The first part of this segment from last Thursday night’s Last Word on MSNBC includes a quick summary by NBC’s Pete Williams of the first two different blockbuster releases of classified NatSec documents by the UK Guardian’s Glen Greenwald this week. (Those two stories are here and here, and came before his third one on Friday.)
If you’re familiar with those stories, you can skip to the 5:15 mark in the video below, where Greenwald’s appearance begins, and as he responds to threats of investigation, etc. by Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) and others concerning his release of these documents journalism.
The first part of Greenwald’s response: “Let them go ahead and investigate. There’s this document called the Constitution, and one of the things it guarantees is the right of a free press. Which means, as a citizen and as a journalist, I have the absolute Constitutional right to go on and report on what it is my government is doing in the dark and inform my fellow citizens about that action … And I intend to continue to shine light on that and Dianne Feinstein can beat her chest all she wants and call for investigations and none of that’s gonna stop and none of it’s gonna change”…
That’s what journalism should look like, and what every journalist should sound like, in my opinion.
I’m very proud to call Greenwald both a colleague and a fellow target of secretly planned cyberattacks back in 2011 by incredibly powerful corporate/government forces (one of whom, by the way, may well be one of the government Defense Dept. contractors involved in the second of Greenwald’s leak reports this week.)
One more point on all of this I’d like to cite, for now…
After his first and second blockbuster publication of classified documents this week, and just prior to his third this morning, Greenwald offered a few thoughts on whistleblowers and the threats of investigation and prosecution that are already being made by the government.
His full thoughts are here and two points.
First, he offers his thoughts on true whistleblowers, who he describes as “heroes”, with which I agree. Greenwald also notes the difference between 2008 candidate Obama — who lauded whistleblowers as “often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government” and whistleblowing itself as “acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars [and that] should be encouraged rather than stifled as they have been during the Bush administration” — with the President Obama who has prosecuted more than double the number of whistleblowers “of all previous Presidents combined”. He also notes that Obama spent the 2012 campaign season “boasting about it.”
In his second point, Greenwald speaks directly, and bravely, again to the issue of the threats of investigation, and why it’s important for him, and other journalists, and to our nation, that journalists not be cowed by such threats…
The way things are supposed to work is that we’re supposed to know virtually everything about what they do: that’s why they’re called public servants. They’re supposed to know virtually nothing about what we do: that’s why we’re called private individuals.
This dynamic – the hallmark of a healthy and free society – has been radically reversed. Now, they know everything about what we do, and are constantly building systems to know more. Meanwhile, we know less and less about what they do, as they build walls of secrecy behind which they function. That’s the imbalance that needs to come to an end. No democracy can be healthy and functional if the most consequential acts of those who wield political power are completely unknown to those to whom they are supposed to be accountable.
There seems to be this mentality in Washington that as soon as they stamp TOP SECRET on something they’ve done we’re all supposed to quiver and allow them to do whatever they want without transparency or accountability under its banner. These endless investigations and prosecutions and threats are designed to bolster that fear-driven dynamic. But it isn’t working. It’s doing the opposite.
The times in American history when political power was constrained was when they went too far and the system backlashed and imposed limits. That’s what happened in the mid-1970s when the excesses of J Edgar Hoover and Richard Nixon became so extreme that the legitimacy of the political system depended upon it imposing restraints on itself. And that’s what is happening now as the government continues on its orgies of whistleblower prosecutions, trying to criminalize journalism, and building a massive surveillance apparatus that destroys privacy, all in the dark. The more they overreact to measures of accountability and transparency – the more they so flagrantly abuse their power of secrecy and investigations and prosecutions – the more quickly that backlash will arrive.
I’m going to go ahead and take the Constitution at its word that we’re guaranteed the right of a free press. So, obviously, are other people doing so. And that means that it isn’t the people who are being threatened who deserve and will get the investigations, but those issuing the threats who will get that. That’s why there’s a free press. That’s what adversarial journalism means.
Thank you, Glenn.
I think Obama is a very conflicted man and a great example of what happens when a well intentioned elected official crashes into the corrupting, power mad, anti-populist influence in DC.
Obama has been buffeted by banks, war hawks, big oil, big pharma, lobbies and Monsanto, making him a shell of himself and a walking contradiction.
I remember a speech in which Obama addressed the disappointment in his policies. He said “MAKE ME”, challenging the public to act.
Greenwald is the perfect messenger to remind Obama that he has abandoned his primary oath, to protect the Constitution. Even if you believe a spate of terror attacks require we trade civil liberties for greater security, you still have to change the law first. And even the hypocritical right is getting on board.
