Walter Pincus
To Washington Post columnist Walter Pincus (7/9/13), something about NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden just doesn’t smell right. Lucky for him he gets space in a prestigious newspaper to work out his hunch—apparently without any editors or factcheckers to get in his way.
Right from the start, Pincus lays out where he’s coming from:
Did Edward Snowden decide on his own to seek out journalists and then a job at Booz Allen Hamilton’s Hawaii facility as an IT systems administrator to gather classified documents about the National Security Agency’s worldwide surveillance activities?
He’s just asking questions, right? Not really—the whole point of the column is to insinuate that Snowden’s being controlled, on some level, by WikiLeaks, in cahoots with Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald.
Pincus finds it odd that he “worked less than three months at Booz Allen, but by the time he reached Hong Kong in mid-May, Snowden had four computers with NSA documents.”
Then Pincus wonders: “Was he encouraged or directed by WikiLeaks personnel or others to take the job as part of a broader plan to expose NSA operations to selected journalists?”
That could be, since he seems to think it’s happened before:
In the case of Pfc. Bradley Manning, the U.S. soldier on trial for disclosing thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks, it was Julian Assange and his organization who directed the collection of documents, U.S. prosecutors have alleged.
Of course, what the government is alleging about Manning isn’t necessarily reality; Manning himself has taken credit for the decision to share the information with WikiLeaks.
But Pincus is on his trail to… somewhere. How did Snowden choose which journalists to talk to? Pincus draws a line between Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald and WikiLeaks. You see, Greenwald and filmmaker Laura Poitras “have had close connections with [WikiLeaks‘ Julian] Assange and WikiLeaks.” How close? Pincus writes:
On April 10, 2012, Greenwald wrote for the WikiLeaks Press‘s blog about Poitras and WikiLeaks being targeted by U.S. government officials.
So that tight connection could explain how it is that Julian Assange knew about Greenwald’s NSA scoops before they were published. He was interviewed by Democracy Now! on May 29, writes Pincus:
Assange previewed the first Greenwald Guardian story based on Snowden documents that landed a week later. Speaking from Ecuador’s embassy in London, Assange described how NSA had been collecting “all the calling records of the United States, every record of everyone calling everyone over years…. Those calling records already [are] entered into the national security complex.”
Did he know ahead of time of that Guardian story describing the U.S. court order permitting NSA’s collection of the telephone toll records of millions of American Verizon customers and storing them for years?
Pincus closes by noting that WikiLeaks continues to assist Snowden, and writing somewhat ominously, “What other roles the group played in getting Snowden to this point remain a mystery.”
Glenn Greenwald (cc photo: Gage Skidmore)
Unfortunately for Pincus, Glenn Greenwald reads the Washington Post. And he wrote a devastating rebuttal, taking on all of the inaccuracies that Pincus floated in his piece.
Did Greenwald write for WikiLeaks‘ blog? No. “I have no idea what you’re talking about here, and neither do you,” Greenwald writes, noting that the piece in question was one of his columns for Salon.com (4/8/12).
But never mind that—didn’t Greenwald’s WikiLeaks connection mean that Julian Assange “previewed” his NSA scoops? That claim, Greenwald writes, is “deeply embarrassing for someone who claims even a passing familiarity with surveillance issues.” Why? Because what Assange was talking about were the well-documented Bush-era NSA scandals that had been widely discussed years earlier.
But still it’s odd that Snowden could amass all those NSA documents in three months, right? No, Greenwald explains, because Snowden had worked for various NSA contractors for four years.
OK, but isn’t it fair to wonder whether someone instructed Snowden to take this job to leak information? Well, Greenwald explains, this has all been pretty thoroughly reported, albeit in obscure outlets like the New York Times (6/11/13) and…the Washington Post (6/24/13).
Greenwald writes that “making up facts… should still be deemed unacceptable. At the very least, they merit a prominent correction.” He’s right. But how did the Washington Post not factcheck any of this before they ran Pincus’ tendentious piece?
I would say it’d be a good issue for the Post‘s ombud to take up, but they got rid of that position earlier this year. They do have a readers’ representative, though—Doug Feaver. His email is readers@washpost.com. Maybe he could look into it?
