#Snowden, snooping and Dear Leader

Note: This post will be regularly updated as we get more information about NSA whistleblower (or whatever) Edward Snowden, the accuracy of his statements, reporting on them by media and opinionators, especially Glenn Greenwald, and more.

First issue: Per a Facebook friend, he says that some of the things Edward Snowden has claimed, in his leaking so far, that some big communications/data companies have done simply isn't true. This guy is a strong civil libertarian himself, and has an IT background, so I'm not dismissing him.

That said, per this Slate story, if the National Security Agency really trusted Snowden with this  much information access, we really shouldn't trust it, for other reasons. So, let's turn that rhetorical statement on its head. Per my Facebook friend, maybe Snowden, a high-school dropout, didn't have that much access.

And, per this post about what Snowden is doing in his refuge in the supposedly freedom-loving Hong Kong, one must wonder if he's altogether "there" mentally. More on that below.

But, but, Glenn Greenwald said!

Look, I like a lot of Greenwald's writing, but he can occasionally "bite" on stuff. And, on the First Amendment, I'm not sure that he would even accept Justice Holmes' dictum about yelling "Fire" in a crowded theater.

At the same time, Dear Leader's gummint will not reveal any details of Prism to prove Snowden mistaken, wrong, or lying, if he is. So, it's up to people who care about this issue, but don't want to be played by the government, or an egotistical idealist, or all sorts of other things.

That said, per Emily Bazelon at Slate, such secretiveness, combined with our Constitututional Lawyer in Chief's previous legalese that "we're not listening to your phone conversations," means that Dear Leader still shouldn't be trusted, even if Snowden is lying or exaggerating.

Anyway, Snowden may wind up as the perfect "foil" for Dear Leader tut-tutting his opposition. Maybe he's a deliberate CIA plant, Per my FB friend, I'm almost as ready to believe that, upon further reading, as his claims in their entirety.

Update, June 10:

First, per this "10 things to know list" about Snowden, compiled by Tiger Beat on the Potomac, Snowden may have lied about his Army service. If he lied about receiving awards, I'll give 50-50 odds he's also lying about paratrooper training, and breaking both legs in so doing. And, in turn, that means he may have had a non-honorable discharge. Now, that doesn't mean that it was "dishonorable." If he's telling the truth about his legs, it could have been medical. But, even in the Reserves, I believe, there's yet other non-honorable, non-dishonorable discharges.

Based on that, even if he started at the NSA as "just" a security guard, I'll venture he lied about his military service on applications there and elsewhere.

Jeff Toobin has an interesting rhetorical question: Why the hell did he go to the NSA in the first place? Given that Politico says, in the link above, that he donated money to Ron Paul in 2012, voted for some third party presidential candidate in 2008, and that he appears to have some level of activity on Reddit, did he see himself as a "mole" from the start? More circumstantial proof of that here.

And, The Nation (with multiple links) has now joined the list of progressive sites saying Glenn got some stuff wrong. In my opinion, assuming what I've read in stories like this, what I've heard from IT friends on Facebook and more, Glenn did get wrong at least the server issue. Especially given that Snowden may may have mild credibility issues, and that the MSM is going to work to magnify them, I think it behooves Glenn and the story line to address this in a follow-up.

The infamous "PowerPoint Slide 5."
Via the NSA and my taxpayer dollars.

The "servers" issue, per a copy of the one PowerPoint slide Snowden gave to Greenwald, at left, is a big one. As I said on a friend's Facebook page, in a comment to him posting the link from The Nation:

I run a weekly newspaper, and keep eye on another. Here at the larger paper, we have a server for our office. We regularly use two FTP servers w/corporate, one for downloading ads designed at HQ, the other for uploading pages we build. It's not that hard to understand that there's different types of servers.

It's very plausible that companies in question with Prism have set up a separate server to address NSA requests for information.

Nobody's perfect. And even if one is a First Amendment absolutist, let's get all the facts squared down. Glenn can still address this server issue, while also discussing other details in the future.

And, if Glenn is that tech-clueless, then, since Snowden's the leaker and claims to be so IT-smart,  then he either needs to provide the approp riate corroboration, if this is what Glenn claims it is, or else, via the New York Times (if Glenn sticks by his story) make clear what this is NOT as well as with this is.

