"National Security Agency officials are considering a controversial amnesty that would return Edward Snowden to the United States..."

"... in exchange for the extensive document trove the whistleblower took from the agency."

So the message is: If you take enough, you can get away with it simply by giving it back.

This is a variation on the big lie ("a lie so 'colossal' that no one would believe that someone 'could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously'").  Go big enough, and you can get away with what the small time liars/cheats/thieves/monsters must pay for.

Or what was it Donald Trump — I think it was Donald Trump — said? The bank turns down people who ask for small loans, but if you ask for a yoooge enough loan, they don't say no. Can't find the precise thing I'm looking for, but I did find:

"As long as you are going to be thinking anyway, think big."

Back to Snowden. I thought when he first took it on the lam, he said that there were copies distributed to various persons for safekeeping, so that if he were killed, it would all come out. How is the NSA to know whether all those copies are called back?

ADDED: Meade, reading this out loud, helping me proofread, said: "'a lie so colossal that no one would believe that someone could have the impudence'.... how about the audacity?"

I'm irritated for a second by his discontinuity and say "It's a quote," as if I think Meade is offering me writing advice and there's a better word than "impudence," and then I realize that Meade is gesturing at Obama — "Audacity of Hope" — and the colossal Lie-of-the-Year lie that Obama told.

"You do realize that's a Hitler quote?" I ask, unnecessarily.

"Pope Francis, The People’s Pope" is Time's Person of the Year.

"He took the name of a humble saint and then called for a church of healing. The first non-European pope in 1,200 years is poised to transform a place that measures change by the century."

Here's the post where I analyzed Time's 10 finalist and concluded that the person would be Edith Windsor. My runner-up was Edward Snowden.

But my rejection of the Pope had an "unless" clause: "Popes have won, but I think it's a bit early to go with another Pope yet, unless the Time folk are itching to play Obama's recently attempted income inequality theme. I think that would be shabby, so I say no."

A number of commenters here thought the Pope would win, and I want to single out Pat:

I think it goes to the Pope and not because he's said some "leftist" things. In a very short term, he has sparked new life into a very large religion. I am a crotchety grumpy conservative, and I love everything about the guy.

I haven't read the whole article yet and probably never will. Here's a key passage that connects to American political themes:

[B]ehind his self-effacing facade, he is a very canny operator. He makes masterly use of 21st century tools to perform his 1st century office. He is photographed washing the feet of female convicts, posing for selfies with young visitors to the Vatican, embracing a man with a deformed face. He is quoted saying of women who consider abortion because of poverty or rape, “Who can remain unmoved before such painful situations?” Of gay people: “If a homosexual person is of good will and is in search of God, I am no one to judge.” To divorced and remarried Catholics who are, by rule, forbidden from taking Communion, he says that this crucial rite “is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak.”

And:

He can barely contain his outrage when he writes, “How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?” Elsewhere in his exhortation, he goes directly after capitalism and globalization: “Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This ­opinion … has never been confirmed by the facts.” He says the church must work “to eliminate the structural causes of poverty” and adds that while “the Pope loves everyone, rich and poor alike … he is obliged in the name of Christ to remind all that the rich must help, respect and promote the poor.”

ADDED: Is that last sentence miswritten or does the Pope talk about himself in the third person like that? I looked it up. The answer is the latter, or really neither. It's more of an opinion about the role of whoever occupies the position of Pope.

"It’s safe to assume that few people in the White House or the defense agencies would be happy to see Time pick Snowden as Person of the Year."

"But that’s just another reason why he deserves the honor," writes John Cassidy in The New Yorker.

Often with the best of intentions—protecting us from terrorists and potential terrorists—governments of both parties have overseen an unprecedented expansion of the surveillance state that bent America’s laws and violated some of its most cherished values. (Ryan’s piece recounts some of the relevant history.) Even now, after all of this year’s revelations, there is no assurance that anything very meaningful will be done to roll back the incursions and to protect the zone of privacy in which all (or most) of us would like to interact, and live.