Gus Wynn wrote:
Why do people keep offering excuses for someone whose actions have never matched his lofty rhetoric?
Obama occupies the most powerful office in the world. No one held a gun to his head, forcing him to abandon the rule of law in favor of endless war and secret surveillance. No one prevented Obama or the Attorney General from seeking to prosecute the banksters.
Obama was not, as you claim, “buffeted” by the pharmaceutical industry. Instead, he invited the executives of the pharmaceutical and healthcare insurance industries to the White House to map out his signature accomplishment of his first term — The Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) — a bill that was drafted by a former Wellpoint VP.
Obama deliberately chose to shut single-payer advocates out of the process.
As Dr. Quintin Young, a long-time personal friend of the President observed at the time, Obama had been “dishonest” on the topic of single-payer. Young was especially troubled that Obama could acknowledge that private insurers are the problem yet come up with a solution that “enhances the insurer presence” by compelling everyone to buy insurance, with expensive subsidies flowing to the carriers — at a cost of $900 billion over ten years.
What is it going to take to convince the “true believers” amongst those who voted for Obama that the President has never been the victim of circumstance; that his deeds will never match his soaring rhetoric because that rhetoric amounted to empty promises that he never intended to fulfill?
Greenwald’s observations about the purpose of the First Amendment are in line with those offered by Justice Hugo Black, in his concurring opinion in New York Times vs. United States (the “Pentagon Papers” case) [emphasis added]:
The one thing that should not be overlooked in these ominous intrusions is the role played by the right wing majority of the Supreme Court, especially in light of the ACLU’s failed effort to challenge “the system of warrantless surveillance initiated by the George W. Bush administration and embraced by the Obama administration.”
The Court’s right wing majority rejected a challenge to the 2008 amendment to FISA because, according to the Federalist Society connected majority, those challenging the Act (attorneys and journalists) could “only speculate on how the attorney general and the director of national intelligence will exercise their discretion in determining which communications to target.”
Those attorneys and journalists were forced to speculate because the decisions by the AG and intelligence communities are cloaked in secrecy.
Greenwald’s references to past abuses, such as the FBI’s targeting of dissidents like Martin Luther King, reveal why trusting government agencies to do the right thing in private amounts to an exercise of blind faith that could prove the harbinger of a totalitarian state.
Interesting that it was the right wing of the Supreme Court which was willing to turn a blind eye towards this type of big government intrusion.
So Steve Snyder, what do you have to say about that? I look forward to your effort to spin that as simply the product of the Obama administration.
See, Norman Soloman’s Open Letter to Dianne Feinstein.
Ernie –
After a quick read of your thoughts above, the only objection that I’d offer was to this:
Of course, we have no idea what he “intended to fulfill” or not. We’d have to get into his mind to know if he was disingenuous in his rhetoric and deeds before he was elected, or if something changed afterward.
But, where folks may not remember, he DID vote to give immunity to the telecom companies in the 2008 bill that legalized the warrantless wiretapping that the Bush Admin had been doing for years unlawfully.
“But, where folks may not remember, he DID vote to give immunity to the telecom companies in the 2008 bill that legalized the warrantless wiretapping that the Bush Admin had been doing for years unlawfully.”
I wouldn’t agree less with the above statement.
Thank you guys for reminding people about the public servant, private individual. I think some of those “corporations are people, my friend” need to be thrown in jail.
Re Brad @6,
I think my dad would have had an apropos response to that.
He advised me to watch what people do; not what they say.
Obama’s deeds, dating back to that Senate vote to authorize the Bush illegal surveillance provides prima facie evidence of his intent.
Also, if we had to actually get into people’s minds to ascertain intent, no one who failed to confess could ever be convicted of murder, for the crime requires a finding of intent.
The use of the word “coup” is being used by decent folks who were once officials but who are now citizens.
They use it to describe the change.
Who remembers us talking about this here on Brad Blog in 2005 (7-8 yrs ago):
(link here).The link in that comment is now broken, so here is the link to a Feb. 27, 2000 Sixty Minutes Program talking about that “conspiracy theory.”
Ah, the good olde days are still with us.
Ernest @ 9 said:
Well, counselor, by that logic, if I decide to murder you next year, I have, therefore, retroactively, “intended” to do it along?
If someone gets in a fight with his wife, goes to Walmart to buy a gun, comes back home, points the gun at his wife and pulls the trigger and kills her, we can safely say he intended to, at the very least, shoot her and probably murder her (something we would determine from his motivation, and the witnesses who testified that they had been fighting before the shot went off.)
