Greenwald's Timeline Problem

[arely staircase]

Glenn Greenwald says he was in touch with Snowden before he went to work for Booz A. Snowden says he went to work for said contractor in order to get access to clasified information.

It explains why he seems a little touchy these days. His response to David Gregory reminds me of the scene in Animal House when the Deltas are on trial for underage drinking and declare the whole thing to be an attack on America itself.

[Eric J in MN]

1. Greenwald was contacted anonymously by Snowden initially

If you were asked on national TV if you should be put in prison, you'd be touchy, too.

[arely staircase]

2. the anonymous bit is meaningless - more "otter defense"

if he was encouraging or even aware the guy was going to committ a crime he had a duty to report it - whether he knew the guy's name or not. he had the resposnibility to tell the authorities an anonymous person was contacting im and letting him know they were planning a crime.

[1StrongBlackMan]

36. I don’t think that applies to journalists ...

How would they ever get a “whistle-blower” to come forward.

[arely staircase]

37. it applies to lawyers

like mr. greenwald

[1StrongBlackMan]

38. But only when ...

acting as an officer of the court.

[arely staircase]

39. maybe, don't know the case law in such things - there may not be any

is a lawyer, who performing the role of a journalist still an officer of the court? interesting 1st Amendment question.

This may be one that law students study in the future.

[OilemFirchen]

5. That makes sense.

A journalist willfully accepts information from a source without the slightest care as to the source's identity or bona fides. Then publishes said information trusting that he's not being scammed, set up, entrapped or used.

Happens all the time.

Actually, not so much. Even CBS, of all media, refused to take the bait. Only "journalists" with a dull axe would follow this path. And that's being kind to Greenwald. The more logical explanation is that he's lying his ass off.

[Eric J in MN]

6. Greenwald knew Ed Snowden's name before publication. NT

NT

[OilemFirchen]

9. Either that, or he disregards all convention to chase a story which fits his agenda.

I'll go with the first, thank you, but the second conforms well with his history.

[Luminous Animal]

11. He knew who he was before publishing... via the NY Times:

In the last week of May, Mr. Greenwald flew from Brazil, where he lives, to New York to meet with editors of The Guardian and review the preliminary documents. The next day, he, Ms. Poitras and Mr. MacAskill left for Hong Kong.

After the Rubik’s Cube meeting, the three followed Mr. Snowden to his hotel room and spent six hours “going over his life from start to finish, sort of like I was conducting a deposition,” recalled Mr. Greenwald, who formerly practiced law. By the end, he was persuaded that Mr. Snowden was who he claimed to be.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/11/us/how-edward-j-snowden-orchestrated-a-blockbuster-story.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

[OilemFirchen]

15. He had "thousands" of documents prior to that.

He knew their source.

He has not, BTW, produced even one more of those bombshells since his first story. Greenwald is well aware of the legal peril he already faces and, despite being an idiot otherwise, is not stupid enough to continue this pursuit. He's trying to shield himself, while lashing out at others. It's an utter embarassment for him, although well deserved.

[Luminous Animal]

23. No he did not. He received 20 samples in mid-May and based on those samples the Guardian sent him to

Hong Kong.

Bart Gellman also received those same samples.

Greenwald has written or co-written the following articles:

1) The Verizon sweep of meta-data for the NSA
2) The Prism program
3) Boundless Informant
4) Warrentless data collection of US citizens.

[OilemFirchen]

30. Fine. He had twenty "samples". Doubt it, but let's go there.

Unless they were verifiable, they might as well have been pigeon droppings smeared on old plastic bags.

And if they were verified? How? If there was no attached ownership, no chain of ownership, then they were suspect at best. Otherwise, Greenwald knew at least where they came from - directly contradicting his protestations yesterday. OTOH, if he flew off to Hong Kong to meet an anonymous crank, dragging along another reporter and videographer, he was an idiot. Which is, of course, a distinct possibility, as I've suggested.

Either he's an idiot or a liar. I don't care which, and the distinction will be a mere footnote when, in the near future, those who do care reflect on his self-destruction and career flame-out.