ADDED: Here's the Ryan Lizza article cited in that parenthetical: "State of Deception/Why won’t the President rein in the intelligence community?"

50 years ago today, C.S. Lewis and Aldous Huxley died.

One might imagine them encountering John F. Kennedy in the antechamber of the afterlife.

I've been planning for a while to write this as the first post today, but I'm pleased to see that there are many news stories this morning honoring the 3 men who shared a death date. You may have noticed who entered the world on the same day as you. (Perhaps I had a conversation with Rush Limbaugh in the antechamber to life.) But will you know who passes through the departure gate alongside you?

ADDED: In The Guardian: , the author Laura Miller writes:

Apart from the Narnia books, the work of Lewis's I most cherish, "An Experiment in Criticism," makes the almost postmodern – and at the very least radically humble – proposition that we might best judge the literary merit of a book not by how it is written, but by how it is read. If "we found even one reader to whom the cheap little book with its double columns and the lurid daub on its cover had been a lifelong delight, who had read and reread it, who would notice, and object, if a single word were changed, then, however little we could see in it ourselves and however it was despised by our friends and colleagues, we should not dare to put it beyond the pale." That is a faith I am happy to share.

And Nicholas Murray writes:

The FBI kept a fat file on [Aldous Huxley] but failed utterly to find anything damning (as his biographer I was sorely disappointed when it slid out of the jiffy bag). He was nevertheless refused US citizenship...

He has survived his detractors and remains an eloquent critical voice, warning against our tendency to "love our slavery" – Brave New World's dystopian idea of manipulation and conformity and our tendency to submit to soft power, so clearly vindicated by the extraordinary complacency with which the public seems to have greeted the Snowden revelations of illegitimate surveillance. A free democrat to the core of his being, at war through words with "the great impersonal forces now menacing freedom," he shows that heroism can exist away from the noisy battlefield.

AND: "Yes, 'Everybody’s happy nowadays.' We begin giving the children that at five. But wouldn’t you like to be free to be happy in some other way, Lenina? In your own way, for example; not in everybody else's way." Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World (Kindle Locations 1167-1169).

ALSO: Kindle Locations 2729-2737:

“But do you like being slaves?” the Savage was saying as they entered the Hospital. His face was flushed, his eyes bright with ardour and indignation. “Do you like being babies? Yes, babies. Mewling and puking,” he added, exasperated by their bestial stupidity into throwing insults at those he had come to save. The insults bounced off their carapace of thick stupidity; they stared at him with a blank expression of dull and sullen resentment in their eyes. “Yes, puking!” he fairly shouted. Grief and remorse, compassion and duty—all were forgotten now and, as it were, absorbed into an intense overpowering hatred of these less than human monsters. “Don’t you want to be free and men? Don’t you even understand what manhood and freedom are?” Rage was making him fluent; the words came easily, in a rush. “Don’t you?” he repeated, but got no answer to his question. “Very well then,” he went on grimly. “I’ll teach you; I’ll make you be free whether you want to or not.” And pushing open a window that looked on to the inner court of the Hospital, he began to throw the little pill-boxes of soma tablets in hand-fills out into the area.

How is your carapace of thick stupidity today? Mine is chafing. I'm struggling not to concoct a joke out "little pill-boxes of soma tablets," Jackie's iconic pink hat, and my favorite Bob Dylan song. I need some rage to make me fluent.

No clemency for Snowden.

"'Mr Snowden violated US law. He should return to the US and face justice,' said White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer."

"Germany and France demand talks with US over NSA spying revelations."

"The revelations are threatening to create a major rift between the US and its European allies," says the Guardian.

Despite US efforts to placate Angela Merkel – including a phonecall made by the US president, Barack Obama, on Wednesday – she has refused to conceal her anger over the issue. "We need trust among allies and partners," Merkel told reporters in Brussels on Thursday. "Such trust now has to be built anew... It's become clear that for the future, something must change – and significantly."...

