Glenn Greenwald Gets Into Huge Fight About Snowden On 'Real Time With Bill Maher'

Does Glen Greenwald get smacked down a little bit here? He gets a spirited argument from this veteran and Bill Maher.

Judge for yourself.www.huffingtonpost.com...

a reply to: Willtell

He doesn't get smacked down at all...
I think he makes great points, especially when the guy brings up american deaths caused by snowden. Seems like a straw man to me. No proof either way that he did or did not cause deaths so what is the point of bringing it up but to just try to appeal to emotion?
And I would be on the side that says he didn't cause any deaths, how could releasing the info about the the surveillance state cause deaths?
Correct me if I am wrong but he didn't give out names of our agents out in the field right?

Snowden's a hero in my book and one day he will be recognised as such!
Got brains and balls!!
Good luck to him.
F..k Obama no karma!

a reply to: Willtell

They are debating whether or not the Snowden disclosure's somehow cost American lives...through the butterfly effect...Terrorists becoming of aware of methods and being more successful in their plotting etc. etc.

The question that should be asked ...as hard as it might be to ponder..is that the standard we should be applying?

If so...then the government is entitled to take any measure as long as it affords greater security to Americans?

The truth is that true Freedom...the American way of life our country aspires to, even if we never fully arrive...Freedom has always had a price tag in lives. From the American revolution to present.

Yes..we are more vulnerable due to the Snowden disclosures...but we are also aware of the way our security agencies have disregarded the constitution and our principles regarding privacy...and Americans HAVE died to defend that way of life.

Again...that whole debate was centered on the premise that if someone dies as a result of the disclosure...then Snowden is wrong...which is the same as ...if it makes us "safer" then our government can disregard the constitution.

I question the premise.

People have, do and will continue to die for our way of life...it's horrible, but it is the price of aspiring to be the "Land of The Free".

a reply to: Willtell

The veteran is spewing establishment talking points "American lives, American lives".

Glenn Greenwald seems to be a good guy. He was a self-professed liberal or progressive who came out of the darkness and into the light when he finally embraced Ron Paul:

Progressives and the Ron Paul fallacies.

a reply to: Willtell

I saw no smack down but I did see someone trying to discredit another by bringing up assumptions however.

The only 'side effect' that Secretary of State John Kerry could come up with after declaring Snowden a traitor who should come home and face the music, was that Kerry's job was made harder, since our allies now knew the extent that we were spying on them, including their leaders... so in other words, he embarrassed the sons of bitches and showed the extent of the lies.

This compared to the millions of deaths the US government has been directly responsible for, not to mention blowbacks still untold, and we're supposed to think that SNOWDEN is dangerous???

Greenwald pretty much put the Vet in his place when he compared him to Daniel Ellsberg and Snowden is just like Ellsberg. This is what Ellsberg said about Snowden.

Edward Snowden is the greatest patriot whistleblower of our time, and he knows what I learned more than four decades ago: until the Espionage Act gets reformed, he can never come home safe and receive justice

And this statement is true if Snowden were to come back and face justice like the Vet keeps repeating over and over he would not get a fair trial it would be nothing but a kangaroo court.
If you watch the whole show the Vet comes across like a government propaganda machine.

If its on MSM it already IS a large percentage propaganda.....Personally I am sick to death of EVERYBODYS PROPAGANDA....!!
Its long past time for TRUTH in GOVERNMENT.....otherwise democracy is truly DEAD!..............

Sure Greenwald defended himself, but the veteran made good points when he said that Greenwald is too certain about his conclusions that Snowden’s revelations didn’t cause damage to agents.

It may be true or false but do we know for sure?

I like Greenwald and frankly think he should get off this NSA stuff because it’s a black hole imo.
He use to write great stuff about the hypocrisy of the US and Israel

It may be that that’s the point. He was thrown this skimpy bone about the NSA, stuff we all already knew one way or the other, and since has gotten away from the powerful reporting he did on Salon.

a reply to: Sremmos80

Nvm

Oh please, give me a break. Director of the NSA himself couldn't give one single specific way in which the Snowden revelations have hurt anything besides his own reputation.

