<div dir="ltr">Personally, I take Snowden at face value. He wouldn't be in Russia if the USA hadn't coerced other governments to prevent him from leaving. <font face="yw-b3b03f93acb29dde874548d979c14638352bd06e-b432e3cb554e9fe3aab3e8ed1470b520--o" style></font><div>
<br></div><div>What's interesting in retrospect is Glen Greenwald's talk at F2C2013, as webcast by ISOC, when apparently he had come direct from the meeting in NY where he'd first learnt the extent of Snowden's material.</div>
<div><br></div><div><a href="https://isoc-ny.org/p2/5676">https://isoc-ny.org/p2/5676</a><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Jun 11, 2014 at 4:45 PM, Veni Markovski <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:veni@veni.com" target="_blank">veni@veni.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">I was there at that chat.
You call it a jewel, Joly, but I actually have to disagree slightly.
<br>
I'd rather share something written by a very respected Russian
investigative journalist (unlike the western ones, he really has
something to be afraid of), Andrei Soldatov (more about him -
here: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Soldatov" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Soldatov</a>) and people
can make their minds whether the interview is telling us things,
or hiding them.:<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.agentura.ru/english/press/noplacetohidereview/" target="_blank">http://www.agentura.ru/english/press/noplacetohidereview/</a><br>
<br>
</font><br>
<h1>No Place to Hide by Glenn Greenwald: A review</h1>
<div><a href="http://vozduh.afisha.ru/books/no-place-to-hide-glenna-grinvalda-chto-ne-tak-s-bestsellerom-pro-snoudena/" style="padding:0px;border:0px;margin:0px;vertical-align:baseline" target="_blank">Some excerpts from Andrei Soldatov’s critical review
of Glenn Greenwald’s No Place to Hide</a> at vozduh.afisha, an
independent cultural and entertainment site owned by Rambler.ru,
translated by<span style="padding:0px;border:0px;margin:0px;vertical-align:baseline"> The Interpreter</span>:</div>
<blockquote style="font-family:'Open Sans';font-size:15px;font-style:italic;line-height:22px;padding:0px 0px 0px 20px;border:0px;margin:0px;vertical-align:baseline;quotes:none">
<p style="font-family:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;line-height:inherit;padding:0px;border:0px;margin:0px 0px 10px;vertical-align:baseline">“Unlike the Brits [Luke Harding and Edward Lucas],
Greenwald communicated with Edward Snowden; the first time face
to face in Hong Kong in May 2013, and the last time only several
days ago here in Moscow. And it was he who was chosen by Snowden
for publicizing his exposes to The Guardian.</p>
<p style="font-family:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;line-height:inherit;padding:0px;border:0px;margin:0px 0px 10px;vertical-align:baseline">However, despite this important advantage, the main
thing in Greenwald’s book is what is not in it.</p>
<p style="font-family:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;line-height:inherit;padding:0px;border:0px;margin:0px 0px 10px;vertical-align:baseline">In Greenwald’s book, the Russian period of Snowden’s
life is missing. So is the story of how Snowden got on the
flight to Moscow. Snowden’s visit to the Russian consulate in
Hong Kong isn’t there, or even the names of the two lawyers who
drove Snowden from the hotel after Snowden published his appeal
to the world in the Guardian, acknowledging his authorship of
the leaks. The name of Sarah Harrison from the WikiLeaks team,
who accompanied Snowden to Moscow and spent the entire time with
him during his forced stay at Sheremetyevo, is mentioned only
once. And in fact Greenwald only mentioned her in the afterword,
where he thanks Sarah and WikiLeaks for support.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="font-family:'Open Sans';font-size:15px;line-height:22px;padding:0px;border:0px;margin:0px 0px 10px;vertical-align:baseline">Soldatov describes the structure of the
book — divided into the narrative about his meeting with Snowden;
criticisms of other journalists who attacked him (even saying he
should be arrested); and the leaked documents. He says the book
contains “a mass of curious details,” such as the agreement to
meet Snowden the first time by an artificial alligator at the
hotel, and that Snowden would be carrying a Rubiks’ cube in his
left hand.</p>
<blockquote style="font-family:'Open Sans';font-size:15px;font-style:italic;line-height:22px;padding:0px 0px 0px 20px;border:0px;margin:0px;vertical-align:baseline;quotes:none">
<p style="font-family:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;line-height:inherit;padding:0px;border:0px;margin:0px 0px 10px;vertical-align:baseline">“Greenwald is not only honest, but completely
confident in the correctness of each step he and Snowden have
taken. Several months ago at a journalists’ conference in Rio de
Janeiro, I nearly fell out of my chair, along with my
colleagues, when Greenwald, in answer to a question from the
moderator, about how he verified Snowden’s information, said
that he had ‘developed a sixth sense,’ and at the next question,
about how he maintained the necessary distance from his source,
said he did not know who had conceived of such idiotic rules,
and he didn’t intend to observe them.</p>
<p style="font-family:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;line-height:inherit;padding:0px;border:0px;margin:0px 0px 10px;vertical-align:baseline">This confidence in one’s own rectitude possibly
explains best of all why in Russia, people don’t talk about the
American’s exposes as much as they do in Europe and in South
America.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="font-family:'Open Sans';font-size:15px;line-height:22px;padding:0px;border:0px;margin:0px 0px 10px;vertical-align:baseline">Soldatov then picks out an important
contradiction in Snowden’s behaviour — he notes how in his book,
Greenwald was shocked how open Snowden was, using his own name to
register in the hotel, using a credit card in his real name, etc.
