I Don't Have Time for This

See updates below.

Commenter Gleb asks,

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!

Commenter WaltWis sez,

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.

Marie-- Please answer Gleb's question.

As regular readers of Reality Chex know, I am one person, & my day is the same length as yours. I link to news items that I think might be of interest to readers and to commentary on those news stories, whether or not I agree with the commentary. Readers of Reality Chex, as the Comments section proves every day, are pretty damned smart, and they form their own well-considered opinions. If I thought my readers needed constant guidance, maybe I'd spend more of my limited time expressing my opinions in posts like this one. Instead, I write opinion pieces only occasionally, and then it is usually to clarify or synthesize something I've noticed. I certainly don't write to lay down the law as to what is “correct” or “wrong” thinking. I merely add to the conversation. But it is a conversation, and readers are bound to disagree with me. Sometimes they say so, sometimes not.

To more or less demand that I defend my positions is fairly intrusive. If I make a comment on a news item or opinion piece, the reason for my comment is usually self-explanatory – if you read the underlying story I've linked. Moreover, this is my site. I get to write stupid stuff as long as it's lawful stupid stuff.

I don't know where Gleb gets the idea I hate Ed Snowden. I think Snowden is a naïve, selfish, careless jerk, but that doesn't mean I hate him. I don't. It's rather silly to make charges about my feelings when they are not feelings I've ever expressed but are ones someone has decided to attribute to me. I've wasted a whole minute-and-a-half of my life here refuting something I didn't write or say.

I also don't know where WaltWis gets the notion I am hostile to Glenn Greenwald. I'm not. But I have warned readers that Greenwald is not a commentator like, say, Jim Fallows or Steve Benen. Those writers look at issues in a balanced, sensible way. They consider – and acknowledge – factors that might mitigate against their views and they may alter their views in light of new information. Greenwald, by contrast, is an advocate. He has a point of view, and he attacks it as an attorney representing a client would do; that is, he shades, obfuscates, elides, misdirects, assails, etc., to get his guy off, without outright lying to judge & jury. That doesn't make Greenwald a bad guy, but it does mean that the reader must be skeptical of everything he writes. Greenwald does not write to illuminate as much as he does to convince. His objective is to get you to acquit or convict, not to get you to a place of greater understanding.

I think the comment to which Gleb & WaltWis are objecting was my remarking about “more info we don't need to know,” my response to this:

Toby Helm, et al., of the Guardian: 'Edward Snowden, the former CIA technician who blew the whistle on global surveillance operations, has opened a new front against the US authorities, claiming they hacked into Chinese mobile phone companies to access millions of private text messages.'

WaltWis seems to suggest that Max Frankel disagrees with me. Really? As far as I can tell, there is nothing in Frankel's essay that contradicts what I wrote. In fact, I fully agree with Frankel's op-ed. Frankel does not change my opinion of Snowden (nor does he attempt to). Perhaps Gleb & WaltWis should read Henry Blodgett's take, also linked today. Blodgett expresses what I – and subsequently many other commentators – have said since Snowden surfaced & began giving up information of interest to the Chinese.

Gleb (and Roger Henry – see today's Comments) argue that Snowden's revelations about the U.S. & U.K. spying on others don't matter because “they already knew.” This argument shows a complete lack of understanding of human nature, diplomacy and the honor/shame code. Snowden's revelations have embarrassed the Chinese as well as our allies & frenemies who attended the 2009 G-8, not to mention the U.S. & U.K. It is not in our national interest to have to publicly acknowledge spying on countries with whom we wish to maintain or establish good relations. (For some reason, Angela Merkel, by the way, was not all that reassured to learn that Obama claimed the NSA was only listening in on “foreigners.”) As long as China, et al., could pretend things were going along swimmingly, their “honor” remained intact. Snowden's revelations “shamed” them. So now, some heads will likely roll in China's version of the NSA, & China will shore up their software systems. We, in turn, will have to expend a pile of dough paying Booz Allen programmers to hack their newly-encrypted systems.

