US Media Blacks Out Snowden Interview
benswann.com
benswann.com
Also, scroll down to user "Nostromo's" counter (claiming the media did cover the story) w/links and then my reply.
This kind of blatant dereliction of duty in US journalism (IMHO) presages the governments' plans for controlling the (M)essage on websites. One can only assume they have a turnkey solution to suppress submissions and comments on HN, Reddit, etc.
Support projects that attempt to combat censorship at the technological level. This is coming from someone who is working on my own* anti-censorship project. (I care more about the mission than the glory.) retroshare.sourceforge.net promises a great deal and looks OK from a mile-high view (except for mythical documentation). *check profile if interested
Also any reason why it wasn't bought and uploaded to other major american media outlets?
If it was an "acceptable" political story, it would be all over, not merely on archive.org.
Also I had a video that was copied several times and wasn't automatically detected (that's only for high level partners). When I reported the copies for copyright they would generally be taken down in about a half hour.
They interrupted that interview for some important breaking news.
Justin Bieber had been arrested for drag racing his car.
To be clear - the US politician wasn't talking about the interview -- but rather the independent review committee's assessment of the meta data collection program.
Their hourly shows each day are getting to be more and more garbage.
Chris Hayes had a fantastic long-form weekend show on MSNBC. Then they moved him to the hour format on a daily basis and his show went to garbage too as they have him pushing whatever the hype of the day is. And Rachel Maddow now has maybe one good show a month and the rest are just petty garbage ("oh look someone said a word wrong or misspelled something - let's talk about that for ten minutes")
What's crazy is most of their anchors are really smart and knowledgeable when you see them work freeform like in an interview. But start scripting them and giving them "must reads" and they all turn into blathering corporate idiots.
I guess it isn't about the competency of the host/crew but rather the fact that pushing out a show every night means that you must degrade the quality of your analysis, guests, and general information that you are reporting on.
Also, it's worth noting how much more popular FOX News is.
For anyone that thinks there is actually a problem here, what could the motivation or mechanism behind this "blackout" possibly be? Significant parts of the US media have been reporting pretty well on Snowden for a long time now.
Journalists depend upon access to government officials to report news on government actions..
No Access to those officials virtually decimates both the Media firm income and the journalists income
so what
If the whitehouse denies access like that - cutting off some of their own ability to disseminate propaganda - the journalist can simply write on the subject anyway.
Even better, while other journalists are busy copying down the usual stuff, the "cut off" journalist can run the "government interfering with the Free Press" story. Loudly.
Denying "access" merely changes what the story will be about.
And what do you complain about? That the government is not leaking you information anymore? That anonymous sources aren't taking your calls?
One is deliberately leaking the story line that the administration wants published, but for whatever reason doesn't want to be directly quoted on.
The other is the conscientious leaker, who wants to get the truth out but fears for job/safety if he went "on the record."
The former can be directed to "leak" only to favored media outlets. The latter cannot.
What will be reported on? In a case like this, the run with the information they have.... from Snowden. If the government decides it doesn't want to tell it's side of the story (officially or unofficially through "sources"), then they let the accusations stand without a challenge.
Oh, and you may remember a time when journalists got their own information ("investigation"), instead of relying on PR offices.
I am constantly amazed how the government (and many big businesses) get away with this obvious bluff. There is simply no way they would withdraw from the public debate.
The government uses implicit threats of retaliation as deterrence.
You made an assertion. Back it up.
That the government doesn't like Snowden being cast in a favorable light or that it uses mechanisms to deter people from doing so?
A good place to start for the latter is chapter 1.3 of "Manufacturing Consent"
[A former British official] described how the Foreign Office manipulated a willing media. "We would control access to the foreign secretary as a form of reward to journalists. If they were critical, we would not give them the goodies of trips around the world. We would feed them factoids of sanitised intelligence, or we'd freeze them out."
One important thing is still missing, though: Where is a link to the video that has a chance of persisting for some time? After all, this is a document of a certain historical significance, so it should be accessible.
Maybe I'm to meta-cynical, but the reason for that link not existing might just as well have something to do with a copyright-fuckup instead of an intelligence agency conspiracy.
> the full interview is here: https://archive.org/details/snowden_interview_en
Very good quality and on archive.org.
