Sibel Edmonds destroys Glenn Greenwald

[JackRiddler]

I have found out in my own lifetime numerous times that what I believed to be true was bullshit.

Oh yeah. Good post.

[redsock]

My avatar may be a puppet, but I am not!

[JackRiddler]

Even your screenname is a sock, man.

[vanlose kid]

Floyd on Silber on Snowden et al.

Change Agents: The Curious Case of the "Responsible" NSA Revelations
Written by Chris Floyd
Monday, 10 March 2014 00:54

Has it only been 10 months since Edward Snowden's NSA revelations changed the world? Can you even remember what the world was like, before he gave 50,000 -- no, 200,000 -- no, wait, 2 million-- secret documents to Glenn Greenwald: smoking guns that exposed Washington's global surveillance state, which far outstripped the wildest, wettest dreams of the Stasi, of Stalin, yea of Orwell himself?

Try to recall those dark days -- now long since banished, thank God! -- when the American imperium thrust its grubby hands and greedy eyes into every single digital pie available, scarfing up emails, URLs, locations, even webcam shots, of anybody and everybody, then storing them all in gargantuan data silos, to sift through and fondle for years on end. Remember that? Remember how this surveillance state, this über-Stasi, was put to the service of a regime that was actually going all over the world and murdering people -- without charges, without due process, without defense, without warning. Just circling the world, blowing up a wedding party here, a couple of teenagers there, a village, a funeral, a farm, an apartment block, day after day, week after week, year after year? Innocent people, "guilty" people; guilty of something or other, that is -- maybe just behaving in a "suspicious manner" in the eyes of unaccountable officials acting arbitrarily in secret, on the basis of screenshots sent by back by robots, and rumors and vendettas gathered, for pay, by secret agents.

Do you remember how this brutal, barbaric, ugly, inhuman regime would then go around the world condemning other nations for not being moral, holy, freedom-loving and strictly adherent to international law? Do you remember the base, sickening hypocrisy of it all? State murderers -- proud state murderers, murderers who would go before legislators and under oath to God Almighty swear how proud they were to be murdering people -- telling other nations how to order their affairs according to the principles of law and justice and human rights?

Isn't it wonderful how much has changed since those days, when we discovered the spine and musculature of the surveillance regime that undergirded this ghastly system of murder and corruption and domination?

What? What do you mean nothing's changed? What do you mean that this barbaric system is still firing on all cylinders? What do you mean that the surveillance state has not been crippled or even slowed for a single instant by all these world-changing revelations? What are you saying? That those who facilitated the exposure of the NSA documents, like Greenwald, are now working for techno-oligarchs who fund rapacious, elite-enriching, regime-changing "philanthropic" enterprises all over the world? Whose companies actually helped strangulate Wikileaks in its greatest hour of need by cutting off its venues of funding?

Are you trying to tell me that even Snowden himself -- who risked so much to bring these crimes to light -- now declares forthrightly "that spying serves a vital purpose and must continue"? That he has taken great pains to declare that his incendiary material should only be "safely disclosed to responsible journalists in coordination with government stakeholders," as Arthur Silber pointedly points out? In coordination with "government stakeholders?" The same "government stakeholders" who are murdering people around the world and sticking their webcams into our underwear? Is that what you're trying to tell me?

What next? Are you going to tell me that even Jeremy Scahill, Greenwald's partner in the oligarch-funded venture, First Look, which is going to transform journalism as we know it for all time to come, has also declared that their transformative operation will dutifully submit its work to government scrutiny -- with the caveat, of course, that they may not follow the government's advice on how 'dangerous' it might be to publish the dutifully submitted material? (Which is, of course, the same way that every other non-transformed journalistic entity in the Western world operates.)

Is that what you're trying to say? That the murder goes on, the surveillance goes on, the crime goes on, and that even our most cutting-edge, transformative, dangerous and subversive journalists and whistleblowers are committed to acting "responsibly" in "coordination with government stakeholders."

Well, if I may once again quote the great Mel Brooks quoting the great Joe Schrank: "I can hardly believe my hearing aid!"

Maybe I need new batteries for this thing. Everywhere I hear unstinting -- and unquestioning -- praise for these developments; but nowhere do I see any genuine effect. I mean, yes, of course, it's good to see "progressive" hero Rachel Maddow expressing umbrage at the revelations that Barack Obama's Stasi-State is now brazenly spying on their own putative Congressional overseers. Maddow even goes so far as to call this "End of the Republic stuff." But is this followed by a call for the impeachment of a president that is "ending the Republic" with a security apparat run amok? Of course not. The main progressive goal, as always, is to express a bit of marginal outrage while devoting one's main energies to ensuring that whatever "centrist" suit of clothes the bought-and-sold Democratic establishment puts up as a candidate is elected. (Next up: Hilary "Annihilate the Iranians" Clinton in 2016.)