Besides, assuming there is no "back door," but that there may be, per Al Gore, a lockboxed server denoted to government data requests, there's still plenty of follow-up questions and details to ask about:

Details such as:
1. What does Booz Allen do in its contracting?
2. How much information can it access?
3. How vulnerable is it to Chinese hacking?
4. Who else besides Booz Allen has contracts specifically related to this, and how do questions 1-3 apply to them?

For right now, though, Greenwald is focusing on attacking Perlstein (Nation) and other critics of the "servers" issue. We'll see how he responds to Charles Pierce's take, since Pierce is bulldog enough himself. Oh, and Glenn, just because tech companies cooperated with the NSA, that doesn't mean they cooperated in the way you and Snowden claim they did. Red herring. Finally, your appearance on Chris Hayes' show does NOT address the "server" issue. In the text transcript, the word only appears twice, and in both cases, you do NOT distinguish between different types of servers.

Disappointed? Yes. Surprised? Not at all. Via a connection, as well as bits of blog interaction with him on my "More Glenn Greenwald is not a liberal" post, which followed my original "Why Glenn Greenwald is no liberal" post, I'm not at all surprised.

Glenn will not just double down on his stance while digging in his heels, he'll triple down and more.

Update, June 17: Snowden had an online Q&A with Greenwald and Spencer Ackerman of the Guardian, along with selected outsider questions. Neither GG or SA straight-out asked Snowden exactly what he meant by "servers."

This all said, I'll spin these issues off into a separate post soon enough.

Barton Gellman (l) and Glenn Greenwald (r). Politico pictures

At the same time, per the picture shown at left from this Tiger Beat story, I wouldn't trust Barton Gellman very far. Why not?

The Navy ship cap he's wearing? If you're any sort of whistleblower against the government, would you trust someone who looks like he's on "their team"? Not I. So, in his contretemps with Greenwald, I wouldn't trust his version of the story, either.

That said, this too reflects less-than-well on Snowden. Why would somebody who allegedly mistrusts the "mainstream media" that much approach somebody like Gellmann? Seeing that he contributed to Ron Paul, and voted third-party in 2008, pretty well scratches my earlier idea that he was a CIA plant. Instead, he just looks like ... well, like an idealistic, sometimes clueless, high-school dropout.

Finally, it looks like Al Franken has officially become a sellout. Getting a big "tout" on fake-liberalland Democratic Underground would be a "tell," but all we have to do is look at the quote DU lifted from a video interviev via another blog:

To summarize, he points out that as a member of the Judiciary Committee - he has availed himself of the briefings about NSA and nothing that was made public lately surprised him. He said, "There's certain things that its appropriate for me to know that its not appropriate for the 'bad guys' to know...So anything the American people know, the 'bad guys' know...I can assure you that this isn't about spying on the American people. This is about having the data available so that if there are suspicions about foreign persons or persons that have connections with terrorist organizations that we can connect the dots."

I tried to comment there, but DU, like Kos many a year ago, has suspended/blocked my account, I guess for some truly liberal nefarity (I can invent words, I'm an editor) that I wrote in the past.

And, per polls showing that a majority of Americans now favor such snooping, the IOKIYAO factor appears to be part of it. Thank doorknob I didn't vote for him, either time. And right-or-wrong Democrats who spew vitriol at me will only drive me further away, not convert me.

Update, June 13: Snowden's now changing his story (yes you are) on why he went to China. Dude, as successful as China is with hacking, it probably doesn't need you to "expose criminality." Besides, if it does really think you have things to share, you can be a hostage against your own possible extradition.

Now Snowden is starting to sound more like Julian Assange. Tinges of idealism — and tinges of a big, fat ego, too.

Another way he's sounding like Assange? This, in GG's follow-up story:

"He is deeply worried about being spied on. He lines the door of his hotel room with pillows to prevent eavesdropping. He puts a large red hood over his head and laptop when entering his passwords to prevent any hidden cameras from detecting them."

Like the NSA couldn't use a keystroke recognition software program or something?  I mean, if Snowden really thinks a red hood is going to stop the National Security Agency, he's got problems indeed. Let me go back to my one original idea. Maybe he is a CIA plant, designed to attack the credibility of the likes of Glenn Greenwald.

