The Commentariat -- June 23, 2013
New York Times Editors: "The 2014 spending bills now emerging from the House Appropriations Committee are worse than in any previous year and would make some programs and departments unrecognizable.... The White House, urging compromise, has threatened to veto any Republican spending bill outside of a negotiated budget agreement that increases vital investments. The House, apparently, would rather drag the country through yet another budget showdown."
Oh, Excellent. Keith Bradsher & Ellen Berry of the New York Times: "The Hong Kong government announced on Sunday afternoon that it had allowed the departure from its territory of Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who has acknowledged disclosing classified documents about United States government surveillance of Internet and telephone communications around the world. The government statement said that Hong Kong had informed the United States of Mr. Snowden's departure. A Moscow-based reservations agent at Aeroflot, Russia's national airline, said that Mr. Snowden was aboard flight SU213 to Moscow, traveling on a one-way ticket to Moscow. The Aeroflot flight landed in Moscow on Sunday afternoon.... Russia's Interfax news service, citing a 'person familiar with the situation,' reported that Mr. Snowden would remain in transit at an airport in Moscow for 'several hours' pending an onward flight to Cuba, and would therefore not formally cross the Russian border or be subject to detention. Someone close to Mr. Snowden later told Interfax that he planned to continue on to Caracas, Venezuela." ...
... The Guardian story, by Tania Branigan & Miriam Elder, is here. ...
... The New York Times' The Lede is liveblogging The Travels of Snowden. ...
... Mark Felsenthal of Reuters: "The United States has been told by Hong Kong that former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden has left Hong Kong for 'a third country' and will seek cooperation with countries Snowden may try to go to, a Justice Department official said on Sunday." ...
... Thomas Ferraro of Reuters: "Democratic U.S. Senator Charles Schumer charged on Sunday that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely knew and approved of fugitive Edward Snowden's flight from Hong Kong to Russia and that it will likely hurt U.S.-Russian relations." ...
... Toby Helm, et al., of the Guardian: "Edward Snowden ... has opened a new front against the US authorities, claiming they hacked into Chinese mobile phone companies to access millions of private text messages." CW: more info we don't need to know. ...
... Phil Stewart of Reuters: "Edward Snowden was in a 'safe place' in Hong Kong, a newspaper reported on Saturday, as the United States prepared to seek the extradition of the former U.S. National Security Agency contractor after filing espionage charges against him. The South China Morning Post said Snowden ... was not in police protection in Hong Kong, as had been reported elsewhere." ...
... OR, as Henry Blodgett of Business Insider puts it in a headline, "Snowden is just hanging out in Hong Kong, giving more U.S. intelligence secrets to the Chinese." Blodgett writes, "When he first revealed himself..., Snowden cast himself as an American patriot.... In the weeks since..., Snowden's moves have suggested that his actions aren't motivated by loyalty to his country, but, instead, by a personal view of how the world should work. By explaining to the Chinese how the U.S. is hacking their computers, and revealing that the U.S. spied on world leaders at a G20 summit, Snowden is making clear that he is basically against spying of any kind. By giving U.S. secrets to the Chinese, Snowden is also, presumably, looking out for himself." ...
... Michael Kelley of Business Insider: Russ Tice, an NSA agent from 2002 to 2005, "appeared on the Boiling Frogs Show [this past week] and ... claimed that he held NSA wiretap orders targeting numerous members of the U.S. government, including one for a young ... Barack Obama.... Tice added that he also saw orders to spy on Hillary Clinton, Senators John McCain and Diane Feinstein, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, Gen. David Petraeus, and a current Supreme Court Justice." Tice is best known as the source "for this [2005] Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times article exposing NSA domestic spying." Thanks to Jeanne B. ...
... Ralph Nader: "Given the value and importance of privacy to American ideals, it is disturbing how the terms 'privatization' and 'private sector' are deceptively used.... 'Privatization' is a soft term. Let us call the practice what it really is -- corporatization. There's big money to be made in moving government-owned functions and assets into corporate hands." Thanks to contributor Whyte O. for the link. ...
... Max Frankel, the former editor of the New York Times, has a very good op-ed on what we should be asking about the NSA operation. We should be getting answers, too; not vague reassurances.
Roger Lowenstein in a New York Times op-ed: the Federal Reserve Board ain't what it used to be -- nor what it was intended to be a hundred years ago.
Margaret Sullivan, the New York Times' public editor: "An obituary of the journalist Michael Hastings missed an opportunity to convey to Times readers what a distinctive figure he was in American journalism. The obituary ... has drawn criticism -- most notably in a strongly worded e-mail from Mr. Hastings' widow, Elise Jordan, to the executive editor, Jill Abramson, and others at The Times, including the public editor's office...."
