Or they're just a front for Russian intelligence, as has been suggested for years, as evidenced by the fact that Assange says there's no need to report on Russia because of the "free and open media" they have, as evidenced by his show on RT, as evidenced by their facilitating Snowden's defection, as evidenced by...
It seems like there are a few die-hards left who thought Assange and Manning were the greatest thing ever exposes the big bad USG, and are refusing to acknowledge the obvious: wikileaks exists so the FSB can run agitprop against its geopolitical foes.
Edit: I'd just like to point out the fact that all of these downvotes are flooding in at 3:00 am PST on a Friday night. Can anyone think of a timezone that might coincide with?
Making an inflammatory claim and calling it "obvious" guarantees the kind of thread we don't want on HN. That amounts to trolling. Please don't do it, and please don't stoke flamewars once they get going, either.
Accusations of astroturfing or shilling without evidence are not allowed on HN. Rushing to that as an explanation is, invariably, evidence of sloppy thinking—or maybe non-thinking, of the kind that political passion leads us all to. It should have been obvious that there are many countries where people were reading HN at that hour and that you'd given plenty of them plenty of reason to downvote. It's embarrassing to see a comment here insinuate that only Russian spies could possibly disagree, and just as embarrassing to see how many users upvote such an absurdity.
This community is deeply divided on divisive issues. People on all sides need to conduct themselves more civilly than this, so please don't do it again.
I'm kinda fascinated - why do you think they're fundamentally dishonest? I could maybe understand you thinking this about Assange/Greenwald (I personally don't) since they're essentially reporters - so we have to rely on them accurately reporting what they have been informed by sources, and being able to judge whether the source is credible, and to elect to report on anything regardless of whether it conflicts with their viewpoints etc.
But to apply the same criticism to Edward Snowden is a whole different thing altogether. He has produced reams of evidence on the practices of the US intelligence agencies, for him to be "fundamentally dishonest" would involve fabricating large chunks of that, and if I believed that then I wouldn't stop at "dishonest" I'd go with "crazy" or worse.
I didn't downvote you, but I think you're being downvoted because you're being a little vague. If Snowden is lying constantly (particularly as you say about the behaviours he exposed) I'd expect the criticism to be more specific than what you said.
Also the "they want to take down the United States" thing is pretty extreme and a bit "InfoWars" sounding, and if you listen to him and his justifications for what he did then it's pretty apparent that this is not something he stands for.
>hey want to take down the United States" thing is pretty extreme and a bit "InfoWars" sounding
USG, not US. There's a very specific sort of western libertarian/leftist that believes the US' foreign policy is evil, that the military-intelligence wing is a tool of evil, and that opposing it in any way possible is an unalloyed good. I put all three of them in that camp. You could add the likes of Chomsky to that mix. That doesn't mean they don't like their conception of what America is or could be, but they see America's actions in the world as evil and in need of opposing.
edit: Again I'm not the one downvoting you, disagreeing with someone is not a reason to downvote IMO
I was kinda hoping for something a bit more substantial - those aren't particularly convincing and smell slightly of hit-pieces attempting to smear Snowden while conveniently diverting from the main issue (that the US Government applies an insane level of surveillance on the US people).
First story is about an interview with Putin and why he didn't go in harder on him. The second is that his NSA boss denies he had the sweeping access he had (of course he did, the official line is still that these programs don't exist isn't it?). The WSJ one I couldn't read in its entirety but it opened by calling him a liar and a thief, so I'm not sure how impartial we can consider it to be. Both yahoo articles boil down to "we don't think he could earn and do what he said he did". None really discredit what he leaked, they all seem to be geared towards stoking the flames around this idea that he's an untrustworthy, shady liar who has questionable motivations.
I don't think we're going to see eye to eye on this, which is fine - neither of us are in a position to change anything around the situation. But your final line - "they see America's actions in the world as evil and in need of opposing" - man it's really hard to argue that this isn't true. Even if we just look at the Middle East, what the US and the UK have been up to over there for the last few decades is pretty appalling.
The WSJ one I couldn't read in its entirety but it opened by calling
him a liar and a thief, so I'm not sure how impartial we can consider
it to be.
