Did I Say Ugly American?

By Steve Weissman, Reader Supported News

27 June 13

anks who live abroad famously feel more American than we ever did before. But the misery comes when our fellow citizens back home act like "Ugly Americans," as they have ever since the dramatic whistle-blowing of the National Security Agency's Edward Snowden.

Listen to Secretary of State John Kerry lecture other countries on their responsibility to help catch our errant techie. Washington was "just not buying" Hong Kong's assertion that the US extradition papers were not in order, he said. "This was a deliberate choice by the government to release a fugitive despite a valid arrest warrant, and that decision unquestionably has a negative impact on the US-China relationship." Weren't we the country that gave the world Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People?"

"Do the right thing," Kerry told the Russians. "Live by the standards of the law because that's in the interests of everybody." This from the country that intercepted the communications of Russian president Dmitry Medvedev during a G20 summit in London - and also gave the world Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, extraordinary rendition, the solitary confinement of Bradley Manning, and that wonderfully apt phrase "chickens coming home to roost."

Only days ago, when the young Snowden was spying on foreigners (as well as ourselves), Kerry had no problem. Spying was what spies did, preferably without scaring the children. We were the good guys and American visitors could still tell their British hosts how backward we found their Official Secrets Act and lack of a First Amendment guaranteeing free speech, and how invasive we found their CCTV cameras looking down at everything in the streets. Forgive me for being gross, but every time I went to London I had to fight the urge to pick my nose or scratch my ass while looking up at the nearest camera and shouting, "Do you like your job?"

This was all B.S. - Before Snowden. Now that he is spilling the beans about British as well as U.S. spying, Americans on the home-front sound more like a lynch mob. Even urbane sophisticates like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer compete with mossback Republicans to tell the rest of the world what to do. They also make it impossible for Snowden ever to get a fair trial should he return to the United States. If Americans - especially those in high office - want to fret about Snowden's oath not to reveal secrets and similar legal issues, they might start with their own responsibility not to judge guilt before the courts decides which laws to apply and which evidence to admit.

Even scarier, a few noise-makers like NBC's David Gregory and defense attorney Alan Dershowitz are adding their voices to the Obama administration's campaign to use America's incipient official secrets act - the Espionage Act of 1917 - against journalists like The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald who have worked to bring Snowden's story to light under the ever-present threat of prosecution.

"Greenwald, in my view, clearly has committed a felony," Dershowitz told CNN's Piers Morgan. "Greenwald's a total phony. He is anti-American. He loves radical regimes. And he did this because he hates America."

Senator Joe McCarthy could not have shown more venom - or made such a jackass of himself. Though Greenwald is not naturally a gifted writer and often more of a bulldog attorney defending a client than an independent story-teller eager to spread about the conflicting evidence, he has used his drive, smarts, and integrity to become one of the finest journalists of his generation.

As with Washington's barely concealed campaign to bring down Julian Assange and Wikileaks, Dershowitz has branded himself as an old-fashioned red-baiter. It's classic stuff. Define Greenwald as a radical with a dangerous agenda. Deny at every opportunity that he is a bona fide journalist. And ignore the obvious fact that Greenwood's employers at The Guardian know just how good a journalist he is. His rapidly growing readership would agree, and the profusion of important stories he produces makes him much more of a journalist than, say, NBC's David Gregory, who is little more than a talking head and curator of Beltway opinion.

But let me stop right there. It is not for me, mainstream pundits, outraged lawyers, or government agencies to define who is - and who is not - a "real" journalist. If we ever "license" journalists, even informally, we could lose most of the independent investigators we have. They would find themselves excluded from access to official sources and would-be whistleblowers, deprived of the resources they need to do serious investigations, blacklisted (as was the iconic I.F. Stone), and occasionally thrown behind bars. The result would not even have to look like text-book Fascism or a party-line press, just a permanently embedded media corps that knows which questions to ask and which subjects to avoid.

Just consider how narrowly they have already tried to frame the Snowden story, primarily as a case of individual law-breaking, possible treason, and threats to our national security. Whatever you may think of Edward Snowden or Glenn Greenwald, the bigger threats are elsewhere.

Do you want to live in an Orwellian world where your privacy has no protection? Do you want to live under a Kafkaesque government that makes up the rules as it goes along? And, if not at this auspicious moment, when do you plan to curb the power Google, Facebook, and other digital titans now exercise to do with your private life whatever they want?

Call me an old-timer, but these questions are far more newsworthy than whether Snowden ever spends a single night in jail, or whether Washington sends bounty hunters or CIA rendition teams to plague the rest of his days in whichever country he seeks refuge.

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