The latest confidential memo provided by [Edward] Snowden reveals... that one unnamed US official handed over 200 numbers, including those of the 35 world leaders, none of whom is named. These were immediately "tasked" for monitoring by the NSA.

After Merkel's allegations became public, the White House press secretary, Jay Carney, issued a statement that said the US "is not monitoring and will not monitor" the German chancellor's communications. But that failed to quell the row, as officials in Berlin quickly pointed out that the US did not deny monitoring her phone in the past.

"A Swedish sociology professor has nominated Edward Snowden for the Nobel Peace Prize..."

"... saying that awarding the former NSA employee would correct Nobel Committee’s mistake in giving the award to President Barack Obama in 2009."

"David Miranda was carrying password for secret files on piece of paper."

Reckless.

A level of concern for security lower than what I have for my Facebook page.

Juxtaposition highlights the politics of distraction.

Captured just now at Memeorandum (which auto-aggregates news and opinion pieces based on what's being written about right now by "experts and pundits, insiders and outsiders, media professionals and amateur bloggers"):



Here's "White House Had Advance Notice on Heathrow Detention," implicating the Obama administration in the British government's 9-hour detention of David Miranda, the partner of Glenn Greenwald, the most conspicuous journalist dealing with Edward Snowden.

But, look, a puppy!!! The Obamas got another dog, a girl puppy this time. Isn't she cute? She's named Sunny. Aw, doesn't that make you feel sunny? Sunny, thank you for the truth you've let me see. Sunny, thank you for the facts from A to Z. My life was torn like a windblown sand, then a rock was formed when we held hands. Sunny one so true, I love you.


David Miranda, a citizen of Brazil, was detained when he got off an airplane in the UK:

His carry-on bags were searched and, he says, police confiscated a computer, two pen drives, an external hard drive and several other electronic items, including a games console, as well [as] two newly bought watches and phones that were packaged and boxed in his stowed luggage.

The White House spokesman, Josh Earnest, asked whether "United States government [was] at all involved in this," said:

... what you’re referring to is a law enforcement action that was taken by the British government. The United States was not involved in that decision or in that action. So if you have questions about — if you have questions about that, then I would refer you to the British government.

Asked whether the U.S. government was involved, Josh Earnest — must resist remarking on his name again — substituted the issue of whether the U.S. made the decision. Then he reinserted the word "involved" and said "United States was not involved in that decision." There are the extra words "or in that action," but that doesn't answer whether the U.S. was at all involved, since the action occurred in the U.K. and was done by the police there. Earnest archly refers reporters to the British government. Go ask them.

The follow-up question — which lets him off the hook for that evasion — is "Does the U.S. feel that Miranda could have revealed information that’s useful in terms of finding Edward Snowden or pursuing its case against Snowden in any way?" And Earnest once again stresses that the Brits made the "decision" and took the action and go ask them...

Like I said, I’m not aware of any of the conversations that Mr. Miranda may have had with British law enforcement officials while he was detained, but that detention was a decision that was made by the British government and is something that if you have questions about, you should ask them.

Like I said... As in: How many times must I repeat my talking points? Now, look here....



My life was torn like windblown sand on Martha's Vineyard la la la we held hands... Sunny one so true, I love you.

Thanks, Obama, for the truth you've let us see. The facts from A to Z.

Putin on Snowden: "If he wants to remain here... he should stop his work aimed at inflicting damage on our American partners..."

"... no matter how strange this may sound coming from me."

Meanwhile:

Admitting Ecuador made a 'mistake' in helping Snowden flee Hong Kong in the first place, [Ecuador's president Rafael Correa] appeared to backtrack on previous suggestions he was welcome, adding: "Are we responsible for getting him to Ecuador? It's not logical. The country that has to give him a safe conduct document is Russia."