Local News
Rosalind Helderman & Jerry Markon of the Washington Post: "Federal authorities are asking Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell's associates about previously undisclosed gifts given by a campaign donor to McDonnell's wife that total tens of thousands of dollars and include money and expensive designer clothing, according to people familiar with the inquiry. The questions are part of broad federal and state investigations into gifts to the governor and his family and whether McDonnell (R) took official action on behalf of anyone who gave gifts, people with knowledge of the investigation have said."
News Ledes
New York Times: "Nelson Mandela is in a 'critical' condition, the South African president's office said on Sunday evening, just over two weeks after the former president was hospitalized with a lung infection."
New York Times: "Secretary of State John Kerry urged India on Sunday to begin to address climate change by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases even as it attempts to bring electricity to tens of millions of its citizens now living without it."
The Denver Post has several stories on fires engulfing parts of the state. Here's one: "Tiny towns in southwest Colorado that are normally flush with tourists this time of year were practically ghost towns, fully or partially evacuated Sunday by a trio of fires called the West Fork complex."
Denver Post: "The Colorado Civil Rights Division has ruled in favor of Coy Mathis, a transgender 6-year-old boy who was was barred from using the girls' bathroom at Eagleside Elementary School in Fountain." The New York Times has more background here.
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Reader Comments (15)
Re: Margaret Sullivan. So the Times got caught hacking for the military, at least twice in this case. (Judith Miller, anyone?) Sullivan's job is to defend the indefensible. I don't envy her.
During the week, as I watched the Wall Street crybabies have a hizzy fit as markets did another of their manipulated plunges (yeah, manipulated is apt) that frightened so-called investors. Unh huh, which investors? Was it investors (A.) "the Mom and Pops" with mutual funds or investors (B.) the big money guys churning, churning once again in hopes of panicking the mom and pops to OMG, we'd better sell before we lose all our retirement. Then a few days later Mr. Moneybags will swoop in to repurchase same stocks at lower prices. Moneybags wasn't askerred atall!
There's an online NYTimes article today that takes on the ploy: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/22/business/economy/a-fit-of-pique-on-wall-street.html?hpw
Yep. just playing the game.
Reading Roger Lowenstein on the Federal Reserve to which CW linked, was this sentence 'Facing Congress on June 23, Wilson touched a popular chord when he said banks should be “the instruments, not the masters, of business.” ' That sums it up nicely. In the past, tales of Wilson seemed to suggest a wishy-washy, not so highly regarded President, but I keep finding my views of Wilson changing to that of admiration. The Federal Reserve may not be a perfect entity, but, where would we be without it?
Bernanke may not be everyone's hero, but thankfully he's not Greenspan.
Marie,
What's with the hate towards Snowden? He revealed US spying on Chinese? Believe me, they already knew. And remember a couple of months ago there was talk of "cyber war"? Well seems now the high horse is no longer there. So the end result is Snowden revealed something that might stop a confrontation with China. Something we did not need to know? Come on, we needed to know this, Marie!
I've already expressed my disappointment with the comments expressed here about the Edward Snowden story, which seem to support the view of him as a "traitor" or a "wuss." The comments based on the initial reports and a hostility toward G. Greenwald. Here is Max Frankel's take on Snowden and his importance in providing the public with information that the public ought to know.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/opinion/sunday/where-did-our-inalienable-rights-go.html?ref=opinion
I've already expressed my disappointment with the comments expressed here about the Edward Snowden story, which seem to support the view of him as a "traitor" or a "wuss." The comments based on the initial reports and a hostility toward G. Greenwald. Here is Max Frankel's take on Snowden and his importance in providing the public with information that the public ought to know.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/opinion/sunday/where-did-our-inalienable-rights-go.html?ref=opinion
I've already expressed my disappointment with the comments expressed here about the Edward Snowden story, which seem to support the view of him as a "traitor" or a "wuss." The comments based on the initial reports and a hostility toward G. Greenwald. Here is Max Frankel's take on Snowden and his importance in providing the public with information that the public ought to know.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/opinion/sunday/where-did-our-inalienable-rights-go.html?ref=opinion
Marie--
Please answer Gleb's question.
Marie--
Please answer Gleb's question.
As per my own interpretation, I don't think Snowden's outing of the NSA's American spying program was out line. In this sense, we should know to what extent the government is prying into our private lives, even for ostensible reasons such as "Terrorism" which is a wholly insufficient barometer as it lacks a specific definition and can therefore be called upon to fit any agenda. Even more worrisome when, as Nader calls it, we're witnessing the increasing corporatization of surveillance, leaving mega databanks in the control of private entities.
I do however agree wholeheartedly with Marie when it comes to buddying up with the "enemy." True we're not at war with China per se but in the Realist school of thought which dominates International Relations, anybody who is not an ally is an enemy. Even our allies get spied on, it's part of the game.
Gleb mentions the existence of the Sino-American "Cyber War." Damn straight there's a cyber war, and as we've been able to track, the Chinese have been vacuuming up (or trying their damnedest) American state secrets and corporate patents like an all-you-can-eat buffet. And surely it's not just China. Decades on research and development spent to give us some type of comparative advantage in the fierce world market, and one day they're copied. Two years later a Chinese company comes out with the exact same product that took us 10 years to perfect, at half the price.
