I spy with my little eye…
The above link is to an interview Edward Snowden gave to NBC’s Brian Williams, but I’ve only read excerpts from it because the link to the original interview isn’t working right now. My use of the word “traitor” is based on previous conclusions of mine, rather than new revelations in the interview. But the reference to the word “spy” in the title of the post is due to the fact that in his Williams interview Snowden claims he was “trained as a spy,” not just a low-level computer operative.
His use of the word “spy” seems odd to me, mostly a self-aggrandizing attempt to make himself out to have been far more exceptional and ungeeky than he was:
“I was trained as a spy in sort of the traditional sense of the word in that I lived and worked undercover overseas – pretending to work in a job that I’m not – and even being assigned a name that was not mine.”
Describing himself as a “technical expert,” Snowden said: “I don’t work with people. I don’t recruit agents. What I do is I put systems to work for the United States. And I’ve done that at all levels from – from the bottom on the ground all the way to the top.”
Sorry, Ed, but that’s not the traditional sense of the word “spy,” although I can’t say the semantics matter all that much. Spies usually do either “work with people” and/or steal the secrets of other nations. But no matter; spy, schmy, it’s Edward Snowden the great and powerful, whose only spying was on the United States.
And nothing is his fault, either, including the fact that he’s living in Russia:
“I had a flight booked to Cuba and onwards to Latin America and I was stopped because the United States government decided to revoke my passport and trap me in the Moscow Airport,” Mr. Snowden said in the portion of the interview released Tuesday night. “So when people ask ”˜Why are you in Russia?’ I say, ”˜Please ask the State Department.’”
Why, if it weren’t for that mean old State Department, Snowden would be in grand old Venezuela, living it up.
Savant idiot, he is.
As if Cuba and Russia were going to bother over the status of his passport!
What must have been brought to his attention is that America may very well divert his flight — to get him.
Or…
That even Cuba might be loaded with Americans. (Canadian passport holders, no doubt)
His re-working of the English language is symptomatic of a savant idiot… a combination of arrogance and solipsism.
He’s a long way from Hawaii, now.
I watched some of his interview with Brian Williams. What a smarmy, creepy guy Snowden is.
And there seems to be some sort of harmonic convergence going on around the publication of Greenwald’s book — the Snowden interview, Greenwald saying that the names of those spied on by NSA will be revealed shortly. Why is NBC helping in the effort?
That systemic corruption throughout the nation in both the private and public hemispheres should give rise to the likes of Snowden is hardly gasp-worthy. The world governed by ‘the private is political’ is likely to be lived by the same dynamic. Under such agency, the circumstances and actions of Snowden both indict and absolve him. It’s quite likely that no nation can exist as a nation in such an atmosphere. It’s quite likely that that had been the plan from the beginning; no-one may know what is moral or immoral, right or wrong, treason or patriotism, until the Party informs them. Ah well, I’d still awaiting the last word on how I am expected to consider this matter.
Traitor and delusional?
Not a hero.
Venezuela… Land of no toilet paper. Maybe it’d be nice to send him there…
So what happened to settling the “knave or fool” debate here?
A foolish knave .
His use of the word “spy” seems odd to me
should as his terminology is wrong (but not if its Hollywood)
Spies usually do either “work with people” and/or steal the secrets of other nations.
here is where your wrong… the game is anything goes, and for that, anything is what is done or accessed if needed. so a ‘spy’ in the sense of operatives can literally be anything needed from accountants to social engineers that turn people, or electronics experts, physicists, company presidents, etc.
why? cause those people sometimes have natural access to whatever is needed.
I have said that most people lack any knowlege of this part of history as if it doesnt exist. they may know here and there and titilating stuff, like the name Mata Hari, but ask them what else, and they cant tell you much at all.
how about Josephine Baker?
The Nazi’s let her through, barely checking her. she passed information on written in invisible ink in her sheet music.
Noor Khan? Hotel Owner Belle Boyd? reporter Nancy Wake?
i have even pointed out this lack to you, and how the facts from there change the facts elsewhere we believe are true or argue about.
for the most part, without Snowdens, we would forget this goes on and makes huge differences around us (sometimes).
I will say that we have no idea that what we are seeing is what we are seeing. i just crack up in the idea that we accept what we think we know face value and work from there with nary a pause to think much about it or about the thing we are watching.
My use of the word “traitor” is based on previous conclusions of mine, rather than new revelations in the interview.
maybe he is, maybe he isn’t…
He is a copy of Vasili Mitrokhin.
there is no way for us to trust what we have been told that we may base our answers on, as we are looking into a hall of mirrors.
we are assuming what cant be assumed (well, i am not), and so, believe our conclusions valid. i could go back to neo and point out what she is accepting as valid that may not be given the area that this is about.
the information Glenn Greenwald published in the Guardian represented only a tiny fraction of the information Snowden actually stole.
really? did you see it? was Greenwald tapped? is the information that is seen real? is it constructed to be real? is it a mix of real, fake, what we know they already have, and so on?
before you say, it cant be done, etc… i would point you to the life of Richard Sorge… a journalist… sort of..
the whole thing in that area plays with the things you trust and believe are ok to trust. things like paper proof, or records, or testimony, etc. the point is that if you rely on that as a signpost, they will fake it to turn you around.
Why, if it weren’t for that mean old State Department, Snowden would be in grand old Venezuela, living it up.
read it again… and then ask, what if they wanted him in Moscow? if so, they could not buy him a ticket to there and show up… people do just show up… how do you make him real if he isnt real?
its tradecraft…
right now, the thing is hot, and you and i will never know what is going on other than something is going on… the reality of it wont be revealed until the reality of it has no bearing on current reality… ie. most of the people dead, etc.
there are a hell of a lot of stars on the wall, and those are just the dead ones. there is in those halls history books that are more real than any history books we will ever see, with things in them that would change what we think we know about things we are confident in.
and that is just how it is, and nuttin gonna change that…