I wish I had seen this on US TV. I wish I had heard about it from a US media outlet.
The grilling seen here, as given to woeful U.S. State Dept. spokesperson Jen Psaki during a daily press briefing earlier this week, came largely from AP’s Matthew Lee and CNN’s Elise Labott. They, and the others who were not identified in the RT (formerly “Russia Today”) YouTube posting description, deserve credit for their persistence…
(just listened to the first 14 minutes)
I wish someone would ask State Dept. rep exactly what she’s referring to as “propaganda”. Cuz I haven’t heard anyone dispute the facts of the information Snowden has revealed. Where’s the propaganda? Except from our government?
David –
The reporters actually do address that matter as well (perhaps a few minutes after the 14 you watched. Sorry I didn’t have the time to break it down into reported pieces for ya!)
Classic! U.S. State Dept. spokesperson Jen Psaki standing atop her propaganda platform complaining that giving voice to a dissident amounts to giving them a “propaganda platform.”
How do we know Edward Snowden is “not” a whistleblower? Because the U.S. State Department said he is not a whistleblower.
If the government says it, it must be so?
There are some interesting legal issues surrounding Psaki’s evasion of the question as to whether the U.S. government would recognize a Russian grant of asylum.
The ACLU has already taken the position that the U.S. has violated Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which provides that “[e]veryone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.”
Coverage of today’s events is available at The Guardian.
This includes not only Snowden’s complaint that the U.S. Government has engaged in an “unlawful campaign” to deny his Article 14 rights, but a statement by human rights lawyer Renata Avila that “the UN High Commissioner for Refugees should be visiting Snowden along with Human Rights Watch today, since the UNHCR has “the mandate to facilitate his travels”.
Then, again, what else do we expect from a U.S. government that first participated in torture and then refused to prosecute those responsible for the same.
Brad-
So I listened to the other 10 minutes and not sure what you’re referring to. At around the 19 minute(plus) mark Matt Lee allows as how “propaganda” is included in the right of free speech, maybe you meant that? But I don’t hear anyone asking her what specifically she’s referring to as “propaganda”. My guess is, though, that even if she was asked that as a direct question she would do her little dance to avoid answering. Such is life on a propaganda platform.
It really is great to see the press being adversarial for a change, and about something of substance to boot.
They shouldn’t let her get away with claiming Snowden’s not a whistleblower at all.
Not a whistleblower? Really? Tell us Jen, who do you think people are more likely to believe–an administration guilty of more prosecutions against whistleblowers than all other administrations combined saying Snowden is not, or Daniel Ellsberg, the most famous whistleblower in our nation’s history proudly saying of course he is? Get real.
Boy, she’s terrible. What a mealy-mouthed wind-up doll. And 10 minutes in, she’s getting so flushed and frustrated.
Russia has the “opportunity to do the right thing”… LOL … which is what we tell them the right thing is.
Yay for real journalism.
Hmmm, …
Lets start prosecuting the crimes in order, … FIRST let’s address the Bush Administration crimes, before we start leap frogging Snowden to the front of the line!
so comey is gonna fly thru confirmation hearings even tho he should be in prison………….the following according to the aclu…
Then, there’s warrantless wiretapping. Many media reports describe that Comey’s defiant stand at Ashcroft’s bedside was in opposition to the warrantless wiretapping of Americans international communications. But we simply do not know exactly what Comey opposed, or why or what reforms he believed brought the secret program within the rule of law. We do, however, know that Comey was read into the program in January 2004.
While, to his credit, he immediately began raising concerns, the program was still in existence when the New York Times exposed it in December 2005. This was a year and a half after Comey’s hospital showdown with Gonzales and Card. In fact, the warrantless wiretapping program was supported by a May 2004 legal opinion (pdf) produced by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel and signed off by Comey, which replaced the 2001 legal opinion Comey had problems with.
This, of course, raises the question: just what illegal surveillance program did Comey oppose so much he would resign over it? Last weekend, the Washington Post provided a new theory: the Marina program, which collects internet metadata. Now, the Senate has an opportunity to end the theorizing and find out what exactly Comey objected to. It’s a line of questioning that senators should focus doggedly on, in light of the recent revelations in the Post and the Guardian.
The final stain on Comey’s record was his full-throated defense of the indefinite military detention of an American citizen arrested on American soil. In a June 2004 press conference, Comey told of Jose Padilla, an alleged al-Qaida member accused of plotting to detonate a dirty bomb as well as blow up apartment buildings in an American city. By working for al-Qaida, Padilla, Comey argued, could be deprived of a lawyer and indefinitely detained as an enemy combatant on a military brig off the South Carolina coast for the purpose of extracting intelligence out of him.
It turned out that Padilla was never charged with the list of crimes and criminal associations pinned on him by Comey that day. When Padilla was finally convicted – in a federal court – in August 2007, it wasn’t for plotting dirty bomb attacks or blowing up apartment buildings. Rather, he was convicted of material support of terrorism overseas. During his indefinite military detention, Padilla was tortured.//////////
so the nsa will collect everything because of a secret court interpratation that says relavent and everything mean the same thing,,,,,,,,and then if they have “articulable suspion” (a hunch) that it is connected to any crime they can forward everything to the fbi director,comey(who has already discarded most of the bill of rights)
WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?
I wish someone would have asked Jen Psaki to define propaganda.
Spying on Americans makes strange bedfellows.
No less than Glenn Greenwald extols the virtues of Russ Holt (D-NJ) and suggests his re-election.
Strange bedfellows indeed. None other than John Sununu wrote in today’s Boston Globe (http://tinyurl.com/l2yvgfq) that we need and deserve our privacy: “Privacy is the right of law-abiding citizens to say something, or call someone, or go somewhere, without anyone knowing about it. Whether or not that right is explicitly described within the Constitution, most Americans would consider it fundamental to the character of our nation.” Never fear, though; he gets the obligatory digs in at Edward Snowden and assures us that he’s done grave damage to national security and should be in jail. Still, I’m heartened that former Senator Sununu and Representative Sensenbrenner seem to have retained some small amount of good sense and be willing to say out loud that our government has no right to spy on us like this.