Glenn Greenwald NSA

New Snowden Video Raises More Questions Than It Answers

By now you might’ve seen the “sequel” (Greenwald’s word) to the original Snowden Hong Kong video. It really has little to do with NSA or its programs and more to do with Snowden’s personal views about the United States and its surveillance operations.

This was probably the biggest pull-quote:

“I don’t want to live in a world where everything that I say, everything I do, everyone I talk to, every expression of creativity or love or friendship is recorded,” he said. “And that’s not something I’m willing to support, it’s not something I’m willing to build and it’s not something I’m willing to live under.”

That’s sheer Alex Jones-style paranoia since the government isn’t doing anything of the sort. Furthermore, he’s an internet expert who’s ostensibly familiar with Facebook and other forms of digital media that records nearly “every expression of creativity or love or friendship.” For example, his video interview in Hong Kong.

But I’m growing increasingly bored with Snowden’s pseudo-Greenwald-ish preaching. What I’d really like to know is why this video, along with the original video, is so heavily edited. This one in particular has numerous jump-cuts that reminded me of the Paula Deen apology video. Seriously, what did they edit out, and why? And didn’t they realize that by editing the video so heavily that questions would be raised by those of us who are still paying attention?

The internet is perfectly suited to release the entire video, uncut. And isn’t the information important enough to be released unedited? Or is Greenwald so concerned with world-saving information that he’s, you know, parsing it out for dramatic marketing impact?

And finally, you’ll notice in the video how Snowden never answered Greenwald’s question about whether he took the Booz Allen job with the intention of stealing top secret NSA documents. Interesting.