Remember... 'The Pulitzer Prizes Just Demolished The Idea That Edward Snowden Is A Traitor'

[WillyT]

The Pulitzer Prizes Just Demolished The Idea That Edward Snowden Is A Traitor
The Huffington Post | By Jack Mirkinson
Posted: 04/14/2014 3:38 pm EDT Updated: 04/14/2014 4:59 pm EDT

The journalists who won the Pulitzer for their momentous reporting on Edward Snowden's national security revelations celebrated their victory on Monday, and stressed that their awards sent an important message about the nature of Snowden's actions.

The staffs of the Washington Post and the American wing of the Guardian won the prestigious Public Service award for their work, which exposed the astonishingly far-reaching scope of the NSA's surveillance activities and sparked a huge public debate about the extent of the government's spying.

The Pulitzer judges wrote that the Post had won "for its revelation of widespread secret surveillance by the National Security Agency, marked by authoritative and insightful reports that helped the public understand how the disclosures fit into the larger framework of national security."

They wrote that the Guardian had won "for its revelation of widespread secret surveillance by the National Security Agency, helping through aggressive reporting to spark a debate about the relationship between the government and the public over issues of security and privacy."

The editors and reporters from both outlets were jubilant.

“This has been a hard, consequential story, which could have gone wrong in all kinds of ways," the Post's Barton Gellman told the paper. "I’m thrilled at the recognition for The Post and honestly I’m relieved that we didn’t screw it up.

And...

Washington Post editor Martin Baron echoed this theme in his comments to his newspaper:

Baron added that without Snowden’s disclosures, “we never would have known how far this country had shifted away from the rights of the individual in favor of state power. There would have been no public debate about the proper balance between privacy and national security. As even the president has acknowledged, this is a conversation we need to have.”

More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/14/pulitzers-edward-snowden-traitor_n_5148471.html

[WillyT]

1. Kick !!!

[BrotherIvan]

2. Yes, it does

[whereisjustice]

3. a well deserved and far too infrequent recognition of true patriotism

[KoKo]

4. Indeed..and thanks for the reminder....

[WillyT]

19. You Are Quite Welcome !!!

[Marr]

5. It wouldn't matter if he *was* a traitor anyway.

It wouldn't matter if he was Darth Vader. The information he released has shed light on some at least very questionable government activities. Anyone who would even suggest that such should be ignored because of the messenger has an obvious agenda.

[RussBLib]

6. one could do both things at the same time

One could be a traitor by law and yet perform a valuable public service at the same time. The government keeps far too many secrets. Some rare things should be kept secret, but these days everything gets classified.

[TBF]

21. ^ This. We don't give up our freedom

just because a democrat happens to be president. We remember that the Patriot Act was initially passed under George Bush and we continue to fight (and I would argue we not select a candidate for president who signed off on the Patriot Act).

[marym625]

7. Bravo Willy T

But I always agree with you



Such awesome posts on this today. One not so awesome but most are.

[zeemike]

8. And it was deserved.

[cantbeserious]

9. Thank You For Sharing - Well Deserved Award

eom

[JDPriestly]

10. K&R.

I would like to mention that the NSA surveillance poses a serious danger to freedom of the press. We have seen with the Risen story that our free press -- or what remains of our free press -- is under attack.

The Risen case concerns an alleged breach of the secrecy concerning some past CIA action.

But the freedom of the press does not protect just our right to know about what our federal government and agencies like the CIA and our military may have done.

Freedom of the press also protects our right to know what state and local governments including our police forces do.

The NSA programs that Snowden disclosed permit the NSA and thus our government to know the sources of news stories at all levels. In the wrong hands, the NSA information could thwart citizen efforts to enforce the laws that permit us to have clean government, any clean government. The NSA programs, the all-encompassing knowledge about who talks to whom that the NSA programs provide to our government could and probably do shield the corruption of power at all levels of our government.

How could that happen? The NSA spying apparatus would make it dangerous for whistleblowers to come forward and to talk to the press. Just the existence of the NSA programs and the NSA's overly broad authority to collect data on the communications of everyone in the world inhibits the collection of news about corruption and crime on the part of the powerful, those in and out of government.

So, that is the way that the NSA programs violate freedom of the press. They inhibit the ability of the press to collect information from witnesses to wrongdoing. They protect corruption among other things. The excuses for the NSA's violations of our rights sound noble, terrorism, drug crimes, but they are simply a power grab. Pure and simple, the NSA wants and gets power over the lives of our political representatives, over contacts with the press and over us.

[blackspade]

12. Yes! +1000

[nashville_brook]

14. this should be a huge concern for any democracy -- or, for folks with pretensions on keeping theirs

it gets mentioned way at the end of articles or columns, like an afterthought. but really, if you think about the way this surveillance affects *everyone* this is the point at which we'd all feel it.

or, maybe not. some seem to be quite content with press releases from the WH or party leaders.

[woo me with science]

42. Excellent posts.

You have been on fire recently, JDPriestly

Thank you!

[imthevicar]

11. Kick

For all the good it'll do!

[nashville_brook]

13. thanks for the reminder

[Babel_17]

15. Truth to Power (nt)

[G_j]

16. K&R!

[rhett o rick]

17. A statement for liberty and freedoms. Thanks for posting. nm

[Enthusiast]

18. Kicked and recommended a whole bunch!

Thank you, WillyT.

[WillyT]

20. Kick !!!

Test kick.

[Hatchling]

22. test kick reply:

It worked,

[WillyT]

23. Found It Kick !!!

[malokvale77]

24. Here's another kick

and a rec.

[ballyhoo]

25. Ed Snowden knowingly gave up his future to protect

America from itself. He should be revered, and I applaud these Pulitzer Prize winners.

[840high]

27. I certainly applaud them.

[grasswire]

29. the true measure of a patriot, indeed

He put it all on the line, with full understanding of his sacrifice.

[NealK]

26. K&R

[stupidicus]

28. and the apologist/state-sucker BS about how "nothing new was revealed!!!".

eom

[Spazito]

30. Judith Miller won the Pulitzer Prize...

before a number of stories she wrote while working for The New York Times were deemed to be inaccurate by the NYT.

[Number23]

31. So have George Will and Charles Krauthammer.

This OP is extremely funny.

[Spazito]

32. Yep, very funny!

To use winning a Pulitzer Prize as proof of credibility is beyond laughable, one only has to look at the list of winners who are or have turned out to be pathetic liars with agendas.

[whereisjustice]

33. I know, like can you believe a Peace Prize to a guy who said torture is just an expression

of patriotism?

[Spazito]

36. Yeah, geez, and Judith Miller was a misunderstood patriot...

if one is to believe the receipt of a Pulitzer Prize gives instant and inviolate credibility. It does not. It has become to mean less and less in recent years.

[whereisjustice]

34. You really have to hate your children to let NSA spy on them. eom

[L0oniX]

35. Snowden is a hero.

[4bucksagallon]

37. Nope Snowden is still a cowardly treasonous traitor no matter how you try to spin it.

But Al Qaeda and the terrorists do love him.............

[markpkessinger]

39. Is that you, Mr. Cheney? n/t

[4bucksagallon]

41. Is that you Ted Nugent? Both Ted and Ed have something in common faux patriotism.

[woo me with science]

38. K&R!

Last edited Sat Feb 13, 2021, 10:28 PM - Edit history (1)

[markpkessinger]

40. K&R! n/t