The whole situation makes more sense now, given those links. I also just remembered that the original video of the interview was region-locked for Germany (where I live) on youtube, so residents of non-Germany recieved a "blocked in your country" message. Smells like somebody badly misjudged and sold territorially limited broadcast rights for the interview.
That's supposed to NOT be a blackout?
This is one of the most discussed persons in America, a "national hero" to some, a "threat" to others, and they don't care to show the full interview itself?
They sure know how to milk other topics 24/7, with repeat showing, panels discussing them, etc...
It's not like what's important makes the news -- or that media are free to play whatever they like.
If the intent is suppresing some news story (because lackluster coverage can also have other causes), then reduced coverage is a pretty effective way of creating a media blackout short of issuing direct censorship orders and preventing everybody from publishing anything at all.
The strategy is to control what the public discussion issues are --ie. what everybody on mass media is talking about--, not to stump every inner page single-column article or 30-second mention.
Found the comment by truncating the URL back to the main thread, though. Not sure why the direct URL to /cf1801o is being denied.
[back on topic]
Yah, the video, while not the usual "lets all copy/paste the AP or Reuters story as many places as possible", there HAVE been a bit of coverage.
If we're taking about suppressed stories, I'm still amazed at the utter lack of coverage of Binney/Drake's [1] amazing open letter to the president[2] that was published on Jan 7. Part of me wants to blame it on short attention spans and the usual celebrity worship; it only involves the OTHER whistleblowers, pre-Snowden, so I guess nobody cares.
I was able to find a very minor mention on Huffington Post in the week after it was published, and a few video interviews by Reason of Binney trying to promote the letter, and... that's it. (not counting the handful of "personal blog"-style articles that covered the story, of course)
1: signatures also include Loomis, Wiebe, McGovern, Ellsberg, ...
2: http://consortiumnews.com/2014/01/07/nsa-insiders-reveal-what-went-wrong/that's a hell of an accusation
The EFF has been supporting these former NSA agents' whistleblowing efforts for a while now. Also, Ellsberg - author of the Pentagon Papers - has signed it in support.
While it's not a character reference, it is worth observing that the rather dramatic efforts the NSA has gone though to threaten and prosecute these whistleblowers. You may be interested in watching this talk from 29c3 where Drake and Binney told their stories in their own words:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDM3MqHln8U
And yes, it's a hell of an accusation.
It's also the one that finally made this NSA mess make sense, with their description of THINTHREAD being dropped because it was too inexpensive. It's all about moving money to their contractor friends.
The truth is far simpler: the German interviewer wants more money for foreign rights to the interview than U.S. stations are willing to pay.
btw, what is your source for "the majority of the staff don't like pro-snowden stories."?
And you think I'm the one that doesn't know what he's talking about?
CNN covered the story here: http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/24/world/europe/russia-snowden/.
ABC News: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/german-tv-snowden...
CBS: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/snowden-nsa-conducts-industrial-...
Fox News (AP): http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/01/26/german-tv-snowden-sa....
And see this link (German) for the explanation as to why this interview was not available in most non-German countries (including the UK) due to copyright licensing demands by the German interviewer: http://m.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/medien/edward-snowden-un....
That said I don't the interview in its entirety conforms with the style of content shown on US networks.
I went and checked the German news (I'm American but lived in Germany 5 years, and am still fluent) and it turns out that ARD screwed the pooch on this one: the two most respected media outlets in Germany are pissed off and have written about ARD's shoddy editing and refusal to provide easy access to the full interview. Here are my translations for the titles:
Der Spiegel "ARD relegates Snowden interview to the middle of the night" http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/ard-versendet-sno...
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ("FAZ") "The Snowden interview is going around the world ... or not? http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/medien/edward-snowden-...
Now, the Spiegel linked to ARD's mini-site for Snowden stuff, which claims to have the full video and full transcript in English: http://www.ndr.de/ratgeber/netzwelt/snowdeninterview101.html
And then this article all about how ARD at first would only put the interview out with the German dubbing. Then, under pressure, ARD released it with the original sound. But, wouldn't make it accessible overseas...
Der Spiegel http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/tv/ndr-veroeffentlicht-snowden-...
They usually pay millions for some pictures with an ape and some prominent person, or for photos of an enhanced ass married to some other guy.
Of course, on the Internet, it's not Occam's Razor that controls, but Godwin's, which states that among competing hypotheses, the hypothesis with the greatest dramatic implications must be selected.
