tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163441833245663827.post3713463263624224229..comments2024-03-18T14:34:31.684-05:00Comments on Horizons: "Trading credibility for the advancement of an agenda"Nancy LeTourneauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12614317154146836694noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163441833245663827.post-30708837896880856422013-06-13T08:37:31.042-05:002013-06-13T08:37:31.042-05:00I agree with a lot of your assessment of what Mars...I agree with a lot of your assessment of what Marshall said. I am just not troubled by the complexity of his thoughts. I think that's how a lot of us who are watching this are reacting. Information is coming out now that challenges a lot of what Snowden/Greenwald said. So the jury is still out. But his ending point - the one about whether or not we want the Snowden's of the world to be deciding on this - is spot on.<br /><br />When it comes to your question about what if Elsberg had called himself a libertarian I agree - it wouldn't have mattered. We knew what Elsberg's motives were in leaking. He had proof that the government was lying about Viet Nam. Snowden's leaks aren't about lying - they're about something that is classified information. Some of us have questions about his motives for doing that. His libertarian view might help explain that. That's what I thought yesterday when I wrote this. Now we learn that he is basically offering up further classified information to other governments who might protect him from extradition. So his motives might even be more nefarious than that. Truth is - we don't know. That's part of the complexity. Nancy LeTourneauhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12614317154146836694noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163441833245663827.post-63033388288914548122013-06-12T23:09:30.472-05:002013-06-12T23:09:30.472-05:00Hmmm ... I'm not going to speak to the liberta...Hmmm ... I'm not going to speak to the libertarian commentary going on for two reasons. First, it is accurate, but more importantly, I think it is our own red herring ... don't like what Snowden did? Call him a libertarian. What if Daniel Elsberg had called himself a libertarian? Would that have discounted what he did? All that being said, I clicked the link to read the full Josh Marshall article, and quite frankly, I don't think I've ever read something by him that was so pretzeled up. He rightfully and correctly distinguished Manning's total random dump of classified material from Snowden's "surgical" (I think he used that word) release of information, and acknowledges that Snowden has prompted a debate that we need to have about what we want our government doing, but then says, in essence, we need the debate but we shouldn't have had the very information released that is prompting the debate, and that Snowden was a bad person for having done it (I think because Marshall suspects and/or doesn't like Snowden's reasons for the info release). My view is that if we can finally get our government to have some more or less open hearings about what has been going on, then I consider that a positive. In the end, I feel no need to defend President Obama's handling of this any more than I feel a need to excoriate him for it. I suppose we need a CIA and an NSA, but that doesn't mean I trust them to be good without lots of outside monitoring and periodic exposure of their overreach. I think Booman had a nice piece up yesterday about past excesses and our need to be ever vigilant.KonaKeokihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10695210034663379610noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163441833245663827.post-5729214266617649982013-06-12T21:07:01.105-05:002013-06-12T21:07:01.105-05:00I'm gonna have to do some arm-twisting to get ...I'm gonna have to do some arm-twisting to get you on twitter. I got just a little (?) peeved when I saw that comparison of Snowden to Rosa Parks - and let one of the idiots have it. <a href="https://twitter.com/Smartypants32/status/344095636741840897" rel="nofollow">Here's a link to my tweet.</a>Nancy LeTourneauhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12614317154146836694noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163441833245663827.post-77735201294847448722013-06-12T19:19:54.695-05:002013-06-12T19:19:54.695-05:00I do think Snowden, whether he means to or not, is...I do think Snowden, whether he means to or not, is confusing issues not clarifying. I takes some careful technical distinctions to try to tell what is being talked about. Some people were concerned about their browser history on their local machine that is at risk. While a hacker who planted a virus may take information from your machine, if the NSA is contacting operators of big web severs they would likely began with web server logs. Those can be customized but they likely contain IP addresses, user names, OS, browser, date, time and url. A lot can be learned from that. From there to understand, I would want to know whether Prism bypassed privacy settings without a warrant.<br /><br />Where I thought Snowden was most misleading was when he talked about his own ability to eavesdrop. He made it sound like something extraordinary. The fact of the matter is that a system administrator can read almost anything on a machine that isn't encrypted. The may have a harder time reading things stored in a database managed by a data base management system. Our dependence on the ethics of technicians may be something unsettling that people don't want to think about. The rules of evidence can keep data out of court, but they don't keep experts from seeing it.