As is the norm, on a book with political, philosophical or other import of a sufficient level, I'm here doing an expanded version of a Goodreads book review. Added material will be underlined, as I used italics in parts of the original review, in stuff I quoted from the Snowden book.
No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State by Glenn GreenwaldMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
Good passion for a real cause is undercut by obfuscations at the time of writing and seeming after-the-fact lies. Given that Greenwald to this day continues to lie about his initial support for the Iraq War, despite those lies being easily refuted, none of this should be a surprise.
First, a quick take on Snowden. I don’t think he’s a traitor, but I don’t think he’s an innocent nothingburger, either. (I don't think he's committed a material violation of the Logan Act or something like that, either; that said, I don't think he's been 100 percent forthcoming on every interaction of note he's had with foreign actors. That starts with, not his visit to Hong Kong, but his planning for that visit, as I detail in my review of his book, linked below.) And, he told multiple lies in his book, one of which is passed on by Greenwald. (That, again, concerns planning for his trip to Hong Kong and which countries he was looking at, and which he was dismissing, as potential asylum sites.) UPDATE, and important one, on this, March 14, 2022. How I missed this before, I don't know, but Assange his own self reportedly told Snowden not to go to Latin America and to go to Russia instead. This is another capper on suspicion about Assange and, per Dick Tofel, why he's not a journalist.
With that, let me give you my take on this book and related issues.
First, the passion. Snowden rightly exposed the NSA’s snooping, which Greenwald (and many others) had been wondering about for some time. That and calling out the lying of members of Congress on this issue, or timidity of others, or timidity of The Guardian, is half of the book. And, overall good, but not perfectly good on the Guardian, because that’s part of what gets Greenwald hoist by his own petard.
That said, even more, his TOTALLY unethical recording of witnesses during l'affaire Matt Hale massively petard-hoists. More on Greenwald's hypocritical dickishness on confidentiality is here.
So, let’s dive into all that.
Sections in italics will be quotes from my review of Snowden’s “Permanent Record.”
First, on page 30, Glenn claims that Snowden carefully reviewed everything. Then why was 90 percent of it not published? Glenn engages in what I’ll call “tracks-covering” on page 48, when he says much of this was for journalistic backgrounding. Then, why not publish at least summaries of it?
This is all related to Greenwald eventually NOT publishing about 90 percent of Snowden’s material and instead handing it over to Pierre Omidyar. Given that people like Tim Shorrock have speculated Omidyar is using this for private industrial espionage, as documented here, Glennwald (a popular slapdown for him) posturing in anger over the NSA enabling corporate spying rings hollow. What’s even funnier is that story is linked at the site to which Glennwald’s own proposed NSADisclosures.com flips to.
That said, that then gets again to the “lying in hindsight.” So, at the time in 2013, when The Guardian seemed slow (by Glennwald’s standards) to want to publish, Glenn was ready to dump everything on that NSADisclosures site. But, six years later? No, no, the public doesn’t need to look at it. Bigger names than me have hammered Greenwald over the head on this issue and he's refused, blatantly refused in his Glennwaldian way, to address this.
And, on 56, Glennwald hosts himself by his own petard in attacking the “mainstream media,” foreign policy and national security division. I quote:
BOOM. I sank your battleship, Glennwald. (Actually, you sank yourself and I just pointed it out.)
Next is passing on Snowden’s lies about his planned itinerary.
Question 10: How does he reconcile him allegedly having a plan to go to Ecuador with him stating a dozen pages earlier that he chose NOT to originally go to Latin America (page 284) because “Africa and Latin America were no-go zones too — the United States had a history of acting there with impunity.” Given the other denials of transit, why not fly to, say Ecuador’s embassy in either Beijing or Hanoi? (Update: Or, given how Beijing was already elbowing into Hong Kong's independence, why not just stay there???)
And, at that point, I think we’ve caught Snowden in an outright lie. Or, to repost the item above?
UPDATE, and important one, on this, March 14, 2022. How I missed this before, I don't know, but Assange his own self reportedly told Snowden not to go to Latin America and to go to Russia instead. This is another capper on suspicion about Assange and, per Dick Tofel, why he's not a journalist. That said, this is a good reason Snowden's not a journalist. If he were, and were a good one, he'd "burn" Assange as a source.
So, let’s dive into all that.
Sections in italics will be quotes from my review of Snowden’s “Permanent Record.”
First, on page 30, Glenn claims that Snowden carefully reviewed everything. Then why was 90 percent of it not published? Glenn engages in what I’ll call “tracks-covering” on page 48, when he says much of this was for journalistic backgrounding. Then, why not publish at least summaries of it?
This is all related to Greenwald eventually NOT publishing about 90 percent of Snowden’s material and instead handing it over to Pierre Omidyar. Given that people like Tim Shorrock have speculated Omidyar is using this for private industrial espionage, as documented here, Glennwald (a popular slapdown for him) posturing in anger over the NSA enabling corporate spying rings hollow. What’s even funnier is that story is linked at the site to which Glennwald’s own proposed NSADisclosures.com flips to.
That said, that then gets again to the “lying in hindsight.” So, at the time in 2013, when The Guardian seemed slow (by Glennwald’s standards) to want to publish, Glenn was ready to dump everything on that NSADisclosures site. But, six years later? No, no, the public doesn’t need to look at it. Bigger names than me have hammered Greenwald over the head on this issue and he's refused, blatantly refused in his Glennwaldian way, to address this.
