Try searching CNN for "Snowden Interview" and there is NO mention of it. Same with MSNBC's search - nothing about this interview in the results.
Also, scroll down to user "Nostromo's" counter (claiming the media did cover the story) w/links and then my reply.
This kind of blatant dereliction of duty in US journalism (IMHO) presages the governments' plans for controlling the (M)essage on websites. One can only assume they have a turnkey solution to suppress submissions and comments on HN, Reddit, etc.
Support projects that attempt to combat censorship at the technological level. This is coming from someone who is working on my own* anti-censorship project. (I care more about the mission than the glory.) retroshare.sourceforge.net promises a great deal and looks OK from a mile-high view (except for mythical documentation). *check profile if interested
For anyone that thinks there is actually a problem here, what could the motivation or mechanism behind this "blackout" possibly be? Significant parts of the US media have been reporting pretty well on Snowden for a long time now.
The media discussion so far has centered around personal issues. Is Snowden a traitor, did he give secrets away to China/Russia, should he be assassinated, how is his girlfriend feeling, what did his father say, does he have a new job, etc. This interview puts the focus back where it should be: have intelligence agencies broken the law, have they taken justice into their own hands, have they been deceiving the executive branch, what balance should be struck between security and privacy, and so on. It also puts a human face on this man, who has never been given a chance to explain his motives.
No, this simply isn't true. Watch the front page of any daily newspaper - a large percentage of the articles are about new revelations or stories on the politics of a reform bill, and I have not seen a single one (in the last 4 months or so, when my memory is fresh) talking about Snowden personally.
This is just so much nonsense. What can they do, deny your press-pass?
so what
If the whitehouse denies access like that - cutting off some of their own ability to disseminate propaganda - the journalist can simply write on the subject anyway.
Even better, while other journalists are busy copying down the usual stuff, the "cut off" journalist can run the "government interfering with the Free Press" story. Loudly.
Denying "access" merely changes what the story will be about.
You are wrong. It's not the press pass it is access to the "unnamed high ranking official" that "leaks" you stories that sell your paper. Not only do you not have breaking stories you don't even have sourced stories. Imagine if WaPo had to write things like "the NYT is reporting...". That's a death knell.
And what do you complain about? That the government is not leaking you information anymore? That anonymous sources aren't taking your calls?
Those "anonymous sources" are included. Such sources will be glad to have important things reported on. Any that would cut you off for reporting the truth or deviating from their "story" are not a source of reliable information anyway.
What will be reported on? In a case like this, the run with the information they have.... from Snowden. If the government decides it doesn't want to tell it's side of the story (officially or unofficially through "sources"), then they let the accusations stand without a challenge.
Oh, and you may remember a time when journalists got their own information ("investigation"), instead of relying on PR offices.
I am constantly amazed how the government (and many big businesses) get away with this obvious bluff. There is simply no way they would withdraw from the public debate.
For which part? That a sophisticated, powerful entity is opposed to circumstances that will disadvantage them or that they will act to prevent other parties from causing those circumstances from occurring?
And here is quote from Pilger describing a specific admission of media manipulation by a major government:
[A former British official] described how the Foreign Office manipulated a willing media. "We would control access to the foreign secretary as a form of reward to journalists. If they were critical, we would not give them the goodies of trips around the world. We would feed them factoids of sanitised intelligence, or we'd freeze them out."
Yeah, read it. Brief mentions, parts taken out of the context?
That's supposed to NOT be a blackout?
This is one of the most discussed persons in America, a "national hero" to some, a "threat" to others, and they don't care to show the full interview itself?
They sure know how to milk other topics 24/7, with repeat showing, panels discussing them, etc...
Probably because these are mainstream news station and most people still don't know who Snowden is. And here's the kicker: they don't care who Snowden is or what he has to say. They just don't. It's a big deal for us, but it's an issue that has yet to surpass the unemployment rate and the declining economy as the chief concern for most Americans.
The result is the same -- information not getting to the people. It doesn't have to be a total lack of any news coverage for it to be a blackout.
If the intent is suppresing some news story (because lackluster coverage can also have other causes), then reduced coverage is a pretty effective way of creating a media blackout short of issuing direct censorship orders and preventing everybody from publishing anything at all.
The strategy is to control what the public discussion issues are --ie. what everybody on mass media is talking about--, not to stump every inner page single-column article or 30-second mention.
I was surprised to hear there was a blackout. The reddit commentary shows that it was picked up, albeit with lackluster coverage.
One important thing is still missing, though: Where is a link to the video that has a chance of persisting for some time? After all, this is a document of a certain historical significance, so it should be accessible.
Maybe I'm to meta-cynical, but the reason for that link not existing might just as well have something to do with a copyright-fuckup instead of an intelligence agency conspiracy.
Thank you and thanks also to the good people at archive.org.
The whole situation makes more sense now, given those links. I also just remembered that the original video of the interview was region-locked for Germany (where I live) on youtube, so residents of non-Germany recieved a "blocked in your country" message. Smells like somebody badly misjudged and sold territorially limited broadcast rights for the interview.