<br /><br />I some times obsess over that problem when it comes to nukes. We have rules that enforce the chain of command. But when it comes down to it, small groups of technicians actually control the nukes. We need to realize our dependence on the ethics of technicians when living in this digital world.MaryAnnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06742671242643555970noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163441833245663827.post-8723306786828914262013-06-12T17:16:13.308-05:002013-06-12T17:16:13.308-05:00Besides it being Greenwald who released this story...Besides it being Greenwald who released this story, given the long trail of less-than-ethical behavior in his history, there are many things about this that don't pass a sniff test. Or rather, the smell of bovine fecal matter is rather overwhelming at times. There are numerous holes in Snowden's story, with a number of exaggerations or outright lies being pointed out. I fully expect that Greenwald will attack, scream, and generally obfuscate in response to any questions he receives. Then he'll try to paint a new story which proves him right, blithely waving aside any previous statements he's made. <br /><br />As for Snowden, I have no idea of what his "agenda" is, outside of some vague suggestions that he supported Ron Paul at one point, but to be honest, he doesn't strike me as the brightest light in the string, I think his pathetic attempts to portray himself as a hero are more delusional than based in reality. Norbrookhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11383422747683493947noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163441833245663827.post-16166473391252245772013-06-12T13:28:47.833-05:002013-06-12T13:28:47.833-05:00'Afternoon, Ms. Pants (and you, too, Tien Le)
...'Afternoon, Ms. Pants (and you, too, Tien Le)<br />And, of course, there's that little aside of well, if it's so hot, why hasn't any government anywhere used this approach (and, I think E.J. Dionne asked this question yesterday)?<br /><br />Have a friend who defines himself as Liibertarian. Have had a few go-rounds with him. And, your point, Ms. Pants, is one of the very things that I said to him. You and I wouldn't be talking as we do (nor could I vote, or live where I do or be married to whom I'm married to) and CERtainly not as peers were it not for what the government did (and, as you've probably seen, The Obama Diary is running some VERY good stuff - as there have been asinine attempts to pair who I believe to be the traitor Snowden with Rosa Parks - on who a hero actually is annnnd 50th anniversary commemoration of Medgar Evers).<br /><br />Is it or has it been completely good? Most certainly not. <br /><br />But, it damn sure hasn't been nor is it completely evil, either.Blackmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163441833245663827.post-66504463322927530982013-06-12T13:13:05.838-05:002013-06-12T13:13:05.838-05:00From the Cesca article: "...Greenwald may hav...From the Cesca article: "...Greenwald may have been deliberately vague in some areas and deliberately misleading in other areas as a means of feeding his agenda..."<br /><br />This is pure, quintessential Glen Greenwald. I learned this back in 2007 when I read a GG story on GOS about how Lawrence Lessig, an early supporter of PBO who had a lot of credibility with the Netroots, had turned against PBO. All it took to debunk the story was to lookup Lessig's blog on Google and read what he actually wrote, in context. I was amazed at how few people did this (I was the only one, as far as I could tell). And I was amazed at how shameless GG was in cherry-picking statements and re-framing them to fit his agenda (he is quite good at it). It was almost as if he knew no one was going to check, or maybe he knew they wouldn't care. I stopped reading him after that, but I heard much the same criticism from others over the years.<br /><br />Now he's playing the same games on a much, much larger stage. I really hope the wider world is less gullible and lazy than the GOSosphere.a night owlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163441833245663827.post-78401199812107668242013-06-12T12:44:47.132-05:002013-06-12T12:44:47.132-05:00I agree, Libertarianism is the height of white pri...I agree, Libertarianism is the height of white privilege elitism.Tien Lenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163441833245663827.post-33215882194356730692013-06-12T10:08:01.271-05:002013-06-12T10:08:01.271-05:00This morning I've been thinking about how no o...This morning I've been thinking about how no one who has ever been marginalized or experienced life in this country as a minority should ever truly embrace libertarianism. It is the government they ultimately have to rely on to protect their rights. That's probably why - even though he's gay - Greenwald avoids the topic of LGBT rights.Nancy LeTourneauhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12614317154146836694noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7163441833245663827.post-26154219113399498362013-06-12T09:58:55.872-05:002013-06-12T09:58:55.872-05:00I think the Libertarian way of thinking has taken ...I think the Libertarian way of thinking has taken root on cable news and has nothing whatever to do with being liberal or progressive. The insidious nature of Libertarians creep into the national discourse comes from their willingness to embrace the liberal side of the culture wars. That's what brings in the 'liberals'. Libertarians are too often also narcissists and charismatics, so their appeal to the emotional brain by-passes logic and reason. <br /><br />We get to keep countering the nonsense with facts, which actually does work with most true liberals. The people who want their daily dose of anger/sensationalism will still keep delivering the clicks, cult worship, dollars and eyeballs to these venues like MSNBC and the Guardian, etc. There really isn't anything we can do about it except continue to be there with these islands of calm like this blog for when they grow up and are in need of better information.Tien Lenoreply@blogger.com