The Real Insider Threat ( Will the NSA’s surveillance program threaten the Atlantic Alliance? )
By Scott Horton
Since The Guardian began to serialize leaks by a former CIA contractor named Edward Snowden, the affair, as presented by American media, has taken on the familiar tropes of Hollywood cinema: one part Leonardo DiCaprio in Catch Me If You Can, another part Tom Hanks in The Terminal, a smidgen of Gene Hackman in Enemy of the State. This drama may have peaked yesterday, when an aircraft carrying Bolivias president was forced to the ground in Europe as a result of what its ambassador to the United Nations claimed was intense pressure from American authorities, who were apparently driven wild with unfounded suspicion that Snowden might be aboard. The grounding was a flagrant violation of international law, and around the world today, it is being taken as evidence both of Americas pathological obsession with Snowden, and of its heavy-handedness.
Outside America, the story focuses on the NSA surveillance scandal and the substantive revelations that followed from the Snowden documents. But inside America, it is the Snowden scandal, and everything seems to revolve around his persona. We are treated to tales about his schooling, his family, his girlfriend, and endless speculation about his psychology as if any of this had some bearing on the credibility of the documents he revealed, when in fact it does not.
Its worth probing the American medias eccentric approach to the story. Certainly this can be traced to the prevalent tabloid style, which values personalities over facts and policy issues, but it also reveals the hand of a government, and an intelligence community, that has developed considerable skill in media management. The Snowden case, as it has been unfolded to the American public, bears a striking similarity to those of Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, John Kiriakou, Russell Tice, and Thomas Drake nameless government spokesmen identify the source of the leaks as an enemy of the state who has put lives at risk in wartime. The source is vilified, his character darkened, and he himself rather than the leaked materials is turned into the real story.
Just as the first Snowden documents were working their way into the press, McClatchy got its hands on a June 1, 2012, Pentagon memo that outlines the Insider Threat Program, a systematic-response program designed to help the government combat leaks related to national security. Curiously, the ITP targets not foreign enemies, but the American public. Treat the leaker as a spy and a vital threat to the country, the Pentagon counseled: Hammer this fact home . . . leaking is tantamount to aiding the enemies of the United States. The memo failed to take into account the possibility that a leaker might be motivated by a sense of civil duty, a concern about illegal, immoral, unethical conduct, a sense of corruption and incompetence that will continue unchecked unless disclosed to the public.
in full: http://harpers.org/blog/2013/07/the-real-insider-threat/
Scott Horton bio: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Horton_%28attorney%29
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(11,641 posts)Thank you for posting.