Skip to main content

Snowed Under

By


If there was any doubt that mainstream news programming hadn't become a reality show, the coverage of Edward Snowden's mad flight should do away with those doubts once and for all.  John Oliver had a field day with the coverage on The Daily Show, and it still continues with so-called news hounds sniffing around the Moscow airport for his whereabouts, when apparently he has been seeking asylum in Russia.

Putin appears to have given him the green light with the interesting caveat that he "stops inflicting harm on our American partners."  He probably meant embarrassment, because that is all it has been thus far.  Still, the "29-year-old hacker" (as Obama referred to him) couldn't resist yet another dig, lashing out at the administration for revoking his passport, essentially making him a "stateless" person.  Shades of Tom Hanks' Terminal here.  One can only assume that Snowden has very little to offer, if Russia is treating him so blithely, but maybe this is Mr. Putin's way of concealing some valuable information he might have received from America's latest "whistleblower."

Snowden did cause a fair amount of harm recently by releasing information to Der Spiegel that implied that the United States had bugged EU offices in New York and Washington, DC, but London's The Guardian remains his prime source, which has been extolling the virtues of Snowden ever since he took flight.  Apparently this latest Snowleak went through The Guardian and Washington Post, thereby verifying it in the minds of the editorial staff at Der Spiegel.

This did put the Obama administration on the defensive, forcing it to offer some kind of explanation, which Obama did, essentially saying it is all about getting additional information on our allies.  I'm sure the EU won't be satisfied with this answer, having already voiced indignation over these allegations of spying, saying it is a return to the Cold War, feeling that it is being treated as an enemy.  I can almost see the smile on Putin's face.

One can certainly read into this mad flight what one wants, and every news pundit has been doing exactly that.  Why they haven't had this much fun since Julian Assange managed to evade Swedish and American authorities last year and gain asylum in Ecuador, where he continues his ongoing quest to rat out international intelligence agencies!

Comments

  1. avrdsJuly 3, 2013 at 1:52 AM

    I support both of them, although the widespread dumping of diplomatic cables by Assange as opposed to all the war horrors was perhaps counter productive. But he wasn't in a position to operate as an editor which was too bad.

    Governments do what governments do -- spy and pursue those who try to tell about it. In fact that was, as I understand it, Obama's defense: well, they all do it too.

    But I think in our case an open discussion of how much as a people we are willing to put up with on the domestic spying front is long overdue. It may be "legal" given that so-called "patriot" act (or maybe not) but it should be a little more transparent.

    Personally I hope Snowden finds a home in Iceland. But I fear they may be too afraid of the US, as are most countries apparently.

    ReplyDelete
  2. James FergusonJuly 3, 2013 at 9:49 AM

    Snowden just strikes me as someone who wants to peddle information to the highest bidder. Don't like Assange either. However, I do agree that there needs to be an open discussion on the level of "surveillance" going on, as much of it seems to be counter-productive.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. avrdsJuly 3, 2013 at 11:47 PM

      But what if no funds have changed hands as appears to be the case? He could make a fortune selling this information but he apparently isn't interested in that.

      Should someone who sees that Americans are being routinely spied upon without their knowledge and without any oversight simply do their job and say nothing? What if Ellsberg had done that?

      You can argue with the way he did it and even his motives I suppose, but I would be surprised if you think Americans don't have the right to know about this (although as I said, this crying foul by Congress as if they hadn't a clue seems a little off to me).

      I give Wyden and Udall huge amount of credit for trying to alert the public but being silenced, and wish Snowden safe passage wherever he is now and ends up eventually.

      Delete
  3. James FergusonJuly 3, 2013 at 10:06 AM

    Needless to say, this case is garnering way too much attention,

    http://news.yahoo.com/bolivian-presidents-plane-diverted-over-snowden-suspicion-012100277.html

    ReplyDelete
  4. James FergusonJuly 4, 2013 at 10:41 AM

    You'd have to be a pretty closeted American not to know the US has been spying on you, even before the Patriot Act. The FBI has long been doing it. I would be more worried about how Google, Facebook and other online services use your information.

    I agree that Obama should address the issue more fully to alleviate tensions that are arising, especially with the EU. But, Snowden is no hero. He's a huckster, hoping to either cash in on the information (why else fly to China and Russia?) or simply enjoys putting world leaders on the spot, like Assange seems to relish, making himself feel like a "big guy."

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

By
  Welcome to this month's reading group selection.  David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908.  At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades.  Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society.  I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran.  Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, not...
230 comments
Read more

Team of Rivals Reading Group

By
''Team of Rivals" is also an America ''coming-of-age" saga. Lincoln, Seward, Chase et al. are sketched as being part of a ''restless generation," born when Founding Fathers occupied the White House and the Louisiana Purchase netted nearly 530 million new acres to be explored. The Western Expansion motto of this burgeoning generation, in fact, was cleverly captured in two lines of Stephen Vincent Benet's verse: ''The stream uncrossed, the promise still untried / The metal sleeping in the mountainside." None of the protagonists in ''Team of Rivals" hailed from the Deep South or Great Plains. _______________________________ From a review by Douglas Brinkley, 2005
293 comments
Read more

The Age of Roosevelt: The Crisis of the Old Order

By
A quarter of a century, however, is time enough to dispel some of the myths that have accumulated around the crisis of the early Thirties and the emergence of the New Deal. There is, for example, the myth that world conditions rather than domestic errors and extravagances were entirely responsible for the depression. There is the myth that the depression was already over, as a consequence of the ministrations of the Hoover Administration, and that it was the loss of confidence resulting from the election of Roosevelt that gave it new life. There is the myth that the roots of what was good in the New Deal were in the Hoover Administration - that Hoover had actually inaugurated the era of government responsibility for the health of the economy and the society. There is the contrasting myth (for myths do not require inner consistency) that the New Deal was alien in origins and in philosophy; that - as Mr. Hoover put it - its philosophy was "the same philosophy of government which...
170 comments
Read more