As to his reportage, all of the above came from his initial document mini-dump. There's been nothing since and there likely never will be.

[Luminous Animal]

32. You do know that Greenwald has both a publisher and an editor and that they are the ones who

sent them out there. Obviously, the Guardian, a well-respected news organization, saw merit and decided that, based on the samples, they needed to investigate further.

Greenwald did do due diligence and so did the Washington Post whose reporter Bart Gellman received the same 20 sample documents and made the decision to pursue the Prism story, as well.

I don't think you know what the word "dump" means.

[OilemFirchen]

33. I trust that the Guardian also knew the source of the documents.

Gellman, BTW, refused to take the bait from Snowden. That's why Snowden turned to Greenwald.

Gellman told him the Post would not make any guarantee about what the Post published or when. The Post broke the story two weeks later, on Thursday. The Post sought the views of government officials about the potential harm to national security prior to publication and decided to reproduce only four of the 41 slides, Gellman wrote in his story about their communications.

I don't think you understand the concept of "due diligence". Ask Gellman, who has an actual reputation to defend.

[MADem]

3. If that is true, that could be problematic.

The dots that need to be connected are as follows--Did GG urge Snowden to take the job for the purposes of stealing information, i.e. was he a conspirator, an accessory before the fact, if you will?

Did GG (an officer of the court, after all, he is a lawyer) KNOW ahead of time that Snowden planned to do this, i.e. he had knowledge of a crime in advance of its occurrence, and did nothing?

If he didn't know the details, he's in the clear. However, if he did know the details (or even if he didn't, and Snowden claims otherwise in order to cut a decent plea deal), then he's in hot water--lumpity, bumpity, under the bus with him!

Time will tell, I imagine.

[Eric J in MN]

7. By that logic,

...whenever a source with classified info says, "I'll give you the information tonight," the journalist is committing a crime if he doesn't call the cops, since he knows that a crime is about to be committed.

[MADem]

8. No, that's not accurate at all.

Not all "information" involves a crime, first of all. And not all "classified" programs are fully classified. For example, drones are no secret, but the innards of them are. Ship movements are classified, but only until the ship gets underway--you aren't supposed to know (unless you have a need to know, and that's where exceptions are made) until they're already gone. Names of programs and their general goals often are less classified, or not classified at all, while things called "sources and methods" have a higher level of classification.

Here's where you logic fails, though--not all reporters are lawyers--i.e., officers of the court. GG is an officer of the court, his duty and his oath take precedence over his desires to get the big story.

A journalist could be considered a little shit if he didn't tell about a crime that had been committed, or even a crime that someone claimed they were going to commit, but he's not in hot water the way a lawyer would be. That said, if the reporter--lawyer or not--encouraged, advocated, or aided and abetted the commission of the crime, then he'd be an accessory.

[msanthrope]

13. I don't think Greenwald has a license to practice law anywhere. His last foray of note into the

law ended with ethical counts against him....so I am of the opinion that Greenwald is no longer a practicing lawyer.

[MADem]

16. According to the NY bar association, he is "suspended," not "disbarred."

He is still an officer of the court. He still has an obligation to his oath.

http://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/attorney/AttorneySearch#search_result

GLENN E. GREENWALD 2689883 NEW YORK NY 1995 Suspended

[msanthrope]

22. I wonder if it's suspension due to discipline or for other reasons. nt

[MADem]

25. No idea. He's still in the club, though, even though he's on the Naughty Chair. nt

[Kolesar]

4. When does Greenwald get disbarred?

And most recently of all, a "Roman Toga Party" was held from which we have received more than two dozen reports of individual acts of perversion SO profound and disgusting that decorum prohibits listing them here.

[Jarla]

10. Why is this only coming up as in issue now?

We've known since June 10th or 11th that Snowden first contacted Greenwald before he started working at BAH.

June 10th Tweet from Greenwald:

The reality is that Laura Poitras and I have been working with him since February, long before anyone spoke to Bart Gellman

June 11th Press Release from BAH:

Booz Allen can confirm that Edward Snowden, 29, was an employee of our firm for less than 3 months

[randome]

12. Greenwald is parsing the phrase 'working with him' to mean 'anonymously'.

It's certainly possible but I doubt it.