None of that, of course, means the guy had “intended” to murder her when they got married years earlier.
Your witness, counselor.
Bad analogy Brad.
First, the question of whether the President has been insincere is not a criminal matter and does not require proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Intent is determined based upon the totality of the evidence. Five years of a consistently significant gap between the rhetoric and performance preponderates in favor of the conclusion that the lofty rhetoric lacked sincerity.
If we are deciding this on a preponderance of evidence, I believe the evidence to support the conclusion that Obama is simply a well-intentioned individual who has been thwarted by the right is sorely lacking.
The evidence of bad faith embodied in the failure of this administration to prosecute its predecessors for war crimes, the refusal to meet with single payer advocates while meeting personally with executives from the pharmaceutical and health insurance industries, and the attempt to advance a chained CPI on Social Security right after an election was won because he promised not to touch Social Security and a host of other issues is overwhelming.
It is simply unreasonable to maintain otherwise.
Ernie –
No, not a bad analogy, just one that doesn’t suit your argument, which implies that nothing changed between the time he was running for President and the time he became President. Like, say, this for example: https://bradblog.com/?p=7408
Mind you, I’m not arguing what were his intentions, one way or another, because I don’t know. So this is not “excuse making”, this is just a response to what we know and what we don’t. You argument may be compelling but it’s hardly dispositive.
“No one held a gun to his head, forcing him to abandon the rule of law in favor of endless war and secret surveillance.”
Given the link above, that may or may not be true. The jury (me), at this time, remains unconvinced.
The Animals were on to something once upon a time:
(Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood). Lord Acton long ago warned about the mysterious ability of power … its power to corrupt (Toxins of Power). When a person goes into power with good intentions, that is not the end of the matter.
Hey thanks Brad and Ernie for that really enlightening article and conversation, one of the first sane and articulate so far that I have found on the net…I don’t have NSA clearance yet, so I can’t say anything about your phone calls…
Brad:
Ray McGovern’s speculation that Obama may have shied away from war crimes prosecutions out of fear of the CIA does not provide a compelling case — especially not when measured against the broad array of issues — many, such as the chained CPI for Social Security benefits that have nothing to do with the CIA — in which the deeds of President Obama stand in stark contrast to the rhetoric of Candidate Obama. Moreover, there are, as you are undoubtedly aware, those who claim Obama had past ties to the CIA.
And then there was the point I made in Plumbing the Depths of Lawless Executive Depravity:
Worse, as revealed by a newly filed lawsuit, the Obama administration has moved beyond the Bush/Cheney cabal’s assertion of unchecked Executive lawlessness in the form of extraordinary rendition, indefinite detention and torture. The Obama administration has now not only asserted a right to assassinate anyone that the Executive branch labels a terrorist, including U.S. citizens, but has gone so far as to place lawyers in legal jeopardy should they seek a court order to block an extrajudicial execution unless the executive branch grants the lawyer permission to do so.
When you examine the vast chasm between deeds of President Obama with respect to a wide array of issues, both foreign and domestic, and the substance of Candidate Obama’s lofty rhetoric, the only reasonable conclusion is that the rhetoric was intended to deceive.
With all due respect, an effort to suggest that Candidate Obama’s soaring rhetoric was anything less than deceptive is patently unreasonable.
There may be a few hold out jurors (you), but their holding out is not based on facts or reason.
There is a FISA court ruling holding that the government violated the 4th Amendment … but the DOJ is fighting its release (Mother Jones).
So Glenn Greenwald was correct when he stood up.
Dredd: Thanks for the link to the Mother Jones article.
The article not only reflects that the FISA court found a 4th Amendment violation with respect to one of the NSA programs, but revealed why, with respect to the public’s right to know, Congressional oversight is essentially worthless.
What we have is a situation in which the government not only violates the 4th Amendment but in which the government claims a right to do so without the public ever learning about the violation.
Ernie,
You are welcome.
On “This Week with George S“, Glenn Greenwald says for us to expect more from him … more revelations about DOJ shenanigans.
http://arstechnica.com/uncatego...006/04/6585-2/
Mark Klein, an AT&T engineer and witness in the EFF’s case against the company �
by Nate Anderson – Apr 12 2006, 11:55am CDT
The EFF’s case against AT&T has barely begun, yet it has already brought to light some fascinating details about the methods behind the NSA’s alleged wiretapping abilities. Mark Klein, a retired AT&T engineer who is now participating in the case as a witness, has released a statement to the media in which he outlines many of the allegations that are currently under seal. Chief among them is his claim that AT&T installed powerful traffic monitoring equipment in a “secret room” in their San Francisco switching office at the behest of the NSA.
