Debate: Was Snowden Justified? Former NSA Counsel Stewart Baker vs. Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg

[Coyotl]

Debate: Was Snowden Justified? Former NSA Counsel Stewart Baker vs. Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg

VIDEO: http://www.democracynow.org/2014/2/14/debate_was_snowden_justified_former_nsa

Former National Security Agency lawyer Stewart Baker and Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg join us for a debate on Edward Snowden’s disclosure of the NSA’s massive spying apparatus in the United States and across the globe. Snowden’s leaks to The Guardian and other media outlets have generated a series of exposés on NSA surveillance activities — from its collection of American’s phone records, text messages and email, to its monitoring of the internal communications of individual heads of state. Partly as a consequence of the government’s response to Snowden’s leaks, the United States plunged 13 spots in an annual survey of press freedom by the independent organization, Reporters Without Borders. Snowden now lives in Russia and faces possible espionage charges if he returns to the United States. Baker, a former NSA general counsel and assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Homeland Security, is a partner at the law firm Steptoe & Johnson and author of "Skating on Stilts: Why We Aren’t Stopping Tomorrow’s Terrorism." Ellsberg is a former Pentagon and RAND Corporation analyst and perhaps the country’s most famous whistleblower. Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971, exposing the secret history of the U.S. involvement in Vietnam, prompting Henry Kissinger to call him "the most dangerous man in America."
Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Today, we host a debate on former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden and his disclosure of the massive spying apparatus the NSA operates ................

[Luminous Animal]

1. K&R

[grasswire]

2. wow

Baker says that Senator Wyden questions were "a campaign of exposure by Senator Wyden and a maladroit effort to avoid that question."

And he blames the FISA cour: "the FISA court at that point had utterly disgraced itself. It had forced a bunch of what it turns out are illegal requirements in the name of civil liberties on the FBI and the intelligence community...."

He blames everyone but the surveillance community.

And he tries that technique practiced by Republicans to dominate interviews. The Gish Gallop. And he tries to intimidate Ellsberg.

Quite a revealing "debate"

[Coyotl]

3. Baker comes off as very unlikable.

But you have to "admire" how he distracts from the topic with such expertise.