A comment I posted last night on 60 Minutes' website re: the NSA segment

[markpkessinger]

markpkessinger

I gather the producers of 60 Minutes felt the Benghazi report fiasco hadn't done enough damage to the program's journalistic credibility, so they decided to air this outrageously uncritical, blatantly pro-NSA propaganda puff piece. The NSA personnel who appeared in the report all have a vested interest in protecting what the NSA sees as (and many Americans disagree is) its rightful turf.

The bit about the alleged 'BIOS plot' was particularly telling. 60 Minutes allowed an NSA spokesperson to claim that this plot was hatched by a state actor, which she declined to identify, that had the intent to turn computers across the U.S. "into a brick" (to quote the very loaded term used by 60 Minutes) and thereby crash the U.S. economy. Then, in a slick, journalistic sleight-of-hand, the report provided hearsay statements by unidentified NSA analysts that the state actor in question was China, which the agency refuses to confirm or deny. I'm not buying it for a second. The government of China has absolutely nothing to gain, and a great deal to lose, by crashing the U.S. economy. This segment didn't pass the smell test of someone with a raging sinus infection!

[Thinkingabout]

1. Do you think Snowden passes the smell test?

[marsis]

2. Yes,

just read Rolling Stone this month, great article on Snowden and Greenwald. I am leaning toward thinking Snowden is a hero.

[markpkessinger]

3. I think if it weren't for Snowden . . .

. . . we wouldn't be having this critically important national discussion. However pure or impure Snowden's own motives might be doesn't change the fact that he has done the nation an enormous service, at great personal cost, by bringing this stuff to light.

Besides, I don't buy into your premise of moral equivalency. Even if I believed (and I don't) that Snowden acted for purely selfish reasons, Snowden has no particular obligation to act out of purely altruistic intentions or the best interests of the American people. So his motivations, whatever they were, are of little concern to me. As an agency of the federal government, however, the NSA does have an obligation to be above-board and honest about what it is doing in the name, and on behalf, of the American people. And they have repeatedly been caught lying about what they are doing. And the agency's dishonesty (aided by CBS' complicity) in last night's report only serves to confirm my belief that the agency should be disbanded entirely.

[tavalon]

4. I wholly agree with what you said,

both here, about Snowden and on the CBS Website. Good on you.

[JDPriestly]

6. Thanks. We did not begin to reform our intelligence services adequately after 9/11.

We need a whole new crew with new ideas.

First, we need to redefine "national security." I think it is more complex than the old crew thinks. To determine "national security" you have to agree on "national values." Right there, the current NSA seems to disagree on the fundamentals with the valuers established as our national foundation in our Constitution.

That is where the problems with the NSA begin. They have a system of values that are separate from and even in opposition to the values set forth in our Constitution.

Yet it is the Constitution that makes us one nation. We are not one race or one ethnic group. We don't even all speak the same language any more. Yet we are one nation based on our Constitution. It is evident that the NSA has no respect for our constitutional organization based on separation of powers and three co-equal branches of government. They kept the Congress and even, apparently, the President in the dark about certain of their most risky activities.

So, we need a complete review and reorganization of our intelligence services so that they reflect our constitutional, national value system which is based on representative democracy and open participation by citizens in monitoring and electing our government. The NSA is not an elected organ of government.

Nor are any of our other intelligence services. They linger, linger, linger while our elected officials quake in fear of them. That is not democracy.

[dmr]

10. +1

[fbc]

5. What does that even mean?

Are you saying that he is lying? that he faked the documents he's released?

Why should any of our opinions of Snowden influence our opinions on the crimes he has exposed?

[ChisolmTrailDem]

7. What the flying fuck do you mean by that? n/t

[blackspade]

8. Pointless distraction fail.

[Martin Eden]

11. What smell test would that be?

Snowden released classified information; is that information factual, or is it not?

In comparison, how factual and honest in presenting the truth of the matter was the 60 Minutes program?

[Thinkingabout]

12. Markpkessinger smell test. The problem classified information was given out, Snowden

Did not have the authority to give any information out and thus the problem resulted on charges of espionage and because he stole files charges of theft.

[Martin Eden]

14. Snowden committed a crime, but that's not a smell test.

A smell test is for detecting the stench of bullshit. To my knowledge, the accuracy of the information Snowden released is not in question. On the other hand, the 60 Minutes piece has the odor of bovine excrement.

Snowden's motives and the legality of his actions are a separate issue. Of much greater importance than Mr. Snowden or the integrity of a television program is what has been brought to light and whether the actions of our own government violate our constitutional rights.

And yes, national security is also vitally important. but I disagree that we must choose between constitutional rights and security. Ultimately, without the former we will lose the latter.

[Thinkingabout]

15. Snowden did not follow the rules while he was at NSA, he can not pass the smell test.

[Martin Eden]

17. That's not a smell test.

If breaking rules and breaking laws were the metric of a smell test, the underground railroad and America's founders would fail that test.

You could try arguing Snowden did more to jeopardize national security than to expose constitutional violations -- that's the important debate here -- but "smell test" notsomuch.

[Thinkingabout]

18. Perhaps you are more interested in Snowden not passing the smell test and therefore you do not

regard this as a smell test. This intentional on his part, he took the job with this intention, this creates a smell test, but this is not the debate. It does not matter if others have committed crimes, it does not excuse his stealing what did not belong to him. He intentionally has tried to hurt our security and this is not a good thing, does not matter if he was trying to be a hero, this makes him a zero. There was avenues he could have taken, but again he intentionally wanted to inflict pain, now it is time for him to face his charges and feel the pain. He is not a good person and is a thief, not good in my book.

[Thinkingabout]

9. If Snowden passes the smell test then by the same standards NSA is doing their job, you may not

Like how they are doing their job but I do not like a thief. The information was already out and available since 2005 and perhaps earlier, Snowden is a scumbag hacker who steals.

[Hissyspit]

13. "The information was already out and available since 2005 and perhaps earlier."

Um, no. But don't let that stop you from repeating the talking points.

[Thinkingabout]

16. You may look at this as a talking point but I heard Bush in 2005, checked the information after

Snowden thought he "revealed" this again in June, reviewed the video when Bush gave this information and you consider it a talking point. I rarely repeat Bush but this time your talking point is just a talking point. I don't know where everyone has been all these years but that doesn't change the facts of when this information was given.