But what of these 2 million documents that Snowden has bequeathed to a few chosen journalists who maintain their iron grip on the revelations, doling them out as they alone see fit - after, of course, submitting them to the scrutiny of "government stakeholders"? Let us return to a salient fact that Arthur Silber keeps pointing out: that only 1% to 2% of this vast trove has ever been seen:

Given all the publicly available evidence, when reporting on the Snowden documents is completed, the general public will have seen only 1% to 2% of all the documents involved. I've analyzed in detail how deeply problematic this is. That's putting it mildly, and with excessive politeness. In fact, this highly selective publishing of leaks is insulting, disgusting, and profoundly offensive ...

In short, the methodology adopted by Snowden and the favored journalists is leading straight to complete and utter disaster.

It is also necessary to mention that many of the published documents are offered only with redactions, which are sometimes substantial. Not only that but, as a rule, no explanation is offered as to why particular information has been redacted. Similarly, we are offered only the most general of explanations, if that, for why roughly 98% of the documents will never see the light of day. This presents the general public -- for whose benefit all this heroic work is allegedly undertaken -- with an insurmountable problem of evaluation and understanding.

Well, hold on there a minute, Arthur, you incorrigible skeptic you. What about the latest revelation from The Intercept, the flagship enterprise of First Look? Just last weekend, the Interceptors dug into this vast trove of criminality to inform us that ... the NSA's newsletter has its own Dear Abby column (or "agony aunt," as the Brits would say). Now how about that! The NSA has an internal advice column offering tidbits on personnel issues. Now that's transformative journalism with a vengeance! Just think how many innocent lives now doomed to die from Washington's surveillance state-supported death squads will now be saved because of this revelation!

Back to Silber:

Snowden has always been at pains to assure everyone -- and most particularly, to assure the State -- that he doesn't want to threaten the State in any serious way. And even though his major concern is with mass surveillance, that, too, would be acceptable to him in general terms, provided it is sanctioned by "informed public consent," and even though he himself would choose differently.

But look again at those concluding remarks to the EU. "[T]here are many other undisclosed programs that would impact EU citizens' rights..." Many other undisclosed programs that affect tens of millions of people. Maybe they'll find out about them, maybe they won't. And Snowden himself won't make that decision. "Responsible journalists in coordination with government stakeholders" will decide. We've witnessed this game for nine months; we know how it's played. The "responsible journalists" and "government stakeholders" will allow us to see perhaps 2% of all the documents Snowden gathered up. With redactions, and without explanations of the redactions or explanations, even in general terms, of what we will never be told.

But honestly, it's more than slightly ridiculous to parse these statements further. Snowden's formulation, and the adoption of his methodology by the "responsible journalists" involved, mean only one thing: these are, ultimately, State-sanctioned leaks. This is State-sanctioned whistleblowing. Whatever dangers much wider, and much more rapid, disclosure might have carried have been entirely obliterated. What remains constitutes no threat of any remotely serious kind to the States implicated. Yes, there will be hearings, some "reforms," and life for the States will go almost exactly as before. Your life, on the other hand ... well, who gives a damn about your life.

Of course, we are glad to have any little fragment of truth we can get our hands on in these dystopian times. As T.S. Eliot said: "these fragments I have shored against my ruins." And most assuredly, we are in ruins. But I continue to be amazed at the nugatory effect of the Snowden revelations. I continue to be shocked at the way these revelations are being handled -- kept tightly under the control of a handful of responsible figures who happily submit them to "government stakeholders," while effectively repressing 98 percent of the evidence of criminality and moral turpitude on the part of those same "government stakeholders." So I agree with Silber's conclusion, with which I'll conclude here:

I have one request, in the nature of truth in advertising. I want to see all future stories relying on the Snowden documents accompanied by a stamp in which appear the following words. We are provided similar guarantees in connection with food and drugs, for example, and I see no reason not to adapt the practice to "journalism," given what that term now appears to mean. Each such story should carry this ironclad assurance:

This story contains those facts, and only those facts, that we and the State have determined it is safe for you to know. We will never tell you anything else, and we will most certainly never tell you anything more.

http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/co ... tions.html

Silber in full. Redefinition.

March 07, 2014
Edward Snowden, Tattletale
With regard to the following, I urge you to keep in mind several critical facts.

Given all the publicly available evidence, when reporting on the Snowden documents is completed, the general public will have seen only 1% to 2% of all the documents involved. I've analyzed in detail how deeply problematic this is. That's putting it mildly, and with excessive politeness. In fact, this highly selective publishing of leaks is insulting, disgusting, and profoundly offensive.

That earlier essay also discusses the hugely significant fact that Snowden himself, Greenwald, the Guardian and every other so-called "investigative journalist" taking part in this story have willingly and enthusiastically adopted the State's rationales for disclosure and, more importantly, non-disclosure. I've discussed this problem with regard to Greenwald in particular here.

