A heretofore-obscure federal judge ruled on Monday that the National Security Agency’s program of collecting phone and email metadata from millions of Americans is “probably illegal.” Yet to listen to news reporters and legal pundits frothing at the mouth over his “powerful rebuke of mass surveillance,” you’d think it had the legal force of the Supreme Court ruling that all NSA surveillance programs are illegal. But nothing could be further from the truth.
In fact, this judge’s ruling is the judicial equivalent of a selfie – written more to draw attention to himself than to set any kind of legal precedent. Indeed, it seems just as contrived as the statement a then-obscure congressman made when he shouted, “You lie,” as President Obama was addressing a Joint Session of Congress in September 2009.
More to the point, though, just as that outburst earned that congressman his 15 minutes of fame from a now scandal/selfie/tweet-obsessed media, this ruling is duly earning this judge his. (I’m refusing to dignify either one of them by publishing his name, let alone his picture, for the simple reason that 15 days from now this judge will be firmly saddled back in his life of professional obscurity, just as that congressman is.)
In any case, you should bear in mind that more than one then-obscure federal judge ruled that Obamacare and same-sex marriages are illegal, until the Supreme Court ruled otherwise. But it speaks volumes about how self-indulgent and narcissistic this judge’s ruling is that it presumes to overturn repeated rulings by the far more relevant and influential 11-member United States Foreign Intelligence Court (aka the FISA Court) that this NSA program is definitely legal.
Incidentally, all you need to know to appreciate how the Supreme Court would rule, if his ruling ever makes it that far, is that Chief Justice John Roberts appointed every member of the FISA Court.
You are probably aware that President Obama appointed a commission to recommend cosmetic changes to the NSA programs. But he only did so to avoid having to point out how stupid the American people are for buying into Snowden’s self-righteous and misguided outrage. After all, the NSA collects metadata for the sole purpose of trying to keep them safe.
By contrast, these outraged nincompoops are showing nary a concern about tech companies tracking every move they make online for the sole purpose of trying to sell them stuff, to say nothing of peddling their personal data to third parties for indeterminate uses. Which makes the open letter Google, Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo!, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and AOL sent to Obama last week complaining about NSA surveillance a classic case of pots calling the kettle black. And, trust me, ISPs (like Verizon and Comcast) are the worst harvesters and peddlers of your personal data.
Therefore, despite all you’re hearing about this judge’s ruling, it is much ado about nothing … at least legally speaking. Not to mention that the he “stayed” his ruling (i.e., declared that it should have no binding effect), which indicates that even he appreciates its insignificance.
For the record, though, in all of his rebuke, this judge cited no evidence whatsoever that the NSA listens in on the phone calls or reads the emails of anyone in the United States.
That said, you should also bear in mind that there’s a venal aspect to this NSA case. Except that it is far too substantive and consequential for the aforementioned media to bother covering. But it is pursuant to this aspect that Edward Snowden’s spy/media master, Glenn Greenwald, rushed to get on TV to spin the plainly specious claim that this judge’s ruling vindicates Snowden’s treachery.
Let me hasten to clarify that I too would be championing Snowden’s professed cause if he had taken his treasure trove of NSA secrets to a reputable newspaper, like the New York Times or Washington Post, instead of entrusting it to a news hustler like the then-obscure lawyer/journalist/blogger Greenwald.
Recall that Snowden initially claimed his only mission was to inform the American people about the NSA’s surveillance activities. Well, with apologies to George W. Bush, he had just cause to declare “Mission Accomplished” six months ago.
Moreover, rather than fleeing like a fugitive, Snowden could have become a confidential informant (like a latter-day Deep Throat), continued on with his seemingly idyllic life in Hawaii, and left it to his newspaper of choice to expose all of the secrets that are fit to print … in a manner that does not compromise national security.