I think "I'm terrified of being assassinated by Russian/Chinese authorities" from a major dissident asylum seeker would be getting much more play.
In any case I don't think this isolated interview is very significant in itself.
There's no need for hypotheticals here. When actual Russian dissidents wind up actually dead under extremely suspicious circumstances it actually does not get much more coverage in the US media.
"THE GOVERNMENT IS CENSORING THIS VIDEO cuz they dont want you to see it. IT'S STUCK AT 301 VIEWS!!!1111!"
The American media is in the business of selling time to advertisers, not necessarily informing the public. Duck Dynasty is more popular than Edward Snowden and that particular story was incredibly sensational, so it gets covered more, so it gets more viewers, so it makes the commercial time worth more. Conspiracies aren't necessary to explain it... it's not worth more effort for stations than it gets.
This looks like real self-censorship: it's not newsworthy enough to be worth alienating people that you might want to have as your friend later on. You still don't need a conspiracy to explain it; but it's nevertheless toxic for democracy.
Frankly, I think self-censorship like this is much worse than explicit censorship. At least with explicit censorship there's still some attempt to question the party line; but with self-censorship you've lost even that.
As to the video itself, is it possible ARD simply has a copyright claim it wishes to enforce?
>As to the video itself, is it possible ARD simply has a copyright claim it wishes to enforce?
Maybe? Affiliates certainly aren't going to pay money for it, they'll just take whatever feeds their parent station sends them, and if the parents aren't willing to pay for it then it doesn't get covered in depth.
It's on archive.org now:
https://archive.org/details/snowden_interview_en
(thanks to zeeed for the link)
Not entirely clear about the license, it says "opensource movies" and credits the NDR person in the metadata.
* media (corporations typically owned by larger corporations) can decide not to report what's against owners' interests
* advertisers (corporations buying access to eyeballs) may find news against their interests
Many journalists might want to report, but they have bosses/editors, and those covering important news are selected for having certain attitudes. Government may threaten to revoke access, but that's probably too marginal to cause a blackout.
Or you know, a soft-core version of the above.
Blackout doesn't involve violence -- just an order, implicit or explicit and some threat (which could just be "perhaps we'll call our friends at the IRS" or even "this is a matter of national security, trust us and don't play it. We'll return the favor to your media group.").
And it doesn't have to involve all the media, just the more wide-reaching networks, to control the main volume of public discussion. E.g they don't care if 20 or 30 million people see it. But they wouldn't like 350 million people watching it day and night, discussed in news and tv panels and editorials for a few days.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Robertson_%27%27GQ%27%27_i...
I had no idea about that, it's a US thing :) .
1) There is no blackout, 2) the US media is covering this, and 3) the general public does not care - hense it's not a major news story.
#edit hellban request denied then, I guess. Thanks idiots, it's your site afterall.
I also liked the bit about Obama challenging him to come back to court, and his smart rebuttal.
At the very least it would give him a platform to defend himself from the criticisms he receives (instead of preaching to the choir) and if he were to flub on a question TV stations could at least replay that all the time (no more complaining about a "blackout" due to lack of anything interesting).
I'm sorry but an interview that is basically rehashing everything said before, without even attempting to take a critical view, is not interesting
Furthermore it would compromise his position that his main motivation was to inform his own citizenry if he starts commenting explicitly on foreign intelligence agencies.
He did say that.
He even went further and compared his actions to Manning's, making clear that he [Snowden] had been careful to be very selective in what he copied out of NSA.
Whether stuff is being filtered further by journalists is irrelevant, if we're seeing it on the news it's because Snowden claimed that it is important enough for the American public to see as to outweigh his oath and the possibility of damage to the U.S.
How?
Edit: I found a transcript. http://www.ndr.de/ratgeber/netzwelt/snowden277_page-1.html
Because somehow that story didn't seem to gain as much traction. Of course, nor did it stop Snowden from leaking details on targeted spying programs too.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/snowden-nsa-conducts-industrial-...
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/german-tv-snow...
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/29/video-from-snowd...
Just search "ARD snowden" on Google News. Not front page, but not hidden either.
Giving the interview right around the State of the Union probably didn't help it get any attention in the US.
The NYT Blog - 3 days late, is it that hard for such a "renowned" journalistic enterprise?
Wow! Props to the Associated Press for writing about something globally noteworthy [sarc.] in an article that few cared to carry or - God-forbid - elaborate upon. (ABC merely picked up the AP story.)
