On June 1, NBC‘s Meet the Press unveiled new polling numbers about NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. They weren’t very revealing. What was more instructive was how the show presented its debate over Snowden’s actions.
The main participants in the discussion were right-wing Crossfire host Newt Gingrich and hawkish former Democratic Rep. Jane Harman.
From Gingrich:
What right does any single American have to decide that more than the president, more than the Congress, they’re going to leak our secrets? This is the act of a traitor…. We are in a war with people who want to destroy us. They’re very clear about it. And he ended up aiding and abetting the enemy.
And Harman’s take? She said “labeling this guy a traitor before he’s convicted I don’t think is fair.” But her take wasn’t exactly a huge leap from Gingrich’s. She said that Congress was more active in challenging surveillance policies than Snowden gives them credit for, he “wasn’t a whistleblower” and “he leaked our technology playbook, and that really compromises us.” Harmon also said Snowden “leaked information about so-called spying on Americans”–so called because that’s what it was.
On the topic of what harm Snowden has done to national security, Gregory played a clip from Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel:
David, his disclosures have damaged the security of this country. And I’m not going to get into a point-by-point inventory of the specifics of how he’s done that. I think it’s been very clear, every responsible position in our government who has had any responsibility for security or intelligence from NSA, from Cyber Command, the Defense Department, from the State Department, have said the same thing.
And what were the responses from the Meet the Press panel?
First, from Gingrich: Snowden’s leaks were
an act of such extraordinary arrogance that it threatens the very fabric of our national security. People need to understand, this is a big deal. And that this guy is dangerous.
Harman didn’t sound much different, saying that Snowden
should cut a deal. He should come back. He should serve prison time. And I think that that’s where it should come out. And the lesson to other kids ought to be that: Watch out here, this is very dangerous.
The only hint of dissent on the panel came in a brief comment from Time‘s Rana Foroohar, who pointed out that while she doesn’t trust Snowden–“I would have more of a belief in Edward Snowden if he wasn’t a guest of Vladimir Putin”–that skepticism is spread out equally: “The administration has been evasive and has on occasion lied about its espionage tactics.”
So the main debate about Snowden boils down to one side saying he’s a traitor and the other side saying he should come home and do prison time, perhaps as a lesson to children.
NBC has been labeling a lot of its Snowden coverage “Traitor or Patriot?” In this case, it was more like “Traitor or Criminal.”
I suppose The Brits called Patrick Henry a criminal, too.
And what would you call somene who is fighting the legal Government…. really?
But yes, the whole point is that they have decided he’s guilty, nor if; and thats that, anyone else thinking otherwise must be wrong; IN their Opinion.
Its hard to argue with someone who actully believes thier own lies.
Imagine the nerve of Abraham Lincoln opposing slavery! An institution insured by the Supreme Court! Imagine the audacity of George Washington trending in his British commission to lead a bunch of traitors.
Has anyone of you read the 2nd amendment of the bill of rights that our founding fathers wrote in blood so government would no longer destroy human liberty and dignity?
Both traitor AND criminal
Has anyone of you read the 2nd amendment of the bill of rights that our founding fathers wrote in blood so government would no longer destroy human liberty and dignity?
You do realize that the whole “Bill of Rights” was a compromise addition to the original Constitution, so they could get it signed off? The whole writing of the constitution was often covered in blood, by both sides fighting vigorously to oppose the other side, often just based on personal hatred.
That said, I am rather curious as to what you think the connection is here; I don’t believe Snowden has or had gun, nor did he use one in procuring the information. So how does the “a well regulated militia” come into play with a whistle blower?
“On June 1, NBC’s Meet the Press unveiled new polling numbers about NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. They weren’t very revealing.”
What makes polling numbers “revealing” or the contrary?