Gleb then mentions, IMHO, quite naïvely, "So the end result is Snowden revealed something that might stop a confrontation with China." So the question is to you, Gleb: How can Greenwald giving up the NSA blueprint on hacking Chinese infrastructure "stop" the confrontation? Perhaps the Chinese will see we're coming after them hard too so they'll call up Obama and say 'truce?' Or perhaps they'll restructure to avoid our current set up and then continue unabated as we try to figure out what they're doing differently?
The reality is that we're all countries seeking our own national interests. And we'll all go to great lengths to weaken the others to strengthen ourselves. Or at the very least protect the status quo. So for Snowden, who claims to be an ideologue wishing for a world of no spying into private lives, to go China and spill our beans, the irony is palpable.
Until the day comes when every country declassifies all their secrets and we live in an information utopia, we need to be careful about who we're telling what. And now news reports (yet to be confirmed as of now) are saying Snowden hopped on a plane to....Moscow.
You remember that thing called the 'Cold War'? We'll I hear the Russians are pretty bitter about it, and any information Snowden has for them would be much appreciative. But how in any way is Snowden telling the Russians or Chinese how we're tracking them beneficial to US citizens? I would say very much otherwise.
How do you know that Snowden is telling the Chinese anything they don't already know? With 10's of thousands of hackers, operating with government approval , I doubt if there is much they don't know about us and our systems.
In the game of espionage, disinformation is a tool also employed. To get one's undies in a bundle over imagined information delivery to "enemies" seems premature.
It seems odd to me to go to countries that make no bones about spying on their citizens.
I agree that the information he purportedly forked over was probably not a huge revelation. But that's not really the point. He claimed to want to show Americans what's happening with THEIR privacy. So why even go the Chinese, a country notorious for their own domestic surveillance? He did go straight there on his own accord. This undoubtedly changes the relationship between China and USA. Whether he's jeopardizing national interests or just repeating old memes, he's given the Chinese a new card in their hand. For what?
Good points, but what I said about the conflict with China referred to the list of demagogues at congressional hearings calling Chinese hacking into US networks an act of war. After Snowden, the American public no longer believes we are an innocent victim, thus making escalation over this matter less likely.
Can China, or Russia use Snowden as a prop? Probably. Does this change the fact that NSA collects everything about everyone around the globe with 100,000s "security analysts" looking at this information without any oversight? Not really.
Re: Who the hell was Wonder Boy?; Soooo; Caught up the the old "government is spying on us" game? Turned off the cellie and dropped the Internet feed? Have you taken the gold crowns out of your mouth yet? They do transmit data, but you know that; everybody does.
I don't like the government collecting data on me but hell, I don't like my girlfriend asking if I bought new biking cleats. (Yes, and yes they were expensive and I am a vain old man that still thinks he rides like Greg Lemond but it's not like a three hundred dollar pair of redundant Italian pumps, is it?)
Unless your name is Robinson Crusoe and you haven't run across the last day of the working week you don't have any secrets that the government doesn't have privy to, if they so desire.
That's the fact, Jack.
OK, on to the little white rat Snowden. What? You think he applied for those jobs because he thought he was collecting valuable data concerning overdue gym membership dues?
I believe he grew up playing fantasy games and he was thinking the same when he went to work as a data spy. He liked the money and he liked the power; he was Wonder Boy. But he then found out he was just like any other data spy with a pen pocket protector, not so fucking special. He knows he's special and went out to prove it; we are seeing the results.
I believe he has nothing really new to offer any other country and we see him back in the states on trial for stupidity before too long.
If he really had some good skinny he would have never made it to the airport.
So Trust your Government; and believe it when they say they are listening to you; they are.
The story line today from NPR is: "Now we know that Snowden is on the run" Obviously, America has a lot of enemies; or if that is too sharp a word for some multiple commentators on this blog, then, a lot of them are not friendly and are actively delighted when someone else hits the subject with a rotten egg in the eye. Certainly, Eddie is slippery and has shadowy enablers, meaning, people who like to dip one little toe into this witches brew of intrigue and disclosures without the personal risk to fortune and life. So much for Snowden's self proclaimed motives "jut wanting to inform the American public about governments (read: Obama) spying on everyones' email and phone calls, and how willing he was to sacrifice his life and freedom to make this know. Alright, already! We know; we get it...thank you. But fleeing with four loaded computers and flash drives, as has been reported, is it not reasonable to surmise that Snowden is up to no good, and that from a cave somewhere in Cuba or Venezuela he means to damage America as much as he can? Even his father has asked him not to release any more documents. But no, his crusade to bring America "down to size" will end only when the media turns off the presses, the TV lights and cameras and realize that they have been had once more>