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Comment by redthrowaway | Hacker News Reader

Look, you either believe people like Assange, Greenwald, and Snowden are honest people, or you don't. I do not, to say the least. The three of them strike me as some of the most fundamentally dishonest people in the public sphere.

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I'm kinda fascinated - why do you think they're fundamentally dishonest? I could maybe understand you thinking this about Assange/Greenwald (I personally don't) since they're essentially reporters - so we have to rely on them accurately reporting what they have been informed by sources, and being able to judge whether the source is credible, and to elect to report on anything regardless of whether it conflicts with their viewpoints etc.

But to apply the same criticism to Edward Snowden is a whole different thing altogether. He has produced reams of evidence on the practices of the US intelligence agencies, for him to be "fundamentally dishonest" would involve fabricating large chunks of that, and if I believed that then I wouldn't stop at "dishonest" I'd go with "crazy" or worse.

Glenn Greenwald is known for taking quotes out of context in order to deliberately misrepresent people such as Sam Harris.

I'd be interested in an example of this if you have one, because I read all the source materials in this story and found his arguments compelling (after initially buying into the narrative)

Here are some links describing incidents where Glenn Greenwald has taken quotes out of context:

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/dear-fellow-liberal2

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/on-the-mechanics-of-defam...

https://twitter.com/SamHarrisOrg/status/803464221786677248

Edit: And just to add in this particular case I'm in agreement with you, his arguments do seem compelling.

I've only read the first two stories, but I'm struggling to see how they reflect badly on Greenwald. The context does not change the meaning in either context.

This is not the right place for this discussion, but in both cases the accusations in the pieces retweeted by Greenwald (Harris as 1. a bigoted "scientific racist", 2. a "genocidal fascist maniac") are not supported when Harris' quotes are seen in context.

Greenwald's condemnation of The Guardian's summary of Assange's interview seems accurate. But Greenwald's assessment of Harris, and his tweets in that matter, seem very biased.

I don't think its fair to bundle them together. What Assange is doing and acting is way differnt from Snowden, Greenwald. Or Poitras, Manning for that matter.

Each of these people should be looked at based on their own actions.

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