newyorker | The United States government charged former intelligence analyst
Edward Snowden with spying on Friday, apparently unaware that in doing
so it had created a situation dripping with irony.
At a press conference to discuss the accusations, an N.S.A. spokesman
surprised observers by announcing the spying charges against Mr. Snowden
with a totally straight face.
“These charges send a clear message,” the spokesman said. “In the United States, you can’t spy on people.”
Seemingly not kidding, the spokesman went on to discuss another charge
against Mr. Snowden—the theft of government documents: “The American
people have the right to assume that their private documents will remain
private and won’t be collected by someone in the government for his own
purposes.”
“Only by bringing Mr. Snowden to justice can we safeguard the most
precious of American rights: privacy,” added the spokesman, apparently
serious.
7 comments:
or that so charging him was both a strategic and legal blunder....,
This is the play room of the Milquetoast Pre-K - everyone is polite here. You should have been around in the days of DeeVee with Birdeye making Big Don seem like George W. Romney. David Mills, Submariner, Mike Fisher, Intellectual Insurget, DMG... The insults were illuminating and hilarious. The current Subrealism is a tea party compared with the old SeeNew.
heh, heh, heh, heh, heh...., it was fun back in the day playing with a bit more spin and pace...,
Was it? What if the target audience wasn't of the legal sort...
Yeah it was a blunder.
1. It was a misapplication of the Espionage Act.
2. Political crime did not obligate Hong Kong to respond, at all. http://subrealism.blogspot.com/2013/06/somebody-very-sophisticated-has.html
3. It forced Beijing's hand to act on Snowden's behalf with complete deniability.
4. It has no standing in Russia (who'da thunk he'd make THAT move anyway?)
5. Snowden is free now for all intents and purposes because the U.S. had no hand to play with Putin and Kerry overplayed his bluff. See #3. - phukking up with the PROC.
6. Ambassador Havland woulda let him go with minimal protest and then very loudly bust him like a bubble (Michael Hastings) later in front of a large group of people and in broad daylight.
Yeah, gotcha. Especially point 6. Does it seem to you ever since Bush II that deep-state handlers have gotten considerably sloppier?
Intellectually acute/astute GET of the year!!!
Under G-Dub the big oil services companies out of Houston and the Carlyle Group made gangster moves like never before, at least like nothing seen since WW-II. Blackwater, Chertoff Group, even that lowlife NYC police commissioner Kerik tried to put out a shingle for half a hot minute till he got put into his proper place.
The problem is that there was a tectonic shift in the status quo, yet my favorite, regional and hard-earned applicants to the establishment elite got totally shut out. How you gonna let every redneck peckerwood and his sister-humping cousin into the cut, but not let these brilliant, globespanning, MIT educated aspirants into the cut?!?!?!?!?
Sheeeeeiiiiiitttttt.......,
You wanna talk about your makers and takers, there it is - sitting in plain sight.
If I wasn't lounging back in my basement researches, content with my uppity ronin lot in life, I'd be madder'n hell too - cause the discretionary wars served as an excuse to really and truly upset the apple cart, but not in a way that served the legitimate pecking order of the respectable elites.
That's a declaration of war. When it's not hungry bellies doing the killer-ape tango, it's upset elites jockeying for status with one another. This is precisely one of those cases, and nothing less than the continuing stability and respectability of the governance apparatus itself has been put in play by these shenanigans.
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