Instead, this narcissistic, self-righteous, naive and self-appointed arbiter — not only of what metadata the government can collect, but also of what documents it can classify as top secret — conspired with Greenwald to make his face every bit as famous as his leaks. In the process he unwittingly (or wittingly) handed the “NSA’s crown jewels” over to America’s two most-formidable adversaries, China and Russia, on a silver platter. No Chinese or Russian spy could ever have achieved such a feat – even in his wildest dream.
Of course, you could be forgiven for thinking that Snowden is acting pursuant to what his defenders and apologists claim is an abiding public interest in briefing any country on how the NSA is spying on it. But I cannot stress often enough how far he has strayed from his initial mission: again, it was to inform the American people about how much their government is spying on them (i.e., domestic surveillance); and, by all accounts, he accomplished this mission a long time ago.
Now he seems to be acting pursuant to nothing more than a WikiLeaks, mischief-making mission to expose every secret the U.S. government holds dear. This would explain why the only NSA leaks making headlines these days are those pertaining to what no sane person can deny is the wholly legal collection of data on foreign leaders and organizations (i.e., espionage).
For example, revelations about U.S. spying on Chancellor Merkel of Germany elicited schadenfreude worldwide and cost the United States a considerable amount of international goodwill. But why shouldn’t the U.S. government be spying on the activities of foreign leaders if it furthers U.S. interests to do so? Not to mention the generally recognized fact that every other government, including most notably Snowden’s host government in Russia, is doing (or trying to do) the same damn thing.
What’s more, he’s unabashedly using these legitimate government secrets to barter for a better life. This is the only way to read his open letter (or plea) to the people of Brazil just yesterday, making clear his willingness to trade America’s secrets to any country that is willing and able to grant him political asylum. Evidently he’s not finding Russian hospitality all it was cracked up to be.
I warned it would be thus:
Snowden seems destined to emulate British double agent Kim Philby, who defected to the Soviet Union in 1963 and lived there (in Moscow) free of reprisals until his death in 1988. It is instructive to note, however, that this fabled ‘Third Man’ lived out almost all of his 25 years in relative obscurity and penury, and not without palpable regret…
So don’t be surprised if a disillusioned Snowden ends up drinking himself to death too. After all, Philby’s Russian spymasters had just cause to treat him like a national hero, yet he still felt like little more than a Western mascot almost from day one.
By contrast, Snowden’s Russian wards have no reason to treat him like anything but a traitorous rat. Not least because … Putin is a former KGB spy who prides loyalty to country above all else [and he can well imagine what he would want to do to a Russian intelligence officer if he were doing to Russia what Snowden is doing to America]…
Not to mention the resentment Putin must be harboring over Snowden ending up in Russia only after his preferred Chinese spymasters extracted all they wanted out of and from him.
(“I Said Putin Would Hand Snowden Over. I Was Wrong,” The iPINIONS Journal, October 25, 2013)
Again, whatever you think of Snowden, it betrays his consciousness of guilt that he chose to flee his country when protections (as a confidential informant for a newspaper or even as a heroic whistleblower under direct congressional supervision) were readily available to him.
Which brings me to the even more mercenary side of his unprecedented treachery. Because nothing infuriates me more than watching Greenwald spew self-righteous indignation at anyone who questions the propriety, ethics, and national-security implications of his and Snowden’s venal crusade. After all, the only thing Greenwald is doing now is peddling his country’s national secrets like a street vender selling hotcakes. And he’s doing it from his safe haven in Brazil, where Snowden devoutly wishes to be.
But just imagine the windfall Greenwald is enjoying or counting on – having convinced some misguided, open-society do-gooder to donate $250 million for him to set up his own online portal to trade on the million-plus bits of NSA documents he keeps teasing/threatening to release from his journalistic quiver. And if you don’t think Snowden himself expects to be greatly enriched by this enterprise, then you probably think people rob banks for charitable purposes….
In any event, I challenge anyone who supports Snowden and Greenwald to explain how peddling U.S. top secrets, the way Chinese peddle pirated Apple products, furthers any constitutional or journalistic cause. Frankly, Benedict Arnold will go down in the annals of American history as having nothing on these two shysters.
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I said Putin would…