Why the Snowden Leaks Will Have a Bigger Impact Than WikiLeaks

[jct74]

Why the Snowden Leaks Will Have a Bigger Impact Than WikiLeaks

By Joshua Keating
OCT. 24 2013 10:42 AM

Former State Department Spokesman P.J. Crowley, who knows a thing or two about the political impact of WikiLeaks, tweeted the following last night:

I think that’s right. The diplomatic cables leaked by Chelsea Manning have had a major political impact in several countries around the world. They may have helped tip an election in Peru, exposed official corruption in India, and while WikiLeaks’ role in fomenting the Arab Spring uprisings has been somewhat exaggerated—including by the organization itself—cables detailing the corruption and lavish lifestyles of the Ben Ali family in Tunisia certainly played a role in the early days of that country’s protests.

But as you might expect from documents written by U.S. diplomats themselves, the cables didn’t actually portray U.S. foreign policy in the worst light. While often catty and more blunt than U.S. officials would ever been in public, the cables didn’t tell us all that much about U.S. foreign policy that we didn’t already know. With the benefit of hindsight, even some State Department officials have conceded that the release of the cables was “embarrassing but not damaging."

I doubt we’ll be saying the same thing about the NSA leaks in a few months. The latest reports that the U.S. may have tapped the mobile phone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel have prompted an unusually blunt response from the German government.

As Reuters reported yesterday, the Merkel accusation, along with another recent report of U.S. mass surveillance on French telephone communications, is likely to dominate an upcoming summit of EU leaders in Brussels. (The Merkel surveillance itself may not have been contained in the Snowden files but it seems likely that the investigation by German intelligence and Der Spiegel that uncovered it was prompted by the recent reports of similar U.S. operations.)

The European Parliament has already approved new regulations to curb the transfer of user data to U.S. corporations. If these rules enter into law, it could have a serious impact on both the operations of companies like Google and Facebook and how the U.S. collects intelligence data.

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read more:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_worl..._germany_why_the_snowden_leaks_will_have.html

 

[jct74]

Obama left increasingly isolated as anger builds among key US allies
Merkel the latest to rebuke Washington over NSA spying while US relationships in the Middle East are also unravelling

Dan Roberts and Paul Lewis in Washington
theguardian.com, Thursday 24 October 2013 16.04 EDT

International anger over US government surveillance has combined with a backlash against its current Middle East policy to leave President Obama increasingly isolated from many of his key foreign allies, according to diplomats in Washington.

The furious call that German chancellor Angela Merkel made to the White House on Wednesday to ask if her phone had been tapped was the latest in a string of diplomatic rebukes by allies including France, Brazil and Mexico, all of which have distanced themselves from the US following revelations of spying by the National Security Agency.

But the collapse in trust of the US among its European and South American partners has been matched by an equally rapid deterioration in its relationships with key allies in the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia this week joined Israel, Jordan and United Arab Emirates in signalling a shift in its relations with the US over its unhappiness at a perceived policy of rapprochement toward Iran and Syria.

Though the issues are largely unrelated, they have led to a flurry of diplomatic activity from Washington, which is anxious to avoid a more permanent rift in the network of alliances that has been central to its foreign policy since the second world war.

...

read more:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/24/obama-isolated-anger-builds-us-allies

 

[Todd]

This should be grounds for impeachment.

If Nixon could get it for a few hotel break-in's and wiretappings...... and Slick willie for a blowjob, then I think this rises to high crimes.

 

[youngbuck]

This should be grounds for impeachment.

If Nixon could get it for a few hotel break-in's and wiretappings...... and Slick willie for a blowjob, then I think this rises to high crimes.

You must be a racist for wanting to impeach our first black president.

 

[2young2vote]

"Sorry, Ms. Germany, here is a few billion more dollars to make up for it."

Its like a marriage. Mr. USA is cheating on his wife, and his son, Edward Snowden, released evidence to the wife proving Mr. USA's adultery. Now Mr. USA is mad at Edward, and all of Mr. USA's blind friends are calling Edward a traitor to the family, as if he is the one who did something wrong. It is actually really pathetic, the love so many have for this government, as if betraying an evil person is a bad thing.

Ever since I was little I realized something about the way we should live our life. If I wouldn't do it around my mom, then I shouldn't do it. If the USA doesn't want them to know about it, then it shouldn't do it. The government deserves any negative public relations it gets from these leaks entirely because they are the reason for it in the first place.

 

[jmdrake]

Excuse my memory, but didn't WikiLeaks include info about the U.S. spying on U.N. diplomats?