“In 2002, when I was working in an AT&T office in San Francisco, the site manager told me to expect a visit from a National Security Agency agent, who was to interview a management-level technician for a special job. The agent came, and by chance I met him and directed him to the appropriate people.
In January 2003, I, along with others, toured the AT&T central office on Folsom Street in San Francisco�actually three floors of an SBC building. There I saw a new room being built adjacent to the 4ESS switch room where the public’s phone calls are routed. I learned that the person whom the NSA interviewed for the secret job was the person working to install equipment in this room. The regular technician work force was not allowed in the room.”
According to Klein, this room contained (among other things) a Narus STA 6400 traffic analyzer into which all of AT&T’s Internet and phone traffic was routed; Klein himself helped wire the splitter box that made this possible. In addition to AT&T’s own traffic, Klein alleges that the company also routed its peering links into the splitter, meaning that any traffic that passed through AT&T’s own network could be scanned. Futhermore, San Francisco wasn’t the only place such secret rooms were built; Klein claims that AT&T offices in Seattle, San Jose, Los Angeles, and San Diego also have them.
the ability to scan(copy)every communication is clearly a fishing trip,the assurances of clapper that,o we would never do that fall in the “trust me” catagory defense which is unAmerican…the current pres says,dont worry the Reps u voted for approved this,but since “we the people” are not allowed to oversee the actual counting of our votes this is also a false defense
imagine the cost of all this spying while our bridges crumble and our children’s schools are closed
and i believe these reports glenn has so bravely brought to light are just the tip of the iceberg,i believe that certain calls and emails are interfered with(even when there is no criminal activity)
and dont forget bradley manning is currently on trial for exposing war crimes our govt committed
Well, I enjoy the back and forth between Ernie and Brad, I posit the issue is much much deeper than Obama, Bush, or the next president.
I am sure you have all seen the latest release from Greenwald but I will post it just in case.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world...r-surveillance
If this does not scare the shit out of you, nothing will.
Davey has generally been at odds with the bragbloggians, but I think that this is one in which we can be in solidarity.
Dear Ernie,
Very interesting reading two of my faves going back and forth here. For what it’s worth(if I’m understanding everyone correctly), I’m with Brad on this one.
I think what Brad’s saying is that speaking to anyone’s motivation, without more info than we can have without speaking directly to that person, is a dicey business, at best.
I’m completely with you on the chasm of disparity between Obama’s words and deeds. But having in my own life witnessed equally disconcerting disconnects between friends’ firmly stated intentions, clearly stated commitments, and subsequent deeds, I have come to the opinion that this sort of dichotomy between words and deeds may unfortunately be almost standard issue for a culture as generally disconnected as ours.
For me, in this case, it’s not impossible to imagine that Obama actually BELIEVES a lot of his dissembling.
I think it’s not impossible to imagine that with all the unimaginable peer pressure that comes with being president, that without a healthy revolutionary or anarchist streak in your soul, it could be fairly easy to lose one’s way.
Not to say that I can speak to what Obama’s “way” is or ever was. I’ve always suspected he wasn’t as progressive as he portrayed himself to be. I think he was pretty cozy with the nuclear power industry as a state senator. To me that suggests a certain cluelessness.
Then again, there is rampant cluelessness in Washington. We all know the disconnect between voting requirements for a functioning democracy and the vast ignorance on this most vital subject of the majority of our representatives. In another maddening case recently many liberals, that you’d hope might know better, voted against recent GMO labeling requirements legislation. Warren and Franken to name but two.
I’m saying I suspect there is a multi-faceted, multi-layered disconnecting effect experienced by those in power(and everyone else) in this crazy country.
I love the movie “Dave” cuz it puts into film fantasy what I think could actually manifest. A simple, honest man finds himself at the reins of power and because he doesn’t understand “better” he just starts doing the right thing. “Bulworth” was another variation of the same theme.
But it seems to me for most of the inhabitants of the Washington bubble truly creative thinking simply does not appear possible.
I see it, in part, as a giant failure of imagination of our “leaders”. They just can’t imagine really doing the right thing cuz they are overwhelmed by all the forces they know are lined up against doing it. Real politic. That’s why it’s up to us. That’s why it’s so exciting and inspiring witnessing Medea Benjamin and Glenn Greenwald’s challenges in the last few weeks.
love,
Dave
(My apologies if this is not the most coherent comment. Very tired. But wanted to throw my two cents in.)