And, that's not at all unrealistic. A New York Times Opinionator column reminds us that this exact idea was discussed by a consortium of national security contractor companies, including HBGary Richard, just a couple of years ago, after a 2010 hack by LulzSec, and Greenwald's coverage of that:

Team Themis (a group that included HBGary and the private intelligence and security firms Palantir Technologies, Berico Technologies and Endgame Systems) was effectively brought in to find a way to undermine the credibility of WikiLeaks and the journalist Glenn Greenwald (who recently broke the story of Edward Snowden’s leak of the N.S.A.’s Prism program),  because of Greenwald’s support for WikiLeaks. Specifically, the plan called for actions to “sabotage or discredit the opposing organization” including a plan to submit fake documents and then call out the error. As for Greenwald, it was argued that he would cave “if pushed” because he would “choose professional preservation over cause.” 

Of course, Greenwald didn't "cave."

That said, suppose the contractors said to themselves, "We're on the right general trail, but some of the details are wrong," and they then talked about a new idea, of feeding false documents, expecting Greenwald to double down, and then attacking his credibility.

Far-fetched? Not at all. Snowden has more to release. Suppose there are more things that are incorrect in them?

No sympathy for Phil Mickelson

First of all, I just have to "love" whichever golf scribe talked about the "working class people" at Merion for the US Open were supporting the non-working class Phil Mickelson.

First, Ardmore, Pa., home of Merion Golf Club, ain't close to "working class."

Second, "working class" people don't normally have the ducats for US Open tickets. (The whole issue of live sports tickets outpacing the rate of inflation is a separate topic all its own.)

Realistically, even a Jason Duffner isn't of "working class" background. That's part of why John Daly had his appeal for so many, though. Not for me; blow your life like that, you lose sympathy, too. It's too bad there's no Lee Trevino. Notah Begay, if he'd win a few, would have a chance at that.

Second of all, the dude's got money to fly back on a fractionally-owned private jet or whatever for his daughter's eighth-grade graduation. Yes, good family man, but back to the money. (The whole subject of proliferating graduations at different elementary grades is also a topic all its own.)

Third, Phil whiffed.

It began on 18 on Saturday. He should have hit his 2-wood, or whatever his longest non-driver wood in his bag was, off the tee and not that 4-wood. That leaves him an iron to the green, biting on the green more. He gains an extra stroke there, potentially. I assume that, with my scenario, he gets a par instead of his actual bogey.

Then, "Mr. Wedges" blows two wedge shots, the first badly at 13 on Sunday.

He caps it by criticizing the USGA for its length on one of the long par 3s when he knew the day might be windy, with the wind in his face on that hole, and he chose not to play driver Sunday, but rather, five wedges.

I actually was kind of liking the possibility of him winning, just to see if, with the career Grand Slam then within his sights, he'd change how he approached the British Open.

And, while I like to watch at least the four majors, I actually relate less to golfers as people than I do in most sports. They're definitely more conservative than the national average, among other things. The only blessing is that most of them don't claim Jeebus wanted them to win, when they do.

A couple of other thoughts.

Yeah, I thought Merion would be easier than it was, but I certainly wasn't alone.

That said, I did not join the majority of golf's punditocracy in saying this course shaped up well for Tiger Woods. Frankly, I expected him to have as much, if not more, problems with finding the rough as he actually did.

As for why Phil can't win at the US Open? Cracking wise about his wedge play aside, it's his putter, in my opinion. Yeah, he's won three times at Augusta, but the Masters, while it welcomes a good putter, doesn't require it, especially if one has a good short game.

I just don't think Phil is the greatest putter, or the greatest reader of greens in general.

Looking ahead to Muirfield and the British?

First, I don't expect Tiger to do well there, either. So, Tigerholics, too bad.

I'm going to go out on a limb. The first two majors have featured "nice guy" winners.

So, if you'll allow me two options, I'll take either Lee Westwood or Luke Donald there.

Initial #USOpen thoughts

Who will try to drive the tee on the high-risk, high-reward 10th hole?
Photo via US Open website

And, this is the golfing one; I'm not a tennis fan.

No, we won't get Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia together, at least not for the opening round.

But, TW, Rory McElroy and Adam Scott will tee it up together instead.

How nice will TW and Rory be to each other? How much gamesmanship will there be? It is the first time the two have played together in a major.

And, speaking of, I think this is the first time Woods and Scott have played together in a major since Tiger canned Steve Williams and he moved over to loop for Scott. How icy are their greetings going to be?

(And, contra Sergio, I don't think Williams' comments of a year ago about using golf clubs in a certain way were racist; I think the "black" was purely descriptive, though it was unnecessary. The rest of the comment not only was not unnecessary, but hilarious.)