Oh please, give me a break. Director of the NSA himself couldn't give one single specific way in which the Snowden revelations have hurt anything besides his own reputation.

originally posted by: RP2SticksOfDynamite
Snowden's a hero in my book and one day he will be recognised as such!

Yup.... He's definitely got the truth out to the world.
The leaders and governments don't like it,

He has done a great service.

originally posted by: RP2SticksOfDynamite
Snowden's a hero in my book and one day he will be recognised as such!
Got brains and balls!!
Good luck to him.
F..k Obama no karma!

At first I thought Snowden was a hero too. I guess he is to a certain extent, for blowing the whistle on the NSA.

But, he is in Russia with U.S. Top secret intelligence.

And if it's true, that he worked for the C.I.A. as a spy.

Russia is going to get that information out of him, So technically he is an enemy of the state.

a reply to: Willtell

Oh the irony..... We have this Vet spewing all these BS american talking points about "american lives Snowden has killed", but he tends to forget all the careless times our own Govt. puts US soldiers in harms way without justifiable cause.. Yea, Snowden is the enemy (rolls eyes)...

a reply to: blupblup

Initially when the leaks came out I was Snowden's biggest fan. Looking back I do have some suspicions.

First of all, how do we know that he only gave the documents to just those 2 newspapers. How do we know he hasn't given all that information to other countries? I don't understand why anyone would assume that he is telling the truth.

Also, why did he flee to China first? I understand the arguments for it, but there are also plenty of arguments against it. China is by far the biggest threat to the US when it comes to cyber warfare, and stealing intellectual property. The type of information Snowden had access to is exactly what the Chinese are after.

Finally, ending in Russia? Again I get the arguments for it and the situation, but it's not like Russia was his only option.

So he steals an unknown amount of documents, just happens to end up in the 2 main countries that are threats to the US? I just don't buy it I am sorry.

A lot of what we thanked him for initially leaking was really already public knowledge to an extent. Do average people really think the government is listening in to their phone calls? I mean c'mon you aren't important enough. Sure the amount of data that store and can access via specific algorithms is scary and could be used nefariously, but anyone with a tiny bit of logic already knew this was happening.

What you do online is, and has never been private. Companies like google know more about you than the government does in a lot of cases.

So sure he made it a national topic regarding the spying which was a good thing that everyone knew about, but that information was available to the public without Snowden.

originally posted by: faust833

originally posted by: RP2SticksOfDynamite
Snowden's a hero in my book and one day he will be recognised as such!
Got brains and balls!!
Good luck to him.
F..k Obama no karma!

At first I thought Snowden was a hero too. I guess he is to a certain extent, for blowing the whistle on the NSA.

But, he is in Russia with U.S. Top secret intelligence.

And if it's true, that he worked for the C.I.A. as a spy.

Russia is going to get that information out of him, So technically he is an enemy of the state.

Once you are out of the loop, you are out of the loop... I'm sure ANY and EVERYTHING Snowden knows and tells the Russians by now means nothing... Just a lot of words, and I'm sure the US intelligence community has already made the necessary adjustments... A spy can do damage when they are not known, but once you are outed you don't carry much leverage or weight in the intelligence world.

What you stated is food for thought.

a reply to: jhn7537

Okay, but Snowden was an employee who accessed a lot of information he didn't even have clearance for. Who knows what else he may have found and leaked out to other countries.

Once you are out of the loop, you are out of the loop... I'm sure ANY and EVERYTHING Snowden knows and tells the Russians by now means nothing... Just a lot of words, and I'm sure the US intelligence community has already made the necessary adjustments...

I am sorry but I couldn't disagree more. Snowden has inside knowledge on all the intricacies of the NSA systems. The US intelligence community has no idea what all he stole and knows, how could they possibly make "the necessary adjustments"?