Dark Corners

As far as I can tell, Edward Snowden didn’t sell classified information to a foreign power or group, nor was he working for a foreign power. Snowden blew the whistle on what he considered illegal actions committed against American citizens by the NSA for reasons of his own.

Although Snowden didn’t commit an act of espionage, the Obama administration has charged him under the Espionage Act of 1917.

Obama likes the Espionage Act and has used it more than any other modern president.

It’s interesting to watch the ruling class – government officials and media -- close ranks over Edward Snowden. You have the president claiming that the NSA spying program is transparent because its activities have been reviewed and approved by the FISA court – a secret court. You hear Dianne Feinstein spouting gibberish about national security like a newly minted fascist.

But my favorite has to be Mike Rogers, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, who said Edward Snowden stole information that belongs to the American people. Yeah, Rogers trotted that BS line out. If the information belongs to us, why didn’t we know it existed until Edward Snowden leaked information about it to Glenn Greenwald?

Like a number of other high level government officials, Mike Rogers also spewed some hogwash about how the “bad guys” around the world have already changed their tactics in response to Snowden’s revelations. This is ludicrous. Terrorists around the world knew the NSA and the CIA and the DIA and the FBI and a bevy of private contractors were spying on them; what the terrorists didn’t know is the same thing the American people didn’t know -- that these entities were also spying on Americans.

The American government got its fat hand stuck in the cookie jar, and now it is frantically trying to pull it out, say it never happened, claim that what we see and hear is wrong. How can we believe a young, narcissist like Edward Snowden over assertions made by Dianne Feinstein and key officials of the national security apparatus?

I for one don’t trust my government to walk the thin line that divides necessary intelligence collection from invasive and indiscriminate collection, the line that separates the need for secrecy from the public’s right to know what is being done in our name, and, most important of all, the line that recognizes that dissent, debate and vigorous protest are necessary elements in a functioning democracy. 

Our political system is sclerotic and our media hopelessly corrupt, and I have no confidence that our leaders can protect us from terrorists without resorting to domestic oppression, or without demonizing whistle-blowers like Edward Snowden, Bradley Manning and Julian Assange, or having corporate media blowhards like David Gregory of NBC question the motives of a journalist like Glenn Greenwald. Gregory is a corporate and government lapdog, an access junkie who will never do anything to put that access at risk; Gregory and any number like him don’t report stories, they parrot the talking points handed to them.

The Obama administration talks endlessly about how transparent and open it is, but in reality this administration is hazardous to the health of investigative journalists.

Real journalists challenge the carefully constructed lies peddled by the powerful. Robert Scheer, Amy Goodman, Bill Moyers, Jeremy Scahill, Robert Fisk and Chris Hedges have the courage to question the prevailing wisdom, the facile government line, and the outright lies that flow from Washington D.C. and corporate boardrooms like raw sewage.

In an age of hyper-secrecy, we need investigative journalists brave enough to shine a torch into the darkest corners of the American Empire.