The meaning and final results of this approach are as follows:

Consider the enormous value of the hugely restricted publication of the Snowden documents to the various States involved. Rusbridger, Greenwald, et al. all trumpet the great triumph represented by the "debate" publication has engendered -- the clamor of public voices demands "reform," so committees will be formed, investigations will be undertaken, and when the dust has settled, life for the States involved will go on almost exactly as before (remember: if the NSA were disbanded today, identical surveillance would continue via other agencies and institutions of power) -- and the States will be able to claim that the public knows the "truth," and their activities now have the full blessing of informed public consent.

In short, the methodology adopted by Snowden and the favored journalists is leading straight to complete and utter disaster.

It is also necessary to mention that many of the published documents are offered only with redactions, which are sometimes substantial. Not only that but, as a rule, no explanation is offered as to why particular information has been redacted. Similarly, we are offered only the most general of explanations, if that, for why roughly 98% of the documents will never see the light of day. This presents the general public -- for whose benefit all this heroic work is allegedly undertaken -- with an insurmountable problem of evaluation and understanding.

I explained the problem of selective information -- and in this case, the information the unwashed public is provided is highly selective -- in one of the first articles I wrote about this story, when the journalists' methods had already become clear: see the concluding section of "Fed Up with All the Bullshit," from June of last year. There is a host of questions we simply will never be able to answer. For example, is what we've been allowed to know the worst of what the NSA is doing? It's entirely possible there are far worse things going on. We don't know. It appears we will never know. (And this is not even to mention the activities of all those other agencies: the CIA, the FBI, etc., etc.) Moreover, because the information we are being provided is curated with such care, we don't even know what questions we ought to be asking.

The general reaction to the Snowden leaks and the journalists covering the story -- which is to laud them as "heroes" and to lavish them with every award under the sun -- seems to proceed from what is a third-grader's understanding of the issues involved. We've been told something that we hadn't known (despite the fact that the general outline of what we've been told had been clear to many of us for some time), and what we've been told is very bad. Therefore: woohoo! This is appalling and incredibly dumb.

Now, via Intercept This (a delightful and witty account which I recommend to you, along with Glenn Greenbacks), we can read Snowden's testimony to the European Parliament. I do not offer the following comments to attack Snowden personally. It seems that Snowden has taken great risks to reveal even what comparatively little has been revealed. (I say "seems" because, with every new development, my doubts grow stronger as to whether anything about this story is what it appears to be. I don't think we know anything close to the full truth about any aspect of it.) My concern is and has always been the methodology involved, and how that methodology plays directly into the interests of the States involved. The approach of Snowden and his favored journalists is an enormous boon to those States in countless ways.

Several of Snowden's remarks are highly objectionable ("I love my country, and I believe that spying serves a vital purpose and must continue"; some other doozies are highlighted by the Twitter accounts linked above), but two statements are hideous. First, we have this:

I will now respond to the submitted questions. Please bear in mind that I will not be disclosing new information about surveillance programs: I will be limiting my testimony to information regarding what responsible media organizations have entered into the public domain.

Once isn't enough, so Snowden repeats and briefly amplifies the same idea at the conclusion of his testimony:

As stated previously, there are many other undisclosed programs that would impact EU citizens' rights, but I will leave the public interest determinations as to which of these may be safely disclosed to responsible journalists in coordination with government stakeholders. I have not disclosed any information to anyone other than those responsible journalists.

I emphasize that none of this represents a new approach by Snowden. He has consistently described his method in the same terms from the beginning.

Two points from that earlier discussion are worth repeating here. Snowden has always been at pains to assure everyone -- and most particularly, to assure the State -- that he doesn't want to threaten the State in any serious way. And even though his major concern is with mass surveillance, that, too, would be acceptable to him in general terms, provided it is sanctioned by "informed public consent," and even though he himself would choose differently.

But look again at those concluding remarks to the EU. "[T]here are many other undisclosed programs that would impact EU citizens' rights..." Many other undisclosed programs that affect tens of millions of people. Maybe they'll find out about them, maybe they won't. And Snowden himself won't make that decision. "Responsible journalists in coordination with government stakeholders" will decide. We've witnessed this game for nine months; we know how it's played. The "responsible journalists" and "government stakeholders" will allow us to see perhaps 2% of all the documents Snowden gathered up. With redactions, and without explanations of the redactions or explanations, even in general terms, of what we will never be told.