"
403 Forbidden
Request forbidden by administrative rules.
"
Found the comment by truncating the URL back to the main thread, though. Not sure why the direct URL to /cf1801o is being denied.
[back on topic]
Yah, the video, while not the usual "lets all copy/paste the AP or Reuters story as many places as possible", there HAVE been a bit of coverage.
If we're taking about suppressed stories, I'm still amazed at the utter lack of coverage of Binney/Drake's [1] amazing open letter to the president[2] that was published on Jan 7. Part of me wants to blame it on short attention spans and the usual celebrity worship; it only involves the OTHER whistleblowers, pre-Snowden, so I guess nobody cares.
I was able to find a very minor mention on Huffington Post in the week after it was published, and a few video interviews by Reason of Binney trying to promote the letter, and... that's it. (not counting the handful of "personal blog"-style articles that covered the story, of course)
1: signatures also include Loomis, Wiebe, McGovern, Ellsberg, ...
2: http://consortiumnews.com/2014/01/07/nsa-insiders-reveal-what-went-wrong/
errr - how much of that linked open letter is true. It states that NSA insiders had evidence that 9/11 attackers were monitored by NSA, calling AlQueda safe houses from the US to Yemen and shared nothing about it. and this was buried / covered up.
The EFF has been supporting these former NSA agents' whistleblowing efforts for a while now. Also, Ellsberg - author of the Pentagon Papers - has signed it in support.
While it's not a character reference, it is worth observing that the rather dramatic efforts the NSA has gone though to threaten and prosecute these whistleblowers. You may be interested in watching this talk from 29c3 where Drake and Binney told their stories in their own words:
It's also the one that finally made this NSA mess make sense, with their description of THINTHREAD being dropped because it was too inexpensive. It's all about moving money to their contractor friends.
I hadn't heard of this letter before the parent comment's mention of it, but the names mentioned are NSA whistleblowers who might have had the knowledge and access to substantiate whatever claims they make.
Given this, the title is super link-baity. Could a moderator update the title to "30 minute Snowden interview in Germany"? I still would have clicked through.
MSNBC has had some good Snowden coverage over the longer weekend shows which are higher quality.
Their hourly shows each day are getting to be more and more garbage.
Chris Hayes had a fantastic long-form weekend show on MSNBC. Then they moved him to the hour format on a daily basis and his show went to garbage too as they have him pushing whatever the hype of the day is. And Rachel Maddow now has maybe one good show a month and the rest are just petty garbage ("oh look someone said a word wrong or misspelled something - let's talk about that for ten minutes")
What's crazy is most of their anchors are really smart and knowledgeable when you see them work freeform like in an interview. But start scripting them and giving them "must reads" and they all turn into blathering corporate idiots.
Yes, when Chris Hayes hosted "Up" it was a must watch each weekend for me. I watched about two episodes of his nightly show and couldn't stand it. Maybe we should try watching the new guy who took it over?
I guess it isn't about the competency of the host/crew but rather the fact that pushing out a show every night means that you must degrade the quality of your analysis, guests, and general information that you are reporting on.
What makes it more despicable: MSNBC is aggressively marketed in the image of progressive reform television.
To be clear - the US politician wasn't talking about the interview -- but rather the independent review committee's assessment of the meta data collection program.
The Congresswoman is Jane Harman. Ironically, she was wiretapped by the NSA in the early 2000's for allegedly trading lobbying favors with an agent of Israel, and she pissed and moaned about the NSA "violating her privacy." The Bush DOJ abruptly cancelled the investigation and the event got memory-holed by the media, and now she's a vigorous defender of NSA spying.
And see this link (German) for the explanation as to why this interview was not available in most non-German countries (including the UK) due to copyright licensing demands by the German interviewer: http://m.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/medien/edward-snowden-un....
Also I had a video that was copied several times and wasn't automatically detected (that's only for high level partners). When I reported the copies for copyright they would generally be taken down in about a half hour.
I worked in the media for umpteen years in the past. Anyone who thinks the US press colluded with the government to black out anything is flat out crazy.
The media and the government collude to conceal important truths from the public, in the same sense that Coke and Pepsi collude to reduce consumption of tap water; which is to say, not at all, yet extremely effectively.
That worked out well for them didn't it? Ever hear of Watergate? And, in this day and age, when media scours the 'net for stories to tell, you honestly think not one news organization anywhere picked up on the video? Everyone ignored it? (As already shown, this story about a coverup is false.)
And you think I'm the one that doesn't know what he's talking about?
They don't have to be in cahoots to black it out. The truth is far simpler: the advertisers and the majority of the staff don't like pro-snowden stories.
We need to keep our paranoia in check. That article is B.S. — wrong on all the verifiable points. And the rest is just random guesses.
