Glenn Greenwald: Hillary used slimy innuendo against Snowden that’s been used about her emails

[portlander23]

Hillary Clinton Is Wrong About Edward Snowden
JOHN CASSIDY
The New Yorker

After Chafee spoke, Cooper turned to Hillary Clinton and asked, “Secretary Clinton, hero or traitor?” Clinton, who earlier in the debate had described herself as “a progressive who likes to get things done,” replied, “He broke the laws of the United States. He could have been a whistle-blower. He could have gotten all of the protections of being a whistle-blower. He could have raised all the issues that he has raised. And I think there would have been a positive response to that.”

“Should he do jail time?” Cooper asked, to which Clinton replied, “In addition—in addition, he stole very important information that has unfortunately fallen into a lot of the wrong hands. So I don’t think he should be brought home without facing the music.”

From a civil-liberties perspective—and a factual perspective—Clinton’s answers were disturbing enough that they warrant parsing

Did Snowden break the law? In passing classified information to reporters, he did. The Espionage Act explicitly prohibits such actions. But this violation surely needs to be balanced against the public service that Snowden carried out in informing the American public about the extent to which their government had been spying on them. “I think Snowden played a very important role in educating the American people to the degree in which our civil liberties and our constitutional rights are being undermined,” Bernie Sanders pointed out, immediately after Clinton spoke. “He did—he did break the law, and I think there should be a penalty to that. But I think what he did in educating us should be taken into consideration.”

Finally, what about Clinton’s claim that some of the information Snowden took from the N.S.A. has “fallen into a lot of wrong hands”? The assertion echoed a report, published in June by the Sunday Times, which quoted anonymous officials in the British government who said that Russia and China had decrypted some of the files taken by Snowden, prompting MI6, the U.K.’s foreign-intelligence service, to pull agents out of several countries. At this stage, though, there has been absolutely no confirmation of this allegation, nor even that Russia or China obtained any of the classified material that Snowden accumulated. Snowden has said that he destroyed all of the documents he had in his possession before departing Hong Kong for Moscow. In an article querying the Sunday Times story, the Guardian’s Ewen MacAskill, one of the reporters who worked on the original Snowden revelations, wrote that it may reflect “a cack-handed attempt by some within the British security apparatus to try to take control of the narrative.”

That sounds about right, and it’s not clear why Clinton would want to associate herself with such an effort. Moreover, as Glenn Greenwald, another journalist who worked with Snowden, pointed out on Twitter: “It is ironic how Hillary used the same slimy innuendo against Snowden that’s been used for months about her emails.”

Related:

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[Scuba]

1. Very progressive of her to turn a blind eye to whistleblowers being persecuted and prosecuted.

[jfern]

7. During the debate she said Snowden should have just been a whistleblower

We all know how that would have gone. We aren't stupid, Hillary.

[Historic NY]

2. And so..............

“I think Snowden played a very important role in educating the American people to the degree in which our civil liberties and our constitutional rights are being undermined. He did break the law, and I think there should be a penalty to that. But I think what he did in educating us should be taken into consideration."

Bernie Sanders - Oct. 13, 2015.

[thesquanderer]

3. Already being discussed at...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251683293

[Sheepshank]

4. Bernie is not slimy, but Clinton is?

Hmmm. That would make Greenwald a hypocritical asshole.

[NCTraveler]

5. This is just like...

This is just like the NYT printing a cartoon that associated Clinton with criminal activity soon after they put out a bogus story. Very shady the way righties and libertarians use the simple association game to pander to LIV's. But they know it works on that set of voters.

[uhnope]

6. and Greenwald is an authority on slime. nt

[msanthrope]

8. Why didn't Snowden take his info to Sanders, as allowed under the law? nt