Hollywood Script: Hipster Geek With Hot Girlfriend Fights ‘Omniscient’ Government

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Edward Snowden’s ex-girlfriend: He left her for a trip to federal prison.

“[Snowden] rails against ‘the dangerous truth behind the U.S. policies that seek to develop secret, irresistible powers and concentrate them in the hands of an unaccountable few.’
“He declares that ‘At this point in history, the greatest danger to our freedom and way of life comes from the reasonable fear of omniscient State powers kept in check by nothing but policy documents.'”
— Marc Thiessen, American Enterprise Institute

Over-imaginative narcissists living out hero fantasies inspired by pop culture are not an unfamiliar phenomenon . . . says the former newspaper editor who quit his job, started a blog, and went out on the 2012 campaign trail like Hunter S. Thompson had done 40 years before. But my role model for that bizarre gonzo adventure was a real human being, a working professional journalist, not the protagonist of a spy thriller, and I broke no laws — well, OK, I violated the speed limit in 14 states, but what the hell? — in the process of Living the Dream.

Edward Snowden? Not so much:

Talk of Snowden as a “hero” was rejected by former military intelligence officer Ralph Peters. Appearing on Fox News, Peters criticized the celebration of the NSA leaker. “Now you’ve got this 29-year-old high school dropout … making foreign policy for our country, our security policy,” said Peters, a retired Army lieutenant colonel. “And this guy, I think it’s sad … we’ve made treason cool. Betraying your country’s kind of a fashion statment. [Snowden] wants to be the national security Kim Kardashian. He cites Bradley Manning as a hero.” Manning is an Army private who is being court-martialed for his 2010 leaks of classified information. For both Manning and Snowden, Peters said, “We need to get very, very serious about treason … bring back the death penalty.”

Drawing the line between reality and fantasy, and between heroism and criminality, seems to be increasingly difficult for young people, and some not-so-young people have also spent too much time consuming science fiction and spy novels that tell us that we have more to fear from government computers than we do from Muslim radicals who want to kill us all. People who think life is like a Matt Damon movie need to stop watching so many Matt Damon movies.

This is how I managed to keep my sanity during all the craziness of the Brett Kimberlin episode: As weird as that was — and trust me, it was plenty weird at times — I avoided the flattering thought that I was the protagonist of the story, even when Kimberlin’s people were trying to destroy me. “No, damn it, I’m just the storyteller.”

My resistance to the heroic view of Edward Snowden has an awful lot to do with the way his Courageous Truth-Teller Narrative looks like it was inspired by an ambition to get a book contract and a Hollywood movie deal — Code Name: Verax — “Based on a True Story.”

Unfortunately for Snowden, federal law forbids convicted criminals from profiting from the story of their crimes, which means that Snowden’s “friends” — including Glenn Greenwald and Barton Gellman — have played him for a chump. Snowden’s going to end up in Leavenworth, while his “friends” will be cashing in on his story.

“The Kook Who Knew Too Much” — yeah, I’ve seen this story before. Barrett Brown boasted he had a “six-figure” book deal to tell the inside story of the Anonymous hacker conspiracy, but if you’re inside the conspiracy, aren’t you also a criminal? And once the feds started tightening the screws on Barrett, the punk couldn’t handle the pressure, so he flipped out, went paranoid, and had the most memorable YouTube meltdown in the history of YouTube meltdowns. And federal inmates can’t collect book royalties.

Oops.

Pro Tip: If you want to live out a fantasy, pick a fantasy that doesn’t involve a trip to federal prison.

For decades, America has been plagued by these grandiose Walter Mitty types who can’t be satisfied doing regular jobs and living regular lives, and instead feel the need to Make a Difference — to see their name in headlines and, they hope, make their mark in history — and they never seem to notice that, in real life, these stories seldom end “happily ever after.” But let’s round up today’s headlines:

NSA leak is treason, says Feinstein
— The Hill

U.S. explores criminal charges against Snowden
— USA Today

Transcript: Exclusive Interview
With House Speaker John Boehner on NSA Leak
— ABC News

U.S. Preparing Charges Against Leaker of Data
— New York Times

Edward Snowden: Russia offers
to consider asylum request
— Guardian

“We’ve made treason cool”
Lt. Col. Ralph Peters on NSA leaker: We need
to bring back the death penalty for treason
— The Right Scoop

Booz Allen: We fired NSA leaker on Monday
— Yahoo News

 And — as I expected all along — Edward Snowden’s story doesn’t add up. When are people going to wise up to these bullshit artists?

