Jeffrey Toobin: Snowden is no hero…
I can’t say I’ve agreed a whole lot with Jeffrey Toobin (or anything political in the New Yorker) in recent years. But for the most part I agree with Toobin about Snowden. In fact, what Toobin says in the linked article is pretty much what I’ve been saying the past day or two in posts and comments in this thread and others.
However, Snowden’s motivation and judgment (right or wrong) and what should be done about him in the legal sense are completely different issues from whether the NSA data-collecting should be allowed, or whether the government can be trusted with it.
It’s curious, isn’t it, that we’ve already been given much of this information or similar information before the Snowden revelations, but it didn’t get all that much traction. The reason it’s hitting home now so forcibly rather than earlier is because of the multiple scandals in recent weeks, and in particular the IRS’s misuse of tax application information in order to stifle political dissent.
If one couples the computer age with the need for protection against terrorism, and adds Big Government and this ruthless administration (not that I think it’s necessarily limited to this administration, or even to Democrats or liberals—power corrupts), the danger is clear and hits home. It’s a potentially toxic combination that should concern every American. Since ever-more-powerful computers have taken over the storage of information, and it is possible to access exponentially (logarithmically?) more information now than ever before, it’s hard to see how this particularly large cat can be put back into the bag. I’m not a tech expert, but it seems to me that technology coupled with secrecy would make it relatively easy to amass this sort of data on American citizens, and it would take an army of leakers to keep up with it.
[NOTE: Some quotes from Toobin’s article:
What, one wonders, did Snowden think the N.S.A. did? Any marginally attentive citizen, much less N.S.A. employee or contractor, knows that the entire mission of the agency is to intercept electronic communications…
And what of his decision to leak the documents? Doing so was, as he more or less acknowledges, a crime. Any government employee or contractor is warned repeatedly that the unauthorized disclosure of classified information is a crime…These were legally authorized programs; in the case of Verizon Business’s phone records, Snowden certainly knew this, because he leaked the very court order that approved the continuation of the project. So he wasn’t blowing the whistle on anything illegal; he was exposing something that failed to meet his own standards of propriety. The question, of course, is whether the government can function when all of its employees (and contractors) can take it upon themselves to sabotage the programs they don’t like…
What makes leak cases difficult is that some leaking””some interaction between reporters and sources who have access to classified information””is normal, even indispensable, in a society with a free press. It’s not easy to draw the line between those kinds of healthy encounters and the wholesale, reckless dumping of classified information by the likes of Snowden or Bradley Manning. Indeed, Snowden was so irresponsible in what he gave the Guardian and the Post that even these institutions thought some of it should not be disseminated to the public. The Post decided to publish only four of the forty-one slides that Snowden provided. Its exercise of judgment suggests the absence of Snowden’s.
Snowden fled to Hong Kong when he knew publication of his leaks was imminent. In his interview, he said he went there because “they have a spirited commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent.” This may be true, in some limited way, but the overriding fact is that Hong Kong is part of China, which is, as Snowden knows, a stalwart adversary of the United States in intelligence matters…Snowden is now at the mercy of the Chinese leaders who run Hong Kong. As a result, all of Snowden’s secrets may wind up in the hands of the Chinese government””which has no commitment at all to free speech or the right to political dissent…
The American government, and its democracy, are flawed institutions. But our system offers legal options to disgruntled government employees and contractors. They can take advantage of federal whistle-blower laws; they can bring their complaints to Congress; they can try to protest within the institutions where they work. But Snowden did none of this. Instead, in an act that speaks more to his ego than his conscience, he threw the secrets he knew up in the air””and trusted, somehow, that good would come of it. We all now have to hope that he’s right.]
the wholesale, reckless dumping of classified information by the likes of Snowden or Bradley Manning
Snowden was clearly far, far less reckless than Manning, who dumped hundreds of thousands of documents he never read.
PapayaSF:
Yes, less reckless than Manning. But still reckless, if what Toobin says is true about the fact that the Guardian so far has withheld most of the documents he dumped on them.
Also this:
For a thought experiment, imagine this case without the context of the IRS, Benghazi, Sebelius’ shakedown, Gibson guitars…..
In the current atmosphere, there isn’t much Obama could do that wouldn’t look suspicious. Ditto his admin.
