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Snowden Gave 15,000 Documents to Glenn Greenwald; Obama Cancels Russia Summit
sl4shd0rk writes "The American journalist Glenn Greewald, who published much of the initial info on illegal NSA programs, plans to release more revelations on the NSA spying machine in 10 days. 'The articles we have published so far are a very small part of the revelations that ought to be published,' Greenwald said on Tuesday. Greenwald further elaborated on public posturing which many nations are currently taking: 'The Brazilian government is showing much more anger in public than it is showing in private discussions with the U.S. government. All governments are doing this, even in Europe.'"
The U.S. decided to pull out of a summit with Russia next month, citing the decision to grant Snowden asylum as a factor: "However, given our lack of progress on issues such as missile defense and arms control, trade and commercial relations, global security issues, and human rights and civil society in the last twelve months, we have informed the Russian Government that we believe it would be more constructive to postpone the summit until we have more results from our shared agenda. Russia's disappointing decision to grant Edward Snowden temporary asylum was also a factor that we considered in assessing the current state of our bilateral relationship. Our cooperation on these issues remains a priority for the United States, so on Friday, August 9, Secretaries Hagel and Kerry will meet with their Russian counterparts in a 2+2 format in Washington to discuss how we can best make progress moving forward on the full range of issues in our bilateral relationship."
"The US government telling other countries what to do and then throwing a temper tantrum when it doesn't get what it wants."
Congress clearly considers Snowden to be a whistleblower, or they wouldn't be voting on proposals to restrict the activity of the NSA http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/07/24/plan-to-defund-nsa-phone-collection-program-has-broad-support-sponsor-says/ Yet Obama continues to label Snowden's actions as espionage. He knows this bullshit, because apparently he's taken down from the internet his promise to protect whistleblowers http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/26/obama-whistleblower-website_n_3658815.html Good thing we have the Way Back Machine, then, isn't it? http://web.archive.org/web/20090227184741/http://change.gov/agenda/ethics_agenda/
soylentnews.org
Reading into Glen Greenwald's comments and some of his other statements, it would seem that much of the spying is used not for security purposes, rather it's to give an edge to certain select US businesses.
Unless you can point to something firmer, you probably have that garbled. The situation is rather more subtle than that.
Why We Spy on Our Allies - By R. James Woolsey, a Washington lawyer and a former Director of Central Intelligence.
Boeing Called A Target Of French Spy Effort
Airbus' Presentation on Boeing 787 - Bad CI Ethics?
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Yet Obama continues to label Snowden's actions as espionage
Snowden has been charged with two things- theft of government property (4 laptops) and giving classified information to a person without security clearance. The later charge was created by the Espionage Act of 1917. It is not "espionage" in any common use of the word. Nobody, including Snowden, has denied that he did those things.
It is Obama and the Executive Branch's job to enforce existing law. They're doing that. If the Judicial Branch rules that Snowden's actions were justified, then he'll walk free.
Snowden has been charged with two things- theft of government property (4 laptops) and giving classified information to a person without security clearance. The later charge was created by the Espionage Act of 1917. It is not "espionage" in any common use of the word.
I'm not expert on the Espionage act, but the Wikipedia tells me that the original Act made the following a crime:
1. To convey information with intent to interfere with the operation or success of the armed forces of the United States or to promote the success of its enemies. This was punishable by death or by imprisonment for not more than 30 years or both.
2. To convey false reports or false statements with intent to interfere with the operation or success of the military or naval forces of the United States or to promote the success of its enemies when the United States is at war, to cause or attempt to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, refusal of duty, in the military or naval forces of the United States, or to willfully obstruct the recruiting or enlistment service of the United States. This was punishable by a maximum fine of $10,000 or by imprisonment for not more than 20 years or both.
Snowden hasn't done either of things and there is no basis for Obama to be pursuing him based upon the Espionage Act. He has not handed sensititve secrets to the enemy, either directly or by way of the media. So unless you are aware of another part of the Espionage Act, it seems that Obama is stretching its definition to pursue Snowden.
soylentnews.org
And last time I checked the US economy still leads the world by a very wide margin.
You must have checked a long time ago, because by many measurements the US economy does not lead the world:
- If you go by total GDP, then the US produces more than any single country, but produces less than the EU countries combined, and China is catching up rapidly.
- If you go by GDP per capita, US is somewhere around 6-8th in the world, so if you mean "We produce the most stuff per person". Places that have a higher GDP per capita include Luxemburg, Norway, U.A.E., Qatar, Singapore, and Brunei, and possibly Switzerland.
- If you go by median household income, then the US loses to Luxemburg, Norway, and Switzerland.
- If you go by median wealth, then the US loses to approximately 14 other countries.
- If you go by GDP growth, then we're not even close to the top of the list.
It's not clear that the US has the best economy in the world. It is doing a heck of a lot better than a lot of other places, but it's not doing exceptionally well among other First World countries.
I am officially gone from