Asked if he would like to meet the 30-year-old, he added: "Not particularly. He's a very complicated person. Strictly speaking, Mr Snowden spied for some time."

And there's a statement purporting to be from Snowden that pretty much can't have been written by Snowden. Find the tell:

"For decades the United States of America have been one of the strongest defenders of the human right to seek asylum."

ADDED: The tell is "have," the use of the plural verb with United States. American don't slip into that usage, though it's strictly correct if you're following the rules of grammar. The irregular form is second-nature to Americans. So does that mean Snowden couldn't have written that? No. Meade — in conversation just now — suggested that Snowden might have deliberately adopted the form that a non-American would use. But think what that means: He wants not to be American. That runs counter to a desire to refute the accusation that he is a traitor, but it's consistent with other statements of his that stress the world as a whole, including the term "human right" in the very sentence quoted above.

AND: Let's look at the whole text of his statement, which appears at the link. Right after the above-quoted sentence, we read:

Sadly, this right, laid out and voted for by the U.S. in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is now being rejected by the current government of my country. 

He says "my country," but "the current government of," and the law he cites is transnational law. That sentence suggests that "the current government" is undeserving of loyalty and to be distinguished from "my country."

Snowden proceeds to call himself a "stateless person," because the current government has revoked his passport (and obstructed his "right to seek asylum"). He asserts that the current government is "afraid" of its own people:

It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised — and it should be.

Let me paraphrase: If the American people had the information — which I risked my life to set free — they would see the current government as illegitimate.

The sign-off is:

Edward Joseph Snowden
Monday 1st July 2013

I don't think it's too American to write the date like that. We tend to write: July 1, 2013. If you wanted to go all U.S. Constitution about it, you could write: First Day of July in the Year of our Lord two thousand and Thirteen. But "Monday 1st July 2013"? To my eye, that's either written by a non-American or an American affecting a transnational style.

"Snowden is like a hot meat pie in your hands..."

"... even if you want to eat it very much, it’s very hot and maybe it’s better to throw it on the floor," said Igor M. Bunin, the director of the Center for Political Technologies in Moscow.

"To make a deal with America to turn Snowden over would be a slap in the face of public opinion because he is already a hero in Russia and part of the West. On the other hand, not turning him over destroys your relationship with America."

From a NYT article titled, "While N.S.A. Leaker Stays in Hiding, Russian TV Builds a Pedestal for Him." Excerpt:

“The Internet is an invention of the U.S. Ministry of Defense,” [said the pro-Kremlin analyst Vyacheslav A. Nikonov]. “Where is the Internet? Physically, it is in the United States. What is the Internet? It’s an American nongovernmental organization which is, of course, connected with the intelligence services of the United States.”...

“For Americans, human rights is a powerful tool for influencing other countries,” [said Aleksandr Prokhanov, a nationalist ideologue who has emerged as a leader in conservative thought]. “A country ‘violates human rights,’ and its president becomes a devil incarnate, the society destabilizes, the human rights issue is followed by attack planes, and the country is wiped out from the face of the earth.”

"[S]ome have wondered if Wales, who couldn’t figure out a way to become rich off his innovation, was cynically making a play to cash in on being a great humanitarian."

From the NYT Magazine article "Jimmy Wales Is Not an Internet Billionaire."

Wales... realized early on that the community would revolt if he were to monetize Wikipedia by selling ads. He may now travel the world giving speeches and even include Bono as a friend, but Wales’s celebrity relies largely on being the guy who made the sum of the world’s information free without making a penny himself. As such, his reputation remains inextricably linked to the noisy, online volunteers who got him there.

Much more at the link.

Wales likes to invoke the higher purpose of Wikipedia. He applies his libertarian worldview to the Internet and has taken on institutions like the United States government and Apple for threatening to curb the free exchange of information on the Web....

[His] proximity to famous people doesn’t sit well with some members of the Wikipedia community who assert that Wales’s new life is, in some ways, contradictory to the egalitarian online world he created.....

