Thursday, January 30, 2014

Spycraft vs. Journalism: It's the Information, Stupid.


"How much information should you have? Oh, this much. Maybe."

James Clapper, National Intelligence Director, and those who work with him and for him want all the information in the world but want it to be secret. Glenn Greenwald and other journalists want you to have most of the information in the world and wants it to be free and widely known.

This difference is extremely important.

Clapper believes the State should have access to everything, and it's his desire that this everything reside in government storage.

Greenwald: We don't need to know everything. We respect your privacy. But
we do need to know what the State knows about us and how they know. We
most certainly should also know what the State doesn't want us to know.

Glenn Greenwald and other journalists working with him have been very judicious in releasing information that was gleaned from files and data released to them by Edward Snowden. And journalists, in general, have absolutely no interest in your personal information, e.g. social security numbers, credit card data, or Internet viewing habits.

(I'm not talking about Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, or Wikileaks. Their motives might have been heartfelt, but they certainly weren't judicious with their information.)

There is a limit to what journalists -- those that follow the well-established code -- will make public.

There is a limit to what James Clapper thinks citizens should know. He thinks that you should know nothing. How do we know this? He's been caught, in sworn Congressional testimony, lying through his teeth. He lied because he contemptuously believes we have no right to know.

We have a right to know.

I want to live in Greenwald's world, not Clapper's.

Which world do we live in now?

Guess what? We live in both worlds. The interplay is fascinating, and we don't yet know who'll win. My money -- and the money of those who really believe in freedom -- is and should be on Greenwald.

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