The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Nothing Is ‘Secret’ Anymore

Posted on | May 31, 2025 | 1 Comment

The Glenn Greenwald scandal is an important reminder about the reality of life in the Information Age. This was the subject of a lecture I gave my then-14-year-old son Jefferson in 2013. The day the second Anthony Weiner scandal broke — while the disgraced ex-congressman was a candidate for mayor of New York City — it just so happened that Jeff needed a ride to an extra class he was taking at a school on the other side of town. We were riding along when something came on the radio about the story and I snapped off the radio and began ranting; “Nothing is private! Nothing is secret! Everything you do on the Internet, there’s a permanent record of it out there somewhere!”

The resulting lecture may have been 20 minutes or however long it took us to reach our destination, but I remember telling Jeff never to write anything in an email, DM or text message that he wouldn’t want to see as a headline on the front page of the New York Times.

It goes without saying that you should never “send nudes,” and never record a sex video. Online dating apps? You’re crazy!

Because I write a lot about crime, I’ve come to realize that video surveillance is now nearly ubiquitous, and this is very important. One of the reasons that Sean “Diddy” Combs is now on trial is because a surveillance camera in a hotel corridor caught him abusing his girlfriend. If video surveillance had been so widespread in 1994, O.J. Simpson almost certainly would have been convicted. Now think about what this means if you’re trying to get away with some kind of sexual shenanigans.

One of the most basic defenses against any accusation is alibi — you weren’t at the scene of the crime at the time it allegedly happened. Video surveillance makes it well-nigh impossible to get away with a phony alibi, so you move to what is typically the next line of defense — it’s a “he-said/she-said” case. The whole “campus rape epidemic” hysteria circa 2014 involved cases like this, where the college girl claimed she’d been raped, and the guy insisted it was consensual sex. This was why so many universities denied the accused male students due process, treating rape accusations as a student disciplinary violation and “trying” these cases in campus tribunals where the accused did not have the basic protections he would have had in a criminal trial. Getting a rape conviction in a courtroom, when it involves two drunk college students who stumbled back to a dorm room together after a party, would be nearly impossible. Such circumstances imply consent — what did she think was going to happen? — and it would take strong corroborating evidence for a prosecutor to make a rape accusation stick in a case like that (which was at least 90% of the “campus rape epidemic” hysteria) in a court of law.

Ah, but could your text messages be evidence? Such messages were brought to light in several of those “he-said/she-said” campus rape accusation cases, including the infamous “Mattress Girl” case at Columbia University. Paul Nungesser was able to produce text message exchanges with that lying slut Emma Sulkowicz which helped vindicate him, and forced Columbia to settle a lawsuit with Nungesser.

Do you understand why I felt the need to go off on that rant to my 14-year-old son in 2013? Young people today do not live in the same world I grew up in. Technology has changed the world in ways that we could never have imagined back in the 1970s. People nowadays go to prison because of types of evidence that did not even exist 30 years ago and people are destroying their livelihoods and reputations because of their online behavior. The “sexting” scandals that wrecked Anthony Weiner’s career is one example, and this weird sex video scandal with Glenn Greenwald is another. Why would smart people do such stupid things?

Let us consider Glenn Greenwald’s response:

Journalist Glenn Greenwald angrily lashed out at his political enemies after a sex tape showing him in a compromising position spread on social media.
In a post to X on Friday morning, Greenwald said the clips were published without his ‘knowledge or consent’, and that he planned to take legal action.
The 58-year-old, who is also a lawyer, added that the leaking of the videos was done so by ‘political enemies’ to ‘advance a political agenda’.
‘Last night’s videos were released online depicting behavior in my private life. Some were distorted and others were not.
‘They were published without my knowledge or consent and its publication was therefore criminal.
‘Though we do not yet know exactly who is responsible, we are close to knowing, and the motive was a maliciously political one,’ he said.

Excuse me, Mr. Greenwald, but we actually do know who is responsible, and that person is you. What I mean to say is, your “sex tape” can never be leaked, if you don’t record a “sex tape.” While it is almost certainly true that your “political enemies” published this video — obviously, your friends wouldn’t do that — your enemies are not responsible for you being so stupid as to make that video in the first place.

By the way, Mr. Greenwald, since we are both journalists, can we agree that “sex tape” is an obsolete term? Digital recording has long since replaced videotape, and therefore there is no “tape” involved. Also, I hate when reporters use the verb “film” to describe the act of recording a video, e.g., “he filmed himself engaged in sodomy,” No, dammit! He’s not Cecile B. DeMille, and this wasn’t 35mm Kodak. Nothing was filmed! Nor was anything taped! Stop using those words! But I digress . . .

My point is that stupid is as stupid does, and how stupid do you have to be, as a controversial public figure, to think that you can record a sex video and there’s zero chance of it ever being leaked?

“The shame is part of the kink” — is that what it’s about? Some sort of masochistic craving for humiliation? Well, if so, Greenwald got the ultimate payoff, didn’t he? The whole BDSM world makes no sense to me, and never did. Being neither a sadist nor a masochist, I can’t comprehend either partner’s pleasure in such perverse transactions. Also (and I’ve said this many times before) there is a reason why some things are called “fantasies,” because if you try to do them in real life, the consequences are usually bad. There are many erotic possibilities which might be exciting to imagine, but which simply aren’t practical in real life. Trying to turn your kinkiest fantasies into a “lifestyle” probably isn’t going to work out as well as you hope, and may lead to your death or imprisonment.

Google “dog + sex + video + arrest” sometime and go through the headlines. First of all, you’d be surprised at how frequently police arrest someone for having sex with dogs. It’s at least once a month that such an arrest makes the news, and sometimes there are three or four such stories a month. The second thing, however, is that in almost every case, people record video of themselves having sex with dogs. Usually, it’s the video that leads to their arrest — they share it on social media or whatever, somebody reports them to the cops and, hey, there’s no “allegedly” about their crime. It’s all right there in the video. These dog-sex freaks have literally created the evidence that sends them to prison.

Florida influencer arrested
for having sex with dog for $500,
posting it on Instagram: Sheriff

Florida ‘influencer’ Logan Guminski

For $500, was it worth it? And did this “influencer” blame her disgrace on her enemies, the way Greenwald did? Because such an excuse would scarcely make more sense in her case than in his case. The important question is not how the video came to public attention, but rather why the video ever existed in the first place. Stop recording this stuff!

But people never ask for my advice, and when I volunteer advice, they ignore it, so I don’t know why I even bother offering helpful advice like this. When the next big “sex tape” scandal happens, I’ll just say I told you so, and why the hell do I keep seeing the phrase “sex tape” in headlines? It’s 2025, there is no videotape anymore! Nobody listens to me . . .



 

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Category: Scandal

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One Response to “Nothing Is ‘Secret’ Anymore”

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