The IRS targeting Obama’s domestic enemies and the massive dragnet of domestic communications are linked. They are part of the same witch hunt. This is the Chicago Way. Everything they do is beyond suspicious, its corrupt and sinister.
Focusing on Snowden is taking your eye off the ball. The ball is Team Obama’s laser focus on ‘enemies of the state’. F&F, black panther voter intimidation dismissed by Holder, the support for Zelaya’s shenanigans in Honduras, kiss kiss with Chavez, and so on paint a picture of a would be dictator.
“But still reckless, if what Toobin says is true about the fact that the Guardian so far has withheld most of the documents he dumped on them.”
This is consistent with the Guardian’s claim that Snow gave them authorization to release whatever they felt was good or bad for… whomever.
Instead of saying Snow’s authorization was absent, this actually substantiates the portion of the Guardian profile/propaganda preview.
If I was Snow, I would be worried about Obama doing a “oops, my bad” and dropping a drone hellfire bomb on me as I was traveling… anywhere.
Or a snatch and grab by the CIA and being dropped in the Atlantic/Pacific ocean.
Normally these things are done against enemy combatants, citizens or not. Actually, normally under Bush those guys were sent to GitMo. Which seems to be looking sweeter and sweeter by the moment, when your only alternative is exile, being interrogated by other nations, or being bombed by Obama.
In some ways, the tighter a tyranny squeezes their fist, the more defectors and dissidents there are. This was true of Soviet Russia and was true of China too. Still is, actually.
To some extent, when the Left squeezed the American serf population, they were obeyed. 93% voted for Obama in DC. 95%, approx, blacks voted for Obama. 75% of Jews. 60+% of Asians and Latinos. This is real power. This is real obedience. This is Real Loyalty.
Most people called this “democracy”. People working on the inside may have felt differently once they realized that this democracy was using the power that normally was reserved for enemies of the state… to political opponents. Bush was okay. Whatever he was doing, people weren’t dissatisfied about. Unless you count chicken egg Manning (a private no less, trusted with cleaning toilets just about, except with access to intel) that is.
Toobin’s analysis is… very inconsistent in somewhat alarming ways. His motivation is something that I would need a background brief on first. As a precaution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Toobin
A cursory and immediate search brings up some interesting points.
Toobin is perhaps more Leftist than Obama in some ways.
He’s certainly got the dogma and ideology down.
So we got this kind of circle.
Toobin -> Kagan
Obama -> Kagan
Toobin ->wife ->Verizon
Wife -> Verizon
Toobin ?-> Obama
Toobin -> Journolist
Toobin-> CNN
CNN ->anti-Fox News
Obama ->anti-Fox News
Toobin -> Harvard
Obama -> Harvard
Toobin -> Harvard ?-> Obama
Wife -> Harvard
Toobin -> Harvard -> Wife ->Verizon
Verizon ?-> NSA Prism
Toobin -> Wife -> Verizon ?-> NSA Prism
Kagan -> Harvard ?-> Obama
Kagan -> Harvard ?-> Toobin ?-> Obama
My suspicion is that Toobin is in on whatever it is Obama’s been doing. Perhaps even as an inside advisor. He may have helped Elena move her name to Obama, or perhaps vice a versa. Perhaps Toobin’s name was given to Obama and Obama thus found a way to get Verizon on board the program. Thus Toobin has an interest to defend it.
Got to have NSA check his facebook stuff though. Doing things like this open source isn’t that accurate, although perhaps more accurate than people might realize.
Toobin links to a video of an interview that Glenn Greenwald did with Snowden.
It’s long, but if you hang in there, Snowden says at one point that China and the U.S. really aren’t enemies, just the two governments. And that Russia is like them. And that they’re basically all bad guys. And apparently just about everyone other than himself who works in security. But Snowden, well, you see, he has a conscience.
The guy belongs in prison.
“The guy belongs in prison.”
There is a long line, far around the block, of people who belong in a prison. A few names come to mind… Franklin Raines, Jon Corzine, Jamie Gorelick, Jamie Dimon, and the beat goes on. Snowden is far down the line.
Long ago and far away, I had a Top Secret clearance. It was obtained only after a rigorous background investigation by the FBI and Naval Intelligence. The background check was periodically reviewed and updated. I never was allowed access without another officer in the compartment. Top Secret meant just that and was handled with extreme care.
What are we to make of an organization (the NSA) that gives a high security clearance to someone of such a meager life resume?