But honestly, it's more than slightly ridiculous to parse these statements further. Snowden's formulation, and the adoption of his methodology by the "responsible journalists" involved, mean only one thing: these are, ultimately, State-sanctioned leaks. This is State-sanctioned whistleblowing. Whatever dangers much wider, and much more rapid, disclosure might have carried have been entirely obliterated. What remains constitutes no threat of any remotely serious kind to the States implicated. Yes, there will be hearings, some "reforms," and life for the States will go almost exactly as before. Your life, on the other hand ... well, who gives a damn about your life. (One clarification is required. There are undoubtedly some details that will be published that the States would prefer to keep secret. Ideally, of course, the States would prefer to tell the public nothing at all. But the States must deal with the reality that Snowden took a lot of documents. Given that, the methodology followed by the "responsible journalists," and by Snowden himself, is everything the States could desire. Therefore, given the overall context once Snowden made off with the documents, what has been and will be published is State-sanctioned and State-approved in the sense I've described. And always keep in mind that the "responsible journalists" utilize the same rationales for disclosure and non-disclosure that the States do.)

This is not whistleblowing as it has been understood, when information that a State decidedly does not want disclosed is made public, and which then causes serious disruption to the State at a minimum. A tattletale is "a child who tells a parent, teacher, etc., about something bad or wrong that another child has done : a child who tattles on another child." Other definitions are in accord.

Be sure to appreciate the meaning of the highlighted phrase: a tattletale is someone who reports "something bad or wrong" to an authority. And that is precisely what Snowden has done. He has entrusted the documents to "responsible journalists," who have adopted the rationales and methods of the States themselves. Moreover, these "responsible journalists" work together with "government stakeholders" to determine which documents may be "safely disclosed" on the basis of factors that are explained in only the vaguest and most vacuous of terms. We haven't escaped the oppression and abuses of authority: we have only added to the authorities who decide what we will be allowed to know. Before, we were concerned with oppression by the State. Now we can look forward to oppression by the State and by those "responsible journalists" who have lucked into the story of a lifetime, which they then stripped of almost all meaning and impact.

So let us try to use words with precision. Henceforth: Edward Snowden, tattletale. As for these heroic, trail-blazing, State-coddling "responsible journalists" ... hmm. Patsies. Jerks. Contemptible fools and, hardly incidentally, themselves seekers of wealth and power.

I have one request, in the nature of truth in advertising. I want to see all future stories relying on the Snowden documents accompanied by a stamp in which appear the following words. We are provided similar guarantees in connection with food and drugs, for example, and I see no reason not to adapt the practice to "journalism," given what that term now appears to mean. Each such story should carry this ironclad assurance:

This story contains those facts, and only those facts, that we and the State have determined it is safe for you to know. We will never tell you anything else, and we will most certainly never tell you anything more.

http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.co.uk/ ... etale.html

*

[Grizzly]

http://www.corbettreport.com/interview- ... ndestimes/

James Corbett joins Tom Secker of SpyCulture.com to talk about the privatization of intelligence and the development of the intelligence industrial complex. In this typically wide ranging conversation James began by breaking down the different layers in the existing discussion on this topic. We looked at the history of private intelligence, how 9/11 turned it into a massive industry, Edward Snowden, Anonymous, so called cyberterrorism and much more.

Worth a listen...

[Wombaticus Rex]

Had not even heard of SpyCulture, thank you, Bear Detective.

[Nordic]