That's the very definition of a pathetic free press.
None of these links constitute actual coverage or equate to Cable air-time, where millions of baby boomers develop/refine their world-views.
"Yes probable citizen of an affected country, you may or may not have a right to support Snowden views on the public being informed, but it is too much to for you to complain when we don't use the powers we have to try to inform, like how we inform the public of the most mundane of things, instead of trying to influence public opinion."
"US Media blacks out snowden interview"
as
"Only US _televised_ news sources either did not report with enough depth on the interview, did not report on it entirely, or gave a delayed report; the content of which is not terribly new or substantiated with evidence [1]"
One of these headlines is a short, snappier version that is considered click bait. All this coming from a source that promotes, among other things, the alleged (and widely debunked) link between autism/vaccines.
Color me skeptical, but when a news source bends the truth in order to grab attention, I tend to scrutinize it all the more.
Look, I support Snowden but this isn't journalism. This is hyperbole. Going to such extremes to "fight the system", to be the counter-weight to whatever scheming superpower there is, corrupts. So yes, I stand behind my original accusation that this is "moving the goal-posts". The headline claims US media blocked out the interview, but I find it rather easy to find US reports on this bit of news online. So, to re-examine the accusation, it's not true. US Media did _not_ black out the interview. So what now?
[1] He makes claims that the US spy agencies have been spying on corporations, but he does not elaborate on it. This is unusual for Snowden as he usually provides ample evidence to support his assertions. Don't you think that this would be a bigger deal if he had supplied the evidence to go along with that interview?
To address [1], in the Snowden interview, he explicitly states that he would rather leave it up to journalistic indiscretion to see what information about the topic is to be shared (I don't share that sentiment, so it makes me wonder too…, but I'm not a factor at all since I do not hold such information, so it doesn't matter here). Whether the information, of which about 1% has been released (and has thus far has made some public statements by various officials, which preceded the press reporting on the various topics in this subject, voided after reporting [Snowden singles out Obama and Clapper]), is shared with the public in a timely manor is another question it itself.
>Color me skeptical, but when a news source bends the truth in order to grab attention, I tend to scrutinize it all the more.
I do not think that any news source has a definitive hold on truth, so I think they all must be scrutinized, not just those that happen to espouse information upsetting to the status quo and their entrenched interests.
But I still hold to the opinion that the coverage by mainstream press did garner enough attention from most people outside of the Internet. The Boston Globe, NYT, and the AP, covered the story.
Of course, those sources have a limited audience and I can't prove how many news outlets bought AP's story because I don't know how.
Edit: News media doesn't hold a monopoly on truth, but this was an exaggeration that can be easily refuted.
Forgive me for my initial sarcasm. You prove a good point but I don't fully agree.
In the end, it comes down to actions by individuals or groups of individuals to make things as they are and how they will be.
Myself, being aware of what more or less has been going on prior the Snowden leaks from previous wistleblowers and from previous events in history that set a precedent of the actions individuals/corporations/governments are willing to take with whatever capabilities available under such perceived or actual circumstances, I have decided on what role I want to take (and get hate mail for every day because I guess it's easier to send feedback to a company on what they're doing as opposed to criticizing one's government for doing the same thing in the shadows).
AFAIK, the German company that produced the interview didn't sell the international rights to the German broadcaster, which is also why the original video is geolocked to Germany. So I'd guess it's this company that's behind the YouTube takedowns.
The NDR says it only got the national rights to the video, while the international rights are still at CineCentrum. Originally the NDR didn't even see it necessary to publish the video undubbed to german. Only after some heavy online protests they put the original version online, yet still geofenced to Germany.
http://www.dwdl.de/nachrichten/44424/nach_kritik_ndr_veroeff...
The transcript is offically available here: http://www.ndr.de/ratgeber/netzwelt/snowden277_page-1.html
1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GlYh58cxKY (Interview with German translation)
2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x38jkFlPeg (Interview in English)
Do they work for anybody else?
Can you download it and torrent it?
To each their own, I suppose.
edit: I might add that we already have The Piratebay as a place to rebel against the copyright system. I just feel that The Internet Archive is too valuable (as an archive of public-domain material) to be dragged down to that fight. I don't feel like it is too much to ask to keep the two segregated.