But Mr. Hart, while the public needs to see that there is no real debate and no real substance in the scripted media discussions that continue to go on in the echo chamber, you haven’t yourself brought up any deeper questions. For one example, the public could benefit from someone, anyone, asking whether is is possible for a man to be what he says he is and if not (as the cynic would conclude) what that means for a nation that was founded on first principle, i.e., Natural Law, and an open declaration of what we believe and what we seek? Who, sir, is going to bring forward this and other questions that any genuine intellectual would immediately bring to the foreground? JWC
Illustrated: https://twitter.com/PresumptuousBug/status/474539656382799873/photo/1
Jay Warren Clark…uh…forgive me, but that was kinda the point Peter was making(he needs no defense from me however)but for all the debate, not much of real questioning was going on, and mainly debate was about Snowden, as a traitor, or whistleblower, not about what Snowden detailed or had revealed,it’s like this collosal ‘missing of the point’ of his actions.
Thnx,Jay
JayWarrenClark…and are you not guilty of not asking any questions?…I mean you pointed it out, but then pursued nothing much else, so what are some querstions you have?Natural law doesn’t apply to governments, humans make the laws, as they make the rights we all give to each other to abide by through agreement, Physics, chemistry goes by ‘natural’ laws, never via the subject called political science, a misnomer, really, as many use the word science for their own slant, but science is harder than that.The Sun rises in the east, saltwater on the side of a membrane permeable will even out its concentrations. Mix hydrogen,2 parts, with one part oxygen get water, natural occurences irrespective of what a human says or does.
Thnx
Any American citizen who exposes malfeasance on the part of our Government expresses the highest form of Patriotism and is considered a hero. Our Government is engaged in illegal activities, has trampled on our Bill of Rights and our Constitution. They should be impeached or recalled. We have ceased to be a Democracy and are now live under a fascist regime.
“From Gingrich:
What right does any single American have to decide that more than the president, more than the Congress, they’re going to leak our secrets?”
Answer: All rights because the People is the Sovereign, not the president not congress.
Snowden did what any responsible citizen is obliged to do, report a serious crime. He sacrificed his girlfriend, a good job and a comfortable life to do so; the man is a patriot and hero in my estimation. He makes others that knew, or should have known, of this look bad and they won’t forgive him for it.
Whistleblowers are supposed to be protected to ensure that corruption doesn’t run rampant in government, Snowden is far from traitor or criminal. I think there are a number of politicians that should go to prison first, for using the U.S. military as their corporate mafia muscle!
Numjber 1:: NOT really a ‘Debate’ anyhow, & # 2–Universally MORONIC facsimile OF a ‘real’, genuine Debate anyway, & # 3–well it IS David Gregory, MR establishment ‘press’ & all that, t
herefore, HE loses, & has Zero credibility anyway
I guess we cant fault corporate propaganda outlets like “meet the press ” when that’s how “democracy” in the US works now – traitor or criminal. There aren’t any other choices
The traitors are the persons, government officials, corporate officers who have done everything they can to change the meaning of the phrase that originally established our identity: “the shot heard around the world”. Originally this was the call to liberty for Americans, and by extension to peoples across the world. Now it means the snuffing out of liberty for everyone, including Americans, and only excluding the very rich (who are a separate country, as John Fowles said in “The Magus”). The traitors include at least all of the Presidents since Roosevelt, and the politicians who supported them. The United States has killed, either through US forces or through their henchmen in other countries, persons in Guatemala, Nicaragua, Chile, Cuba, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Palestine, East Timor, Vietnam, Cambodia, to name just a few that come to mind. The crimes that the USA has committed include all these:
> Mass surveillance on whole populations, with the intent to chill protest and dissent.
> Indefinite detention and torture of prisoners at Guantanamo and other sites including torturing hunger strikers with force-feeding.
> Wars of aggression, unjust occupations, and the use of drones, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians around the world.
> The mass incarceration of over 2.4 million people in the United States, mainly Black and Latino, a program with a genocidal impact against these groups, including torture, solitary confinement, and unjust executions.