I went and checked the German news (I'm American but lived in Germany 5 years, and am still fluent) and it turns out that ARD screwed the pooch on this one: the two most respected media outlets in Germany are pissed off and have written about ARD's shoddy editing and refusal to provide easy access to the full interview. Here are my translations for the titles:
And then this article all about how ARD at first would only put the interview out with the German dubbing. Then, under pressure, ARD released it with the original sound. But, wouldn't make it accessible overseas...
Because people want to see them. People (as in the general public) really don't care about yet-another Snowden interview, so news outlets aren't going to shell out the big bucks.
The US media doesn't get a pass -- especially print media or long-form web articles on nytimes.com, etc, which shouldn't have concerned themselves with rights to video (see my response to 'nostromo'), but I was unaware of the copyright/licensing issues surrounding the interview until you brought them to light. I am more enraged by the explicit avoidance of the topic by the US media. Thanks for your comment
Thank you for taking the time to scope this out. Out of all the posts on this thread, very few people have taken the time to do the research, could be the language barrier of course.
Of course, on the Internet, it's not Occam's Razor that controls, but Godwin's, which states that among competing hypotheses, the hypothesis with the greatest dramatic implications must be selected.
To be fair, this being mentioned 2-3 times per channel kind of pales in comparison to when the Duck Dynasty thing happened it was on every news station nearly 24/7 for a week. I think the complaint is the amount of coverage this has been given, not whether it has been covered at all.
"Blackout" implies a direct or implicit threat of violence by the government against the media, and the media either willingly or unwillingly complying to censor something they would otherwise cover.
The American media is in the business of selling time to advertisers, not necessarily informing the public. Duck Dynasty is more popular than Edward Snowden and that particular story was incredibly sensational, so it gets covered more, so it gets more viewers, so it makes the commercial time worth more. Conspiracies aren't necessary to explain it... it's not worth more effort for stations than it gets.
Controversy sells. Also, crazy paranoid ravings are a time honored entertainment tradition. I don't buy for a second that Snowden's interview is being avoided because it's not newsworthy enough. In any case, since when did youtube exert editorial control to bar un-entertaining videos?
This looks like real self-censorship: it's not newsworthy enough to be worth alienating people that you might want to have as your friend later on. You still don't need a conspiracy to explain it; but it's nevertheless toxic for democracy.
Frankly, I think self-censorship like this is much worse than explicit censorship. At least with explicit censorship there's still some attempt to question the party line; but with self-censorship you've lost even that.
As to the video itself, is it possible ARD simply has a copyright claim it wishes to enforce?
I don't think the Snowden story is that controversial anymore.
>As to the video itself, is it possible ARD simply has a copyright claim it wishes to enforce?
Maybe? Affiliates certainly aren't going to pay money for it, they'll just take whatever feeds their parent station sends them, and if the parents aren't willing to pay for it then it doesn't get covered in depth.
I have no idea about whether Snowden was covered, but "media blackout" certainly doesn't require gov't violence:
* media (corporations typically owned by larger corporations) can decide not to report what's against owners' interests
* advertisers (corporations buying access to eyeballs) may find news against their interests
Many journalists might want to report, but they have bosses/editors, and those covering important news are selected for having certain attitudes. Government may threaten to revoke access, but that's probably too marginal to cause a blackout.
>"Blackout" implies a direct or implicit threat of violence by the government against the media, and the media either willingly or unwillingly complying to censor something they would otherwise cover.
Or you know, a soft-core version of the above.
Blackout doesn't involve violence -- just an order, implicit or explicit and some threat (which could just be "perhaps we'll call our friends at the IRS" or even "this is a matter of national security, trust us and don't play it. We'll return the favor to your media group.").
And it doesn't have to involve all the media, just the more wide-reaching networks, to control the main volume of public discussion. E.g they don't care if 20 or 30 million people see it. But they wouldn't like 350 million people watching it day and night, discussed in news and tv panels and editorials for a few days.
What adds more B.S. to all this is that the HN mods have not changed the title nor removed this blatantly false submit; even after it's been on HN for the entire day.
1) There is no blackout, 2) the US media is covering this, and 3) the general public does not care - hense it's not a major news story.
The question I ask myself is do I think that if Snowden were an enemy of an enemy (a "good" guy) of the US that this would have the same minimal media exposure?
I think "I'm terrified of being assassinated by Russian/Chinese authorities" from a major dissident asylum seeker would be getting much more play.
In any case I don't think this isolated interview is very significant in itself.
> "I think "I'm terrified of being assassinated by Russian/Chinese authorities" from a major dissident asylum seeker would be getting much more play."
There's no need for hypotheticals here. When actual Russian dissidents wind up actually dead under extremely suspicious circumstances it actually does not get much more coverage in the US media.
I, like almost everyone, heard about Litvinenko without trying. Nevertheless those circumstances are different: A dissident openly slamming their own (non-ally) government is a far clearer message than a dissident dying under dubious circumstances. It can also be repeated indefinitely.
Seems like US news mainly focused on the claims about threat to his life, which was a minor point in the interview. Seems like US public is largely uninterested by the real news. Things like international industrial spying is probably too heavy topic for Americans, so the news didn't want bore the audience.
