The Guardian and its team of Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, Spencer Ackerman, and Ewen MacAskill, have become the go-to source for news on the government’s massive surveillance program.
I am pretty certain that Edward Snowden chose Greenwald as the conduit for his whistleblowing because of the latter’s consistent and principled stand for government transparency, rare in a media landscape where people worry about loyalty to ‘their’ team and anxiously want to ingratiate themselves with one party or another or are afraid of antagonizing their sources in the government and military establishment.
Here he is on a recent TV talk show, explaining clearly what is going on and why the revelations are so important, in the process dismantling the talking points put out by the government and taking apart its sycophants like Richard Haas of the Council of Foreign Relations, the ultimate establishment power-worshipper, for whom scare-mongering about the next terrorist attack justifies anything that the government does.
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We need to support people like Greenwald who have been consistent, articulate supporters of transparency and the rule of law,
In the light of recent developments, I am repeating my request to readers to support Greenwald’s work by contributing here.
He is just fucking awesome
I am just as upset about this as anyone, but I haven’t yet understood what is new about this revelation.
http://yahoo.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm
And the EFF seems to have known this stuff, but has lost in court the ability to protest it -- on at least one occasion because the evidence of the illegal activity was classified or that the companies had no liability due to FISA.
https://www.eff.org/nsa/hepting
So just what is new about this new revelation?
Does the interview go into that?
As Ben Franklin said…
This is something that those arguing for the surveillance state always forget.
I disagree with Greenwald about a great many things, but you are absolutely right in calling him a “consistent, articulate supporter of transparency and the rule of law”. And yeah, do we ever need those right now…
It’s not new that they’re doing it -- it’s new that the program was not stopped when Bush&Co said it was, and has in fact been expanded.