Is there such a shortage of common sense that people no longer have any ordinary kind of skepticism? A high-school dropout flies to Hong Kong, claims he was paid $200,000 a year and the people who hired him say he exaggerated that by $80,000, and yet you’re telling me that everything else Snowden said was true?

Liars lie, and braggarts brag, and kooks are crazy for Cuckoo Puffs.

This computer geek had a six-figure salary and a hot girlfriend — if you like the skinny long-legged blonde ballerina acrobat type — and yet, his life in Hawaii wasn’t exciting enough for him, so he decides to become an international fugitive from justice.

Way to go, World Famous Douchebag.

Andy Warhol just called to say your 15 minutes are over.

If you want to see your name in headlines, there are lots of ways to do it. Me, I’m  just the guy who’s telling the story:

The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee condemned as traitorous the unauthorized release of top-secret information about National Security Agency (NSA) data-mining operations. Even while thousands of Americans signed a petition urging President Obama to pardon the contractor who leaked classified documents about the program — and Republican Sen. Rand Paul slammed the NSA’s surveillance as unconstitutional — Sen. Dianne Feinstein joined other lawmakers urging the prosecution of Edward Snowden.
“I don’t look at this as being a whistle-blower, I think it’s an act of treason,” the California Democrat told reporters on Capitol Hill. “He took an oath — that oath is important. He violated the oath, he violated the law. It’s an act of treason in my view.”
Debate swirled over the constitutionality of the NSA program Snowden exposed, but Feinstein’s condemnations of the leaker were echoed by Republicans, including South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham: “I hope we follow Mr. Snowden to the ends of the earth to bring him to justice.” And in an interview with ABC News, House Speaker John Boehner called Snowden a “traitor,” adding: “The disclosure of this information puts Americans at risk. It shows our adversaries what our capabilities are. And it’s a giant violation of the law.” . . .

Read the whole thing at ViralRead. While I don’t want to make you paranoid, you should wonder why so many people on social media are trying to convince you Edward Snowden is a  hero.

Our enemies have Internet access, too. And all the “progressive” friends of our enemies are really into this Snowden guy, aren’t they?

Think about that. And stop watching Matt Damon movies, you kooks.

 

 

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65 comments

  1. Snowden is not only looking at Federal prison, he is looking at genuine Federal “pound me in the ass” prison, where he might see daylight 1 hour a day for the rest of his life.

  2. And the Obama regime is mighty relieved that the focus has shifted from: mass, potentially unconstitutional, spying; IRS intimidation; Benghazi coverups; EPA intimidation; perjury by Clapper and Holder before Congress; spying on the AP; spying on James Rosen and submitting a potentially false affidavit to the court to secure a warrant; etc., etc., etc., to the REAL story: Edward Snowden.

  3. Snowden is looking at Federal 23.5 hour lock down supermax prison, where there are no windows, no company and definitely no acrobats.

    But there is generally no rape there either. You have no interaction to allow for that.

  5. TOM: It is like a Hollywood Script… You mean like one of those bad Democrat Liberal politically motivated movies that no one watches? I was hoping for stripper Cirque du Soleil!

  8. OTOH, Ms. Mills may be able to get herself cast playing herself in the Hollywood hagiography of Verax.

  9. I’m still waiting for someone to explain what enemy this helps and how. The only rational answer I’ve heard is that that enemy is us.

    This affects domestic policy, not foreign.

  11. This computer geek had a six-figure salary and a hot girlfriend — if you like the skinny long-legged blonde ballerina acrobat type — and yet, his life in Hawaii wasn’t exciting enough for him, so he decides to become an international fugitive from justice.

    That assumes facts not in evidence. He seems well aware that his future prospects are extremely dim.

  16. One question: Are you really taking Diane Feinstein’s opinion about the kid at face value?

    My gut is to always take the exact opposite view from that crusty old hag.

  17. It’s pretty confusing when you have John Yoo, Charles Krauthammer and DiFi on the same side of a given issue.

  24. Some guy no one ever heard of leaks classified national security documents to notorious liar GiGi Greenwald, and all these people accept it at face value – as explained, not even bothering to look at the details or the documents.