> Making abortion and birth control increasingly illegal and inaccessible, endangering women’s lives.
> Being a large contributor to climate change, sabotoging international efforts to curb greenhouse emissions and taking no real meaningful action to reverse the trajectory.
> Torturing, intimidating and prosecuting whistleblowers while covering up and not prosecuting those responsible for the war crimes and crimes against humanity. (Some persons, me included, think that Edward Snowden should have received the Nobel Prize.)
I am simply quoting the indictment against the USA by the World Can’t Wait. http://www.worldcantwait.net/
Their charges are accurate.
Left out of this list is the almost total lack of compliance with international treaties by the USA. It expects every other country to abide by the treaties it has signed, except itself. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is an obvious and crucial example.
The traitors are Obama and Bush (Senior and Junior), Gingrich and Feinstein. Lieberman and Cruz, Palin and Kerry, McNamara and McConnell. This is a non-partisan deal as far as the 2 major parties are concerned. They are both owned by the financial, industrial, military, corporate interests.
If you are a US patriot, then you are against the USA Government and the persons and organizations that control it. If you are a US patriot, you are definitely opposed to the (Un)-Patriotic Act passed during the George W. Bush years.
Don’t let the persons who are threatening the continued existence of humanity co-opt the meaning of the word “traitor”.
I forgot to mention the the USA has violated EVERY SINGLE treaty it has signed with Native American tribes. (I am part Ojibwe, a very small part alas, so I have read up a bit on this.)
This consistent demonization of Ed Snowden in the media should be called out quickly and consistently by every corner of dissent on the web —– including leftists, liberals, anarchists, libertarians, old-time conservatives, communitarians, etc.
The overly-inflated heads we see talking on TV “news” and talk shows can’t seem to kowtow enough to the politicians and other officials who “remind” us of their superior station in American society, their essentially more valuable nature as powerful Americans doing their more-valuable-than-yours job.
But let’s not forget this (please forgive the all-caps emphasis): THESE PEOPLE WORK FOR US. THEY ARE OUR PUBLIC SERVANTS. The framers of the US Constitution wanted us not to forget that. James Clapper and Barack Obama (and Jane Harman, for that matter) are our employees, not our bosses.
Transparent government — as much as reasonably possible — is another principle emphasized in the Constitution. It’s crucial for us to know what the officials are up to, unless they can demonstrate the worthiness of their claim to secrecy in court with both sides of the argument equally represented. But the whole system is broken down. Intelligence agencies’ requests for warrants to spy on people are rubber-stamped FISA courts and applied not to one or two cases at a time, but to hundreds or thousands.
So what result would you expect to come from this? A reasonably well-operating system in which what should be opaque is opaque and what should be transparent is transparent?
The system has been abused, mangled to favor those who have access to it. It’s *way* past time for us to know that we’re being spied upon. We should have had this conversation about transparency and democracy on the front pages of the papers back when J. Edgar Hoover was the doing the spying.
Ed Snowden’s not only a hero. He’s 50 or 60 years late.
As the years pass one learns to leave the TV habit behind. Once the internet came of age and alternative news sources became available, TV became a great medium to play DVD’s of films one missed, to watch the occasional documentary or sporting event. But news? Intelligent commentary?
When Chomsky, economist Richard Wolff, or even anthropologist-author David Graeber become talking head staples on political pundit shows, I will tune in. In the meantime, as long as the current batch of careerists, corporate media shills and apologists who impersonate pundits (and badly, I might add) saturate our public airwaves to deliver the corporate party-line, I will decline to view them–and certainly never take their assertions seriously.
Be well.
The government has already admitted that the leaks did not damage national security; THE LEAKS DID EMBARASS THE HECK OUT OF SOME CROOKED GOVERNMENT PEOPLE FROM LOW TO HIGH.
No matter how the MSM tries to spin it, Snowden is a patriot and a hero to those of us truly ‘in the know.’