And, on 56, Glennwald hosts himself by his own petard in attacking the “mainstream media,” foreign policy and national security division. I quote:
“Yet another unwritten rule designed to protect the government is that media outlets publish only a few such secret documents and then stop.”
BOOM. I sank your battleship, Glennwald. (Actually, you sank yourself and I just pointed it out.)
Next is passing on Snowden’s lies about his planned itinerary.
Question 10: How does he reconcile him allegedly having a plan to go to Ecuador with him stating a dozen pages earlier that he chose NOT to originally go to Latin America (page 284) because “Africa and Latin America were no-go zones too — the United States had a history of acting there with impunity.” Given the other denials of transit, why not fly to, say Ecuador’s embassy in either Beijing or Hanoi? (Update: Or, given how Beijing was already elbowing into Hong Kong's independence, why not just stay there???)
And, at that point, I think we’ve caught Snowden in an outright lie. Or, to repost the item above?
UPDATE, and important one, on this, March 14, 2022. How I missed this before, I don't know, but Assange his own self reportedly told Snowden not to go to Latin America and to go to Russia instead. This is another capper on suspicion about Assange and, per Dick Tofel, why he's not a journalist. That said, this is a good reason Snowden's not a journalist. If he were, and were a good one, he'd "burn" Assange as a source.
Question 11: The passport and the time frame. Edward Jay Epstein notes that, a day before he left Hong Kong, the US had ALREADY invalidated his passport except for return to the US. Therefore, his claim it has been invalidated in midair is a technical Jesuitical truth at best and a lie at worst. Care to address that?
On page 49, Glennwald buys Snowden’s lie, full stop on his travel plans and never addresses the technicality of the passport issue.
Obfuscations aren't as serious of an issue, but they're not nonexistent, either. Glennwald has no problem quoting Tim Shorrock that 70 percent of every national security dollar is spent on private contractors, but quickly zooms past how much of Snowden's employment was for those exact contractors, not the NSA itself. And, beyond the dollars amount, he never really looks at the security issues of private contractors vs the NSA, nor the alleged cost-effectiveness vs the actual reality. Side note: Stuff like this is why Glennwald is not a leftist, has not been a leftist and never will be a leftist.
Finally, why Greenwald? Snowden’s never answered that. I mean, let's take Greenwald vs, say James Bamford, who interviewed him in Russia, or Bruce Schneier. Bruce isn’t a “journalist” per se; he’s an academic/public policy person. But Bamford is, with even bigger chops in critical and skeptical national security writing, primarily magazine world and books, than Greenwald, and that was definitely the case before Greenwald started working on the Snowden files. Greenwald has never indicated that Snowden told him why.
My guess, as I said in my review of Snowden’s book? Greenwald came off as inept enough in the tech world that he might not challenge Snowden’s account where it needed to be challenged.
Backdrop?
Snowden talks about cooling his heels in Hong Kong while getting people to bite. What journalists DID he talk to besides Greenwald, Laura Poitras, Barton Gellman and Ewan MacAskill? Or did he talk to any? …
What is he not revealing about his time in Hong Kong before meeting G & P? …
If he did get other serious nibbles, did they not pan out? Did he cut them out? Why?
Greenwald never gives any indication that Snowden told him he talked to other journos. So, either Snowden’s confirmed in another lie (and my theory on “why Glennwald” is confirmed) or else Snowden’s playing his cards that close (and possibly my theory of “why Glennwald” is confirmed).
No, finally finally.
I hate books that don’t have a print index at the back.
AND!!!! Per Snowden? Glennwald’s website is “not secure” according to teh Chrome.
No, finally, finally, finally.
Let’s not forget that this is a man who continues to lie about the fact that he supported the Iraq War when it was first launched, even though he’s easily refutable from the public Internet domain. Lying that blatantly has a whiff of the narcissistic at a minimum, maybe of the sociopathic.
And so, with the benefit of hindsight, Glennwald gets two stars compared to Snowden’s three. (Go talk about that with “good Socialist” Swanson Tucker Carlson, Glenn.)
Speaking of that? Glennwald was surely looking for an excuse to leave the Intercept when he did. The fact it wouldn't print his Hunter Biden screed, which he was calling news not a column, and for which he's been edited before at the Intercept and elsewhere, gave him his opening. That said, the fact that he's getting $1-2 million at Substack vs $500K at the Intercept, with total hands off? Yeah, he was looking to jump and would have done so even without an excuse.
And, beyond that, Glennwald has descended into new levels of Twitter trolling and thuggery in recent months. A fair chunk of it builds on sexism he exhibited before he became famous. And, yes, gay men can be sexist. Oh, can they.
While I'm here, Mona Holland, who has had plenty of chances to ditch, not just lessen, her playing robot in the Czech original sense to Glennwald's godbot, can tell her own lies. Like claiming Grayzone is factual, when Max Blumenthal has lied about the Uyghurs, and as nailed by me, lied by omission about GG's setup at the Intercept. Speaking of, as recently as two years ago, she was reportedly very much his robot on Intercept commenting. I think she had backed off somewhat in the last two years, No, take that back. At Substack just over six months ago, she was still defending him. Glenn's commissioned hack job from Ralph Cipriano on Larry Krasner, detailed by me at this link, MAY HAVE been too much for her in some ways. (She did retweet David Menschel to that effect.)
That's enough digression. This is about Greenwald.
For my full Snowden review, go here.
Update, Sept. 21, 2023: Bruce Schneier talks about his experience of working with Greenwald, how both Greenwald and Barton Gellman held back files from their initial reporting and more.
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