UPDATE: After what seemed to Greenwald like a rather long delay, the Post added a lengthy correction to the top of the Pincus column.
It’s thorough, which is good; the shorter version of the correction might simply read, “Never mind about this whole thing.”
The very Pincus who spied on American students abroad?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Pincus
Nothing ruffles a lapdog’s fur more than having an actual watchdog in the house, does it?
I am not surprised that the Washington Post would do this with Pincus. Around six or seven years ago–sorry to be in my anecdotage here about precise timing–a female writer for the Washington Post earned a Pulitzer for really bad work on rendition flights. Notice that I don’t call this writer a journalist and that I don’t remember her name. To quote Winston Churchill, or, rather, to misquote him; it is more likely that she will live on in the infamy of bad journalism and poor taste than in the infamy of time and what the USA reading press should really be concerned with. Lacreme Rerum. When the French Press had actually been publishing the tag numbers of various planes and various other papers had actually covered in depth the deep webs of networks of CIA start ups involved in financing rendition and doing the legal work to put the planes in CIA limited liability companies and the like so as to avoid leaving a paper trail, this Washington Post writer did not take notice. Neither did the American reading public for the most part. As for myself, I sent emails to my Yahoo account from the French press whenever they published rendition plane tag numbers. These emails were deleted as “marked read.” That is what one should do with all Washington Post writing. Have one’s email account promptly delete it and mark it as “read.”
The line “Snowden had four computers with NSA documents” makes a big assumption, too. Who really knows what’s on each of Snowden’s computers?
Another assumption is that it would be wrong to premeditate and conspire to commit crimes in order to expose government wrongdoing.
If Pincus had any brains he’d question Snowdens CIA background (as opposed to the lesser important booz allen), and point to the covert war between the NSA and the CIA. Snowden is controlled alright, Pincus just doesn’t get by whom.
I think it was revealed years ago that Pincus is paid by the NSA, or CIA
This is just another smear tactic by the powers that think they are gods. Someone doing an article like that, is nothing more or less than a shill serving for those who are tugging at his leash to get him to bark.
Not been crazy about This Snowden person, I think he was exposing the fact that “it ‘rains”, and the Public went into panic mode to find out “there is really Rain”, when in fact the majority of people know very well that it does, because they are standing in the mud puddles.
On a related note, Glen Greenwald should be regnized as the beeing the best journalist by far.
I find it interesting the same neocons who lied to us, claiming Saddam was a threat to this country, are now hysterically attempting to slander anyone supporting Mr. Snowden. They are still saying “All of this is legal, not to worry.”
Here is Abby Martin of RT interviewing Russ Tice, a former whistleblower, who claims he saw evidence that senators and Supreme Court justices are being monitored. This thing is way bigger than the tip of the NSA iceberg. Take ten minutes to watch this interview and see if you come away with the conclusion that a central group can control senators, police, judges etc. with excerpts of personal calls or internet activity.
Mr. Pincus….since you seem to delight in making up and building peculiar castles of the air evidence, maybe I can help set you in a new direction. : )
Since the FBI, CIA, NSA, DHS and on and on are all spy people…..why wouldn’t you wonder about whether all the spies are actually spying on all the other spies? How can you tell the good spies from the bad ones, and if spies are caught, are they really caught or was that their plan? So, are these spies caught, planted, re-planted…what?
Since we know that re: curvevball and yellowcake etc. etc. that the FBI and the CIA don’t talk to each other, and probably no one else does either, There surely must be spies, within spy rings within spy gaggles to rival the rings of Saturn! Of course, they will spy on each other, because…that’s what spies do. Sadly they are probably all in competition too for all the tax dollars which are going to all that private industry for replacing the government employees who were drowned in the GOP bathtub. There must be internal double spies within corporate spies and each wanting a bigger cut of the giant and private pizza pie that is replacing reasonable salaries of the GOP bathtub displaced ones…
Mr. Pincus, spying is also a money grab and no spy person talks to another spy group without a reason, because then the one group might lose some of that money. or power to that second You know, there’s a lot of missing money when the military and the contractors get close by, so THAT is the conspiracy that many taxpayers would like you and others to chase down and disect.