http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2014/04 ... the-press/

BFP Exclusive: And an Oligarch Shall Lead Them: Omidyar, Greenwald & First Look Media’s Attack on the Future of the Press
MARK MONDALEK | APRIL 3, 2014 LEAVE A COMMENT
“Now, if you want to take the position that people should not work at organizations funded by oligarchs, or that journalism is inherently corrupted if funded by rich people with bad political views…” – Glenn Greenwald
The long-term mission of the news blog The Intercept, launched in February 2014 by First Look Media—the recently developed news organization created and entirely funded by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar to the tune of $250 million—is “to produce fearless, adversarial journalism across a wide range of issues.” However, the vital basis behind its creation really lies in its short-term mission, which is “to provide a platform to report on the documents previously provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.” That’s because two of the website’s three founding editors—former Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald and documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras—are the only two people that are known to possess the entire cache of what Snowden stole from the National Security Agency’s networks, estimated to be anywhere in the range of 58,000 to 1.7 million documents, and possibly more.The third founding editor, war correspondent and Dirty Wars author Jeremy Scahill, is a fitting example of the types of professionals that First Look Media has actively pursued: independent-minded journalists with a history, be it perceived or real, of conducting adversarial, investigative reportage against the most powerful governmental and corporate bodies. This, all under the direct financial backing of Omidyar, The Intercept’s publisher, whose personal fortune is worth $8.2 billion (according to the most recent Forbes estimate).The DecidersIn a December interview with The Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman (with whom he additionally leaked selected documents to), Snowden said that he wanted to give society “a chance to determine if it should change itself,” and that all he wanted was “for the public to be able to have a say in how they are governed.”Such an opportunity was never actually afforded to the public directly, however. This noble task was instead entrusted to only a select group of journalists. According to Greenwald, Snowden “carefully selected which documents he thought should be disclosed and concealed, then gave them to a newspaper with a team of editors and journalists and repeatedly insisted that journalistic judgments be exercised about which of those documents should be published in the public interest and which should be withheld.”It is his “agreement” with his “source” that has become something of a faux-journalistic maxim for Greenwald to vigilantly cite ad nauseam. As he wrote in January via his personal blog:
Anyone who demands that we “release all documents” – or even release large numbers in bulk – is demanding that we violate our agreement with our source, disregard the framework we created when he gave us the documents, jeopardize his interests in multiple ways, and subject him to far greater legal (and other) dangers. I find that demand to be unconscionable, and we will never, ever violate our agreement with him no matter how many people want us to.
Current calculations made by Cryptome read as follows:
Rate of release over 6 months, 132.8 pages per month, equals 436 months to release 58,000, or 36.3 years. Thus the period of release has decreased in the past month from 42 years.
That means that, judging by the current release rate, it will be another 36 years before the full scope of the NSA’s massive surveillance apparatus is actually revealed to the public.To help provide context to what appears to be a dubious conflation of journalistic ethics and legalities, I sought the opinion of civil rights attorney Stanley L. Cohen, whose penchant for defending activists spans some three decades, ranging anywhere from the IRA to Hamas.“Every time a journalist raises these arguments about—‘Oh, I’ve got agreements’ and ‘I’ve cut deals’—it is a blow against all journalists,” says Cohen, “because ultimately what protects the journalist from government over-reaching is the journalist’s privilege. “The intent behind the journalist’s privilege is not that a journalist is going to exercise discretion to decide what he or she thinks is in the public’s best interest, but is designed to facilitate the free-flow of information from a source to an intermediary who performs the function of keeping the public in the know, the loop; informed. It doesn’t contemplate this kind of unique vetting, self-censorship, and selection process that seems to give such strength to Mr. Greenwald.”As established in Cohen v. Cowles Media Co. (1991), the Supreme Court previously affirmed that a promise to a source does create an enforceable agreement, with the Court ruling that the First Amendment does not bar a promissory estoppel suit against the press. Additionally, the journalist’s privilege asserts that reporters have a right to protect the identity of those to whom confidentiality was promised, including also the unpublished information provided by the source—though such a privilege is still far from being averse to legal challenge.Greenwald, a lawyer-turned-blogger-turned-journalist, operates somewhere in the middle grounds of this legal hodgepodge. “He’s positioned himself very nicely,” Cohen concedes. “Greenwald apparently tries to be all things to all people. The real problem is he’s not only done damage to the journalist’s privilege, he’s also violating legal privilege. He picks and chooses what is all too convenient at various crossroads.“I think there’s also some very serious confusion floating around here, because I heard people talk about—‘Well, he’s a lawyer.’ Well, he may be a lawyer, but Snowden is not his client. Greenwald needs to decide who the fuck he is. If he’s a lawyer, let him start practicing law. If he’s an agent, let him start making movies and get on with his life. If he’s a journalist, he needs to stop deciding what is in the best interest of the public’s right to know.”Cohen recently represented a hacktivist involved in the December 2010 Anonymous-affiliated “denial of service attack” conducted against PayPal, a wholly owned subsidiary of eBay, in response to the company’s decision to block donations to the Wikileaks website. 11 of the 14 defendants—who came to be known as the “PayPal 14”—accepted a plea deal this past December. In reference to Omidyar’s late call for leniency in the case, Cohen noted in a De-Manufacturing Consent interview with Guillermo Jimenez that “the notion that all of a sudden [Omidyar] woke up and became egalitarian because he really had concerns about people he had persecuted for two years is absolute bullshit.”Legitimizing Billionaire Benefactors In late February, Pando ran an article by Mark Ames revealing that Omidyar’s Omidyar Network had co-funded Ukraine revolution groups, investing hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of several years into the same NGOs as the US government—which ultimately helped propel regime change in Ukraine. As Pando’s Paul Carr noted: “Omidyar and First Look have made statement after statement about how they aim to be a thorn in the side of the US government, and yet in several cases Omidyar has co-invested with that same US government to shape foreign policy to suit his own worldview.”Such a collaboration is incredibly significant (as is Carr’s more recent reportage on the high volume of White House visits that have been made by Omidyar and senior Omidyar Network officials since 2009) and further validates the prospect that compartmentalizing discourse and controlling dissent is First Look Media’s true modus operandi.Interestingly enough, Greenwald’s lengthy, scoffing response to the Pando exposé, entitled “On the Meaning of Journalistic Independence,” proved almost more telling than the article itself. Summoning strength through ignorance, he writes:
