"Throughout the surveillance debate, the executive branch, including Obama, has lied, obfuscated, and misled the American people in a variety of ways. Before Edward Snowden's leaks, they could at least tell themselves that the disinformation was serving the purpose of keeping al-Qaeda operates from learning the general contours of our surveillance capabilities. But today, when that excuse has long since expired, Obama is still lying, obfuscating, and misleading the American people." said Friedersdorf. Going on to say, "His tone on Friday was inappropriately dismissive, while the substance was misleading at best and mendacious at worst." Friedersdorf also called the speech a low point in Barack Obama's presidency, which i don't agree with, Obama has often done worse, like the drone murders innocent civilians and...it's a long list.
And Eugene Robinson of the far from liberal Washington Post wrote the same day that "The modest reforms Obama proposed do not begin to address the fundamental question of whether we want the National Security Agency to log all of our phone calls and read at least some of our e-mails, relying on secret judicial orders from a secret court for permission. President Obama’s message about the government’s massive electronic surveillance programs came through loud and clear: Get over it." Thanks Edward.
A week earlier.John Naughton's article 'Edward Snowden's Not the Story. The Fate of the Internet Is' took a deeper look into the how much we owe Edward Snowden focusing on the role the mainstream media has played up until now by regurgitating government spin about Snowden. Naughton writes, "Repeat after me: Edward Snowden is not the story. The story is what he has revealed about the hidden wiring of our networked world. This insight seems to have escaped most of the world's mainstream media. The obvious explanations are: incorrigible ignorance; the imperative to personalise stories; or gullibility in swallowing US government spin, which brands Snowden as a spy rather than a whistleblower." Going on to say, "In a way, it doesn't matter why the media lost the scent. What matters is that they did. The "human interest" angle has trumped the real story, which is what the NSA revelations tell us about how our networked world actually works and the direction in which it is heading."
Naughton's broadly read article helped open the door for the this week's criticisms of Obama's surveillance speech. Thanks again Edward.
Then there's the story 'On Obama's Cancellation of Summit with Putin and Extradition' that upon investigation by real journalists dissolved into one about how the US frequently refuses extradition requests where, unlike with Snowden, it involves serious crimes and there is an extradition treaty [here's a list of recent examples].
As Tom Engelhardt of the TomDispatch detailed in his recent article 'Now You See Him, Now You Don’t' about the miraculous events surrounding retired CIA operative Robert Seldon Lady's disappearance from custody in Panama which avoided him being extradited to Italy on an international arrest warrant, “If the US wants to be credible in any way on the issue of extradition request they might start by applying to requests for people residing in the US for the moment. I am talking of people like Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosh, people who are known terrorists wanted in Venezuela and in Cuba, who are wanted in Ecuador. People who are living in the United States. If they start to extradite those people to those countries, they might have, maybe on the moral level a bit more credibility."
Thanks again to Edward Snowden's courage the global press is now far less intimidated and far more likely to perform their 5th Estate duty as investigative journalists who's role in these dark as one of the few remaining honest voices of opposition to the fascist order can not be overstated.
"In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell
