NSA whistleblower: Edward Snowden, 29

Glenn Greenwald is an American writing for the Guardian's US edition, an American LLC based in New York whose office is largely staffed with Americans. Also, if memory serves, the Washington Post was first with the PRISM story (admittedly, also done by Greenwald).

Whose lack of peeping has you in such a funk? Is it the cable news channels? I haven't checked in on them in a while. I've found ample coverage online, even from places like HuffPo and Salon.

 

I'm taking you at your word when you talk about this criminal activity broken by foreign media outlets, but, even if there have been numerous incidents broken by reporters outside the U.S., haven't most of the bigger stories come from U.S. media?

Again, assuming you are right, I'm not excusing the U.S. media. Just didn't ring true to me.

 

I think the big difference is that Assange doled a bunch of stuff out over a period of time instead of releasing it all at once like this guy pretty much has. Plus, this guy says he wants to avoid the media spotlight; Assange never seemed to have that problem. Add to that the fact that the story on this guy just got out today. What kind of coverage do you expect in that period of time?

There are plenty of reasons the press has covered this differently than Assange beyond who is sitting in the White House. Trying to say this isn't being covered because of Obama is just ignoring the facts.

 

And it's a Sunday. It's not like newsrooms are full of staffers on a Sunday.

 

The comparison isn't Assange. It's Bradley Manning, the guy who fed him, and is facing a worse-than-murder sentence as a result. Manning is why Snowden fled to a perceived safe haven before outing himself.

 

And IIRC, the Guardian broke a bunch of stuff during the Bush administration regarding Iraq and Guantanamo or were among the first to have it. So, they have a history of beating the U.S. media that goes back before Obama. Was that stuff a "disgrace to the profession in this country" too, or is it only a disgrace when you disagree with the person's politics?

 

My initial reaction was to call him a traitor; now I realize that if we just relied on the govt. to follow the law and do what's best, we'd be closer to Big Brother than ever.

This is appalling. As a 50 yr old guy, its hard for me to condone this type of govt. outreach. We can do better as a nation, as a govt.

We dont' need to terrorize our citizens to fight terror.

 

Isn't a lot of what he is saying already out there? Hell, I remember reading a half dozen articles about the huge NSA server farms being built in the desert over the last two or three years.

 

I think the extent to which its currently being used is what is surprising. We knew the tech was out there and things were coming, but it seemed like there was still a chance to cut things off. Turns out, we're too late. Now we need to address how to get it turned around.

 

Given all the hue and cry about liberal media, there's a certain irony in the fact that these revelations have been courtesy of the Guardian, a newspaper that makes the New York Times look like the National Review.

 

Glenn Greenwald to Mika on Morning Joe:

"The Whitehouse talking points that you are using are completely misleading and false"