Despite its being publicly disclosed, I was not previously aware that the Omidyar Network donated to this Ukrainian group. That’s because, prior to creating The Intercept with Laura Poitras and Jeremy Scahill, I did not research Omidyar’s political views or donations. That’s because his political views and donations are of no special interest to me – any more than I cared about the political views of the family that owns and funds Salon (about which I know literally nothing, despite having worked there for almost 6 years), or any more than I cared about the political views of those who control the Guardian Trust.There’s a very simple reason for that: they have no effect whatsoever on my journalism or the journalism of The Intercept. That’s because we are guaranteed full editorial freedom and journalistic independence. The Omidyar Network’s political views or activities – or those of anyone else – have no effect whatsoever on what we report, how we report it, or what we say.
Newsroom pressures between those who produce and those who pay their salaries are obviously nothing new. “The pressure is applied subtly,” explain Robert W. McChesney and John Nichols in their book, The Death and Life of American Journalism. “Successful editors and reporters tend to internalize the necessary values so no pressure is necessary. At other times, the pressures can be explicit. The effect is that the news is altered, unbeknownst to the public, in a manner it would never had been had the newsroom been independent and freestanding.”In an article that he wrote for Salon in August 2009 on General Electric’s editorial influence over NBC and MSNBC, Greenwald even echoes those very sentiments, noting that “corporate employees don’t need to be told what their bosses want. They know without being told.”That same year, Greenwald was a recipient of the Ithaca College’s Park Center for Independent Media’s first annual Izzy Award for special achievement in independent media. In a quote attributed to that event, he states the following:
Media outlets controlled by large corporations and all of their conflicting interests not only have proven largely ineffective at serving as an adversarial check on the government, but worse, have become mindless amplifiers of government claims. Being outside that system is now virtually a prerequisite to genuinely [critical] reporting on the actions and statements of the government./blockquote>In his acceptance speech, further pontification over his valiant views on journalistic independence and the importance of remaining distant from the political power structure: “I think that’s absolutely vital to being a real journalist,” he states. “If anything, the independence of journalism means keeping a distance from, rather than blending into—becoming an appendage of the entities of political power structure, the financial elites, that you intend to cover.”Fast-forward to 2014, and such idealism has evidently faded quickly from Greenwald’s point-of-view.Take this blog excerpt from January, for example:
For me, “activism” is about effects and outcomes. Successful activism means successful outcomes, and that in turn takes resources. It’s very easy to maintain a perception of purity by remaining resource-starved and thus unable to really challenge large institutions in a comprehensive and sustained way. I know there are some people on the left who are so suspicious of anyone who is called “billionaire” that they think you’re fully and instantly guilty by virtue of any association with such a person.That’s fine: there’s no arguing against that view, though I would hope they’d apply it consistently to everyone who takes funding from very rich people or who works with media outlets and organizations funded by rich people – including their friends and other journalists and groups they admire (or even themselves).
Though repetitive in rhetoric, it is relevant to note that this is the exact same line being drawn two months later in his Pando response:
That journalistic outlets fail to hold accountable large governmental and corporate entities is a common complaint. It’s one I share. It’s possible to do great journalism in discrete, isolated cases without much funding and by working alone, but it’s virtually impossible to do sustained, broad-scale investigative journalism aimed at large and powerful entities without such funding. As I’ve learned quite well over the last eight months, you need teams of journalists, and editors, and lawyers, and experts, and travel and technology budgets, and a whole slew of other tools that require serious funding. The same is true for large-scale activism.That funding, by definition, is going to come from people rich enough to provide it. And such people are almost certainly going to have views and activities that you find objectionable. If you want to take the position that this should never be done, that’s fine: just be sure to apply it consistently to the media outlets and groups you really like.
Not only does Greenwald now openly advocate the fusing of journalism with the same corporate-capitalist powers that he once deplored, but he even appears to be making a concerted effort to link activism into the fray as well, thereby successfully commoditizing all forms of dissent into one big pre-packaged, for-profit bundle to the masses. Notice too the Romney-esque “billionaires-are-people” motif being casually floated, along with the notion that those who abhor the influence of billionaire benefactors on both the press and activism on a general scale are really just succumbing to their own naive, unrealistic worldview and will therefore never be able to effect policy or produce change on any significant level. * * * *Thomas Jefferson called the free press “the only security of all,” describing the agitation that it produces as something that must be submitted to, “to keep the waters pure.” No matter how unique or trying are the times, the raw autonomy of such a freedom should never be made available to alteration. Allowing even the smallest of amendments could easily imperil the very fabric of our democracy.With every new step that Greenwald takes to justify his own actions, he consequently leads us that much deeper into the murky, authoritarian waters that our founding fathers feared the most.Acceptance of the endless regurgitation of government secrets slowly served up by the teaspoon doesn’t appear to be the only concession being forced upon a public bedazzled by the spectacle.We are being told, against all reason and better judgment, that Omidyar is somehow the two hundred and fifty million dollar exception to the rules, and that Greenwald and the select few journalists with access to the Snowden-NSA treasure-trove are thusly incorruptible and pure. We are to ignore the blatant corporate-government collusion that plagues this entire affair and accept the defeatist standpoint that those afflicted with the disease of integrity will never be able to bring about any real, lasting change to society without the essential aid of “philanthropic” billionaires along the way.Taking all of this into account, along with the slow crawl of NSA documents being promised to us as our eventual reward for our complete compliance to the corporate state, it is imperative that we ask ourselves: Do the ends really justify the means?
# # # #
Mark Mondalek – BFP contributing author, is a writer and editor based in Detroit.

