*My creeping concern that the NSA leaker is not who he purports to be***
*Naomi Wolf, Facebook, 14 June 2013*
I hate to do this but I feel obligated to share, as the story unfolds,
my creeping concern that the NSA leaker is not who he purports to be,
and that the motivations involved in the story may be more complex than
they appear to be. This is in no way to detract from the great courage
of Glenn Greenwald in reporting the story, and the gutsiness of the
Guardian in showcasing this kind of reporting, which is a service to
America that US media is not performing at all. It is just to raise some
cautions as the story unfolds, and to raise some questions about how it
is unfolding, based on my experience with high-level political messaging.
Some of Snowden's emphases seem to serve an intelligence/police state
objective, rather than to challenge them.
a) He is super-organized, for a whistleblower, in terms of what
candidates, the White House, the State Dept. et al call 'message
discipline.' He insisted on publishing a power point in the newspapers
that ran his initial revelations. I gather that he arranged for a
talented filmmaker to shoot the Greenwald interview. These two steps ---
which are evidence of great media training, really 'PR 101? --- are
virtually never done (to my great distress) by other whistleblowers, or
by progressive activists involved in breaking news, or by real
courageous people who are under stress and getting the word out. They
are always done, though, by high-level political surrogates.
b) In the Greenwald video interview, I was concerned about the way
Snowden conveys his message. He is not struggling for words, or thinking
hard, as even bright, articulate whistleblowers under stress will do.
Rather he appears to be transmitting whole paragraphs smoothly, without
stumbling. To me this reads as someone who has learned his talking
points --- again the way that political campaigns train surrogates to
transmit talking points.
c) He keeps saying things like, "If you are a journalist and they think
you are the transmission point of this info, they will certainly kill
you." Or: "I fully expect to be prosecuted under the Espionage Act." He
also keeps stressing what he will lose: his $200,000 salary, his
girlfriend, his house in Hawaii. These are the kinds of messages that
the police state would LIKE journalists to take away; a real
whistleblower also does not put out potential legal penalties as
options, and almost always by this point has a lawyer by his/her side
who would PROHIBIT him/her from saying, 'come get me under the Espionage
Act." Finally in my experience, real whistleblowers are completely
focused on their act of public service and trying to manage the jeopardy
to themselves and their loved ones; they don't tend ever to call
attention to their own self-sacrifice. That is why they are heroes,
among other reasons. But a police state would like us all to think about
everything we would lose by standing up against it.
d) It is actually in the Police State's interest to let everyone know
that everything you write or say everywhere is being surveilled, and
that awful things happen to people who challenge this. Which is why I am
not surprised that now he is on UK no-fly lists -- I assume the end of
this story is that we will all have a lesson in terrible things that
happen to whistleblowers. That could be because he is a real guy who
gets in trouble; but it would be as useful to the police state if he is
a fake guy who gets in 'trouble.'
e) In stories that intelligence services are advancing (I would call the
prostitutes-with-the-secret-service such a story), there are great sexy
or sex-related mediagenic visuals that keep being dropped in, to keep
media focus on the issue. That very pretty pole-dancing Facebooking
girlfriend who appeared for, well, no reason in the media coverage...and
who keeps leaking commentary, so her picture can be recycled in the
press...really, she happens to pole-dance? Dan Ellsberg's wife was and
is very beautiful and doubtless a good dancer but somehow she took a
statelier role as his news story unfolded...
f) Snowden is in Hong Kong, which has close ties to the UK, which has
done the US's bidding with other famous leakers such as Assange. So
really there are MANY other countries that he would be less likely to be
handed over from...
g) Media reports said he had vanished at one point to 'an undisclosed
location' or 'a safe house.' Come on. There is no such thing. Unless you
are with the one organization that can still get off the surveillance
grid, because that org created it.
h) I was at dinner last night to celebrate the brave and heroic Michael
Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights. Several of Assange's
also brave and talented legal team were there, and I remembered them
from when I had met with Assange. These attorneys are present at every
moment when Assange meets the press --- when I met with him off the
record last Fall in the Ecuadoran embassy, his counsel was present the
whole time, listening and stepping in when necessary.
Seeing these diligent attentive free-speech attorneys for another
whisleblower reinforced my growing anxiety: WHERE IS SNOWDEN'S LAWYER as
the world's media meet with him? A whistleblower talking to media has
his/her counsel advising him/her at all times, if not actually being
present at the interview, because anything he/she says can affect the
legal danger the whistleblower may be in . It is very, very odd to me
that a lawyer has not appeared, to my knowledge, to stand at Snowden's
side and keep him from further jeopardy in interviews.
Again I hate to cast any skepticism on what seems to be a great story of
a brave spy coming in from the cold in the service of American freedom.
And I would never raise such questions in public if I had not been told
by a very senior official in the intelligence world that indeed, there
are some news stories that they create and drive --- even in America
(where propagandizing Americans is now legal). But do consider that in
Eastern Germany, for instance, it was the fear of a machine of
surveillance that people believed watched them at all times --- rather
than the machine itself --- that drove compliance and passivity. From
the standpoint of the police state and its interests --- why have a
giant Big Brother apparatus spying on us at all times --- unless we know
about it?
*Naomi Wolf* <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Wolf>
*From:
https://www.facebook.com/notes/naomi-wolf/my-creeping-concern-that-the-nsa-leaker-is-not-who-he-purports-to-be-/10151559239607949*
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