Yes, I watched the 29 year old explain why he put his and Glenn’s life in jeopardy FOR US.
“Davey has generally been at odds with the bragbloggians, but I think that this is one in which we can be in solidarity.”
They can only hang us individually.
Together we stand.
David Lasagna @25 wrote:
Setting aside the absence of any evidence that Obama is delusional and out of touch with reality — which is essentially what would be required for that belief to be accurate — the issue, David, is not whether it is possible that Candidate Obama actually believed what he said during the two successive campaigns.
Anything is possible!
The issue is whether it is reasonable to conclude, that there was an absence of an intent to deceive given the totality of the evidence of that vast gap between rhetoric and policy on such a wide array of issues.
And let’s narrow it down to just one of those issues — healthcare. How can any of us who does not know the President personally dispute the statement made by Dr. Quintin Young, a long-time personal friend of the President, that the President had been “dishonest” about single-payer?
In California, we have a civil jury instruction to the effect that if you find a witness to have been willfully false about any aspect of his or her testimony, that witness is to be distrusted with regard to all other aspects of the witness’s testimony.
You concede, David, that there is a “chasm of disparity between Obama’s words and deeds.” How wide does that chasm have to be and on how vast array of issues before you reach the conclusion that this President’s sincerity is sorely lacking?
Glen so nailed it:
As an American Citizen I ( Brad, you, anyone) have the unassailable (dare I say inalienable) right to report to my fellow citizens what the US government is doing
“The Press” is not MSNBC, ?CNN, FOX, CBS, the Guardian, the NY Time, etc. The press protected by the six rights enumerated in the first amendment is first and foremost the individual and secondarily the associations formed in order to transmit that information; e.g. blogs, chat rooms, personal websites, and if you are desperate the Lame Stream media outlets mentioned earlier.
On the motives discussion, my problem with Ernest’s framing is that it gives way to much weight to individual agency and too little to structure of the national security state. This President and ANY PRESIDENT are more changed and controlled by the state bureaucracy than the other way around.
The clearest example is Jimmy Carter. We now have over 30 years of evidence of what a nice guy Carter is, humbly committed to public and community service. And yet, if you examine his record as President, he fueled the nuclear arms race, promoted dictatorships in Central America, used the CIA to create the Taliban, etc.
That’s the nature of the beast. Even the best Presidential candidate will betray us. We should resist, but it makes little sense to blame the individual politician. I expect that when Obama’s term is over, he will be a great ex-President like Carter, and not a do nothing embarrassment with Bush.
I don’t know what to tell you, Ernie.
In the personal realm it has been my astonishing experience to have sacred trusts betrayed. There was every bit as huge a disparity between my friends’ words and their actions.
But I KNOW they were not consciously trying to fuck me over. They were lost in their own timewarp unconsciously stuck on their own history channel.
In addition, many conversations with people of differing political persuasions have shown me again and again, example after example of magical thinking. I dare say I know no one who doesn’t engage in it at some time about something.
So in this, and in many other public political cases like this, without being able to really know, THAT is the sort of explanation that seems most likely to me. I think it much more likely that people are being unconsciously duplicitous than that they are consciously conniving.
This is not to say that there is not tons of conscious conniving. There is. But my guess is that even when there is conscious conniving there is simultaneously a bubble of magic thinking by which the duplicity is rationalized.
There’s some great quote by Orwell pertaining to this kind of thing. Something about the need to be fully conscious of what your doing because the deeds being done require that, but then an immediate sort of amnesia is also required for otherwise the person could not live with themself.
I’ve wondered about this motivation question for decades. The Orwell quote is the thing that sounds the closest to me so far.
In any case, whatever the internal motivation the results are much the same. The only reason it might matter, to my way of thinking, is in the faint hope that the more accurate the guess as to someone’s motivation, the more helpful the guess may be in coming up with some sort of strategy of words and/or actions to try to pop all the magic thinking bubbles.
Randy D wrote @
So, Randy, did the “structure of the national security state” force Obama to lie about “single-payer?” Did it compel him to shut out single-payer advocates as he met privately with the heads of the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries?
Did the “structure of the national security state” force Obama to advocate a chained CPI when even the conservative Democrats in the Senate opposed it?
This surveillance state is the ‘Manure Doctrine’, a strain of the ‘Monroe Doctrine’ brought about by advances in technology/MIC power….