Wales... ensures he is not taken for a radical. He treads carefully when weighing in on more extreme members of the free-culture movement, like Julian Assange — who he has criticized for using the “wiki” name — and online hacking collectives like Anonymous. Wales and I met for lunch the day after the 26-year-old computer programmer and Internet activist Aaron Swartz killed himself. The community had erupted with calls for Wales to weigh in, but he was hesitant. “People have been pushing me to comment, but I didn’t know him,” Wales told me. He has also stayed mostly mum on Edward Snowden, the contractor for the National Security Agency who leaked confidential information about widespread snooping by the United States government....

The article begins and is larded with info about his wedding and his wife (and wives), which I suspect is another example of the NYT's hackneyed, desperate playing up to female readers.

"I'm not going to be scrambling jets to get a 29-year-old hacker."

Said Barack Obama, noting that he would use "well-established" channels to get Edward Snowden, according to a CNN Breaking News email.

Note the minimizing of Snowden in the expression a "29-year-old hacker." Like he's just a kid who fiddles with computers.

And "scrambling jets" seems to say: Forget that whole drone program I'm so famous for. Or is that what "well-established" channels means?

"Time may be running out for U.S. fugitive Edward Snowden to get out of Russia."

"The former National Security Agency contractor has been holed up in the transit area of Moscow airport since Sunday, but Snowden may only have been given a Russian transit visa valid for three days...."

"Transit passengers who have a ticket for a connecting flight and documents necessary to enter a third country can get a Russian transit visa.... If Snowden has these documents, then he has the right to apply for a transit visa right in the airport, in the consular point, and could well have done that."

This sounds like the boring part of the movie "Casablanca." Why can't he get another transit visa?

"We have no relation to Mr. Snowden, his relations with the American justice or his travel around the world."

"He chooses his route himself, and we have learned about it from the media," said Russia's foreign minister Sergey Lavrov.

"We consider the attempts to accuse Russia of violation of U.S. laws and even some sort of conspiracy, which on top of all that are accompanied by threats, as absolutely ungrounded and unacceptable," Lavrov said. "There are no legal grounds for such conduct of U.S. officials, and we proceed from that."

I think back to what Michael Haz wrote in the comments to yesterday's Edward Snowden post:

Mr. Snowden, his computers and everything stored in his brain are now in possession of the KGB. He will now fully understand the meaning of the word 'disappeared'.

The press, the Department of State and Barack Obama have all been played for the rubes they are by Vladimir Putin. And there is nothing any of them can do about it. The amateurs have met the pro, and the pro won, then erased all tracks.

Meanwhile, 20 or so reporters were thrown way off the track as they happily enclosed themselves in a Snowdenless, Cuba-bound metal tube for 12 hours. What newsless meditations did they hammer out for publication? The New Yorker's John Cassidy lambasted the on-the-tube, not-in-the-tube newsmediafolk like David Gregory who, he asserts, have demonized Edward Snowden:

Snowden took classified documents from his employer, which surely broke the law. But his real crime was confirming that the intelligence agencies, despite their strenuous public denials, have been accumulating vast amounts of personal data from the American public. The puzzle is why so many media commentators continue to toe the official line. About the best explanation I’ve seen came from Josh Marshall, the founder of T.P.M., who has been one of Snowden’s critics. In a post that followed the first wave of stories, Marshall wrote, “At the end of the day, for all its faults, the U.S. military is the armed force of a political community I identify with and a government I support. I’m not a bystander to it. I’m implicated in what it does and I feel I have a responsibility and a right to a say, albeit just a minuscule one, in what it does.”

In the end, for all its faults... Marshall's going all last-paragraph-of-"1984." ("O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.") Except... Marshall never resisted.

Back to Cassidy:

I suspect that many Washington journalists, especially the types who go on Sunday talk shows, feel the way Marshall does, but perhaps don’t have his level of self-awareness. It’s not just a matter of defending the Obama Administration, although there’s probably a bit of that. 