[Wombaticus Rex]

"Every time a journalist raises these arguments about—‘Oh, I’ve got agreements’ and ‘I’ve cut deals’—it is a blow against all journalists"

...

Yeah, you'll have that in a zero sum game.

It's a beautifully sticky situation, though, and there's no "good guys" in sight in any direction.

The NSFW team that has merged with Pando is doing a great job red-teaming the Pierre-Glenn Axis, though. Mark Ames will keep his teeth sunk into a target for decades, Paul Carr is apparently even more vindictive.

[KeenInsight]

I haven't read all of it yet, but Sibel Edmonds is certainly a good person in my book.

As for the PayPal guy video posted a couple posts up, what particularly became evident is that certain individuals whether in high status companies or regular joe or sally schmoe, there are people that still believe that trading freedom for security is necessary to "prevent another 9/11." It is still deeply rooted in people's consciousness the constant fear that is perpetuated against a populace for so long in the U.S., from constant wars, to assassination of presidents and public figures, and so forth.

In self-reflection of my own views, I always find it interesting how I am usually less swayed to accept information born out of fear. I was a young lad, probably much younger than most posters here - I sat in class, I believe the 9th grade watching 9/11 unfold on Television. I did not know what was happening at the time, but always had a 'feeling' there was more to it. At a very young age, History was always of great interest to me and I always noted how information can be manipulated over time and of course the repeated Ad nauseam ("history is written by the victorious"). I never expressed my alternative thoughts on the matter, because as is the case when you are young, you must "conform" to the "group think" or mass causal, but I only pretended.

While I don't claim to know 100% that 9/11 was far more insidious, just in the way I can't prove who killed MLK, because I'll never know - I'm not willing to bottle up my mind's defense to paint a more colorful picture of authority, when authority and government are corruptible, as history has shown time and time again.

That's what strikes me as my difference to people such as the PayPal guy to willingly accept authority or government versions of events verbatim. After so much information has come out to explain how U.S. intelligence services knew more about what was happening then they let on, and people still believing government lies verbatim just perplexes me. Sibel Edmonds herself, through her courageous whistleblowing damned the U.S. government pathetic version of events - by spilling the beans that intelligence services and even the CIA had never cut off ties to their own creation; Al-Qaeda. They needed bin Laden as much as bin Laden needed them, like two peas in a pod. Bin Laden after all, was a paid CIA man, and wanted by the FBI and yet the FBI found no evidence of Bin Laden being involved with the events of 9/11 - something most people fail to understand.

So... this perpetual notion that the fascist-like increase in police state and government spying is to "prevent another 9/11" is the most idiotic thing I have ever heard in my life.

Apologizes for sort of going off topic, as this is mostly about Greenwald and Snowden. Just thought I'd share my thoughts on why it is NSA figures or other 'leaders' continue to believe the lies that made History.

[Lord Balto]

I usually agree with you Nordic, but here I gotta agree with JackRiddler. A weird barrage of bitterness and ad hominems with a dash of cheap moralism on the side. Jealous much?

Sibel Edmonds is indeed a hero but... she might be jumping the shark here.

Once national security state, always national security state. That has been my policy for a while now. And it tends to explain a lot, including folks like Jim Fetzer, former marine and propagator of more than one far out conspiracy theory clearly meant to discredit the entire movement for truth in government. So, I have to agree with Riddler and yourself. Snowden's in hiding and in fear of his life, and Edmunds is running an apparently profitable blog and begging for money every week, like some public radio station. So who's the real whistle blower? And, of course, you have folks like Webster Tarpley who insist that folks like Snowden are "limited hangouts," by which he apparently means that they haven't had access to all of the spooks' deep dark secrets and blabbed them to the world. Tarpley is just an alternative historian in the Lyndon LaRouche vein--nothing wrong with that per se--not national security by any open documentation, but he seems to be playing the same game tarring and feathering the very folks who release the information.

[Spiro C. Thiery]

I usually agree with you Nordic, but here I gotta agree with JackRiddler. A weird barrage of bitterness and ad hominems with a dash of cheap moralism on the side. Jealous much?

Sibel Edmonds is indeed a hero but... she might be jumping the shark here.

