60 Minutes‘ Scott Pelley (11/8/15) portrays Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning and spree killer Aaron Alexis as “dangerous hands.”
The lead of Scott Pelley’s 60 Minutes report (11/8/15) on security clearances said it all:
The fugitive Edward Snowden, convicted spy Chelsea Manning and mass murderer Aaron Alexis all had one thing in common, US government security clearances which they turned into weapons.
How do you get Snowden, Manning and the Washington Navy Yard spree shooter in the same category? By treating leaks to the press and a sawed-off shotgun as the same thing: all “weapons.” It’s a peculiar stance for a TV news magazine that prides itself on its tradition of investigative reporting to take—that getting information out to the public is a form of violence.
It’s also odd for journalists to describe Manning, because she was convicted under the Espionage Act, as a “convicted spy.” The law forbids giving “an unauthorized person…any classified information,” language that was not meant to give the United States an Official Secrets Act, but which has been treated as such by the Obama administration. Regardless of whether this is legal or constitutional, the Act doesn’t change the meaning of the word “spy”; presumably when 60 Minutes reporters get classified information from government officials, they don’t say to their sources, “Thanks for spying for us.”
In a CYA moment, Pelley acknowledges that “some believe that Snowden and Manning were right to expose what they saw as government abuses like the NSA’s domestic surveillance program.” But a sentence later, he’s again referring to the whistleblowers—along with the mass shooter—as “dangerous hands,” a line that provides the title for the segment.
Writing about the report for the blog ShadowProof (11/9/15), Kevin Gosztola noted that 60 Minutes
is presenting a national security state argument, which insists more should have been done to catch people like Snowden or Manning, who saw waste, fraud, abuse and illegality, and decided to expose the information to the public. To add on extra layers of scrutiny directed against them inevitably means creating an increasingly chilly climate for potential whistleblowers.
Unfortunately, elite journalists all too often have a tendency to identify not with those who expose official secrets but with those who persecute those who expose them—epitomized by Time‘s Michael Grunwald writing that he “can’t wait to write a defense of the drone strike that takes out Julian Assange” of WikiLeaks. Or David Gregory demanding of Glenn Greenwald on Meet the Press:
To the extent that you have aided and abetted Snowden, even in his current movements, why shouldn’t you, Mr. Greenwald, be charged with a crime?
New York Times‘ Charlie Savage on Democracy Now! (11/4/15): Prosecution of journalists is something that “just happened.”
There are more subtle ways of siding with the secret keepers and against the revealers—as when New York Times reporter Charlie Savage told Democracy Now!‘s Amy Goodman (11/4/15) not to blame Obama or Bush for the prosecution of whistleblowers, which is something that “just happened”:
Because of technology, it’s impossible to hide who’s in contact with whom anymore, and cases are viable to investigate now that weren’t before. That’s not something Obama did or Bush did. It’s just the way it is in the 21st century, and investigative journalism is still grappling with the implications of that.
As FAIR associate Norman Solomon (Common Dreams, 11/9/15) commented, it’s “as if the president at the wheel has little choice but to follow the technological routes that have opened up for Big Brother”:
In effect, the message is that—if you don’t like mass surveillance and draconian measures to intimidate whistleblowers as well as journalists—your beef is really with technology, and good luck with pushing back against that.
It’s true that refraining from using the tools of modern surveillance to wipe out investigative journalism requires a recognition that making public things government would rather keep secret can have a positive value. But if journalists don’t acknowledge this, why should we expect the government to?
Jim Naureckas is the editor of FAIR.org.
Messages can be sent to 60 Minutes here (or via Twitter: @60Minutes). Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective.
I thought it was a disgrace, full of lies and a hatchet job on Snowden and Manning, just disgusting! On national security and military matters, they cannot be trusted, they are militarist hawks. They are good on show biz and matters not of those two above. But this was nauseating.
Ellsberg, Assange, Manning, Snowden… they’re all heroes in my book. The world needs more courageous souls like them, not less.
The “libelous media” would be the apt epithet in this instance
To be labeled a traitor by a treacherous state is an honor few of us have the requisite courage of conscience to aspire to.
Jim Naureckas finds it “odd for journalists to describe Manning, because she was convicted under the Espionage Act, as a ‘convicted spy’…” Yet definition 6 of “spy” at Dictionary.com is “to engage in espionage.” On 28 Feb 2013, Manning pled guilty to—among other charges—seven specifications of breaking the Espionage Act. On 30 Jul 2013 Manning was found guilty of violating 18 U.S.C. §793(e), part of the Espionage Act. Clearly, this makes Manning a convicted spy. You may argue that she was wrongly convicted, which is the subject of her legal appeal. But until her sentence is vacated, Manning remains a convicted spy.
In the 72 hours following the 60 Minutes telecast, neither Chelsea Manning’s trial counsel David Coombs nor her appeal lawyer Nancy Hollander has objected to 60 Minutes calling their client a “convicted spy.” To me, that silence speaks louder than this blog by Jim Naureckas.
I’m only sorry that Professor Pelley forgot to include David Petraeus in his list of putative traitors/spies. He gave away classified information for sex and a sweet book deal. And did no hard time. And didn’t lose his pension.
@Waldo Lydecker: If you’re going to take on the moniker of a felonious fop, you should at least be as anal retentive as that character from “Laura” and do more than look up a word on Dictionary.com. Language isn’t a simple thing and I can assure you, as an active California attorney, that legal language is so complex that society creates courts and appellate courts to determine what the language of statutes actually mean.
