Snowden/Greenwald Withholding Info

[AngryFiver]

Both of these guys say they know all this stuff going on behind the scenes, things the public needs to know, and yet they won't release it all at the same time.

For instance, Snowden has said that the powers that be are using tactics that are far worse than what was in the novel 1984 and yet he has only divulged a portion of that info.

“There are a lot more stories,” Greenwald said to a crowd of journalists in Rio de Janeiro Monday. “The archives are so complex and so deep and so shocking, that I think the most shocking and significant stories are the ones we are still working on, and have yet to publish.”

Snowden already has asylum in Russia, so why not spill the beans on what he knows?

 

[jryan21]

They explain why in CITIZENFOUR:
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiGwAvd5mvM[/ame]

 

[Kiopa_Matt]

Snowden already has asylum in Russia, so why not spill the beans on what he knows?

He needs to keep some ammo for himself for defence. That's only natural.

Well, either that or he's just a CIA shill slowly disseminating information on surveillance programs to get us warmed up to the fact we're all being spied on.

Something seems off though. Majority of Citizen Four was taped in a hotel in New York. During taping, apparently the gubermint interrogated his wife, and placed the house under 24x7 surveillance. Yet, he was allowed to leave the country? Not likely, unless he left using a fraudulent passport, and even then it'd be easier said than done.

 

[music4mic]

He needs to keep some ammo for himself for defence. That's only natural.



Something seems off though. Majority of Citizen Four was taped in a hotel in New York. During taping, apparently the gubermint interrogated his wife, and placed the house under 24x7 surveillance. Yet, he was allowed to leave the country? Not likely, unless he left using a fraudulent passport, and even then it'd be easier said than done.

Wife? You mean girlfriend?

New York? Don't you mean Hong Kong?

Production[edit]
By 2012, Laura Poitras had begun work on the third film in her 9/11 trilogy which she intended to focus broadly on the topic of domestic surveillance for which she interviewed Julian Assange, Glenn Greenwald, William Binney and Jacob Appelbaum.[5] She was first contacted by Edward Snowden in January 2013 after he was unable to establish encrypted communications with Greenwald.[6][7] She flew to Hong Kong in late May 2013, where over the course of eight days she filmed Snowden in his hotel room[5] at the Mira Hotel in Hong Kong. Later, she traveled to Moscow where she filmed a second interview with Snowden conducted by Greenwald.

Production company Praxis Films was involved in the production of the documentary. The film was distributed by RADIUS TWC in the US,[8] Britdoc Foundation and Artificial Eye in the UK[9] and Piffl Media in Germany. The broadcast rights for television were obtained by Channel 4 (United Kingdom), HBO Documentary Films (USA) and Norddeutscher Rundfunk (Germany).

Citizenfour - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[kryaa]

Majority of Citizen Four was taped in a hotel in New York.

I thought it looked like central park too

Watched it yesterday night rather spontaneously and probably lost a few hours of sleep.

 

[WickedJoe]

If you watch Citizenfour it shows you he hands the journalists all the info/data so that they can decide what to publish. He didn't want all the moral responsibility. There's so much data and the journalists are making a judgement call on what is 'moral' to expose. That can take some time.

 

[eliquid]

what good is someone once you have everything you need from them?

him delaying and keeping stuff rolling out slowly ensures a better tomorrow for himself.

 

[dmnEPC]

These guys traded a lot of freedom to provide this info. There are book deals, movies, speaking fees, ext. These boys deserve to get paid for their troubles. Besides. Slowly putting this info out keeps privacy topic constantly in the news and the public debate. If they had dumped it all when this story first broke, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. It would be long forgotten.

 

[WickedJoe]

what good is someone once you have everything you need from them?

him delaying and keeping stuff rolling out slowly ensures a better tomorrow for himself.

You're prob right, but it is more dangerous for him to release it over time and he knows that. There's more incentive for assassination if they delay stuff.

 

[AngryFiver]

At least Snowden has asylum.

Greenwald though is still living in the US. He must wake up every day worried he'll end up like Michael Hastings.

 

[-joe-]

At least Snowden has asylum.

Greenwald though is still living in the US. He must wake up every day worried he'll end up like Michael Hastings.

Source? Citizenfour implied he wouldn't be going back to the US any time soon, and from Wikipedia:

Greenwald lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the hometown of his partner, David Michael Miranda. Greenwald has stated that his residence in Brazil is the result of an American law, the Defense of Marriage Act, barring federal recognition of same-sex marriages, which prevented his partner from receiving a visa to reside in the United States with him. Greenwald has also cited fears of arrest should he move back to the U.S.

 

[TheRedBaron]

You're prob right, but it is more dangerous for him to release it over time and he knows that. There's more incentive for assassination if they delay stuff.

I don't think Snowden actually has any of the documents at this point. He's turned everything over to the journalists pretty much from the get go. Assassinating him does absolutely nothing in terms of preventing more info coming out.

Snowden and Greenwald have both made clear numerous times that if they wanted to they could have just uploaded everything to the internet in 1 go and be done with it, but they wanted to be responsible with the material and make sure a) they don't get people killed b) legitimate US interests are protected c) legitimate top secret information doesn't get released.

With that said, they also want to make sure that information the public needs to know does get released, it's a balancing act.

- Sorting through the material takes time, it takes technical expertise and consultation and it takes deliberation and debate among the journalists to figure out what the most important stuff is that needs to come out next.

- The next step is to consult with government officials and give them an opportunity to make a case for why the information should not be released. Fyi Greenwald has stated that to date not once has the government successfully made a case for not releasing info, but they always give them an opportunity.

There's probably more to it than that but those are some of the reasons that Greenwald has given for why info is not coming out faster.

 

[AngryFiver]

Source? Citizenfour implied he wouldn't be going back to the US any time soon, and from Wikipedia:

Ah...ok, I thought he was still here in the US.

 

[StrikeAnywhere]

I think Snowden is withholding information as a bartering tool and as protection from the U.S. government. Though I think he also understands how the American media works and has partly done this to keep people talking about it.