I don't think your definition of Godwin's Law matches its stated definition. However, I want your definition to get forked into its own law because it is an incredibly astute observation.
I highly recommend watching this interview, in which Snowden clearly explains his motives for doing what he did and describes the scope of the data collection carried out by the NSA and its allied foreign intelligence agencies. While I've followed this story quite extensively, this is first time I've actually watched an interview with Snowden, and I was very impressed with his intelligence, thoughtfulness, depth of knowledge and eloquence. (The interview is 30 minutes long.)
I was really disappointed at the interview. I feel like the interviewer really just spent their time throwing softballs for Snowden, instead of asking him at least some real questions (why leak things that were obviously within the domain of par-for-the-course intelligence collection? Comments on the faux outrage by Brazil, Germany, and company? Why not hit harder at intelligence services of other countries, despite the fact that he's shown that he has the knowledge?).
At the very least it would give him a platform to defend himself from the criticisms he receives (instead of preaching to the choir) and if he were to flub on a question TV stations could at least replay that all the time (no more complaining about a "blackout" due to lack of anything interesting).
I'm sorry but an interview that is basically rehashing everything said before, without even attempting to take a critical view, is not interesting
It's quite clear from the interview that he doesn't want to put himself into the position of revealing information himself, rather to funnel it all through journalistic sources.
Furthermore it would compromise his position that his main motivation was to inform his own citizenry if he starts commenting explicitly on foreign intelligence agencies.
I might be wrong, but didn't he say that he did do filtering of some of the info before handing it to journalists? In that case the information revealed is already partly a statement on his part, because he chose not to filter it. He can't have his cake and eat it on this one.
> I might be wrong, but didn't he say that he did do filtering of some of the info before handing it to journalists?
He did say that.
He even went further and compared his actions to Manning's, making clear that he [Snowden] had been careful to be very selective in what he copied out of NSA.
Whether stuff is being filtered further by journalists is irrelevant, if we're seeing it on the news it's because Snowden claimed that it is important enough for the American public to see as to outweigh his oath and the possibility of damage to the U.S.
The article was fantastic and the depth of his history to serve the USA and to help the country just shows that he truly believes that what he did was for the best of the public interest.
I also liked the bit about Obama challenging him to come back to court, and his smart rebuttal.
Was this the interview where Snowden said that "not all spying is bad" and that "intelligence agencies do have a role to play"? That targeted spying programs should suffice for the needs of national intel agencies while mass surveillance is bad?
Because somehow that story didn't seem to gain as much traction. Of course, nor did it stop Snowden from leaking details on targeted spying programs too.
Nah, the time has passed for stuff like that. It's time to wait for a reset. The intelligent people tried to warn the rest of us long ago, no one cared then, fuck the rest of you now that it's too late. I'll only do anything to speed up the reset... and I doubt the rest of 'you' will be ready for that until things have once again gotten so bad that something else will needed for success.
#edit hellban request denied then, I guess. Thanks idiots, it's your site afterall.
God, someone can post 'Seriously?' and get a hellban and I cannot? Look in the mirror you sad fucks. I still have 312 "points" from you idiots. Try harder.
Better to just make them feel 'naturally' unwelcome in this sick ecosphere of over-socialized nerds? Systems of re-enforcement like this are akin to the worst kind of intellectual inter-breeding.
These links: a.) lip-service reporting that Snowden was-to-have an interview or b.) reduced the lengthy talk to an inconsequential soundbite.
The NYT Blog - 3 days late, is it that hard for such a "renowned" journalistic enterprise?
Wow! Props to the Associated Press for writing about something globally noteworthy [sarc.] in an article that few cared to carry or - God-forbid - elaborate upon. (ABC merely picked up the AP story.)
That's the very definition of a pathetic free press.
None of these links constitute actual coverage or equate to Cable air-time, where millions of baby boomers develop/refine their world-views.
Media reporting, on "backwater channels" (ie. Not in the 24/7 news cycle like Beiber's latest hooker or Cyrus' latest thing twerked upon) as far as the majority of the public is concerned, is now moving the goalposts?
"Yes probable citizen of an affected country, you may or may not have a right to support Snowden views on the public being informed, but it is too much to for you to complain when we don't use the powers we have to try to inform, like how we inform the public of the most mundane of things, instead of trying to influence public opinion."
"Only US _televised_ news sources either did not report with enough depth on the interview, did not report on it entirely, or gave a delayed report; the content of which is not terribly new or substantiated with evidence [1]"
One of these headlines is a short, snappier version that is considered click bait. All this coming from a source that promotes, among other things, the alleged (and widely debunked) link between autism/vaccines.
Color me skeptical, but when a news source bends the truth in order to grab attention, I tend to scrutinize it all the more.
Look, I support Snowden but this isn't journalism. This is hyperbole. Going to such extremes to "fight the system", to be the counter-weight to whatever scheming superpower there is, corrupts. So yes, I stand behind my original accusation that this is "moving the goal-posts". The headline claims US media blocked out the interview, but I find it rather easy to find US reports on this bit of news online. So, to re-examine the accusation, it's not true. US Media did _not_ black out the interview. So what now?
