Snowden Fan Club, Sorry, But Snowden Lied about the email to the NSA General Counsel

[sofa king]

26. Ha ha! It's a trap!

Here's a fine example of two untrustworthy authorities contradicting one another in public statements. We see this all the time and I'd like to share my own deeply cynical opinion as to what one can do with "dirty information"--lies, propaganda, doubletalk, and evasion between two untrustworthy parties.

The first thing to do is to set aside the debated facts and assume that both of them are lying about them. One cannot easily deduce factual information from a debate between two dishonest parties.

If you made a judgment call as to which one of them is telling the truth, you're automatically wrong! Unless of course you have some secret knowledge that the rest of us don't have--then you're a cult leader.

In this case, proof needs to come through corroboration from a more reliable third party--and neither of these entities, nor the three nuclear superpowers involved, can fill that role. I don't know who the corroborator could be, or how that would work.

So until then, it's safe to assume that most or all of the statements from both sides are heavily tainted with bullshit.

That does not make the statements useless, because there is a deeper truth at work here. Here's what's certainly true: each side's statement, regardless of fact, will represent something close to the best possible interests of the speaker.

So on the surface, it's possible to make some tentative guesses about the objectives of each side. They could still be double-crossing chess-moving ninja-style doublecrossing each other and us, but the statements wouldn't be issued if they were not self-serving in some way.

So here, I think, is what little we can conclude from the interview and the counter-statement:

1) Snowden really really REALLY doesn't want to be tagged as a spy.

2) NSA is using the backfire effect to draw support and erode Snowden's credibility.

NSA's position is easier to hold because by directly contradicting Snowden, they're fueling the backfire effect, a popular (with Republicans) form of psychological manipulation.

Here's some semi-prophetic stuff I wrote about this phenomenon back when Mitt Romney was trying to use it on President Obama.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021469106

It bothers me some because I know that NSA knows what it is doing, and that it comes dangerously close to running a psyops on the American public, which is reputedly illegal.

As for Snowden, I've bored all of you elsewhere with my rantings about how the circumstantial evidence overwhelmingly suggests that Snowden is, in fact, a spy. So I won't repeat that.

(Edit #36: Okay, I will repeat it:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4900311 )

Bottom line is both of 'em are dirtballs, both of 'em are lying, and neither can ever again be trusted.