Oh, just a tad. Probably! But...

It’s something deeper, which has to do with attitudes toward authority. Proud of their craft and good at what they do, successful journalists like to think of themselves as fiercely independent. 

Like to... but trapped on Aeroflot flight to Cuba, you start noticing your lack of independence. And those journalists who didn't get bamboozled into your lamentable predicament look so enragingly smug.

It’s not surprising that some of them share Marshall’s view of Snowden as “some young guy I’ve never heard of before who espouses a political philosophy I don’t agree with and is now seeking refuge abroad for breaking the law.”

A political philosophy I don’t agree with.... What is that? Resistance to big government? Cassidy — who says — he's "with Snowden" because he's "the underdog" — ends with "Which side are you on?" which is the title of an old union song. Here's Pete Seeger singing it. Bob Dylan repurposed it in "Desolation Row":

Praise be to Nero’s Neptune
The Titanic sails at dawn
And everybody’s shouting
“Which Side Are You On?”

Unlike the Titanic, the Aeroflot flight reached its destination uneventfully.

All these people that you mention
Yes, I know them, they’re quite lame
I had to rearrange their faces
And give them all another name

The Russians hang onto Snowden.

Or Snowden melts into Russia.

Mr. Snowden has not been seen publicly or photographed since his reported arrival in Moscow on Sunday afternoon from Hong Kong, and passengers on that flight interviewed at the airport could not confirm that he was on board.

The information about Snowden doesn't want to be free.

Maybe the U.S. got him.

The situation remained a confounding and undoubtedly infuriating one for American officials, who have charged Mr. Snowden with illegally disclosing classified documents about American surveillance programs.

Undoubtedly?

I doubt everything.

"I would urge [the Russians] to live by the standards of the law,” [Secretary of State John] Kerry said.

Enigmatically.

“US bullying Russia for Snowden’s rendition is counterproductive. No self-respecting state would accept such unlawful demands,” [Wikileaks] wrote. The use of “rendition” was an explicit reference to the way the United States has handled terrorism suspects....

Standards of law... must interpret...

Russia had seemed intent on allowing Mr. Snowden to transit through Moscow but at the highest levels of the Russian government, officials seemed to be pulling a page from a cold war playbook, coyly denying any knowledge about Mr. Snowden.

The Russians, the NYT openly doubts.

“Over all, we have no information about him,” Dmitri Peskov, the spokesman for President Vladimir V. Putin, told Reuters early on Monday.

The pesky Peskov.

Mr. Kerry said that it was ironic that Mr. Snowden may have been seeking the cooperation of China and Russian [sic] in his flight, given their positions in restricting Internet freedom.  

Ironic ≈ verrry innnterrresting.

It was unclear how Mr. Snowden spent his time at the airport or precisely where. 

Who knows what sorts of VIP rooms they have at the Moscow airport?

The departure of the flight to Havana from Moscow came after an all-night vigil by journalists who were posted outside a hotel in the transit zone of the airport where Mr. Snowden was apparently staying. But on Monday morning, hotel staff members said that no one named Snowden was staying there.

Disappeared... despite the vigil by journalists... at a hotel that was near the airport.

Russian news services had reported that Mr. Snowden would take a Monday afternoon flight to Cuba, prompting a late rush for tickets from the horde of journalists gathered at the airport. 

Hey, journalists, stampede this way! Vigil at the hotel, stampede to the airport. It's like they're teenage girls trying to catch a glimpse of The Beatles.

As long as John Kerry brought up irony... it's ironic that the Snowden emerged to tell us about the nefarious, overwhelming, all-encompassing, and abusive surveillance powers of the United States, and the country can't find one man who made himself conspicuous.

When David Gregory asked Glenn Greenwald: "To the extent that you have aided and abetted Snowden, even in his current movements, why shouldn’t you, Mister Greenwald, be charged with a crime?"