Maybe you can better understand this dynamic if I personalize it. Fred & Maude are married. Fred has been fooling around for years, and that's okay with Maude because she isn't all that into Fred but she likes the style of living to which he has accustomed her. Maude busies herself collecting things for the church bazaar & going to the garden club. She considers herself a pillar of the community, an admirable, “honorable” woman. One day at a garden club meeting, Maude's friend Agnes blurts out what Maude has known for years: “Fred has a girlfriend; he's had lots of girlfriends. You deserve better, Maude.” Agnes has shamed Maude. Because of this public shame, Maude feels she has to change her comfortable life to regain part of her honor. She'll never get it all back. Whatever decision she makes, she'll never again be that pillar of the community who deserves the admiration of others. Oh, and she won't be friends with Agnes anymore. In Maude's view, it was Agnes who ruined Maude's life, not Fred.

I don't think Ed Snowden gets that. Hong Kong may or not protect him,* but China is going to blame Snowden, not the U.S., for embarrassing them. China will, however, use Snowden's revelations as a chip against the U.S. & U.K. any & every time it is convenient for them to do so.

The danger in taking a hardline approach on anything is that it can blind you to reason. Some people think they have to take a “stand” on Ed Snowden, for instance. He's either a good guy or a bad guy. Once they decided he's a good guy, then everything he does is good. Then, if somebody says, “Well, Snowden did the nation a service by revealing X,” the hardliner assumes that somebody is on Snowden's side. I don't know what Max Frankel's thinking is on Snowden's character, but at this point, I have no reason to think Frankel's view is different from mine. Frankel didn't address the issue. He probably doesn't care. Snowden provided some information that Frankel – and I – think is important to know. And from there, as Frankel writes, we need to learn more. Russ Tice is moving us in that direction.

Now I have to go feed the stray cat and clean the pool.

* Update: I guess we more or less know now how Hong Kong deals with a sticky wicket.

Update 2: "Are too" is not conversation; it's the wail of a brat in a sandbox. So if there are any other zealots, wingers or Glennbots who would like to -- again -- repeat what I've already rebutted, it would be in your interest to stifle yourself. I'm trolled out, and as noted above, I don't have time for this shit. I'll just delete your comment.

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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.

The Commentariat -- June 22, 2013

Scott Shane of the New York Times: "Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor whose leak of agency documents has set off a national debate over the proper limits of government surveillance, has been charged with violating the Espionage Act and stealing government property for disclosing classified information to The Guardian and The Washington Post, the Justice Department said on Friday. Each of the three charges unsealed on Friday carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years, for a total of 30 years. But Mr. Snowden is likely to be indicted, and additional counts may well be added.... The charges were filed on June 14 by federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia, which handles many national security cases. American officials said they have asked the authorities in Hong Kong, where Mr. Snowden is believed to be in hiding, to detain him while an indictment and an extradition request are prepared." ...

... The Washington Post story, by Peter Finn & Sari Horwitz, is here. ...

Ewen MacAskill, et al., of the Guardian: "Britain's spy agency GCHQ has secretly gained access to the network of cables which carry the world's phone calls and internet traffic and has started to process vast streams of sensitive personal information which it is sharing with its American partner, the National Security Agency (NSA)....The existence of the programme has been disclosed in documents shown to the Guardian by the whistleblower Edward Snowden.... The Guardian understands that a total of 850,000 employees and US private contractors with top secret clearance had access to GCHQ databases. The documents reveal that by last year GCHQ was handling 600m 'telephone events' each day...." ...

... Laura Donohue, director of Georgetown University's Center on National Security and the Law, argues in a Washington Post op-ed that NSA's surveillance programs may be lawful, but they're unconstitutional.

... Gerry Shih of Reuters: "Facebook Inc has inadvertently exposed 6 million users' phone numbers and email addresses to unauthorized viewers over the past year, the world's largest social networking company disclosed late Friday. Facebook blamed the data leaks, which began in 2012, on a technical glitch in its massive archive of contact information collected from its 1.1 billion users worldwide. As a result of the glitch, Facebook users who downloaded contact data for their list of friends obtained additional information that they were not supposed to have." ...

... Tim Wu of the New Yorker: "The remarkable consolidation of the communications and Web industries into a handful of firms has made spying much simpler and, therefore, more likely to happen.... The national-security state tends to love monopolies -- a cooperative monopoly augments and extends the power of the state, like a technological prosthesis.