[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font]
[hr]

[Luminous Animal]

18. Do you also doubt Bart Gellman of the Washington Post. He also claims that he communicated

with Snowden anonymously.

Separately, in mid-May Mr. Snowden reached out to Mr. Gellman. Mr. Greenwald said Ms. Poitras had decided “it would be good to have The Washington Post invested in the leak, so it wasn’t just us — to tie in official Washington in the leak” — and picked Mr. Gellman. Mr. Snowden sent Mr. Gellman the same sample set of documents. In an account of his involvement, Mr. Gellman said Mr. Snowden had called himself “Verax” — truth teller in Latin — a pseudonym used by both a 17th- and a 19th-century British writer, one of whom died in the Tower of London, and the other much honored.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/11/us/how-edward-j-snowden-orchestrated-a-blockbuster-story.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

[randome]

27. Sure, that's all possible and I have nothing to go on but a hunch.

I have no reason to doubt Gellman but Greenwald strikes me as defensive about the matter, which increases my suspicion.

[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font]
[hr]

[Luminous Animal]

29. Defending yourself and your profession against multiple calls for prosecution and accusations

of aiding and abetting is acting defensive and thus deserves suspicion.

Nice.

[Cali_Democrat]

17. Because Snowden just said he specifically took the job to get his hands on classified documents

[Luminous Animal]

20. And?

[Kolesar]

24. Send in the clowns

Time to talk about drones or chained CPI

[MADem]

19. We didn't know, at that time, that Snowden had averred he joined BAH specifically to steal stuff. nt

[Jarla]

21. Oh... Given the chronology of events, I'd just been assuming that was the case.

Plus Snowden insinuated it in his live chat last week:

The statement I made about earnings was that $200,000 was my "career high" salary. I had to take pay cuts in the course of pursuing specific work. Booz was not the most I've been paid.

[MADem]

26. I'm willing to wait until the circumstances of the timeline are made clear.

I will say, though, that those who are saying this could be problematic aren't making a mountain out of a molehill. This is a question that deserves a clear, unvarnished, no bullshit answer. It's a real "What did he know and when did he know it?" moment.

I initially took that "in the course of pursuing specific work" to mean that Snowden was working in an area where he wanted to gain more knowledge (silly me, eh?) or an area of expertise that he loved (double-silliness on my part!), and the money was less important than the gaining or exercising of skills.

I was thinking "professionalism," I didn't think it meant "I signed up IN ORDER TO STEAL." In retrospect, though, now it is pretty apparent that that's what he did, and why....and you have to wonder how much he said, and when he said it, to his journalistic handlers before that video was ever made.

[SidDithers]

14. DU rec...nt

Sid

[Tarheel_Dem]

28. It's funny cuz it's true.

[Douglas Carpenter]

31. does this mean there really is no surveillance state that we have to be concerned about?

and all these loons out there are just making it up? So really, there is nothing to it?

We are now dealing with a vast intelligence-industrial complex that is largely unaccountable to its citizens. This alarming, unchecked growth of the intelligence sector and the increasingly heavy reliance on subcontractors to carry out core intelligence tasks – now estimated to account for approximately 60% of the intelligence budget – have intensified since the 9/11 attacks and what was, arguably, our regrettable over-reaction to them.

Today, the intelligence sector is so immense that no one person can manage, or even comprehend, its reach. When an operation in the field goes south, who would we prefer to try and correct the damage: a government employee whose loyalty belongs to his country (despite a modest salary), or the subcontractor who wants to ensure that his much fatter paycheck keeps coming? - Valerie Plame Wilson and Joe Wilson

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/23/nsa-intelligence-industrial-complex-abuse

[arely staircase]

34. of course not

the two are not mutually exclusive.

[1StrongBlackMan]

35. I know this won’t be met well; but …

I think, somewhere in the back of Greenwald’s mind, the terms, “Useful Idiot” are coming into focus. Or, maybe it should.