VIDEO-The Snowden Effect | a.nolen

I woke up excited today, because ARD, the German television broadcaster, is supposed to air a half-hour long interview with Edward Snowden. According to last night’s teaser for the program, the *next big thing* is that the NSA does industrial espionage.

I thought Greenwald’s reporting on the NSA and Petrobras had already blew the lid on that one, but on reflection, Petrobras is a state-owned entity, so imho, American national security interests could be affected and therefore Petrobras is possibly a legitimate target. But the spying didn’t stop there.

In his ARD interview, Snowden says that the NSA is taking things a step further by spying on companies with information that is useful, not threatening, to the USA. That’s crossing a line, though I don’t expect ethically-challenged NSA supporters to understand the difference. They’ve been used to stealing German technology since great-grandpa’s time.

“I don’t want to pre-empt the editorial decisions of journalists but what I will say is there is no question that the US is engaged in economic spying,” Snowden told veteran NDR journalist Hubert Seipel. “If there is information at Siemens that they think would be beneficial to the national interests, not the national security, of the United States, they will go after that information and they’ll take it.”

To the rest of the world, however, stealing is wrong, even if you have a rich industrialist friend who’ll split the profits from a government contract with you. Yeah, even.

It’s going to be a busy weekend in newsrooms around America, as pundits desperately try to spin whatever Putin Snowden chooses to talk about today. They’ve already started at ABC World News with this little nugget:

It’s “The Snowden Effect”!

“The Snowden Effect” happens when innocent American companies partner with the NSA and spy on their economic competitors. These poor US companies are then ostracized by clients in the international community– and perhaps even at home by paranoid customers– who no longer wish to work with these American firms, for fear that their data will be pilfered. This is totally unfair, and Mr. Snowden has hurt national interests wiwy baud, as Eric Holder would gladly prove to us, if we all had the proper security clearances. ‘Super-special top-secret low-down level four’, perhaps?

In my part of the world we have a saying: ‘Lie with dogs, rise with fleas.’

If you’re going to do shady deals with the NSA for your own economic advancement, it’s NO ONE’S FAULT SAVE YOUR OWN when you’re found out and shunned. The NSA ruined American technology companies’ reputation, not Snowden. American technology companies’ own greediness ruined their reputations, not Snowden.

‘The NSA Effect’.

‘The Greed Effect’.

Not, ‘The Snowden Effect’.

I suspect those shills who eagerly lump Edward with the FSB will conveniently forget that Snowden is no longer free to make decisions on his own, and place blame for anything and everything they don’t like in tonight’s interview at Snowden’s feet. If you’re going to tar Snowden with the ‘Putin’ brush, let’s try to be consistent kids. Remember the only reason Snowden’s head is still on his shoulders is that he isn’t pissing off Putin and embarrassing the Russian leader’s American buddies. If Snowden had to rely on American spooks following the rule of law, well…

Make us proud again, Edward. (And are you still rocking the Tor stickers?)

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