    It’s the “progressives” who just hate America anyway, the Truthers and their conspiracy nut fringe, and the drug-addled libertarians on flights of fantasy. Back in the day, you had to go to a carnival freak show to a bunch like these all in one place.

  28. We now have 2 operating definitions of “treason” from the Prognazis. One was the anti-Bush treachery committed by Breanna Manning. The left holds Manning to be an iconic martyr for freedom (even though the information Manning released undermined almost all of the Left’s memes). Now they hold Snowden to be a traitor for doing similar.

    Here’s the kicker: this program was revealed by the NYT years ago when Bush-43 was POTUS. The Left shat themselves protecting those people. Now the program is re-revealed, and the Left can’t figure out WTF they believe.

  29. And Boehner and Lindsay Graham, and Clapper and Bill Nelson. Wait, things are starting to clear up.

    Seventh, as far as the American people are concerned, this
    domestic spying is a big deal. Yet revealingly, to the political
    class–that is, our leaders in Washington DC–it’s not such a big deal.
    And there we see the central cleft in our politics today: the widening
    gap between the government and the governed.

  30. Legalize 10 million here, bring in 20 million more, and give ’em all welfare, food stamps, and ObamaCare. They’ll be good little Democratic proles for life . . .

  32. The enemy is us, repeat, but simp;lified a little for others:

    The gov vacuumed up everything on everybody in the US, including all citizens.

    John Oompa-Loompa Boehner and Diane Feinstein declare it treason to leak the govs actions, even though these actions are clearly a violation of the 4th Amendment (but who cares about what the Constitution states, like it is old and stuff).

    Article Three of the Constitution and Treason:

    Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.

    So if Snowden is guilty of treason, what enemy did he just give aid to(cause he ain’t on the battlefield)?

    Oh, that is right, he exposed the gov for sweeping up all internet and phone data on every US citizen.

    So, it logically follows, that the enemy that has been given aid to, according to the Boner and Diana Feinstein, is the US citizens themselves.

    Snowden is giving aid and comfort to The People, the US citizens.

    When did congress declare the war on US citizens?

    This is the only explanation where words actually have, uh, you know, meanings.

  33. That liberty stuff is highly overrated, along with the Constitution, The Bill Of Rights, the Declaration of Independence….
    Those Anti-Federalists had no clue about the mission creep that govt is.

  35. In the old days, Americans spent a great deal of time worrying about “Liberty and Freedom”. Some even went to war and died fighting, believing they were defending their country from tyranny.

    After all, when aggressive tyrants such as Hitler and Stalin were not busily invading and occupying other countries, they were secretly arresting and imprisoning people indefinitely without trial or charges. People deemed to be enemies of the regime were killed, at the tyrant’s sole discretion, without any kind of due process. (All of these things violations of our Bill of Rights, but who needs that, right).

    We used to frighten ourselves by reading “1984”, the George Orwell classic. Orwell depicted a grim future in which “Big Brother” would read everyone’s mail, intercept all communications, and literally watch each individual’s every move (and hey, what do you know, Amazon reports record sales for that title in the news today).

    Apparently things have changed.

    It seems “1984” for the Dems and The Repubs is more of a “How To” book.

  36. But we need to import more muslims for diversity. (You aren’t racist are you?) But then we need to disregard the Bill of Rights to watch for terrrrrists. (You aren’t against safety, especially if it saves one life right?). But we need to import more muslims for diversity. (You aren’t racist are you?) But then we need to disregard the Bill of Rights to watch for terrrrrists. (You aren’t against safety, especially if it saves one life right?).
    Wash, rinse, repeat.

  37. I wonder if Peters realizes what he is advocating. If we shot all the treasonous Bas…ds and B..ches, we’d have to replace every Dimocrat Senator and most of the Pubbie Senators as well. Right along with most of the WH staff and the head of that festering pusticle too.

  38. It most certainly is treason to set us up to be overrun by aliens that have no intention of assimilating. Kaus is right for once. His piece on the issue is linked over at Hot Air and it includes a link to Numbers USA – http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/11/wake-up/

    Go and send that fax, and pass the link to all you know. Save the US from little Chuckie Shumer and his minions the McCainiac and little Miss Lindsey.

  39. It’s sad to think that a very pretty healthy young woman is regarded as plus size these days.

  40. I kinda look at this guy like I did Sammy “The Bull” Gravano who turned on his boss John Gotti. I don’t particularly like him but his ratting out the Never Say Anything folks helped us know what they are doing.

