Edward Snowden, The NSA, and GCHQ

[Michael]

I was curious whether forum members have been following the developments in this story, in particular the revelations about the scale of GCHQ's spying on UK citizens.

[Mike]

The old freedom v. security chestnut again. Frankly I think the U.S. government has over-reached itself on this one, and is only likely to reach further in the future. As for Snowden himself, like Julian Assange he is no hero (far from it), but this does not mean that the level of surveillance occurring in the developed nations is necessarily justified. As this quite perceptive piece argues, it probably does very little to prevent terrorism (domestic or otherwise), despite the desperate boasting of the NSA and other agencies.

By the way, did anyone else laugh at seeing, in the sidebar of that Grauniad piece, the "Lou Reed shocked at Snowden revelations" video? I immediately thought of The Day Today:

"Community reaction has been strong...we spoke to Kim Wilde!!"

[Gavin]

I don't have a lot of time to write about this but I just want to say that I think Snowden is a traitor of the highest order and should be tried as such by the USA government if they can ever catch him. Were I to be employed by the security services I would expect them to be monitoring all kinds of things and would be alarmed if they were not. Obviously all secrets cannot be out in the open otherwise could be no intelligence service, and Snowden and The Guardian have put many western agents' lives at risk with their unauthorised disclosures.

[Michael]

This month's Commentary magazine has a good editorial (long, but worth reading in its entirety) about "Treason Chic", the media and public's tendency to celebrate whistleblowing, oath breaking, and attacks on the security of Western nations. What's remarkable is how the journalists who have been the biggest boosters of leaking for the sake of leaking (Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill) are resolute in defending dictatorial and socialist regimes that oppress their own people worse than any Western power has since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The article exposes distortions, selective reporting, and downright lying on their parts that are, frankly, shocking and more than a bit disgusting.