I would go with the trend and say that Matt Kuchar is a good bet to become the 14th first-time winner of a major out of the last 17 played. A precision ball-striker like a Mike Weir has some sort of shot, but the last few hole are monsters. I'm not sure somebody of his short length will ever birdie 18 at US Open ruggedness.

And, I will venture that we see at least two eagles, and at least two double-bogeys or worse, on the high-risk, high-reward 10th hole.

Update, June 10: Now, about those scores? After the Andrea-related rains in the area? When the course won't be a normal level of dry until the first round?

The USGA is talking a great game about what a challenge this will be, etc., etc., and putting its best face and foot forward.

But, let's be honest.

There's likely to be a Murder at Merion, of Merion.

And, so, Robert Lusetich of Fox Sports is wrong, and not for the first time, when he says it's about more than distance.

Winning score, with chances of more showers Tuesday and Wednesday, and who knows after we start on Thursday, will be double digits below par.

Take that 10th hole. I can now, especially on Thursday and Friday, bomb it hard enough to clear the front bunker AND a bit left to make sure that, should I go long, it won't be in the far bunker. Why? Especially if I've got the distance to make that an easy 3-wood, I know the green's going to slow it a lot.

Also, if the fairways are slow, shorter hitters will get killed on that monster at 18. They could be hitting a looong second shot. And on that 621-yard par 5? For the shortest hitters, depending on wind and such, their third shot could be what, a 7 or 8 iron, not a wedge? That said, slow greens will still negate some of that disadvantage.

Flip side? Soggy rough on the first two days will be rougher rough. If, whether at 10 or elsewhere, you're going to gamble, the risk side will also be higher.

Actually, per the Lusetich piece, Cypress Point at Pebble Beach would make more sense as a short course. June in California is almost guaranteed to be rain-free, so you know in advance that you can toughen up the course and it will stay that way.

Update, June 13: Well, as of right now, I may be wrong on the scores issue. Phil Mickelson was 1 of just 2 people in the clubhouse under par, with about half the rounds complete on Thursday. Yeah, there's been two eagles on 10, but 18 is playing 3/4 of a stroke above par.

Update, June 14: Looking at players continue to back up, it looks like the cut line could easily be +6. What's happening? First, despite the rain, it looks like greens are still faster than expected. Second, the fairways are cut longer than typical at most majors, or indeed at a lot of courses in general. Merion's crew is spinning this as "sustainability," but the real spin is that a longer fairway means less bounce and roll, so shorter drives, and also means a bit less spin on second shots. In other words, the longer cuts on the fairway, half-inch rather than quarter-inch, are another element in length-proofing the place.

Beyond all the other stuff, we also appear to have a new Tiger Woods story. Injured wrist? If it's true, and he's far enough off the lead after the second round, will he do a WD?

And, speaking of second rounds, there's an outside chance, perhaps, that everybody gets through half the course today. It's going to be close, we know that. That means second round should be completed by 11 local time Saturday, allowing good time for pin placement changes and such, and yet, a relatively unrushed third round.

Don't give up on Pujols yet?

Tim Brown of Yahoo Sports says that we should not write off the man who took baseball in St. Louis to new heights, Albert Pujols.

Brown starts by saying that Phat Albert is still not 100 percent recovered from his offseason knee surgery, even though he's not making excuses about that, and wouldn't let that keep him off the field anyway.

He knew this winter his knee would need seven to nine months to recover fully. He knew an achy knee would irritate any lingering foot issues. He knew this would be an important season.

"The only way I wouldn't play," he says, "is if you chopped my leg off."

And, he's right. Pujols came back to spring training earlier than expected. That said, even though the Angels have been giving him 50-50 time at DH vs 1B so far this year, one wonders if he doesn't need a day off a bit more often than he's been getting. Maybe like a catcher, give him off a day game after a night game. And maybe, Albert needs to accept that he's hurting both team and himself for the longer-term if he doesn't take advantage of any such decisions/offers that Mike Scioscia might make.

That said, his April stats this year were better than last year's splits. So, he's not "pressing," and he has done a lot of adjusting to AL pitching. Now, it's just a question of how much he heats up, and when.

At the same time, I think he may be done on the 40HR per year club. It does seem Anaheim may be a touch more of a pitchers' park than Busch was/is in St. Louis. Add in aging, and nagging injuries. That said, if he could have something like last year's 30 HRs and 50 doubles, but with a batting average at .300 (let alone above) and do something like that for the next 2-3 years, then he has at least partially reclaimed the mantle of his old self.

