The Security Trap

Craig Pirrong recently wrote in a post to his Streetwise Professor blog that he wondered why British journalist Edward Lucas, otherwise known for his criticism of Putin and warnings about post-Soviet Russia, was so pro-Snowden. Lucas, Pirrong said, 

has taken a very benign - to say the least - line on Snowden, Poitras, Greenwald, etc. Indeed, the publication has been broadly sympathetic with the Snowden-as-whistleblower meme, and quite uncurious about Poitras and Greenwald.  Lucas has expressed similar views on his Twitter timeline.  Yes, often in RTs and MTs which he will no doubt claim do not represent an endorsement, but given the obvious tilt in what he RTs, and the correlation with the Economist’s editorial line, it’s clear where his sentiments lie.

Understandably, Lucas wrote back in correction: not only was he not "pro-Snowden" - he had even written an article criticizing Snowden in European Voice.

I wrote in a comment:

I’ve followed Edward Lucas’s writings for many years, and particularly admire the forthright stance he has taken on support for the aims and aspirations of the Baltic States in the aftermath of the fall of Communism. In the present instance, regarding Snowden and the NSA leaks, I suspect that his allegiances may be torn, and that in the activities of the NSA he fears a lapse into practices more typical of the KGB than of Western power institutions. After all, the possibility that some collusion between Western and Russian security agencies may have taken place during the curiously-named “war on terror” is not to be excluded, particularly when the former senior director for Russia on the U.S. National Security Council staff from 2004 to 2007 can make such enigmatic statements as the following:

"Russia is not the Soviet Union; it offers no compelling ideological alternative, nor is it about to invent one.” 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/22/opinion/global/the-drive-to-blame-russia.html?_r=0