At last, we have some "new news" on the Snowden case -- we haven't had any in ages!
That's because his leaks aren't news about him, and the manufactured news events that his supporters create -- like visits to him last October by German leftists -- aren't real news.
(BTW, nobody even from the Western Snowdenistas camp of German Greens, British leftists or American "progressives" formerly working for intelligence have physically seen Snowden since November 7, 2013. That's six months no one has obtained a proof of life! He's only been seen in electronic format, beamed into various meetings like the Wizard of Oz with a script.)
Oh, to be sure, there was a kerfluffle recently with the Snowden Award for Internet Journalism (!) created in Russia, but that's merely a manufactured news on the Russian side, with some coopted (or maneuvering) journalists and Internet associations. They swear they have obtained his permission for use of his name.
Если честно, то со Сноуденом договорилась @gdekak pic.twitter.com/7T5JxJIZIZ
— Alexey Venediktov (@aavst) April 25, 2014
Translation: To be honest, @gdekak [Venediktov's assistant] did make an agreement with Snowden.
They likely went through his Russian lawyer, the FSB-proximate Anatoly Kucherena. Ben Wizner, who calls himself Snowden's lawyer at the ACLU (I think he means "advocate" in the human rights campaign sense), claims that this award is a "hoax" and that his "client" has no knowledge of it.
That was merely spin to keep damage control around Snowden's bad choices (or coercions) going strong -- it wasn't a hoax, as not only I wrote, but as Max Seddon of Buzzfeed pointed out to Wizner, trying to get him to respond to repeated statements coming out of Moscow that in fact these journalists had gotten Snowden's approval just wasn't working. I saw him try to get to the Russian Association for Electronic Communications, and not get any public answers anyway, and make a few more queries, then drop it. That's just the problem. Journalists hate criticizing Snowden because of the pressure they get from the left and from their own convictions, so they don't pursue these obvious stories.
My guess is that this Snowden Award was possibly the quid pro quo for Snowden getting to have a "challenging question" (i.e. softball) to Putin on his call-in TV show. Ty mne, ya tebya. But wait, wasn't it enough of a compromise for Snowden to have to be coopted on this show in the first place, in Putin's court, pitching the softball? No, in the contorted thinking of Snowden, we know that he thinks that he asked a question "just like" Ron Wyden asked in Congress -- and then he may have felt that in addition to be in this obvious propaganda setting, he should sign off on the awards in his name.
Because, you know, asking a soft question of Putin that he turns to his advantage to lie in ways no one inside his society can really challenge now forcefully, on state-controlled TV that just got even more controlled is just like a democratically-elected senator from Oregon asking a question in the democratic and free body of Congress at a hearing really representing civilian oversight, of an appointed official under the oversight of that body, whether his agency collected data on Americans. Right, just like. And in Snowden's mind -- where he believeves he himself is doing the Atlassian work of Congress and the courts all wrapped into one! -- it is. Of course, we know better -- even though few people ever say so.
But again none of this is real news. Real news is stuff like learning that in fact, neither Jesslyn Radack, who at least says she has a retainer signed from Snowden, and Ben Wizner, who hasn't commented clearly on the exact nature of his agreement with Snowden, are his attorneys in the sense commonly understood, i.e. not his reps on a book deal, or his reps in a cause they all share, but his negotiatiors with the government of the United States, which is of course the wronged party (as all of us are) in this case.
I remember -- laughably -- anonymous idiots on Twitter claimed that there weren't any negotiations with the US government, i.e. they wouldn't negotiate it. Not long after, the story came out that yet another lawyer -- Plato Cacheris, a real lawyer, with a real retainer -- appeared saying he had represented Snowden in talks with the government over his plea. What kind of deal could be made? For example, could he "return" (as much as you can "return" any copyable file on the Internet) the stolen files or explain what he had or what the journalists had in exchange for some kind of deal? This didn't seem to be going anywhere, and maybe there are no negotiations at the moment, but there were once! That made Wizner and Radack look like they were out of the loop -- again. As they did over their charge's dubious choice to get coopted for Putin's call-in show.
Now we have some real new news again -- and I haven't heard any of Snowden's "lawyers" comment at all.
Edward Jay Epstein, a veteran investigative reporter, has taken on the Snowden affair -- and thank God, there is a new counter to the "adversarial reporters" on the Snowdenistas' side.
In a piece in the Wall Street Journal titled Was Snowden's Heist a Foreign Espionage Operation? -- thanks for that question alone! -- he tells us an interesting bit of news -- that a former Cabinet member in the Obama Administration thinks there are only three explanations for the Snowden story, given the massive number of files he took which aren't about the civil rights issue of privacy, but are about our national security -- and expose us to Al Qaeda, the Russians, and so on.