Personally, i think Mr. Snowden is just a whistleblower, and not a terrorist, and because of so much of the spy on spy confusion, people do not recognize the real whistleblower thing.
Still–without judging either side of any of this–it is not far-fetched to think that a person planning to do what Snowden has done would look for experienced assistance in order to accomplish it.
Dsmith: Thanks for posting this interview with Russ Tice. I did not know about that online news outlet before your post. It should trouble lawyers and journalists that Justice Alito was bugged by the NSA and that lawyers and lawyers have been bugged for a very long time. I agree with Russ Tice that the higher ups at the NSA appear to be in control of everything, and that they might be doing it all by blackmail. Did they blackmail Colin Powell? Did the blackmail Obama? Is that why earlier in his career he was not in favor of domestic spying, but now he has embraced what the NSA does hook, line and sinker? Russ Tice mentions that we are in a police state, but that it is “police light.” I believe that he says that. I disagree. In the Winter of 2004 when I moved from NC back to CA after a long hiatus, I visited one of my favorite jurists in the world, a jurist with whom I studied secured transactions in real property at UCLAW, William Warren, Esq. We discussed Angela Merkel’s not using an armored car to walk across the street to the White House when she visited Bush, as compared to Bush’s inauguration, in which Bush practically had to be hid with a tank to make it to his swearing in. Warren told me that he thought that the USA was going towards fascism. He used that very word: fascism. I agreed. And I agree today more than ever. We are living in a state that is something that we have not just inherited from Georges Bush and Orwell. No. We have inherited this sorry state of a country that we live in from Hitler, Mussolini and Franco. Some of the worst dictators and human slaughter house factories on the planet. USA: Is anybody leaving dodge other than me? That is what I want to know. If you are not leaving this boat, you should. It is sinking. I am leaving. It will sink without me. I will wave goodbye to your barks from abroad and wash them drift away down the Pacific–that part of you that falls into the Left Coast. And as for the Right Coast, you will drift off into pieces into the Atlantic…”Come sail away with me…” Somebody else will. Not I.
And, by the way, Russian TV – RT – is on many cable services. Much better coverage of the Rest Of The World, especially film.
Kathleen Green: I disagree that capitalism is “part of human nature.” It is not part of “human nature” any more than communism is. Economic systems, like all systems of security and insecurity, are produced by men and by women. Go read the 18th Brumaire. Men make their own history. But not in conditions that they choose. I have paraphrased. Marx should have included women. But he got the gist of who makes history, and, hence, economic systems. We do. Not “human nature.” Not “mother nature.” Men, women and children. That has always been the case. As English Common Law jurists used to say, “Since the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.” Marx fled Germany to write in England. He would probably agree.
Jacqueline Mraz: I guess what I posted is an oversimplification. I certainly didn’t mean to say we must live under capitalism; I certainly think all our actions matter, and are not pre-ordained. But I just meant that humans are always various and subject to desires, fears, forgetfulness, as well as love, compassion, the need to share, and the desire and ability to create. Capitalism is fed by (capitalizes on?) certain parts of our nature, that’s all I meant. I didn’t mean to say it’s built into us as an economic system. I must learn to be more explicit, I guess.
I’ve never heard of the 18th Brumaire, but I will certainly try to find it and read it. Thanks for commenting!
Now if our gov’t and its various machines all colluded for some specific end result, it could only mean they are heroes looking out to save their deluded public from another attack. I feel so safe.
Whoa! I am so glad to hear some truth-telling on HRC! If only there were some way to stop her; only I can’t see anyone better who could get elected in this ridiculous mess, nor anyone worse.
How disappointing to see the slimy little conspiracy theorist posting his rants under various fake names here. Even worse, to see him attempting to drag Alexander Cockburn down into the muck with him, with him no longer around to defend his name. Cockburn was the farthest thing from s conspiracy theorist you could imagine, which soerly vexed the lunatic fringe.
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