In other words, if he could bat like his 2011 St. Louis lines, albeit with fewer HRs and more doubles, and do so through 2015, the Angels would take it. Even Prince Albert might grudgingly accept it.

I think that's still reasonable. More than that doesn't seem likely.

At the same time, only once before 2011, and that was in 2007, did Pujols exhibit a "slow start." Is this a new normal? Does it show he takes a bit longer to bounce back in offseasons?

On the other hand, as I update this nearly a month after posting it, Pujols is still below .250. As Jonah Keri notes, not just a slow start, but a definite decline, may indeed be the new normal.

Covering my first murder trial ...

And, I hope, my last. A Peyton Place case like this, with no "winners," is another good reason for me hoping to get out of this biz.

And, it's illustrative that the law and justice don't necessarily intersect.

Of course, per Walter Kaufmann's "Without Guilt and Justice," a book with which I agree in many respects, there is no such thing as "justice."

Really, it's not much more useful as a concept, if we're really honest about human nature and social psychology, than are ideas such as "unitary consciousness" and "free will."

Are there "left-neoliberals"? Would they include the likes of The Nation?

If you agree with this provocative piece by Warren Benn Michaels, as I do, you'll agree that those two rhetorical questions both deserve "yes" answers.

First, Benn defines the issue of left-neolibs versus right-neolibs

The differentiation between left and right neoliberalism doesn’t really undermine the way it which it is deeply unified in its commitment to competitive markets and to the state’s role in maintaining competitive markets. For me the distinction is that “left neoliberals” are people who don’t understand themselves as neoliberals. They think that their commitments to anti-racism, to anti-sexism, to anti-homophobia constitute a critique of neoliberalism. But if you look at the history of the idea of neoliberalism you can see fairly quickly that neoliberalism arises as a kind of commitment precisely to those things.

Boom!

He then ties that to immigration in general, and illegal immigration in particular.

Here's your money graf.

"It’s a striking fact that what the American Left mainly wants to do is reduce the Tea Party to racists as quickly as humanly possible. ... But you can’t understand the real politics of the Tea Party unless you understand how important their opposition to illegal immigration is. Because who’s for illegal immigration? As far as I know only one set of people is for illegal immigration, I mean you may be [as a Marxist], but as far as I know the only people who are openly for illegal immigration are neoliberal economists."

And, that's why I could, to some degree, define the likes of The Nation as "left neoliberals" by his terms. Remember that big brouhaha several years ago when it had that long immigration article that, among other things, didn't distinguish legal and illegal immigrants?

Indeed, one Nation blogger really, really, doesn't like Michaels' writings. Richard Kim says:

From where does this seething, misplaced, amnesiac resentment, so often masquerading as class-consciousness (see Walter Benn Michaels) and fairness, come? 

Wow.

A more nuances reaction, within the Michaels piece, comes from someone I like a lot, Doug Henwood. The interviewer notes:

Doug Henwood, for example, mentioned, “Walter Benn Michaels doesn’t always phrase things to his advantage—he aims to provoke, which is an impulse I deeply understand, but he may end up putting people off who should really listen to what he has to say.”

I don't know enough about Michaels to say whether that's that true, but I'll take Henwood's word for it. Michaels admits he writes "sharply," and on purpose. 

Michaels reminds us that statistics tell us not to view economic inequality through left-neoliberal victimization, or to think that the Tea Party's railings against "handouts" that stereotypically go to black and brown minorities is true:

Victimization that does not take place through discrimination is invisible and that’s why it’s worth remembering that the vast majority of poor people in the country are White. After all, the country is about 70 percent white and if you look at the bottom quintile of income it’s about 61 percent white, so it’s an absolute majority. 

And, it's not just stereotypical white Appalachia, either.

Read the full piece for more insights, including rejecting the idea that treating the poor as an "identity group," kind of like Gordon Brown did in Britain, is the logical solution.

I would like to be less pessimistic than Michaels. But, in an America where probably half the decent-paying new jobs in America, outside the financial manipulation sector, are defense, spying, or extractive industries that suck workers dry, it's hard not to be depressed.

And, maybe, just maybe, we should put Glenn Greenwald in those left-neoliberals. That's if, despite his protestations, we don't call him a libertarian, undiluted, instead.