[1] He makes claims that the US spy agencies have been spying on corporations, but he does not elaborate on it. This is unusual for Snowden as he usually provides ample evidence to support his assertions. Don't you think that this would be a bigger deal if he had supplied the evidence to go along with that interview?
I feel our differences in opinion are arising from what has actually taken place (I would agree with your assessment), and the spirit of what has taken place (which is just as much bending the truth as what you says has taken place by Swann, but the it does not bend in favor for interests of the general public). So yes anyone adept can access the information online (the minority as far as population percentage is concerned, since one has to be more proactive and seek such information, which is naturally a subset of people who will take such actions and those who will not combined), but even the least adept of us (i.e. not actively seeking out such information in this context) will hear/be aware about nearly everything broadcasted on replay through traditional channels.
To address [1], in the Snowden interview, he explicitly states that he would rather leave it up to journalistic indiscretion to see what information about the topic is to be shared (I don't share that sentiment, so it makes me wonder too…, but I'm not a factor at all since I do not hold such information, so it doesn't matter here). Whether the information, of which about 1% has been released (and has thus far has made some public statements by various officials, which preceded the press reporting on the various topics in this subject, voided after reporting [Snowden singles out Obama and Clapper]), is shared with the public in a timely manor is another question it itself.
>Color me skeptical, but when a news source bends the truth in order to grab attention, I tend to scrutinize it all the more.
I do not think that any news source has a definitive hold on truth, so I think they all must be scrutinized, not just those that happen to espouse information upsetting to the status quo and their entrenched interests.
Right, I agree to an extent with that assessment. It would, in my mind, be more agreeable to say that the 24 hr news cycle was negligent and in dereliction of their duties as members of the free press to not report the story simply in the scope that it wouldn't generate enough viewers as, say, the Bieber thing. I don't believe there's complicity between the press and the US Govt which was (I believe) implied in the article.
But I still hold to the opinion that the coverage by mainstream press did garner enough attention from most people outside of the Internet. The Boston Globe, NYT, and the AP, covered the story.
Of course, those sources have a limited audience and I can't prove how many news outlets bought AP's story because I don't know how.
Edit: News media doesn't hold a monopoly on truth, but this was an exaggeration that can be easily refuted.
Forgive me for my initial sarcasm. You prove a good point but I don't fully agree.
That's fair. At least in our discussion we have shown that the situation is more nuanced than it appears at first glance because of many of the underlying facets involved.
In the end, it comes down to actions by individuals or groups of individuals to make things as they are and how they will be.
Myself, being aware of what more or less has been going on prior the Snowden leaks from previous wistleblowers and from previous events in history that set a precedent of the actions individuals/corporations/governments are willing to take with whatever capabilities available under such perceived or actual circumstances, I have decided on what role I want to take (and get hate mail for every day because I guess it's easier to send feedback to a company on what they're doing as opposed to criticizing one's government for doing the same thing in the shadows).
In addition, the video has been taken down almost immediately every time it’s posted on YouTube.
AFAIK, the German company that produced the interview didn't sell the international rights to the German broadcaster, which is also why the original video is geolocked to Germany. So I'd guess it's this company that's behind the YouTube takedowns.
It's even more absurd the international rights to the Interview are owned by CineCentrum a 100% subsidiary of Studio Hamburg which is completely owned by the NDR, a Member of the german ARD public broadcasting network.
The NDR says it only got the national rights to the video, while the international rights are still at CineCentrum. Originally the NDR didn't even see it necessary to publish the video undubbed to german.
Only after some heavy online protests they put the original version online, yet still geofenced to Germany.
I must say I'm becoming increasingly disappointed about archive.orgs lax copyright policies. Becoming a treasure trove of pirated material really eats its legitimacy in my eyes.
I'm having trouble if the ARD (or parts of it) starts dicking around with copyright restrictions. They receive a huge amount of funding from mandatory payments of all German households (you can try to avoid that if you're a poor student or poor, period, but usually you're (supposed to be) paying - by law).
It's really close to a tax to pay for their content, their infrastructure. Which makes sense in a way for me, I do want broadcasters that don't need to rely on 'what the masses want' alone to pick their content, ending with Big Brother and brainless idiotic stuff everywhere.
But there's power and there's responsibility. If you take money from ~every~ citizen/household, then you better release that stuff with a decent license.
- not providing the original version without a lot of prodding
As for the rest of the comment: I don't know. The content's created. Why not set it free? I expect that for me/for locals, but I fail to see why you'd want to use geolocation to exclude others. Ever. The only cost at this point is bandwidth and by offering the content with a liberal license you could expect decent mirrors.
This is historically important material produced by a wholly owned subsidiary of a license-funded public broadcaster for a license-funded public broadcasting group. Of anything to complain about "lax copyright policies" and "becoming a treasure trove of pirated material" over, this would seem a particularly bad choice.