The only thing I wonder is if they actually delete such files or hide them with a "first published on 2014-01-26, author John Doe" marker to unlock once copyright expired.
It might be easier to get hold of certain artefacts now than in 135 years (or whenever recently obtained copyrights actually will expire).
I love the irony in this flawed line of thinking here.
For one, few historians run torture camps and assassination units.
I probably should pick up blogging so that I could discuss these kinds of issues in a more neutral context, but so far HN feels more natural outlet for me.
It's really close to a tax to pay for their content, their infrastructure. Which makes sense in a way for me, I do want broadcasters that don't need to rely on 'what the masses want' alone to pick their content, ending with Big Brother and brainless idiotic stuff everywhere.
But there's power and there's responsibility. If you take money from ~every~ citizen/household, then you better release that stuff with a decent license.
Most things disappear from their websites after 7 days, which is a "compromise" they worked out with the private media corporations.
- not showing this prominently enough
- not providing the original version without a lot of prodding
As for the rest of the comment: I don't know. The content's created. Why not set it free? I expect that for me/for locals, but I fail to see why you'd want to use geolocation to exclude others. Ever. The only cost at this point is bandwidth and by offering the content with a liberal license you could expect decent mirrors.
From: http://www.liveleak.com/ll_embed?f=e2ce8368acfc
Length: 85151797 (81M) [video/mp4]
Right-Click & Save As... http://edge.liveleak.com/80281E/ll_a_s/2014/Jan/27/LiveLeak-...
Thanks, though, got it downloaded.
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:da801929f47900e5d64d20601c5f00001f26bd57&dn=Snowden%5FInterview.mp4
We have Fair Use in the US, which is the protection you seem to be grasping for, and while the concept is weaker in the EU, even with stronger protections it makes no logical sense to depend on the person who wants to (over) enforce their copyright to distribute their works freely under fair use. Even without any copyright at all, you still wouldn't be able to force them to distribute to everyone. You might as well mail them and ask for a copy, and, when they turn you down, call for a post-Postal-Service world.
You can, however, look to others to distribute the work, and as others have said below, the interview is available online[1]. If you think fair use in this case is important and someone tries to get the interview taken down from the Internet Archive, I suggest donating to hopefully get some good precedent behind them.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/what-were-watching-sunda...
but obviously cannot rebroadcast the interview unless ARD gave permission.
AP also mentions it http://bigstory.ap.org/article/german-tv-snowden-says-nsa-al...
The links provided thus far in this thread (of which there are very few): either a.) are reporting that Snowden was-to-have an interview (not discussing the content therein) or b.) reduced a substantial interview to an inconsequential soundbite.
The NYT Blog - a blog post 3 days late.
Major super-duper props to the AP for writing about something globally noteworthy [sarc., as it's their mission to write about everything] in an article that few mainstream sources even carried.
There has been little (if any) meaningful discourse of Snowden's interview in mainstream US media, and, despite the video copyright entanglements - the coverage has amounted to what I'd call a "black out." (The article linked to is shit - as 'rdl' and 'dogcatcher' brought to light - but the point remains clear.)
All of this, despite the fact that the topic matter of the interview concerns the future of the internet -- arguably the greatest invention in the history of man.
Snowden doing yet another interview isn't very newsworthy. He's done interviews before, and he'll do them again. Based on the transcripts of the interview (see other posts), there isn't anything new in this interview. All in all...it's not news and the only reason it even got written about was because its Snowden.
1) The US government has persuaded major media outlets CNN, FOX, MSNBC, NYT, etc. to bury the interview.
2) The German media company that did the inteview is asking foreign news outlets for more money than they're willing to pay for the interview (and is protecting its copyright by having internet copies taken down).
[1]http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1wddfp/us_media_bl...
Fox News reported the AP story here: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/01/26/german-tv-snowden-sa....
CNN covered the story here: http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/24/world/europe/russia-snowden/.
Nobody in the US regards CBS as the 4th rail of news broadcasting, but they covered it here, with video: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/snowden-nsa-conducts-industrial-...
That 30 minute interview is greatly in the public interest.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/thelede/2014/01/29/video-fro...
Who is going to poke the bear?
But don't forget to consider that rather than the American media, not a small bunch to corral easily, conspiring at the government's request not to report on something "juicy," that the media may have simply had things to cover that they felt were juicier or were perhaps spooked by the incendiary nature of the interview and engaged in self-censorship. And that it's possible American media has a different take on what's juicy and what's become old news versus foreign media.