The fact that neither counsel publicly objected to this pathetic television report suggests to me that it was sufficiently fatuous so that a pubic denial would highlight what few might have seen and fewer believed. Proof of a thing is not determined by the lack of objection thereto,
Steve, can you as an active California attorney assure us that courts and appellate courts at the federal level have determined that someone convicted of violating 18 U.S.C. §793(e) is not thereby deemed a convicted spy?
CBS no longer has a good journalist now Sheryl Atkinson left. Pelley and his corporate media elites are the real traitors to our experiment with democracy. Pelley enjoys being a government/industry mouthpiece as will assure his elite status. “Libelous media” spokes-person fits Pelley perfectly. Thank you Steve for calling a spade a spade–“felonious fop” fits nicely.
Steve, to test your hypothesis that her lawyers have not disputed 60 Minutes calling Manning a spy lest a pubic denial “highlight what few might have seen and fewer believed,” I consulted tvbythenumbers, which reports that with 15,764,000 viewers overall, 60 Minutes was last week’s #4 top-rated broadcast (source: The Nielsen Company). If I were an attorney, active in California or anywhere else, and a TV program watched by nearly 16 million people called my client a convicted spy, I’d damn sure correct the record. Assuming, of course, that my client was not, in fact, a convicted spy. Only in the event that my client truly was a convicted spy would I maintain a discreet silence so as not to highlight this irksome fact.
Why would any true loyal Americans, be they Democrat or Republican, Male or Female, White,Black,Hispanic or other, vote for a Democrat or a Republican when both .parties have shown their willingness to subvert the Constitution, our Civil Liberties, and our National Sovereignty through the TPP (The Trans Pacific Partnership) and have been doing so for decades & the Governments own records have proven this to be true ! We are being sold out by the Democrats & Republicans ! It now has become a choice between Fascism or Liberty & Fascism is winning !
Both parties have been complicit in this criminal activity. Some will say they don’t want to waste their vote, but you are already wasting your vote on Democrats & Republicans because they are the ones who have already betrayed us ! This should be a joint effort on the part of all Americans, Democrats,Republicans & Independent voters ! Organize now before its to late ! Your liberty is at stake and that of your children & grandchildren !
We get the Government we deserve, and nothing will change until we stop electing Democrats & Republicans after all they are the ones subverting the Constitution, & they must be held to account both politically & legally !
Both parties are owned by corporate America, two sides of the same coin ! Wise up America .
No more lies, excuses, rationalizations,or justifications, the public needs to hold these officials to account to the fullest extent of the law under Title 18 sec. 241 & 242 (Google it), so any future traitors will know there will be consequences to such behavior.
Unaccountable power is absolute power, & is absolutely corrupt !
As Mr. Snowden said the Politicians are afraid of you ! Now is the time exercise you power, you may not get another chance !
REMEMBER: POLITICIANS, BUREAUCRATS AND DIAPERS SHOULD BE CHANGED OFTEN AND FOR THE SAME REASON.
Some words of true Patriots are as follows, as opposed to the words of false flag patriotism of today.
He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money.
Benjamin Franklin
He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.
Benjamin Franklin
Experience hath shown, that even under the best forms of government those
entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
Thomas Jefferson
Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
Thomas Jefferson
Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry.”
Thomas Jefferson.
“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security,”
Thomas Jefferson wrote this in the Declaration of Independence .
In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
James Madison
Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.
James Madison
The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.
Patrick Henry
“We the People are the rightful masters of BOTH Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution”
Abraham Lincoln
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
Abraham Lincoln
We should not forget the warning of President Eisenhower .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLqWfWxqh_0
The NSA is controlled & operated by the DOD & the MIC (Military Industrial Complex) Private Corporations.
“The very word “secrecy” is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it.”
President John F. Kennedy
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
April 27, 1961
As is said in the law, falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus. (“False in one thing, false in all things” is an instruction given to jurors: if they find that a witness lied about an important matter, they are entitled to ignore everything else that witness said.) The Government has been lieing to the American public for decades !
As a reminder Hermann Goering said at the Nuremberg Trials .
“The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”
“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.”
Benito Mussolini
Time to start removing the corporate Congress from office & defunding the NSA & the Police Surveillance state, to pre 9-11 levels & force them to comply with the law & impose jail time for non compliance under USC Title 18 Sec. 241 & 242 (Google it) .
Only after the members of our 3 branches of Government, both Republicans & Democrats who conspired in this criminal conspiracy & violated the Constitution are prosecuted, should Mr. Snowden be charged with a crime. Prosecute those who broke the law first, in chronological order, then the Government can get around to Mr Snowden .
The short version of the above is as follows:
Any Government or Party that doesn’t abide by the Constitution does not deserve our respect or support ! ! ! They are traitors !
Disclaimer: Be advised it is possible, that this communication is being monitored by the National Security Agency or GCHQ. I neither condone or support any such policy, by any Government authority or third party that does not comply, as stipulated by the 4th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
CBS, along with NPR, CNN, MSNBC and the rest have gone clear over to the dark side. Is there any doubt? They do not even suspect how obvious they have become.
Pelley is probably ashamed of himself, but the money helps him compartmentalize the shame.
Waldo Lydecker completely misses the point of why the author found Pelley’s on-air characterization of Manning “odd”. Given Pelley’s employment at one of – if not THE – leading broadcast news-magazines that has, as a matter of course, encouraged precisely the very activity Manning was convicted of. And despite this, cavalierly tried to conflate Mannings actions with those of a mass murderer for no better reason than they both (along with Assange) happened to have been granted access to classified government information. It was Pelley’s hypocrisy describing Manning using hyperbole that borders on hysteria that Naureckas found so odd. That Lydecker construed Naureckas’ words as being his reaction to the simple fact of Mannings conviction is, if we are to take Lydecker at his word, an interpretation I find very odd considering his apparent language proficiency.