On "Meet the Press" today. Greenwald answered (from Brazil):

I think it’s pretty extraordinary that anybody who would call themselves a journalist would publicly muse about whether or not other journalists should be charged with felonies. 

How did Gregory "muse about" it? He asked about it.

The assumption in your question, David, is completely without evidence, the idea that I’ve aided and abetted him in any way.

Where's the assumption? Gregory's "to the extent that" protects him from any charge of assumption. He's giving Greenwald the opportunity to explain himself, and Greenwald is changing the subject from what have you done and why isn't it a crime to how dare you.

GREENWALD: The scandal that arose in Washington before our stories began was about the fact that the Obama administration is trying to criminalize investigative journalism by going through the-- the e-mails and phone records of AP reporters, accusing a Fox News journalist of the theory that you just embraced, being a co-conspirator with felony-- in felonies for working with sources. If you want to embrace that theory, it means that every investigative journalist in the United States who works with their sources, who receives classified information is a criminal, and it’s precisely those theories and precisely that climate that has become so menacing in the United States. That’s why the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer said investigative reporting has come to a standstill, her word, as a result of the theories that you just referenced.

GREGORY: Well, the question of who’s a journalist may be up to a debate with regard to what you’re doing....

So, essentially, Greenwald said you don't want to criminalize journalism and Gregory said what counts as journalism?

Gregory moves on to other guests, who talk about Greenwald, and eventually Gregory tells us:

... I want to acknowledge there is a-- a debate on Twitter that goes on online about this even as we are speaking and here’s what Greenwald has tweeted after this appearance this morning, “Who needs the government to try to criminalize journalism when you have David Gregory to do it?” And I want to directly take that on because this is the problem with somebody who claims that he is a journalist, would object to a journalist raising questions which is not actually embracing any particular point of view. And that’s part of the tactics of the debate here when, in fact, lawmakers have questioned him. There is a question about his role in this, The Guardian’s role in all of this. It is actually part of the debate rather than going after the questioner, he could take on the issues and he had an opportunity to do that here on-- on MEET THE PRESS.

Is Gregory part of the problem of criminalizing journalists? Or is Greenwald throwing up a smokescreen to defend himself? As Gregory put it, in the interview with Greenwald: "You're — you-- you are a polemicist here, you have a point of view, you are a columnist, you’re also a lawyer." He's trying to draw the polemicist/journalist line. But I don't think the line is between journalism and everyone else. We all— including polemicists and lawyers — have a right to freedom of speech. And anyone — citizens as well as professional journalists — might play a role in disseminating useful information or — on the other hand — crossing the line into what may be criminal.

"Snowden has ticket to Cuba, may go to Venezuela: Russian reports."

Put that into your conspiracy theory.

UPDATE: Email from CNN: "Edward Snowden, the man wanted on U.S. espionage charges, has arrived in Moscow, WikiLeaks said in a Twitter post on Sunday. The organization has said it helped Snowden leave Hong Kong, but it has not revealed what country could be his final destination."

May I recommend — for publicity purposes — hopping across the steppingstones of the world, hitting each traditional or present Enemy of America?

ADDED:

Flew in from Hong Kong thanks to Wikileaks
Didn't get to bed last night
In my head I heard conspiracy theory freaks
Man, I had a dreadful flight
I'm back in the USSR
You don't know how lucky you are, boy
Back in the USSR, yeah 

"Federal prosecutors have filed a sealed criminal complaint against Edward Snowden..."

"...  and the United States has asked Hong Kong to detain him on a provisional arrest warrant, according to U.S. officials. Snowden was charged with espionage, theft and conversion of government property...."

"Here come the Edward Snowden truthers."

"What’s surprising about the Snowden theories is that one might think he’d be a sympathetic figure to people deeply skeptical of government power. But instead of holding him up as hero (or even a traitor), some are intent on labeling him a co-conspirator."