“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
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Glenn Greenwald: On PRISM, Partisanship and Propaganda
Addressing many of the issues arising from last week’s NSA stories
How can anyone think that it’s remotely healthy in a democracy to have the NSA building a massive spying apparatus about which even members of Congress, including Senators on the Homeland Security Committee, are totally ignorant and find “astounding” when they learn of them? How can anyone claim with a straight face that there is robust oversight when even members of the Senate Intelligence Committee are so constrained in their ability to act that they are reduced to issuing vague, impotent warnings to the public about what they call radical “secret law” enabling domestic spying that would “stun” Americans to learn about it, but are barred to disclose what it is they’re so alarmed by? Put another way, how can anyone contest the value and justifiability of the stories that we were able to publish as a result of Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing: stories that informed the American public – including even the US Congress – about these incredibly consequential programs? What kind of person would think that it would be preferable to remain in the dark – totally ignorant – about them?
Gail Collins: The Other Side of the Story
The feds have said that surveillance programs have thwarted potential attacks. But is rummaging through little girls’ bedrooms really necessary?
The deck is always stacked when we debate keeping the nation safe.
Recently, we discovered that the National Security Agency is keeping an enormous file of our phone calls. In the N.S.A.’s defense, its chief, Gen. Keith Alexander, said “dozens” of potential terrorist attacks had been thwarted by that kind of effort. The director of the F.B.I., Robert Mueller, suggested it might prevent “the next Boston.”
How do you argue with that? True, the N.S.A. program had been up and running for years without being able to prevent the first Boston. And Alexander declined to identify the thwarted attacks, arguing that might aid potential terrorists.
But most Americans were sold. The words “terrorist attack” conjured up terrible, vivid pictures. On the other side was just a humongous computer bank full of numbers. If you didn’t do anything wrong, what was the problem?
Today, let’s try putting a face on it in the form of Brandon Mayfield.
Mr. Obama has also come under increasing attack from a small number of American politicians, including former President Bill Clinton, who this week said Mr. Obama risks looking “lame” for not doing more to help the rebels. It was a cheap shot leveled at an event hosted by Sen. John McCain, Republican of Arizona, a leading advocate of aggressive action in Syria. It is irresponsible for critics like Mr. McCain and Mr. Clinton to fault Mr. Obama without explaining how the United States can change the course of that brutal civil war without being dragged too far into it.
Like most Americans, we are deeply uneasy about getting pulled into yet another war in the Middle East. Those urging stronger action seemed to have learned nothing from the past decade of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, which has sapped the United States and has produced results that are ambiguous at best.
John Nichols: Peter King Goes All 1798 on the Bill of Rights
New York Congressman Peter King, with his call for the prosecution of journalist Glenn Greenwald, recalls a long and dishonorable American tradition. [..]
Growling that “legal action should be taken against (Greenwald),” the Republican chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security dismissed First Amendment concerns declares that: “No right is absolute!” — and that includes the First Amendment right of the people to be served by a free press.
So King is calling for the “very targeted, very selective” prosecution of journalists for informing the American people about what their government is doing — and why it might be wrong.
How very 1798 of him.
Joe Nocera: This Isn’t How to Stop Hacking
I don’t know whether Prism and the other programs truly stop terrorists. I have my doubts. What I do know is that if you are going to lecture the world about right and wrong – and if you’re trying to stop bad behavior – perhaps you shouldn’t be engaging in a version of that behavior yourself.
Instead, this has become one of the trademarks of the Obama administration: decry human rights abuses abroad, but hold men in prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, who have never been accused of a crime. Say all the right things about freedom of the press – even as you’re subpoenaing reporters’ phone records. And express outrage over Chinese hacking while carrying on a sophisticated spying operation of your own citizens. It may seem to us a false equivalence, but the existence of Prism will make it far more difficult to force the Chinese to get serious about stopping their own hacking.
Maybe America’s new motto should be: Do As We Say, Not As We Do.
Peter Dörrie: Ready for More Interventions in Africa? Obama is
While most of the coverage of the recent reshuffle of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy team has been focused on how it will (or won’t) change his administration’s approach to Syria, the continent most affected by it could turn out to be Africa. President Obama designated U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice as his new national security advisor – a post with influence on foreign policy potentially on par with the secretary of state – and nominated Samantha Power, a former journalist and longtime member of his administration, as Rice’s successor at the United Nations. [..]
There are currently a whole range of conflicts that could warrant military intervention: Most prominently, the civil wars in Darfur, Somalia, Eastern Congo and Mali – but also low-intensity or developing conflicts in South Sudan, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Central African Republic, the Katanga province of Congo and Zimbabwe. It is likely that Power and Rice will try to use their new positions (as they have used their old ones) to push for greater U.S. engagement in resolving these conflicts, by military means if necessary.
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