Also consider that with the Internet it's not easy anymore to effectively create a media blackout over something not much worse than what's already been revealed by the media without repercussions. Plenty of hungry journalists looking to make a heroic name for themselves by defying such an order in the name of freedom.
Maybe it's true, but it's also pretty far-fetched, don't immediately presume it's true.
There might be some wariness to playing other network's interviews. If I were Snowden I'd try giving an interview to an American network. Though he would actually get some real interview questions(the german interview is only softballs), and would have to defend his position. But I'm sure any news network would love to get that.
Say what you want about the other claims of this article, this is pretty spot-on and should be the concern of all U.S. citizens (by virtue of, y'know, citizenship). This person worked for our government, and facilitated the release of huge amounts of classified information. This is Of Interest to everyone, whether you love him or hate him.
It's news, not a brand of cereal. In theory journalists are supposed to occaisionally go and get stuff, otherwise they may as well fire them all and just get a photocopier and put marketing press releases through it. (In some papers I suspect this has already happened.)
The details as to why and how are explained in the second half of this article (unfortunately in German): http://m.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/medien/edward-snowden-un...
In short it is a copyright fck-up on behalf of the German TV channel that made a mistake when transferring the copyright from its subsidiary to itself. The international distribution right is now stuck somewhere in Nirvana in between the companies, which is why they aren't able to give/sell the video to other international TV stations like CNN, for them to show it.
At least this is my legal understanding of the situation. You can use a proxy like zenmate and see the video here: http://m.ardmediathek.de/Edward-Snowden-interview-in-english...
That said, we need to keep a sharp eye on the government. No doubt.
Print media or long-form web articles on nytimes.com, etc, shouldn't have concerned themselves with rights to video (see my response to 'nostromo').
I was unaware of the copyright/licensing issues when I made the submission.
The media won't report on a Snowden interview, because as bad a state as U.S journalism is in, they haven't yet stooped so low to confuse celebrity-stalking with actual journalism, and they know to keep them separate.
Yes, it's true that this snowden interview wasn't well-reported on. It certainly wasn't blacked out, or suppressed, or whatever, but editors must not have considered it front-page material. That's because it /isn't/.
On days when HN collectively has its wits about it, we're lamenting the fact that too much journalism has focused on Snowden himself, and not enough on the important stories: what was revealed, how the NSA responded, how representatives (collectively and individually), and what the likely political future is for a reform bill. These are stories that give voters important and interesting information, and they tend to be very well covered. This interview doesn't reveal interesting new information in these areas.
http://benswann.com/truth-in-media-vaccine-court-and-autism/
josh_fyi and I seem to have had the same search result simultaneously.
The reality is that MSNBC and CNN don't really cover "news", they cover things that interest the average person. The average person is interested in Justin Bieber gossip, not about spycraft and governmental overreaching. In that case, I wouldn't expect MSNBC and CNN to cover this.
If the Times didn't mention it at all, then I was going to be worried. The truly cynical would point out that this is a blog post rather than an actual article, but the quality of their blogs are generally very good, so I'm not going to complain. If you subscribe to the Times and don't read any of the blogs, you are missing out.
Why is this not as big as Watergate?
Getting to the truth is about hearing both sides of a story, so anyone not willing to listen or let others listen to Snowdens story is part of the problem.
> The interview has been intentionally blocked from the US public
You need to present some semblance of evidence that that's the case. I will grant that it's interesting that this hasn't been covered in the US, but this article is a suspicion being presented as a proven fact.
The YouTube video is still up and I was told the video was available internationally, though I did not verify that.
I suspect that most government agencies where already aware of the capabilities of the NSA, either because they where cooperating or because it's so easy to get access. If Snowden could do it, how many others did it for private interests ?
It is befuddling.
Much more boring than a conspiracy but plausible IMHO.
If this bill passes there won't be news to blackout.
Shows some search results: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&authuser=0...
Clicking on the '73 news sources' link results in blank thread: https://news.google.com/news?ncl=dePJixL6H8f9VzMIt-2rs1GZLI9...
I don't know what is a tailored result and what is not on sites, specially Google lately. Add in other quirks and you have an unreliable system of communication.
It is so heavily censored, sorry, "personalized" and "localized" that you will get entirely different results depending on who and where you are.