"Impartial?" I'm not seeing "liar"/"thief" or any such innuendo in the opening. Here's the full article [0] -- which is an extract from an upcoming book. This pokes holes in Snowden's narrative, i.e. How Snowden Escaped Hong Kong Exclusive [1], and, if true, would fill a lot of glaring holes (i.e. How did Snowden get on an Aerofloat flight out of HK almost a week after the manhunt started?).
Also, a big concern raised is the breadth of information Snowden walked off with. Allegedly, it wasn't just privacy/surveillance info, but also national security and military secrets. From an audit of the 1.5 million docs Snowden walked off with, "most had nothing to do with domestic surveillance or whistle blowing." This raises eyebrows.
> i.e. How did Snowden get on an Aerofloat flight out of HK almost a week after the manhunt started?
Because Hong Kong let him go, as he wasn't officially wanted at the time:
> as the US had revoked his passport (and issued an arrest warrant) and notified Hong Kong of the revocation a day before the plane took off. However, as numerous news reports of the time reported, the US information [in the arrest warrant] was contradictory and incomplete, and thus Hong Kong did nothing to stop Snowden from leaving [0]. The Guardian [1] quotes a Hong Kong official as saying Snowden left "through a lawful and normal channel".
It was quite funny, IIRC: The US was increasing the pressure on HK and submitted an arrest/extradition request, but apparently they had left out his middle name and the passport number on the form.
So HK let him go, claiming they followed all laws and obligations from their treaties, basically saying "Oh, that Edward Snowden! Damn, if only we had known."
I'm not sure how it's possible to miss the liar/thief part - the opening sentence is "Of all the lies that Edward Snowden has told since his massive theft..."
However now you're getting somewhere - criticism that he's picked up docs related to military secrets does seem pretty valid. I'd hope that it was just that he picked up a broad range of docs in the hope that that some would contain information supporting the surveillance issue (kind of ironically mirroring the "dragnet" approach to surveillance) - but we can't be sure I suppose.
I'm sorry as I did a poor job qualifying my statement. As it stands now, my claim is incorrect. I apologize and thank you for your note.
I meant to say that saying Snowden is a thief (true) and that he has told lies (many of his claims are disputed) isn't being partial. I can see how the paywall would make the opening seem partial. I'd read the entire article so I was putting the opening in the context of the author's possibilities, e.g. Snowden didn't necessarily have collusion with Russia in mind.
>so I'm not sure how impartial we can consider it to be.
Surely the question isn't whether it's 'impartial' but whether it's accurate. If he is a liar and a thief then it's perfectly ok for the WSJ to call him one.
I'd be interested in an example of this if you have one, because I read all the source materials in this story and found his arguments compelling (after initially buying into the narrative)
I've only read the first two stories, but I'm struggling to see how they reflect badly on Greenwald. The context does not change the meaning in either context.
This is not the right place for this discussion, but in both cases the accusations in the pieces retweeted by Greenwald (Harris as 1. a bigoted "scientific racist", 2. a "genocidal fascist maniac") are not supported when Harris' quotes are seen in context.
Greenwald's condemnation of The Guardian's summary of Assange's interview seems accurate. But Greenwald's assessment of Harris, and his tweets in that matter, seem very biased.
I don't think its fair to bundle them together. What Assange is doing and acting is way differnt from Snowden, Greenwald. Or Poitras, Manning for that matter.
Each of these people should be looked at based on their own actions.
I recall about a week after the Snowden disclosures some people saying the Snowden leaks were deliberate and that NSA has kept up this tradition of false flag disclosures. If anything, the whole web is certainly more secure now, and Snowden is even quoted as saying: "I still work for the NSA" after the leaks. I don't buy the rhetoric that NSA is simply all about slurping up plaintext. They have a duty to secure the web too. It's a weird paradox that they both want more security and want all the plaintext they can salvage.
>He said: “In Russia, there are many vibrant publications, online blogs, and Kremlin critics such as [Alexey] Navalny are part of that spectrum. There are also newspapers like “Novaya Gazeta”, in which different parts of society in Moscow are permitted to critique each other and it is tolerated, generally, because it isn’t a big TV channel that might have a mass popular effect, its audience is educated people in Moscow. So my interpretation is that in Russia there are competitors to WikiLeaks.” In addition, he claimed “no WikiLeaks staff speak Russian, so for a strong culture which has its own language, you have to be seen as a local player.”
