Now Who Is the Real "Narcissist"? Edward Snowden or the NSA?

[unhappycamper]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-a-palermo/now-who-is-the-real-narci_b_4209806.html


Now Who Is the Real "Narcissist"? Edward Snowden or the NSA?
Joseph A. Palermo
Posted: 11/03/2013 6:50 pm

~snip~

Last June, when Snowden first made available to Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras his treasure trove of NSA documents we heard a loud chorus of denunciation from the mainstream press. Jeffrey Toobin condemned Snowden as "a grandiose narcissist who deserves to be in prison." Bob Schieffer, Tom Brokaw, Politico, and others followed suit with their own put-downs in what looked like a coordinated smear campaign. The Washington Post's Richard Cohen called Snowden a "cross-dressing Little Red Riding Hood" (whatever the hell that means).

The documents Snowden chose to share with the world have exposed the behavior, attitude, and culture of the NSA. The revelations alone about spying on allied heads of state, such as Brazil and Germany, have already caused real damage to bilateral relations between the U.S. and those countries. The NSA is clearly out of control.

With the NSA's code names for its electronic spying operations like "Dishfire," "Tracfin," "Polarbreeze," and "Snacks" -- (an acronym for "Social Network Analysis Collaboration Knowledge Services&quot -- I was reminded of the Central Intelligence Agency's domestic spy apparatus that was exposed in the 1970s with codenames like "Chaos," "Cable Splicer," "Garden Plot," and "Leprechaun."

Like the CIA's past abuses, or the FBI's COINTELPRO, the current practices of the NSA feature the same duping of the American people, the same lies to Congress (see "Clapper, James R.&quot , and the same overblown claims of protecting "national security." During the Cold War we needed to be spied on to defend ourselves against the Soviets and the Maoists. Today, it's the terrorists -- tomorrow? Who knows?