Once national security state, always national security state. That has been my policy for a while now. And it tends to explain a lot, including folks like Jim Fetzer, former marine and propagator of more than one far out conspiracy theory clearly meant to discredit the entire movement for truth in government. So, I have to agree with Riddler and yourself. Snowden's in hiding and in fear of his life, and Edmunds is running an apparently profitable blog and begging for money every week, like some public radio station. So who's the real whistle blower? And, of course, you have folks like Webster Tarpley who insist that folks like Snowden are "limited hangouts," by which he apparently means that they haven't had access to all of the spooks' deep dark secrets and blabbed them to the world. Tarpley is just an alternative historian in the Lyndon LaRouche vein--nothing wrong with that per se--not national security by any open documentation, but he seems to be playing the same game tarring and feathering the very folks who release the information.

In Snowden's own words:
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2332899/edward-snowden-testifies-to-the-european-parliament-about-the-nsa

I love my country, and I believe that spying serves a vital purpose and must continue.

Once national security state, always national security state.

[RocketMan]

I usually agree with you Nordic, but here I gotta agree with JackRiddler. A weird barrage of bitterness and ad hominems with a dash of cheap moralism on the side. Jealous much?

Sibel Edmonds is indeed a hero but... she might be jumping the shark here.

Once national security state, always national security state. That has been my policy for a while now. And it tends to explain a lot, including folks like Jim Fetzer, former marine and propagator of more than one far out conspiracy theory clearly meant to discredit the entire movement for truth in government. So, I have to agree with Riddler and yourself. Snowden's in hiding and in fear of his life, and Edmunds is running an apparently profitable blog and begging for money every week, like some public radio station. So who's the real whistle blower? And, of course, you have folks like Webster Tarpley who insist that folks like Snowden are "limited hangouts," by which he apparently means that they haven't had access to all of the spooks' deep dark secrets and blabbed them to the world. Tarpley is just an alternative historian in the Lyndon LaRouche vein--nothing wrong with that per se--not national security by any open documentation, but he seems to be playing the same game tarring and feathering the very folks who release the information.

In Snowden's own words:
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2332899/edward-snowden-testifies-to-the-european-parliament-about-the-nsa

I love my country, and I believe that spying serves a vital purpose and must continue.

Once national security state, always national security state.

Daniel Ellsberg was a right-wing RAND analyst who claimed patriotism even after his whistleblowing.

In addition to having to discard his entire previous life and live as a fugitive in a foreign, hostile land, does Snowden have to carve FUCK THE US on his forehead with a dull knife to count as a credible whistleblower?

[JackRiddler]

Daniel Ellsberg was a right-wing RAND analyst who claimed patriotism even after his whistleblowing.

In addition to having to discard his entire previous life and live as a fugitive in a foreign, hostile land, does Snowden have to carve FUCK THE US on his forehead with a dull knife to count as a credible whistleblower?

Of course not. There is no rationality here. He shouldn't have existed in the first place.

[Spiro C. Thiery]

I usually agree with you Nordic, but here I gotta agree with JackRiddler. A weird barrage of bitterness and ad hominems with a dash of cheap moralism on the side. Jealous much?

Sibel Edmonds is indeed a hero but... she might be jumping the shark here.

Once national security state, always national security state. That has been my policy for a while now. And it tends to explain a lot, including folks like Jim Fetzer, former marine and propagator of more than one far out conspiracy theory clearly meant to discredit the entire movement for truth in government. So, I have to agree with Riddler and yourself. Snowden's in hiding and in fear of his life, and Edmunds is running an apparently profitable blog and begging for money every week, like some public radio station. So who's the real whistle blower? And, of course, you have folks like Webster Tarpley who insist that folks like Snowden are "limited hangouts," by which he apparently means that they haven't had access to all of the spooks' deep dark secrets and blabbed them to the world. Tarpley is just an alternative historian in the Lyndon LaRouche vein--nothing wrong with that per se--not national security by any open documentation, but he seems to be playing the same game tarring and feathering the very folks who release the information.

In Snowden's own words:
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2332899/edward-snowden-testifies-to-the-european-parliament-about-the-nsa

I love my country, and I believe that spying serves a vital purpose and must continue.

Once national security state, always national security state.

Daniel Ellsberg was a right-wing RAND analyst who claimed patriotism even after his whistleblowing.

In addition to having to discard his entire previous life and live as a fugitive in a foreign, hostile land, does Snowden have to carve FUCK THE US on his forehead with a dull knife to count as a credible whistleblower?

I included the patriotic boilerplate part of the quote for context, but couldn't care less about that either way. It's the spying part of the quote from the former spy that is revealing (more revealing than his revelations). Either he's whistleblowing or he's not. What model is this in-some-circumstances-spying advocation suppose to take? He's playing both sides of a fence that shouldn't be there if you care anything about being unmolested by the national security state.

[Nordic]

I believe Sibel's issue here is with Greenwald, not Snowden.