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seems to be centered on the new family fun game, How Much Of A Dick Is Glenn Greenwald Anyway ? I decline to play. It is a stupid, wasteful exercise because, frankly, the vessel doesn't matter to me. The information that it carries is the only thing that matters. What has Edward Snowden, International Man Of Luggage, revealed that isn't true? I don't want to hear that we all knew it already. I don't want quibbling about how the data sweeps work, and how they might not be as horrible as they're being made out to be because I don't trust the people making that argument. I don't to hear about how the fudging of the details of David Miranda's arrest somehow lessens the credibility of what we now know. I don't want to hear how it may have inconvenienced our all-too-human-mistake-prone heroes in the NSA, who are they all, all honorable men. What do we know now because of the revelations that is not true? The fact remains that we do not know any of this without Snowden's revelations to Greenwald and, thereby, to the world. The national conversation is not even happening. The NSA is not owning up to its all-too-human mistakes. The FISA Court isn't retroactively flexing to prove it isn't the intelligence community's poodle. The authoritarian impulse has not even been given the brief pause we currently enjoy. None of this happens without Snowden and Greenwald and, as a citizen, I could care less that people think Glenn Greenwald is full of himself. Don't invite him to dinner.

Not only that, but it looks like mother Times is coming around to this way of thinking.

The decision to publish the revelations concerning the British intelligence service jointly with the Times may give the Guardian leverage in its battle with the British government, which is trying to prevent the stories' publication. It may also relate to the stronger protections for free speech and press freedom under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution; Britain has no such protections, and its Official Secrets Act is aimed at keeping government secrets secret. Sources at both papers declined to discuss the motives beyond the spokeswoman's reference to the "climate" of pressure.

Nothing there about what a dick Glenn Greenwald is. Further, I hope Jill Abramson was having someone on here, but I suspect she wasn't.

Abramson declined, in a brief telephone interview from Boston, to "comment on any of that," and stressed that she would not discuss the subject on her mobile telephone because "my cell phone is not a secure line."

Yoicks.

However, I realize I am not the only opinion in town. Earlier this week, I wrote something less than complimentary about a column Jeffrey Toobin had written about the Greenwald/Miranda episode. He got in touch with me and asked if he could send a reply. I told him sure, and offered to post it on the blog, if he wanted me to. He consented. So, ladies and gentlemen, this week's Special Guest Star: Jeffrey Toobin!

(P.S. -- Buy his book on the 2000 election!)

Thanks for your close reading of my piece. Perhaps you'll allow me a few words in response. Let's start with the easy stuff - about the Nazis. Snowden leaked the classified information because, he said, he believes in the principle "declared at Nuremberg." I wrote that Snowden's invocation of Nuremberg was grotesque because it compared those who worked for the government and chose not to leak this material to the Good Germans who were Only Following Orders. You write, "Snowden here is not remotely comparing anyone at the NSA to the Nazis." Of course he is. "Nuremberg," as you surely know, means one thing in this country: Nazis. You attempt the subtle distinction that the Nuremberg principle was only established after World War II. Nice try. Any reasonable reading of what Snowden wrote shows that he meant he alone had the fortitude to strike out against the banality of evil. I point out that no one (including you) has said exactly what laws the NSA has violated. You reply, "If so, the law is an ass." That may be, but that's different from saying that the NSA was some kind of outlaw agency. You compare the mistakes of the NSA to the mistakes in Dr. Strangelove, the ones that resulted in Major Kong's last ride and, literally, the end of the world. It's a bogus comparison. The NSA collects metadata, just like Google collects metadata when it tries to sell you stuff based on what you write in Gmail. The NSA, roughly 2,776 times (probably out of millions of chances), collected too much data. That's a mistake, but it's a long way from the end of the world. I say that China and Russia probably copied Snowden's data and probably will make nefarious use of it. You write, "If Toobin wants to accuse Snowden of espionage, he should man-up and do it. Otherwise, this is just incoherent." It's true that I don't have proof that the Chinese and Russian took advantage of the intelligence windfall that fell into their laps. I don't say that I do have proof. Nor do I have proof that the sun will rise in the east tomorrow. But past performance is a good predictor of future behavior. My money's on the sun in the east and the former and current Communists taking a long look.

Let the national conversation continue. Thanks, Glenn. Spasibo, Ed.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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