skilled, why not do it yourself? you re a computer guy. you re maybe even a computer geek, and i mean that tas a ter of endearment. why go through an intermediary? why go to the press? why go to two different media sources? why pick these reporters in particular? the writer for the guardian on these stories is glen greenwald, a guest on this show multiple times. i ve known glenn a long time. longtime national security blogger who s critical of surveillance and of secrecy. he s a civil libertarian absolutist and one of the most eloquent ones we have. mr. greenwald has been outspoken in support of whistle blowing in general. he s been particularly outspoken about bradley manning. the writer from the washington post in these articles is barton galman. he has a reputation for major scoops about national intelligence. that history, and i think this may be important, has led him to be attacked as a reporter. him to be attacked not as a leaker, but as somebody who will publish information
22-year-old private first class or 29-year-old technical assistant access documents about programs that are so secretive their disclosure rocks the government to its core? and if you have that many low-level employees all looking at information about your vast invasive surveillance machine that the government will not talk about in public, how safe do you think that information is? it is almost the natural conclusion that one of them, among the hundreds of thousands, is going to decide to leak in the belief that what they re doing is ultimately for the public good. or at least to satisfy public curiosity. then if you are that low-level employee with that access to very highly classified supposedly super-consequential information, and you decide to let this stuff be publicly known, how do you decide what to do with it? if you re so technically skilled, why not do it yourself? you re a computer guy. you re maybe even a computer geek, and i mean that as a term of endearment. why not post
today with the computers, you press a button, you get brilliant computer geek who knows what they re doing and all of a sudden, everything is exposed. this wouldn t happen 15 years ago, ten years ago. we are on a very you talk about the cyber wars and everything else. we are on a very weak platform and it s very, very disconcerting. i sort of like to go back to the old days where you would write numbers down on the back of an envelope. brian: or put a cup next to a wall and see if you can hear the other room. gretchen: apparently that s how he rose through the ranks of the c.i.a. and also to this latest job because he didn t even graduate from high school, but he was so good in computers. i want to mention that there are politicians who are saying two major terrorist threats were thwarted as a result of these efforts, but you have to put that in perspective that the boston bottomer was not captured in this way. what do you make of the fact
argument. i m just another guy who sits there day to day in the office and goes, this is something that s not our place to decide. the public needs to decide. today with the computers you press a button, you get some brilliant computer geek and all of a sudden everything s exposed. this is the way totalitarian states are created. the very right wing mentality. the government should know everything that citizens and a free society are doing. there won t be a jew alive on the planet today if hitler had this technology. i came in with a healthy skepticism about these programs. i will provide our intelligence and law law enforcement agencies with the tools they need to tracken an take out the terrorists without undermining our constitution. how are we striking this balance no more ignoring the law when it is inconvenient. there are tradeoffs involved. it is not what is necessary to defeat the terrorists. understand the need to make sure people discuss and debate whether or
a radio talk show, he says even his kids are receiving threats. i ve gotten dozens, hundreds of death threats. my son who has the same name as i do, had somebody post a death threat on his facebook page and when he and my daughter came back, i don t know how do you all this cause i m not a computer geek, came back and said, actually this isn t him, but he is our dad and we think he s a pretty good dad. they came back and said, now that we know you re their children, we wish you d be killed because then he d feel bad. gregg: keane blames the threats on the president s quote, attempt to demonize those who disagree with them for everything he doesn t like. heather: gregg, the new york newspaper that posted the names and addresses of law-abiding gun permit holders on its web site now apparently backing down. the journal news outraged gun owners publishing the interactive map showing exactly