Here's what this source say (emphasis added):
Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.), the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, described Mr. Snowden's theft of documents as "an act of treason." A former member of President Obama's cabinet went even further, suggesting to me off the record in March this year that there are only three possible explanations for the Snowden heist: 1) It was a Russian espionage operation; 2) It was a Chinese espionage operation, or 3) It was a joint Sino-Russian operation.
Add that to what our top military official said:
Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified to the House Armed Services Committee on March 13, 2014, that "The vast majority of the documents that Snowden . . . exfiltrated from our highest levels of security had nothing to do with exposing government oversight of domestic activities."
According to Gen. Dempsey, "The vast majority of those [stolen documents] were related to our military capabilities, operations, tactics, techniques and procedures."
Of course, the Snowdenistas went wild again at the very thought that their mascot was being tarred with the brush of "espionage" again -- they realize that if their civil rights hero and privacy whistleblower is shown in fact to be helping an enemy power or powers, he's toast. And of course they tried to spin away the notion of "damages" as furiously as they can. But when even a Second Life furry coder is writing me that he has lost faith in Snowden, you realize the Snowdenistas are losing their audience.
Epstein also provides us with more news -- if by "news" we mean he reminds us of things that everyone has forgotten and the mainstream liberal press, let alone the "adversarial journalists" backing Snowden never ask.
He reminds us that Snowden is not indicted.
Even Obama (especially Obama?) had to be reminded of this "technicality".
Good Lord, why isn't someone who has stolen the number of documents Snowden has stolen, tied to national security and capabilities, not citizens' privacy, and who has leaked with the damages indicated by Gen. Dempsey not indicted yet?! My God, it's been a year! What the hell is going on?
The WikiLeaks grand jury didn't close, either. Remember, years ago now, they asked for -- and got, despite the lawyers working overtime! -- the Twitter communications of Jacob Appelbaum and the other WikiLeaks activists. Understandably, this grand jury's efforts seem to have become protracted in the effort to find ties between Assange and Manning and Appelbaum, and foreign WikiLeaks operatives like Brigitta Jonsdottir of Iceland, who is a parliamentarian and might be hard to get at due to "immunity" and her country's reluctance to cooperate on prosecution WikiLeaks. With Manning's case, it was possible to establish her connection to Assange in the court martial, using the data on a confiscated laptop (not to mention, oh, the Wired transcripts!) Manning has already been sentenced to 35 years in a court martial. But sentencing indicting anyone else -- like Appelbaum, who is afraid to return to the US over this issue, along with his deep involvement in the Snowden heist -- or any kind of decision on how to address Assange -- has been delayed in political indecisiveness.
Or perhaps grand juries don't seem to do things like look at YouTube videos of the Chaos Computer Club and its annual conferences and follow the leads...or something. They're taking forever.
But Snowden?! Snowden's indictment shouldn't be taking so long, and the reason it is can only be political, and only be about Obama's continued reluctance to have this case prosecuted on his watch, because of pressure from the left.
I wish there was as much motivation to pressure the White House on Snowden as there is on Benghazi, but here's the issue: it's not just pressure from the left (ACLU, EFF, and worse) but the right (Ron Paul loonies).
With Epstein's revelation about what someone in the Obama cabinet really thinks (i.e. evidently because they have been briefed) about Snowden, perhaps more will come out. The time for Snowden's renewal of his asylum -- which the Russians have indicated they will renew -- is coming. He's tried desperately to get an invitation and clearance to go to Germany, and failed, because Chancellor Angela Merkel simply refuses to ruin relations with the US that much. Good!
We're making progress. Let's hope there will be more new news soon! This can and should become an election issue. Right now, Hillary has spoken up forcefully in that she faults Snowden for fleeing. Good! That helps to continue to pierce the veil of illusion over his flight that WikiLeaks keeps trying to pull. WikiLeaks itself has admitted now very frankly that they advised him to go to Russia. This isn't new news, but it's news coming at a time of other news (like Clinton's statement) that reinforces the awfulness of it. It's what enables Michael Kelley then to write a story about how a hole has been blown wide in the Snowden narrative. And indeed, as I've been pointed out for a year, Snowden was not forced to go to Moscow -- that is a myth. He had loads of time to flee elsewhere and didn't.
In adopting a critical stance about Snowden (she may say he still has useful "national conversation starter" effects on privacy, but she will draw the line on damage to national security mainly via Russia), Hillary will likely take most of the Democratic Party (liberal to left) sentiment with her. Unlike other issues that the hard left still hiding out in the Democratic Party has used to split the party or make it lurch to the left (Obama), such as health insurance or abortion, this time, if it keeps flogging "Snowden as hero" in the face of an indictment or more revelations about Russian collusion, it will be isolated (and that's a good thing). That's why we need to keep asking about this indictment.
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