I sadly realize that this is a bad place to complain. But honestly I've encountered a significant amount of works of dubious copyright status (or clearly blatant copyright infringement) in the past months (and years), and this case kinda broke the proverbial camels back.
I probably should pick up blogging so that I could discuss these kinds of issues in a more neutral context, but so far HN feels more natural outlet for me.
I guess they follow the usual DMCA dance, the data is uploaded by users after all.
The only thing I wonder is if they actually delete such files or hide them with a "first published on 2014-01-26, author John Doe" marker to unlock once copyright expired.
It might be easier to get hold of certain artefacts now than in 135 years (or whenever recently obtained copyrights actually will expire).
If Snowden didn't want limitations on distribution of his interview then he should have mandated the release to public domain as a condition for the interview. Instead he chose to give the interview to a entity willing to retain and reserve all rights, resulting limited exposure. You are free to disagree with that choice, but that does not give you right to overrule it.
edit: I might add that we already have The Piratebay as a place to rebel against the copyright system. I just feel that The Internet Archive is too valuable (as an archive of public-domain material) to be dragged down to that fight. I don't feel like it is too much to ask to keep the two segregated.
I think Snowden is probably being advised by lawyers to limit his communications to "official" journalist outlets, for his own protection. It's unfortunate, but in many countries journalists have more protections than regular citizens.
This is why it's time for a post-Google internet. No matter what you say about copyright, crucial videos like these are of high public interest and must be available to all individuals. Sadly the state of our current internet allows powerful interests to arbitrarily censor content, justifying their actions with copyright, or worse - 'protecting' children.
I don't understand your point. It says "The uploader has not made this video available in your country" for me, so it looks like ARD did that on purpose. They could have hosted that on any server and blocked you by IP address.
We have Fair Use in the US, which is the protection you seem to be grasping for, and while the concept is weaker in the EU, even with stronger protections it makes no logical sense to depend on the person who wants to (over) enforce their copyright to distribute their works freely under fair use. Even without any copyright at all, you still wouldn't be able to force them to distribute to everyone. You might as well mail them and ask for a copy, and, when they turn you down, call for a post-Postal-Service world.
You can, however, look to others to distribute the work, and as others have said below, the interview is available online[1]. If you think fair use in this case is important and someone tries to get the interview taken down from the Internet Archive, I suggest donating to hopefully get some good precedent behind them.
If you click through the Newshour link provided... it's a re-tread (a three sentences long mention) of the same AP story provided.
The links provided thus far in this thread (of which there are very few): either a.) are reporting that Snowden was-to-have an interview (not discussing the content therein) or b.) reduced a substantial interview to an inconsequential soundbite.
The NYT Blog - a blog post 3 days late.
Major super-duper props to the AP for writing about something globally noteworthy [sarc., as it's their mission to write about everything] in an article that few mainstream sources even carried.
There has been little (if any) meaningful discourse of Snowden's interview in mainstream US media, and, despite the video copyright entanglements - the coverage has amounted to what I'd call a "black out." (The article linked to is shit - as 'rdl' and 'dogcatcher' brought to light - but the point remains clear.)
All of this, despite the fact that the topic matter of the interview concerns the future of the internet -- arguably the greatest invention in the history of man.
The AP feed is carried by every major and minor newspaper in the country. The point of the feed is that smaller articles can be written once and disseminated throughout the country.
Snowden doing yet another interview isn't very newsworthy. He's done interviews before, and he'll do them again. Based on the transcripts of the interview (see other posts), there isn't anything new in this interview. All in all...it's not news and the only reason it even got written about was because its Snowden.
1) The US government has persuaded major media outlets CNN, FOX, MSNBC, NYT, etc. to bury the interview.
2) The German media company that did the inteview is asking foreign news outlets for more money than they're willing to pay for the interview (and is protecting its copyright by having internet copies taken down).
As shown on reddit[1], this hasn't stopped a number of other news organizations from covering it, but the coverage has been very limited. In addition, Fox, MSNBC, and CBS seem to have ignored it completely. It might not be a media blackout, but this is a somewhat significant story (moreso than Bieber being arrested, which I'm certain garnered far more time, even on the political-oriented stations).
MSNBC didn't cover the interview because the entity ceased to exist last year. However, its successor, NBC News, did report the interview...6 days ago when it first came out. http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/01/26/22454373-snowden-... This was the first result on Google.
It's far more likely they're not running it because no one cares. Seriously, the general public really doesn't care. Why would they report on something that's going to make their viewers change the channel?
They can re-air portions of it without paying any money (fair use), right? They do it all the time. Why not this time? And why not discuss it? They discuss findings in scientific journals without reprinting the entire articles, so why not discuss a high-profile interview without re-broadcasting the entire thing?
It's the responsibility of the media to make the interview known to the public and direct the public to where they can view it (if they're not showing it directly on their network). When people talk about suppressing coverage, that to me is how they're doing it.
That 30 minute interview is greatly in the public interest.
