This is awful -- this Times editorial on Snowden urging clemency.
It's why I cancelled my subscription.
I'm all for a variety of views. I read everything from the Nation to the Amercan Spectactor and everything in between and beyond. I don't mind alternative views and views that aren't my own. I want to pay for content. But at this point, I won't pay for content by people who won't use the most rudimentary common sense in covering this story. I just can't. Yes, it means I will miss out, and I keep finding stories blocked as I use up my "free quotient". But eventually they are retweeted and clicking on the link delivers them, or if I'm desperate, I can search in Google and read them from the Google link. Yes, that's the hole in the paid content model, and I'd be happy if it were blocked, because I want newspapers to thrive. But I am cutting costs, and I won't pay the $14 a month or whatever it was for the Times. I'm also finding that if I occasionally buy a hard copy at the news stand, I get more out of it.
My comment:
The views of this Times editorial, rivulating through all the coverage of Snowden by journalist-activists and cadres from WikiLeaks like Laura Poitras, shockingly given a byline on a "news story," are why I have cancelled my subscription.
There is no proof for the sensational claims here, least of all provided by any actual Times investigative reporting.
There has been a shocking mass hysteria around Snowden preventing even the most common sense from functioning, with not even the most basic questions asked about who organized, helped and funded Snowden -- and who were active in anti-NSA activities long before Snowden surfaced publicly.
Not a single case has been produced of an actual violation of civil rights of a concrete person in the United States.
The Times seems to feel it can pick and chose judge rulings and reject those it doesn't like as "unfortunate."
Even the Supreme Court cannot decide this issue at root, however, as it really is about who gets to encrypt absolutely -- a band of anarchist thugs, or an elected liberal democratic state. That's all there is to it, in the end, and I know which one I choose.
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