Greg Mitchell's Blog, page 262

NSA Whistleblower Goes Public!

In a surprise the man behind the famous leaks this week chooses to reveal his identity via The Guardian.  Now holed up in a Hong Kong hotel.   Guardian compares him to Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning. See video and Q & A.

The individual responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US political history is Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden has been working at the National Security Agency for the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including Booz Allen and Dell.

The Guardian, after several days of interviews, is revealing his identity at his request. From the moment he decided to disclose numerous top-secret documents to the public, he was determined not to opt for the protection of anonymity. "I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong," he said.

Snowden will go down in history as one of America's most consequential whistleblowers, alongside Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning. He is responsible for handing over material from one of the world's most secretive organisations – the NSA.

In a note accompanying the first set of documents he provided, he wrote: "I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions," but "I will be satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant."

Despite his determination to be publicly unveiled, he repeatedly insisted that he wants to avoid the media spotlight. "I don't want public attention because I don't want the story to be about me. I want it to be about what the US government is doing."

ABC Schooled

Everyone's talking about this morning George Stephanopoulis interview with Glenn Greenwald.  "Rush transcript" just posted.  Excerpt:

Every single time any major media outlet reports on something that the government is hiding, that political officials don't want people to know, such as the fact that they are collecting the phone records of all Americans, regardless of any suspicion of wrongdoing, the people in power do exactly the same thing. They attack the media as the messenger and they are trying to discredit the story. This has been going back decades, ever since the Pentagon papers were released by the New York Times, and political officials said you are endangering national security. The only thing we've endangered is the reputation of the people in power who are building this massive spying apparatus about any accountability who are trying to hide from the American people what it is that they are doing. There is no national security harm from letting people know that they are collecting all phone records, that they are tapping into the Internet, that they are planning massive cyber attacks both foreign and even domestic. These are things that the American people have a right to know. The only thing that's being damaged is the credibility of political officials in the way that they exercise power in the dark.

Glenn Greenwald plays a pivotal role in my book (with Kevin Gosztola) on the Bradley Manning case, just published in an updated edition. 

Feinstein Backs Clapper

Watch director of  National Intelligence, James Clapper, seemingly lie this past March to Sen. Ron Wyden (one of few critics of the administration after this week's bombshells on NSA "spying").  Then see this from The Guardian's blog on what happened this morning:

Stephanopoulos plays a clip of DNI James Clapper testifying before a hearing of the Senate intelligence committee in March this year, in which he was asked by Democratic senator Ron Wyden: "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?"

"No sir," replied Clapper. "Not intentionally."

Stephanopoulos tells Feinstein, I have to admit it's hard for me to square what Clapper said there with what we've found out in recent days.

Feinstein responds that James Clapper is a model of honesty and says perhaps the question –or the answer– has been misunderstood.

Sunday Morning in the Church of Beethoven

My weekly feature, this time with what my friend Tim Page calls the greatest conductor of Beethoven's "Pastoral,"  here in its (slow-but-steady) entirety with a little intro, too.

'Girls' Gone Mild

Yes, it's season 38 of the hit HBO series, with Hannah as a grandmom with hearing aids still eating her way through Brooklyn (and banging young guys).  And her friends are still obnoxious.  Laraine Newman stars.

Blogging the NSA Scandals

Don't miss live-blog at The Guardian, not surprising since they helped break the twin bombshells this week.  But it's well done and very valuable this morning with updates and links and analysis.  Hell, I'd do live-blog myself, as I did with WikiLeaks and Occupy and a few other suhjects for so long, but don't feel I am expert enough on his subject.   See link at Guardian blog to James Fallows piece, for example,  and then there's this:

A final bombshell in the Times: tech company "employees whose job it is to comply with Fisa requests... in some cases have national security clearance." And yet the leaders of these companies vehemently deny any knowledge of a program called Prism and take umbrage at the suggestion that they would ever participate in such a thing.

Army Suspends Top General

For failure to probe sexual assault.  And there's this:

Amid increased political pressure to crack down on sexual abuse in the military services, the air force said Friday it is expanding the office responsible for sexual assault prevention and placed a female two-star general in charge.

Maj Gen Margaret H Woodward, who ran the US portion of the allied air campaign over Libya in 2011 and is one of the air force's brightest stars, is running the reorganized office. She will report to the vice chief of the air force.

The move won praise from the chairman of the House armed services committee, Republican representative Howard P "Buck" McKeon, who called Woodward a "breath of fresh air".

Gun Nut Actress Arrested in Ricin Case

A Texas woman arrested finally and faces 10 years in prison for allegedly mailing or having some part in sending ricin-laced letters to President Obama and Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York and man who heads a gun control group.  Of course, her beef was any infringement of gun rights. Her name is Shannon Richardson or Shannon Rogers Guess though she has a couple of other names as an actress or more accurately, an extra. She has appeared in The Walking Dead--as a zombie, naturally--and The Vampire Diaries and initially blamed her husband for the letters. That's her at left. 

Shooting in Santa Monica

Some wild reports this afternoon--along with news of President Obama visiting for a fundraiser at the time three miles away--but now seems that man shot wildly on street and also shot three people in car then fled to Santa Monica College campus--he did not shoot anyone there.  He ended up in library and taken into custody there.  Naturally, school in lockdown amid reports, probably false, of second shooter.  Or so this all seems now.   Three taken to hospital, two critical.  UPDATE  Now it seems the whole thing  started when he set fire to a home and attempted a couple of carjackings.  Further: two found dead in the home, one shot outside--six in total at hospital.  One woman wounded while riding in a bus that he shot into.  Campus now being searched for bomb.  One witness claims shooter was white man dressed in black and carrying a shotgun or semi-automatic.  "Life is a Gamble" written on back of sweatshirt. 

'The Loner'

NYT reporter who co-wrote its much-battered profile of Glenn Greenwald suggested in email to Andrew Sullivan that Glenn probably lacks friends and may be a "loner."  So here's Neil Young, 1968, "The Loner."