That isn't how western government influences media in it's own country. Media know that the US government would be very unhappy about a certain story and they know that the US government is powerful and has carrots and sticks at its disposal.
The press seems more than happy to engage in bear-poking as shown with the prior administration and others in the past. There must be some other explanation.
A blackout ordered by the government, huh. Quite an allegation.
But don't forget to consider that rather than the American media, not a small bunch to corral easily, conspiring at the government's request not to report on something "juicy," that the media may have simply had things to cover that they felt were juicier or were perhaps spooked by the incendiary nature of the interview and engaged in self-censorship. And that it's possible American media has a different take on what's juicy and what's become old news versus foreign media.
Also consider that with the Internet it's not easy anymore to effectively create a media blackout over something not much worse than what's already been revealed by the media without repercussions. Plenty of hungry journalists looking to make a heroic name for themselves by defying such an order in the name of freedom.
Maybe it's true, but it's also pretty far-fetched, don't immediately presume it's true.
The comment on the copyright stuff also seems to be in play. If MSNBC could play some good snippets I feel like they would.
There might be some wariness to playing other network's interviews. If I were Snowden I'd try giving an interview to an American network. Though he would actually get some real interview questions(the german interview is only softballs), and would have to defend his position. But I'm sure any news network would love to get that.
I believe this is due to stupid copyright issues, not anything particular sinister by the US media. I have approximately zero problem pirating it, so http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f93_1390833151
It seems clear that the virtual blackout of this insightful interview is yet another deliberate attempt to obfuscate the truth from the view of the American public. The media has continually attempted to shill the official government lies about mass domestic surveillance programs, justifying them as necessary to fight the “War on Terror”, while attempting to painting Mr. Snowden as a traitor.
Say what you want about the other claims of this article, this is pretty spot-on and should be the concern of all U.S. citizens (by virtue of, y'know, citizenship). This person worked for our government, and facilitated the release of huge amounts of classified information. This is Of Interest to everyone, whether you love him or hate him.
Complete made up speculation. I'm in the UK, read & watch the news everyday, and didn't know this interview was happening. It's also the first time I've seen it mentioned online. It wasn't promoted properly. Re: YouTube takedowns - wouldn't it be the producer of the programme taking those videos down? You make it sound like the USG is removing videos from YouTube.
I'm in the UK, read & watch the news everyday, and didn't know this interview was happening. It's also the first time I've seen it mentioned online. It wasn't promoted properly.
It's news, not a brand of cereal. In theory journalists are supposed to occaisionally go and get stuff, otherwise they may as well fire them all and just get a photocopier and put marketing press releases through it. (In some papers I suspect this has already happened.)
With regards to the video not appearing on youtube and many other places.
The recording TV station that holds the rights to the interview (ARD /NRD) purposefully blocked international visitors from seeing the video through geo blocking, as they only hold distribution rights in Germany. I assume they would also force youtube to remove the video if it is uploaded to protect their copyright.
In short it is a copyright fck-up on behalf of the German TV channel that made a mistake when transferring the copyright from its subsidiary to itself. The international distribution right is now stuck somewhere in Nirvana in between the companies, which is why they aren't able to give/sell the video to other international TV stations like CNN, for them to show it.
Thanks daanlo. I understand and appreciate the concern that others have for this issue, but I wish there was less of a knee-jerk reaction when it comes to these stories. I feel like there many assumptions being made here, as responsible citizens we should be doing our own due diligence to verify the accuracy of articles like this before jumping to conclusions.
That said, we need to keep a sharp eye on the government. No doubt.
Other HNers 'dogwatcher', '_stephan', 'rdl' - have brought to light related copyright issues -- which might explain (in part) the lack of coverage on Cable media stations and have discredited the link. That said, the content of the interview was substantial and of eminent importance (newsworthy) for all US citizens.
Print media or long-form web articles on nytimes.com, etc, shouldn't have concerned themselves with rights to video (see my response to 'nostromo').
I was unaware of the copyright/licensing issues when I made the submission.
It's not news because no one cares. You guys all live in a bubble where you think this is the most important issue in the world right now. Maybe it is. But, honestly, no one cares.
Then why has it been all over the news? Why has the President of the United States discussed it publicly on multiple occasions? People obviously do care.
And the media has been reporting on that, because that's what matters. It's out of Snowden's hands now, which is why front-page news stories tend to focus less on him and more on actual policy details, and the politics of a reform bill.
The media won't report on a Snowden interview, because as bad a state as U.S journalism is in, they haven't yet stooped so low to confuse celebrity-stalking with actual journalism, and they know to keep them separate.
The reddit comment pavanky links to (by Natedogg213) does a pretty good job pointing out the fact that this story simply isn't true, and is really just another case of lazy "mainstream media sux" claims. I'd like to add something from the other end:
Yes, it's true that this snowden interview wasn't well-reported on. It certainly wasn't blacked out, or suppressed, or whatever, but editors must not have considered it front-page material. That's because it /isn't/.