Greenwald is an occasionally decent writer with a penchant for over-exaggeration and finger pointing. I used to be an ardent fan of The Intercept, but more recently have noticed it becoming far angrier and politically charged. In addition, it seems far more willing to play fast and loose with the truth, lack citation, and generally falsify as much as it accuses. Leading to the current state of the comments section on there where anyone who would rather take a more nuanced pragmatic view of things is called a "shill" by some bleating anti-authoritarian sheep.
I beg your pardon?
Where exactly did I accuse anyone of distributing "Fake News"? I was merely lamenting the slide of a publication, of which I used to respect the views and content, from champion of fact, and keen-eyed investigative journalism to another angry editorialist internet rag. Which, seems to increasingly fail to let the truth get in the way of their click-thru rate. TI's shameful behaviour during the recent incredibly dirty (on both sides) US election wasn't to stand back and give careful considered analysis, but rather pick an enemy and jump into the fray both feet first.
Kinda saddened at the censorship above. I can't help but feel I (and everyone else) have a right to be called names, know the names I'm being called and try and understand why I'm being called them. I'm sure this was in good will, and in the best interests of the discourse on this forum, but damn it's infuriating!
Your comments did more than anyone else's in this thread (that I read) to destroy productive conversation. I understand how these things feel and that it's always, with high confidence, the other person who blew it—but civil conversation requires that we each catch ourselves in that bias.
It looks like you've been using HN primarily for political arguments for a while now. That's not what this site is for, so please don't. (Edit: actually, that last bit was probably unfair on my part—it was probably just a case of election-seasonitis, which afflicted most commenters, rather than an abuse of the site. Sorry about that.)
Unfortunately, with that comment, you've undermined what might have been a decent original point. You now just come across as someone who like to call people dishonest for no good reason.
Having read that, the Guardian's summary and the original interview, I find the Guardian's summary to be, by far, the more honest description of the interview (albeit not a perfect one). Greenwald's different personal interpretation (which he seems to believe invalidates the Guardian's interpretation as a complete fabrication) is merely the belief that when reporting the news (even while linking to the full account!), one must not explain or put into context, but merely repeat what was said, even if doing so distorts the event by taking it out of context. That is a valid opinion, but one which is very much rejected by most good journalists. Reporting news that way simply puts a rubber stamp of approval on propaganda unless most readers are well informed in the background of the story, an assumption that journalists must not make.
Also, Assange said those things in the actual interview (which the Guardian linked to):
> In Russia, there are many vibrant publications, online blogs, and Kremlin critics such as [Alexey] Navalny are part of that spectrum. There are also newspapers like "Novaya Gazeta", in which different parts of society in Moscow are permitted to critique each other and it is tolerated, generally, because it isn't a big TV channel that might have a mass popular effect, its audience is educated people in Moscow.
So, given that the reality is that in Russia journalism is oppressed to levels that are rather extreme, that the media in the West is much more vibrant and critical of government than in Russia, and given that Assange obviously knows that, the Guardian's summary is not only valid, but pretty much the most reasonable one.
Does Assange imply that the state of independent media to be so much better in Russia than in the West that WL is needed elsewhere? Why does WL exist given the statement by Assange?
By now he's learned that a lot of people will support him no matter how little sense he makes, so he just engages in gaslighting full on, and then Glenn Greenwald tells the cheering inhabitants of bullshit mountain how it's newspapers like the Guardian that are really sources of fake news because they explain Assange's unhinged propaganda rather than just repeat it.
Errm, that is very much not the same as saying that Russia has free and open media in general. He's merely arguing that Wikileaks can't help because Wikileaks-equivalents aren't the kind of media Russia is clamping down on the first place.
It seems like there are a few die-hards left who thought Assange and Manning were the greatest thing ever exposes the big bad USG, and are refusing to acknowledge the obvious: wikileaks exists so the FSB can run agitprop against its geopolitical foes.
Edit: I'd just like to point out the fact that all of these downvotes are flooding in at 3:00 am PST on a Friday night. Can anyone think of a timezone that might coincide with?