re: #23 Charles Johnson

Man, this video is really painful to listen to. I don’t usually get that big of a dose of the rancid Greenwald aura all at one time.

But I notice that he did the same thing he does in his articles - he rants and rants about how the NSA is eavesdropping on everything “you” do, reading all your email, copying your MS Word documents, etc. - then quickly slips in the note about the NSA needing a specific warrant to target a US citizen. Then he carries ranting about the NSA spying on everything “you” do.

Well, maybe he’s worried that the US is spying on him since he’s living outside the US, so a bittorrent of the old paranoia slips out?

His rhetorical method is the same. Make wide ranging accusations and exaggerated claims, but throw in a disclaimer in the fine print that gives him (and The Guardian) an out.

That the NSA spies and eavesdrops is not news. It’s what they do. And have done for decades. Their job is to spy on folks outside the US. They can occasionally spy on those inside the US or US citizens, but there’s procedures in place to do so.

Greenwald continually makes up hypotheticals that indicate the US is currently doing these eavesdropping without warrants, but that’s not the case (cue the disclaimers - and the presence of the warrant requirement for US citizens in those Guardian articles as you’ve astutely pointed out in your early posts)