because “he wanted to forestall any attempt to accuse him that he
was some kind of recruited agent, which would be easier to do, if
he spent that period in hiding.”</p>
<p style="font-family:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;line-height:inherit;padding:0px;border:0px;margin:0px 0px 10px;vertical-align:baseline">“Snowden
told Greenwald that from the very beginning, he wanted to
demonstrate that his actions could be verified from the outside
and there was no conspiracy here, and he acted alone.</p>
<p style="font-family:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;line-height:inherit;padding:0px;border:0px;margin:0px 0px 10px;vertical-align:baseline">However,
Snowden kept to that tactic, as is known, only in Hong Kong, and
only before his meeting with Poitras and Greenwald.</p>
<p style="font-family:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;line-height:inherit;padding:0px;border:0px;margin:0px 0px 10px;vertical-align:baseline">Since
Snowden appeared in Moscow, almost a year has passed, and there
has been no possibility of learning where he spent all this time,
who paid his bills and who chose for him Anatoly Kucherena, a
member of the FSB’s Civic Council, as his Russian representative.</p>
<p style="font-family:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;line-height:inherit;padding:0px;border:0px;margin:0px 0px 10px;vertical-align:baseline">Meanwhile,
the Russian reader loves conspiracy theories. From the president,
who believes the Internet is an invention of the CIA, to an
ordinary clerk, savoring the details of the intercepted
conversation of Victoria Nuland in Kiev during Maidan, almost
everyone believes that behind every sensational political event
there must be some state actor and it is best if it is an
intelligence agency. The Snowden epic is the best present to
conspirology, since it provides a wide scope for the existence of
two conspiracy theories in one; first, that the US is behind
everything on the Internet, and second, that Snowden exposed
everything on orders from the Chinese and Russian intelligence
agencies.</p>
<p style="font-family:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;line-height:inherit;padding:0px;border:0px;margin:0px 0px 10px;vertical-align:baseline">These
suspicions are only reinforced by the fact that we have a
tradition of many years of treating defectors and sleeper agents,
from Kim Philby to the SVR illegals caught in the US in 2010. This
tradition is built on the fact that the agent is harshly
controlled in his contacts and communication. The total impression
is created that Edward Snowden, once he got beyond the bounds of
the airport, automatically fell into that category. And in the
last year, he has done nothing to dispel those suspicions.”</p>
<p style="font-family:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;line-height:inherit;padding:0px;border:0px;margin:0px 0px 10px;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-style:normal">Soldatov believes the book will do
little to convince Snowden skeptics or believers to change their
mind. He notes that Greenwald seems not to have realized that
once Snowden’s identity was revealed, it wouldn’t just be him
doing the revelations, but other journalists would now treat him
as a story as well.</span></p>
<p style="font-family:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;line-height:inherit;padding:0px;border:0px;margin:0px 0px 10px;vertical-align:baseline">“In
fact a good journalist will try to dig for the truth in both cases
— investigating the lying of the NSA in the USA, and trying to
find explanations for the strangeness of Snowden’s behavior.