Snowden impresses me as an idealistic but confused young man who should never have been given such access to TS or higher material without much deeper vetting. He may be doing a good thing, but at this point I don’t have enough information about the fallout from his disclosures to judge that. I do find it very “odd” that such a callow young man was given such a clearance no matter how skilled he was in IT.
The well of trust in government has been poisoned. I see the executive branch as damaged as if a tornado had driven though it. That may be a good thing. It could give us a chance to clean house. But only if we can find men of real character to do the housecleaning. I pray that we can.
“I do find it very “odd” that such a callow young man was given such a clearance no matter how skilled he was in IT.”
Former Private Manning was given to even more important intel, in some ways.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/06/09/edward-snowden-reveals-himself-as-nsa-leaker/
This is the link to the video.
I found it rather informative. While I would have preferred to interview him myself, his facial gestures (would have liked to see his body language as well) gave more data.
I question whether he used any of his access to check NSA records on certain people… such as Greenwald, to ensure he had no connections to Obama or the US intel services.
After all, Snowden says he has “access” to the secret agent lists and resources as well as NSA meta and concrete data. Might he not have used it to check up on certain things?
And what things would that be.
He’s quite right that the Leftist alliance, or even Islamic Jihad, that if such people were given access to these powers, the internet can become a very powerful tool of tyranny. I’ve already seen the net used in order to benefit MPAA.
It won’t be long before they understand that they can use it for other things as well.
My other questions concern Manning and Greenwald. When exactly did he know of them? And why is Greenwald’s relationship with the US government and Obama specifically. I know he is part of the Left, but is his particular faction just based in Britain and has no connections whatsoever to US factions?
Someone posted this on The Belmont Club:
The Dykes
We have no heart for the fishing — we have no hand for the oar —
All that our fathers taught us of old pleases us no more.
All that our own hearts bid us believe, we doubt where we do not deny —
There is no proof in the bread we eat, nor rest in the toil we ply.
Look you, our foreshore stretches far, through sea-gate, dyke and groin —
Made land all, that our fathers made, where the flats and the fairway join.
They forced the sea a sea-league back. They died, and their work stood fast.
We were born to peace in the lee of the dykes, but the time of our peace is past.
Far off, the full tide clambers and slips, mouthing and testing all,
Nipping the flanks of the water-gates, baying along the wall;
Turning the shingle, returning the shingle, changing the set of the sand . . .
We are too far from the beach, men say, to know how the outworks stand.
So we come down, uneasy, to look; uneasily pacing the beach.
These are the dykes our fathers made: we have never known a breach.
Time and again has the gale blown by and we were not afraid;
Now we come only to look at the dykes — at the dykes our fathers made.
–Rudyard Kipling
Re: Snowdon — John Bachelor (the John Bachelor show on WABC radio from 11:00 pm to 1:00 am), who is a polymath and cosmopolitan Hilton Kramer-esque conservative, was highly alarmed tonight that this guy took refuge in COMMUNIST China.
He pointed out that if Snowden knows even a fraction of what he says, the Chinese Communists (no shrinking violets, they) will capture him and wring every drop of information out of him — if he’s just a colossally naive young man.
Or — he may well be planning to defect to the PRC. In which case, America is in for some rough stuff.
That is a point apart from the Left’s arrogation unto themselves of vast, Big Brother-ish powers. This guy has gone to people who’ve already made that sort of thing their special Dark Art.
I had already gone to bed when Neo put up this post, but I brooded about Mr. Snowden last night and specifically about our discussion here yesterday on the “hero or traitor?” question.
The question I asked myself this morning was this: ” Are we Americans better or worse off knowing about the existence of these secret programs, particularly in light of the other scandals that have come to light?”
For me, the answer is a no-brainer: It’s far better to know; I’m glad I know. How could one not be glad that we now know?
Snowden may be a traitor or, more charitably, a Pandora. But even assuming the worst about him I’ll take him to be no worse than Tolkien’s character Gollum, who after all had an essential part to play: despicable though Gollum was, the Ring would never have gone back into the Fire had it not been for the role he played.
For me, Snowden’s possible treason is irrelevant. What’s relevant is the danger he’s brought to our attention. And what ought to be done about that danger.
What should be done? What can be done?
carl in atlanta:
But we already knew the gist of it anyway, from William Binney, an earlier whistleblower:
It was only in the context of the IRS scandal that the Snowden news drop seem to matter so much to people, because Binney’s revelations (which were so similar) didn’t gain all that much traction.