James Risen & Michael Schmidt of the New York Times recount the famous hospital-room showdown over warrantless eavesdropping between James Comey & top Bush White House aides Andrew Card & Alberto Gonzales. Worth noting: "Despite the showdown, in which Mr. Comey refused the request of White House aides to reauthorize a program for eavesdropping without warrants, he was later willing to go along with most of the Bush administration's surveillance operations." ...

... President Obama announces Comey's nomination to head the FBI:

Sorry, Darrell. Brian Beutler of TPM: "Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, address[ing] the conservative American Enterprise Institute on Friday..., effectively acknowledged to disappointed conservatives that recently revealed IRS malfeasance probably wasn't the consequence of any direct action taken by the White House. 'There might be some folks out there waiting for a hand signed memo from President Obama to Lois Learner [sic.] to turn up,' he said.... 'Do not hold your breath.' These remarks were extemporaneous -- they did not appear in the prepared text of his speech.... '... the President and his political allies encouraged this kind of bureaucratic overreach by their public comments,' he said. 'But that's quite different from saying they ordered it.'"

The President's Weekly Address:

     ... The transcript is here. AP story here. ...

... ** Tom Kludt of TPM: "Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said Friday that the new border security amendment added to the immigration reform bill in the Senate is nothing more than a gift to defense contractors, but the Senate Judiciary Committee will still hold his nose and support the legislation. The measure offered by Sens. Bob Corker (R-TN) and John Hoeven (R-ND) would both double the number of border security officers on the United States-Mexico border and double the length of the border fence. Leahy said the amendment 'reads like a Christmas wish list for Halliburton.'" Read all of Leahy's remarks. ...

... Ramsey Cox of the Hill: "The Senate will vote Monday on ending debate on a border security deal supporters hope will bring more GOP support to the immigration bill. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced the vote Friday as he filed a cloture motion on a border security amendment to the bill." ...

... Dorothy Wickenden of the New Yorker speaks with Ryan Lizza & John Cassidy discuss immigration reform (Lizza's piece -- referred to in the discussion -- is firewalled; if you're a subscriber, you can read it here):

... Frank Rich on immigration reform & other stuff.

... Charles Blow: "This one statement ... [by] Neal Boortz, a retired radio talk show host who refers to himself on his Web site as 'Mighty Whitey' and who was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2009 by, of all people, Rush Limbaugh ... outlines the whole of the problem with conservative opposition to comprehensive immigration reform. It harkens to ideas of nativism, racism, misogyny, elitism and inequality from which the country is moving forward, but for which some conservatives still yearn." ...

... CW: for all the Tea Party's claims to "patriotism" & love of founding principles, yadayadayada, what primarily drives their "philosophy" is a belief in white-man rule. (And, yes, this makes women & minorities who subscribe to this brand of conservatism particularly pathetic.) ...

...Julia Moskin of the New York Times: "Paula Deen, the self-proclaimed queen of Southern cooking and a sugary mainstay of the Food Network, was dropped by the network on Friday, after a bewildering day in which she failed to show up for an interview on the 'Today' show and then in two online videos begged her family and audience to forgive her for using racist language." CW: you can use the N-word, Honey, but you can't piss off Matt Lauer. ...

... New York magazine foretells the New York Post front page.

News Ledes

New York Times: "While jurors in [George] Zimmerman's second-degree-murder trial, in which opening statements are scheduled for Monday, may get to hear the [911] recording in court, they will not hear the opinions of two audio experts for the prosecution about who the screamer is, or is not. One concluded that the voice was not Mr. Zimmerman's; the other said it was very likely [Trayvon] Martin's.In an order released on Saturday, the judge in the case, Debra S. Nelson, excluded their testimony."

New York Times: "Evidence gathered in Syria, along with flight-control data and interviews with militia members, smugglers, rebels, analysts and officials in several countries, offers a profile of a complex and active multinational effort, financed largely by Qatar, to transport arms from Libya to Syria's opposition fighters. Libya's own former fighters, who sympathize with Syria's rebels, have been eager collaborators."