Why the Guardian?

One of the interesting questions is how it came to be that the Guardian has become such a major player in international media. It is, after all, at its core a relatively small British newspaper with a daily print circulation of around 160,000. And yet it has broken major story after major story, sidelining ostensibly bigger players like the Washington Post and the New York Times. It was the leader in publishing the WikiLeaks documents, it uncovered Rupert Murdoch’s illegal phone tapping, and now it has been the clear leader in revealing Edward Snowden’s documents. [Read more…]

How the unthinkable became the thinkable

Sometimes I say things that seem obvious and uncontroversial to me and am then surprised by the strong opposition they arouse. One such statement was in yesterday’s post where I strongly defended Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning and added that president Obama “has not (as least as yet) tried to kidnap Snowden or kill him with a Navy Seal operation or a drone strike but you can bet that it is among the possibilities that are being considered.” This aroused some strong reactions both in the comments and privately and I thought I would try and understand why this might be so. [Read more…]

A break for Snowden?

Both Venezuela and Nicaragua have made offers of asylum to Edward Snowden.

[Venezuelan president Nicolas] Maduro said Venezuela was ready to offer him sanctuary, and that the details Snowden had revealed of a US spy program had exposed the nefarious schemes of the US “empire”.

“He has told the truth, in the spirit of rebellion, about the US spying on the whole world,” Maduro said.

[Read more…]

Oversight-USA style

Supporters of the Obama administration and the national security state make three arguments in support of its widespread snooping. One is that what the NSA and other government agencies have been doing legal, something that Jennifer Stisa Granick and Christopher Jon Sprigman vigorously dispute. Another is that there is judicial oversight from the federal judges of the FISA court, which has been revealed as pretty much a rubber stamp rather than a watchdog. [Read more…]

Countries closing ranks against Snowden

We tend to view international politics in terms of horizontal divisions with nation states competing with each other at various levels that can on occasion lead to conflicts. Sometimes this split can be taken advantage of by playing one country against the other. But in the case of Edward Snowden we see even countries that are not particularly friendly to the US closing ranks and being reluctant to give him asylum. Even South American countries who are furious at what the US and Western European countries did to the Bolivian president’s plane still have not accepted him. [Read more…]

On suicide

Suicide is a disturbing topic that most of us would rather avoid thinking about. Recently I spoke with an old friend of mine. He was shaken up because just the previous day a work colleague and friend, a middle-aged man, had committed suicide. He said he was a cheerful, fun-loving person, hence his death came as a great shock. [Read more…]