What is the strategy here? Of releasing information about NSA activities with foreign nations? Seems like it is mixing a potentially illegal activity (domestic spying) with their designated job. Doesn't every country try to do this. The NSA personnel could very well have undergone considerable risk to get this sort of thing going on. On the other hand, Joe public sees Snowden fleeing and chilling out in Russia/China and other "despotic" regimes.
Merkel is reacting this way because it plays well with a group of people who don't realize that they're actually wildly outside of their field of expertise on an issue.
Yeah, I don't get this. Snowden made a point of distancing himself from indiscriminate leakers like Chelsea Manning. But this kind of stuff isn't legally dubious invasions of American citizens' privacy - it's foreign heads of state. Leaking this kind of information only seems to damage the US internationally.
Within the UK, the general public has not favored the Guardian's reporting on the Snowden-NSA files. Many see it as anti-British and the much of the rest of the press has taken the government's side - quoting the government line concerning the protection of the country against terrorism and pedophiles.
What little the Guardian has been allowed to report (outside the D-Notice that covers GCHQ coverage) hasn't seen major coverage. The BBC for instance is petrified of losing its favourable role, and will not risk (again) threatening the government. Not in the near future anyway.
The Guardian's daily circulation figures since Snowden blew the whistle has continued to drop off [1]:
Compared to the same period the year before, The Independent lost 26% of its
daily audience. The other five losers, in descending order, were the Daily
Star (-16%), The Guardian and Daily Express (-14%), Daily Mirror (-13%) and
The Sun (-11%).
The actual month-by-month breakdowns are here:
- April 2013 [2]
- May 2013 [3]
- June 2013 [4]
- July 2013 [5]
- August 2013 [6]
- September 2013 [Not yet released]
Online is booming [7]. Back in January [8], the Guardian had already reported record online readership figures. I would hazard a guess that the online readership has continued to grow, but it isn't clear how many of those are from inside or outside the UK. The NSA reporting has no doubt improved the online bottom line, but not the ABC's.
At a minimum the ABC circulation figures (for print) seem to suggest that the Guardian has continued to see its readership shrink at a rate that is consistent with the entire UK press industry. The only upturn has been the Financial times which saw a 2% increase [1] for the same period.
> Within the UK, the general public has not favored the Guardian's reporting on the Snowden-NSA files. Many see it as anti-British
Apologies if I've missed it somewhere in your post, but where are you getting this from?
Much of the rest of the press is, rather strangely given their seemingly life-or-death battle to defend their right to print celebrity tittle-tattle, mostly siding with the government on this. But I'm not seeing a groundswell of public opinion supporting that view.
General public opinion was a bit exaggerated as I was talking about the people around me and their open reactions to Snowden's whistle-blowing.
However, if you feel like it, you can read the 1100 comments on this BBC article and enjoy the anti-Snowden sentiment: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24486649
Hint: Pay close attention to the 'editor's picks'.
In my opinion the British public seem to see Snowden as a traitor. 'General public opinion' is not verifiable (as you pointed out).
Whereas the people I've talked to about it tend to fall much more into the "disapproving of but not surprised with the NSA" camp.
And if you look at the top rated comments, rather than the BBC editor's personal picks, you'll see a fair amount of "Totalitarianism is a far greater threat to freedom than terrorism."-type comments before you get to any attacking Snowden's actions.
> What little the Guardian has been allowed to report (outside the D-Notice that covers GCHQ coverage) hasn't seen major coverage.
A D-Notice has no legal power. It carries an implied threat that just maybe some of the stuff covered might be met with a legal challenge, and could you please refrain? But it does not bar publication of anything.
Indeed heeding DA-Notices are voluntary, but I don't know of any cases where an editor has chosen to break one. Therefore the Guardian are not "allowed to report" on this unless they want to find themselves in court or under the threat of court action.
Definitely Snowden:0 and NSA:1 in this case.