool of the establishment - hopefully this is the most likely scenario.
3. He knows something we don’t and there are some very real reasons why this must NOT get legs. I have a great deal of respect for this man’s mind, which is why I think there is a real risk that this really could be the situation.
But I’m still going with 2. 3 is too scary.
The article’s author is correct.
This is war. The source of the information doesn’t matter. What matters is its accuracy.
One who thinks a few more Republican congressmen and Presidents McCain and Romney could straighten out the USA will of course see treason.
>>Why do Republicans who defended Bush now chastise Obama for ruthlessly fighting terrorists?”
It validates Bush’s programs and also to those who set the program up and defended those programs while they were being bashed throughout the media; for so long.. so in that attempt they can’t even see their own policies have went too far and being unconstitutional. They are going further now than Bush did unless more info comes out to prove otherwise. Imo. Police state.
Actually, there were quite a few of us who pointed out that the powers we were giving to Bush would be ABUSED by the next Administration should it be controlled by Democrats.
We were excoriated, denigrated, called paranoid, etc...
Reap the whirlwind.
And that’s how it is all going to settle to the bottom.
I remember saying, back when we only had the three scandals, Benghazi, ap/fox and FBI, that we had three years to go and expect a lot more, and probably more severe, scandals. It took less than a week for that statement to be proven true.
So let me say it again, we have three years. There will be many more scandals. You can pretty much bank on it in the way you can fugure a truck full of improperly crated eggs, at the end of the ride, is gonna have a lot of broken eggs.
Obama is a joke. More and more people are seeing the tangible evidence and real world fallout that occurs when such a man is elected president.
There will be much more as his lame duckness makes him less and less worth the MSM’s effort to protect. The armor is already clearly compromised.
They went rabid over the Fox News Reporter being monitored by the gubmint, yet they majority are siding with the VERY SAME gubmint on this issue. Are they REALLY that stupid and assume THEY are all EXCLUDED from these NSA programs or are they all revealed once and for all for the disgusting hypocrites that they all are??????
Are they REALLY that stupid...
If the news about Obama spying on FOX News had come first (before the story about Obama spying on the AP) they would have been dancing in the streets.
Obama sees conservatives as the enemy. He said shortly before his first election that he was going to fundamentally change America. The weaponization of the government to get us is what he had in mind.
I believe Snowden & Prism are obvious Obama concoctions to get our mind off of the real scandals. (Benghazi & IRS). We are living in a state of tyranny and we are frogs in 211 degree water. Noone cares abour liberty or freedom or the Constitution. Lets just line up and get our RFID chip and get on with it!
Am in agreement with Ron Fournier’s piece in The National Journal...EXCEPT (and a choking point with me) he characterizes Obama as a “defender” of the the “democratic process” where he forgot to add when it suits his socialist agenda . Then Fourniers chooses the latest talking points a 2009 attempted bombing using a phone call to a suspected area in foreign country. But not the 2013 Boston bombing using local calls and emails. .
Great answer !!!!!!!!
We’ve had enough. The Angry Mob is gathering.
I cannot figure out why some are screaming traitor on the leak-er and could care less about the very head of the agency tasked to spy on US flat out lying to a Congressional committee...
I think back to old bjClinton being commended on his ability to compartmentalize. I think that is a mental disorder that affects the majority of peoples upon this earth.
The NSA did not dream up this task all upon its own. Congress had to approve the funding to hire private contractors to mine data. (Most especially our own weeping Bonehead.) For all we know some judge did give authority under the mountains of legislation passed yearly by Congress that gave authority for this action. Yet those who are supposedly working for US feign outrage over a single employee saying ‘guess what’ Americans you and everything you do is being watched.
Strangely no administration in my living memory has done squat to secure our borders. Instead they have sent unofficial and official welcome mats to the outcast of this globe. AND no requirement is made of these supposed citizens to follow the same laws we are required to adhere.
We are getting punished from all quarters. The political system, the economic system, the educational system and last but certainly not least the religious system.
The purpose is to destroy the very independent middle class.
I find myself reading more (and more strenuous) criticisms of Øbozo - by the left. I know that hard-left are stubborn in their loyalties and hidebound in their ideologies but the slightly more moderate are losing patience and/or becoming embarrassed by association to The Most Corrupt Administration in History. My job is to cultivate that unease ;-)
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