Snowden also said a bunch of other stuff about the NSA program (in addition to the materials he gave, which are apparently authentic) that may or may not be true (I’m writing a post on that subject now). So his motivation and general veracity are very much an issue—is he truthful, a freelancer, or working in someone else’s interests (and about to come under the control of another country’s interests)?
Of course the program itself is most important. I’ve written that time and again. But Snowden’s agenda (and possible hidden agenda) is also relevant.
That Binney leak is news to me, wow. 20 trillion?
I guess it’s all about the context and you’re right about the IRS scandal providing that context. Still, I’m glad this has come out [again] now, and I’m glad that the significance of (and danger posed by) this is finally penetrating our collective craniums. Regardless of Snowden’s motives.
Neo, I smell a big rat in this whole story. I might be reading too many spy novels. Bear with me. According to Tobin:
“These were legally authorized programs; in the case of Verizon Business’s phone records, Snowden certainly knew this, because he leaked the very court order that approved the continuation of the project. So he wasn’t blowing the whistle on anything illegal; he was exposing something that failed to meet his own standards of propriety. ”
Exactly. He reported something that everyone, including this Tobin agree are LEGAL and above the board. The government isn’t denying they spy and collect data on citizens. In fact they claim it’s more or less public knowledge. Snowden broke some laws regarding conditions of his employment with the government, but there is only speculation about the “other slides”. For all we know, there was nothing interesting on them to report or were unsubstantiated. What he seems to be guilty of is explaining how the information can be used in ways that the general public understands. Not that they care.
So half the liberal media and half the conservative media are defending the use of data collection, everyone insists we already knew and consented, the goverment is insisting they’re doing nothing wrong- in fact, that this is necessary and important, and it’s a perfectly innocent thing to do. And yet the very same people in the goverment and elsewhere are furious he “leaked” something. As Tobin himself says, he didn’t leak anything.
If this is really all about him telling the Guardian what we’re being told is a really good thing, and everyone already knew, the outrage makes no sense to me. It’s another government employee who talked more than he should have.
Further to that, media pundits who call for his head also criticize his story for not offering anything specific. What damage is done to “Prism”? Is it going to stop or be less effective now that people know what we’re already told the Patriot act allowed for? The same people offended and outraged by Snowden’s transgressions are quick to point out all this started a long time ago. In fact, it’s been openly debated by senators and congressmen.(the most recent Widen, D. Or.).
So here we have a case of no wrongdoing by the government, which has wide support by liberals and conservatives, a good part of the public happy about it, and the same people are calling for his head on a platter. I’m not understanding their outrage, other than it’s embarrassing.
Now comes the story of the “rest” of the material he allegedly showed them — which is so damaging to national security. Why the noble Post and Guardian call the damn FBI and have him arrested if it were so serious? Instead they ran the story. If it were true he had a lot of other state secrets, why would they tell us that, just to tell us they couldn’t tell us what it was? And would the government not be shitting themselves that a couple of news organizations HAD seen these dastardly secrets, and made copies?
I don’t believe a word the goverment is saying about it. I’m more inclined to think they want to run the traitor/defector angle because he does have more information about illegal gatheing of US citizens information.
It may sound far-fetched, but the BEST thing for the NSA and US government now is to make the Chinese BELIEVE he’s loaded with information to get rid of him and this story. If the Chinese take him into custody, suddenly the story changes from the government snooping on citizens to the government and US citizens being victimized by a 3 month employee who has put national security at risk by divulging secrets to China. Now everyone will forget about the NSA snooping on us, and the anger and blame are effectively placed on one guy. The NSA is viewed as incompetent for hiring this guy, but in the end, the heat is off them for snooping on us because we all have a much scarier enemy to worry about — China.
Snowden did an incredible favor for America by exposing Obama.
Whatever is bad for Obama is good for America. Obama is more dangerous to us, and will do more damage, than any foreign power or terror group. Obama and the Liberals are more harmful than China, Iran, North Korea, and the entire Middle East combined and put to the nth power.
America can survive anything but liberalism, which is killing it.
Insofar as Snowden harmed Obama we should pin a medal on him and have a parade.
America isn’t even half done, assuming Americans still have the spine to defeat the Left. moderate estimates are that Islam will defeat both after the Left weakens American patriots and vice a versa.