Evidently in the last year, Greenwald never did understood that,
which is why he spends a third of the book on haranguing other
journalists. Snowden did not understand this either, when he
decided to reply to criticism directed at him by asking Vladimir
Putin a question on the air about massive surveillance in Russia,
and instead of universal approval, received harsh criticism from
practically all sides.</p>
<p style="font-family:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;line-height:inherit;padding:0px;border:0px;margin:0px 0px 10px;vertical-align:baseline">Snowden’s
behavior in Russia should be explained, especially taking into
account how cleverly his revelations were used by Russian
propaganda for justifying all the new repressive laws on the
Internet; even one good question about whether Russian authorities
are tracking their citizens does not explain anything, and only
provides new fodder for conspiracy theorists. Glenn Greenwald’s
book does not provide these explanations, either.”</p><div class="">
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><br>
<br>
</font>
<div>On 06/11/14 16:39, Joly MacFie wrote:<br>
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<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>
<div class="gmail_quote"> Last week was a busy one and, for
some of us, we are just now catching up with the wealth of
content that was created by the Personal Democracy Forum in
NYC. This video is one of the jewels. Just one year after
the initial reveal, with a fair amount of humor thrown in,
it's a succinct summary of the state of the civil reaction
to ubiquitous surveillance. As mentioned at the end
donations to Snowden's legal defense can be made at <a href="http://Freesnowden.is" target="_blank">Freesnowden.is</a></div>
<div class="gmail_quote"><br>
<br>
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<td><span style="display:none!important"> joly
posted: "On June 5 2014, as part of its
Surveillance and Its Discontents segment, the
2014 Personal Democracy Forum presented a live
conversation between EFF founder John Perry
Barlow and NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Video is below. View on YouTube: <a href="http:/" target="_blank">http:/</a>" </span>
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<h2>
New post on <strong>ISOC-NY
NOTICE BOARD</strong></h2>
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<p>
On June 5
2014, as part
of its <strong>Surveillance
and Its
Discontents</strong>
segment, the <a style="text-decoration:underline;color:#2585b2" href="http://personaldemocracy.com/conferences/nyc/2014" target="_blank"><strong>2014
Personal
Democracy
Forum</strong></a>
presented a
live
conversation
between EFF
founder <strong>John
Perry Barlow</strong>
and NSA
whistleblower
<strong>Edward
Snowden</strong>.
Video is
below.</p>
<p><a style="text-decoration:underline;color:#2585b2" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QrZlHFgxA0?rel=0&w=600&h=338" target="_blank" class="playable"><img style="margin-bottom:12px" alt=""></a></p>
<p><strong>View
on YouTube</strong>:
<a style="text-decoration:underline;color:#2585b2" href="http://youtu.be/3QrZlHFgxA0" target="_blank">http://youtu.be/3QrZlHFgxA0</a><br>
<strong>Transcribe
on AMARA</strong>:
<a style="text-decoration:underline;color:#2585b2" href="http://www.amara.org/en/videos/aEYIPtISegDq/" target="_blank">http://www.amara.org/en/videos/aEYIPtISegDq/</a><br>
<strong>Twitter</strong>:
<a style="text-decoration:underline;color:#2585b2" href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/PDF14?f=realtime&src=hash" target="_blank">#pdf14</a></p>
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<td style="width:10px"><a href="http://isoc-ny.org/p2/6729#respond" target="_blank">Comment</a></td>
<td> <a style="color:#2585b2;text-decoration:underline" href="http://isoc-ny.org/p2/6729#comments" target="_blank">See
all comments</a></td>
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<br>
</div><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><pre cols="72">--
Best,
Veni Markovski
<a href="http://www.veni.com" target="_blank">http://www.veni.com</a>
<a href="https://www.facebook.com/venimarkovski" target="_blank">https://www.facebook.com/venimarkovski</a>
<a href="https://twitter.com/veni" target="_blank">https://twitter.com/veni</a>
The opinions expressed above are those of the
author, not of any organizations, associated
with or related to him in any given way. </pre>
</font></span></div>
</blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br>---------------------------------------------------------------<br>Joly MacFie 218 565 9365 Skype:punkcast<br>WWWhatsup NYC - <a href="http://wwwhatsup.com" target="_blank">http://wwwhatsup.com</a><br>
<a href="http://pinstand.com" target="_blank">http://pinstand.com</a> - <a href="http://punkcast.com" target="_blank">http://punkcast.com</a><br> VP (Admin) - ISOC-NY - <a href="http://isoc-ny.org" target="_blank">http://isoc-ny.org</a><br>
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