On days when HN collectively has its wits about it, we're lamenting the fact that too much journalism has focused on Snowden himself, and not enough on the important stories: what was revealed, how the NSA responded, how representatives (collectively and individually), and what the likely political future is for a reform bill. These are stories that give voters important and interesting information, and they tend to be very well covered. This interview doesn't reveal interesting new information in these areas.
Regardless of whether it is front page material in some objective sense, do you think that if this were a Chinese or Russian dissident it would have gotten more play?
Not that I agree with Swann's assertion here, but it should be evaluated on its own, independent of Swann's history of being a fucking jackass. Having demonstrably idiotic opinions on one matter doesn't necessarily make a person wrong on another.
I also immediately searched the Times and found this as well :)
The reality is that MSNBC and CNN don't really cover "news", they cover things that interest the average person. The average person is interested in Justin Bieber gossip, not about spycraft and governmental overreaching. In that case, I wouldn't expect MSNBC and CNN to cover this.
If the Times didn't mention it at all, then I was going to be worried. The truly cynical would point out that this is a blog post rather than an actual article, but the quality of their blogs are generally very good, so I'm not going to complain. If you subscribe to the Times and don't read any of the blogs, you are missing out.
Yes, exactly. The fact seems to have gone down the memory hole as quickly as it became known. Maybe I shouldn't, but I find it astonishing that the press has no interest in Clapper's action. Evidently Congress and the "Justice" system has no interest either. When Roger Clemens was suspected of lying to Congress about the oh-so-pressing-national-problem of steroid use in baseball, the feds were all over him and he was tried for perjury. But Clapper? His testimony was said to be merely "inaccurate".
Whether or not there is some kind a conspiracy, which doesn't seem credible to me, the US media could have interviewed Snowden if they wanted to anywhere in the world he felt safe. But they don't appear to care to since it might make that network lose access to politicians and government officials and be branded by rivals as traitors. That's far more likely.
For all living in the US, proof the story-teller wrong by linking to this video on liveleak on their social media and suggesting their friends and family look at the full 30 minutes interview.
Getting to the truth is about hearing both sides of a story, so anyone not willing to listen or let others listen to Snowdens story is part of the problem.
> The interview has been intentionally blocked from the US public
You need to present some semblance of evidence that that's the case. I will grant that it's interesting that this hasn't been covered in the US, but this article is a suspicion being presented as a proven fact.
I submitted a Google translation of the German transcript right after the broadcast and the original English video shortly after that. The submissions didn't get a whole lot of upvotes (2 and 5 respectively). I just figured nobody cared.
The YouTube video is still up and I was told the video was available internationally, though I did not verify that.
I find it astounding to think that he's my age. His thoughtfulness and eloquence in circumstances that are nothing short of movie-like are incredible. Although this might not have been a hard-hitting interview that tasked Snowden about the manner and nature of his revelations, what is clear is that he is a definitely a thinker. As much as everyone has his flaws, I can only really thank him for attempting to open up our eyes so that we can get a glimpse of what reality might really be like below the thin veil that perceive around us.
One thing I think they need to cover is how he got hold of all these documents as a 3rd party contractor. Was it just available on a shared file server or did he had to hack into some kind of data store ?
I suspect that most government agencies where already aware of the capabilities of the NSA, either because they where cooperating or because it's so easy to get access. If Snowden could do it, how many others did it for private interests ?
I've mention something like this previously, in light of Obama 'conceding' on NSA complaints by suggesting the data be stored in private corporate hands.
Nothing conspiratorial in the fact that the networks (correctly) assess that the American viewing public would rather watch Mad Men or Game of Thrones than The Snowden Files, any night of the week.
What else could one expect from the Orwellian government? This only proves the point that press in the police state is just a tool of power, not an independent media by any means.
in other news UK is on the verge of passing legislation tomorrow which will allow Police to SEIZE Journalist notes/files/etc. WITHOUT ANY due process... blatant censorship.
If this bill passes there won't be news to blackout.
Well that is interesting. I typically jump to Google News in response to such accusations to show a thread of stories on the subject 'being blacked out.' In this case..
Here is a screenshot for the blank results when the sources link is clicked: http://imgur.com/63dWPlw
I don't know what is a tailored result and what is not on sites, specially Google lately. Add in other quirks and you have an unreliable system of communication.
I just googled `ard snowden interview` and all the first page of results, youtube, vimeo, etc., are all inaccessible as video is not available. I think I just had a North Korean moment.
Also, scroll down to user "Nostromo's" counter (claiming the media did cover the story) w/links and then my reply.
This kind of blatant dereliction of duty in US journalism (IMHO) presages the governments' plans for controlling the (M)essage on websites. One can only assume they have a turnkey solution to suppress submissions and comments on HN, Reddit, etc.
Support projects that attempt to combat censorship at the technological level. This is coming from someone who is working on my own* anti-censorship project. (I care more about the mission than the glory.) retroshare.sourceforge.net promises a great deal and looks OK from a mile-high view (except for mythical documentation). *check profile if interested