    And what they are doing is shredding the Constitution and privacy. Furthermore, just the the Stasi in E. Germany, they are bugging everything and everyone and gathering huge dossiers. Heck, even Hoover kept his targets limited during the heyday of FBI wiretapping and focused on bad guys. Instead, we have a morass of data on every American accessible by people like Mr. Leaker.

    Why elites approve this sort of idiotic security theater that does damage to our rights under the Constitution is that they are terrified of being called racists and not respecting diversity. Real security begins with profiling those who are terrorists and criminals and infiltrating their groups. Just like real security at airports does not resemble the Terribly Stupid Agency from its groping of airline passengers. What we have here are elites that would rather treat every American citizen as a potential criminal and terrorist rather than focusing on those who are committing crimes and terrorism.

    Datamining does not make us safer–if the surveillance state actually worked–a guy named Lech Walensa couldn’t have pulled off what he did. The very mass of internal security data collected by the Soviets during their heyday stupefied them and left them grasping a huge amount of trivial data. It did not stop their citizens from spying for the Americans and others. Instead, the whole setup was designed primarily to prevent wholesale uprisings against the government.

  41. EVERY goblin knows that the US intel gang is looking at their emails and phone records. That’s what “burners” are for.

    So tell us again: what “secret” was exposed?

    Oh, yah: the US intel gang is looking at OUR emails and phone calls. That was the “secret.”

    Pablo’s right and all the Generalissimos in the world won’t change that.

  44. You know what, this guy is not a hero and in fact is immature and a loser. At the same time I can not get worked up about it. I mean don’t actually powerful people in Washinton ‘leak’ secrets – real secrets about discrete facts that hurt people not just broad information that some program exists – all the time for their own benefit or the benefit of their little faction? It means a lot more to me that powerful people who have responsibilities abuse their authority than that some computer monkey feels he needs to share with the world what he thinks are the details of what he was working on.

  45. Looking at some of the feedback, I’m beginning to think that people have gotten themselves so worked up about theoretical violations of their rights that it has not occurred to them: WHAT COULD POSSIBLY BE IN YOUR E-MAILS OR PHONE CALLS THAT THE N.S.A. EVEN GIVES A DAMN?
    “Well, Stacy, this is illegal search and seizure.”
    NO, IT’S NOT. They haven’t searched or seized anything. They’re churning through a lot of DATA, sure, but they’re just running it through a computer program that is designed to “ping” patterns that might indicate terrorist activity.
    No innocent person is injured by this process, it’s just data running through a computer program until the program “pings,” and then some analyst looks at whatever got pinged and says, “Hey, is this something that needs investigating, or what?” And if it looks like it’s worth investigating, then they have to go to the FISA court to get permission to investigate.
    The purpose of the whole thing is to PREVENT TERRORISM. Has any of this data-churning been directly used as evidence? Not that I know of. And what is the Fourth Amendment about? Keeping them from illegally seizing evidence or contraband. Since this data-churning is not about criminal prosecution, but rather about the prevention of terrorist attacks BY PEOPLE WHO WANT TO KILL US ALL, the *theoretical* violation of rights doesn’t sweat me at all.
    Given my status as a pretty fucking hard-core public opponent of the current regime, if I’m not worried about this, why are you guys so worried? Have you got some skeezy shit on your hard-drive you’re worried about? What the hell?

  46. OK, rule 34 (and rule 5) and NSA – Lindsay Mills will be leading my next post – fun stuff

    Based on no data… will Lindsay Mills turn out to be another Ann Chapman?

    thanks folks for the links and insights – lots of neat and groovy concepts

  48. Which one of the monitoring systems should we use to log in for comments these days? That Amazon bleg of yours doesn’t look so tempting lately…

  49. What’s legal on your hard drive today may be illegal tomorrow, you have only the assurance of liars that they are only collecting metadata of the cell phones, they have already used government agency’s to target their enemy’s, the head of the DOJ is currently in contempt of Congress for just 1 of his lies, they let 4 of their own be slaughtered to simply to avoid embarrassment, they wiretapped the press, they got a baseless sedition warrant for a reporter and tapped his and his parents phones and the Director of National Intelligence lied to Congress about the very program we are discussing. What the hell you say?

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