If there’s anything that almost everyone can agree on, it’s that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has started a conversation about government surveillance that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. As NBC‘s Meet the Press host David Gregory (1/19/14) put it, “He started one big debate.”
But who gets to be part of that discussion?
In the wake of Barack Obama’s speech on the NSA, Gregory’s show kicked off by asking Newt Gingrich and Harold Ford, formerly of the Democratic Leadership Council and currently with Morgan Stanley, to weigh in, alongside two reporters who tend not to give opinions on matters of controversy. Gingrich seemed to defend Obama’s embrace of NSA wiretapping, adding that “Snowden has to be tried.” Ford wanted to make clear that he supports drones (“I hope that when Congress has this debate, that someone will play the devil’s advocate and make clear we kill more terrorists using drones”) and doesn’t care for Snowden: ” I’m not a Snowden fan. He should come back home and face the music.”
After that came a bipartisan duo of NSA supporters, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Republican Rep. Mike Rogers, who in addition to defending the NSA also suggested, without any evidence whatsoever, that Snowden was being helped by a foreign government: “I don’t think it was a gee-whiz luck event that he ended up in Moscow.” Feinstein said this of Snowden: “I think to glorify this act is really to set sort of a new level of dishonor.”
The only substantive departure came when Gregory did a brief interview with Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, who has been a critic of the NSA surveillance programs.
Over on CBS‘s Face the Nation (1/19/14), we saw Mike Rogers yet again, claiming that Snowden must have had some help. Host Bob Schieffer closed by saying, “You really broadened the information that we had about this.” As we noted previously (FAIR Blog, 7/2/13), Schieffer had previously expressed a desire to hear more government officials publicly defend the program.
CBS did invite one NSA critic, Sen. Mark Udall (D.-Colo.), for a brief follow-up interview (about half as long as Rogers’).
After that, Face the Nation heard from former Obama adviser Tom Donilon, who said: “Snowden has done great damage to the United States across a range of dimensions…. I would call him a traitor, yes.”
Then Schieffer interviewed former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell, who said the Snowden revelations are “the worst disclosures in the history of the US intelligence community. I agree with Chairman Rogers that it will cost billions and billions of dollars to repair the damage.”
Morell also laid out his theory that the NSA, if it had more robust surveillance powers, could have prevented the 9/11 attacks. Specifically, the NSA would have found one of the hijackers in California, and it would shared that information with the FBI. But this theory has been repeatedly challenged by journalists and terrorism investigators.
Morell was not asked any challenging questions, though; Schieffer closed the interview by noting that Morell has now been hired by CBS. (Morell was recently the subject of a puff piece on 60 Minutes by CBS‘s John Miller–FAIR Blog, 10/29/13; proving that the revolving door spins both ways, Miller has now been hired to be the top counter-terrorism official at the NYPD–Daily News, 1/2/14.)
And Face the Nation closed with a reporters’ roundtable, featuring David Sanger of the New York Times, the Washington Post‘s Ruth Marcus and Christi Parsons of the L.A. Times, which touched on the NSA controversies.
If recent polling is to be believed, the US public has grown more skeptical about the NSA surveillance programs. Too bad Sunday chat shows are still presenting such a lopsided view.
That Rogers & Dickenstein should quit beating around the bush and get a room, where theys can make sweet music together. ahhh….
Block That Metaphor: You don’t need to say “the revolving door spins both ways” when pointing out how someone like John Miller moves repeatedly between public and private sector. A revolving door facilitates that kind of movement precisely *because* it only spins one way.
I look forward to Miller encountering the equivalent of the bi-directional revolving door, and him getting a face full of metaphorical glass.
I think that the news people should backtrack for a bit and look at how we got to where we are. Secrets and lies started all of this miasma. Whether or not people choose patriot or traitor, seems to depend on which power group a person identifies with. Those who support the 4th Amendment see Snowden as a patriot. Apparently those who are heavily invested in military stock would see him as a traitor. : )
However, when the NSA and others lied to Congress, and the military has never had a budget. nor ever had to account for where all that $ goes, it is quite easy to see why Snowden is the Patriot.
As to saying that Snowden has caused great harm to the US, I would wonder how those speakers could have forgotten Guantanomo, the CIA secret prisons, the wikileaks collateral damage video, how women are treated in the military, and how many in Congress want to cut medical care and retirements for vets: then, it is logical to see Snowden as the truthteller that we need.
It doesn’t seem that many in government understand what Posterity is…….but the bad feelings that people around the world have of America, really come from the actions of those people who seem to need to operate in secret. Do we have a democratic republic? Or is that a secret too?
What I find rather sad is references to MSM new/analysis/opinion shows and moderators/hosts/regulars AS IF these places had any standards other than to be sources of misinformation, disinformation and neocon/neofascist propaganda. We KNOW these places exist to do nothing but lie to the public and to showcase primadonnas who want to make names for themselves as the best liars to the public. Since you will forever just be analyzing their lies by commission and omission, what’s the point? They are all variations on “The Phoney Baloney Hour” and by now I think that’s almost transparently obvious to everyone who cares to admit it (which is no-one.) The real story is why anyone listens to any of these places at all.
I’m glad someone is watching the mainstream media, since I can barely watch it myself. The pundits that get air-time seem to be reading from government handouts. Thankfully, Snowdon was smart enough to evade government agents, or we would not have a clue about our government’s spying.
I think he was working for Glen Beck (: Glen has been pushing the NSA over reach for years.Snowden proved what Glen has been reporting.That said,,,,,He took the job to steal without knowing anything about what it was he was stealing.That removes him from any whistle blower list.He is a spy/thief who like any spy/thief was working at his craft because at his core- he had an ax to grind with those he stole from.And he hoped for fame or something else.Pretty common with the reality TV generation.This time his gamble that in those million of bits of data would be a piece that would prove the US was corrupt ,and exonerate him from his act- actually happened for him through many of the weak minded out there.The rest of us say thanks for that info. Now where would you like your trial to be?A thief breaks into your house and robs you blind but finds some info that you cheated the IRS…..Do we celebrate him?IRS says thanks and off to jail you go.That is the law.I could care what any pundit says right or left.
michael e.
I think you are mixing Mr. Snowden up with——-Jamie Dimon. That bank person fits your stealing riff much better. : )
For a spy: google a Mr. Pollard
Good to read David G’s comments regarding John Miller. The man is a supreme ass, a blithering idiot, and a grotesque racist. The positions achieved by white males without two brain cells to rub together never fail to amaze me.
A traitor? yes, by god! in the fine tradition of washington and adams, traitors all, if the tyrant had won, they would surely have been hanged.
Limited hang out. Russ Tice came out and said they are recording everything. Snowden comes forward and we’re back to meta data. Plus he hands his stuff over to gate keepers. Snowden is bogus. Can find out more about Michael Hastings or Sibel Edmonds?
I do not understand all this fuss about secrecy in government. Obviously governments at war must maintain secrecy, and we have engaged in perpetual war against terrorism since World War II ended. We invented terrorism as the perfect weapon to combat communism. (The devil must be fought with the devil’s weapons.) Adolph Hitler never published anything about the Holocaust. Hitler was lucky he had no whistle blowers like Manning, Keriakou, or Snowden. William Blum’s book Killing Hope or Tim Weiner’s Legacy of Ashes: the History of the CIA both discuss our romantic fascination with the virtues of terrorism.