Matt Taibbi: Media outlets 'once challenged the Spy State,' now they're 'agents' of it

Journalist Matt Taibbi blasted members of the media for their transformation from being challengers to what he referred to as the "Spy State" to becoming "agents" of it

He began by recalling WikiLeaks' 2010 release of US government secrets from the war in Afghanistan, which he noted that outlets like The New York Times, The Guardian and Der Spiegel "helped" in exposing the documents that were "devastating to America’s intelligence community and military," adding that such revelations later inspired former NSA contractor Edward Snowden to come forward in 2014 to expose the agency's surveillance program, resulting in Pulitzer Prizes for journalists Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras.   "Fast forward seven years. Julian Assange is behind bars, and may die there. Snowden is in exile in Russia. Brennan, Clapper, and Hayden have been rehabilitated and are all paid contributors to either MSNBC or CNN, part of a wave of intelligence officers who've flooded the airwaves and op-ed pages in recent years, including the FBI’s Asha Rangappa, Clint Watts, Josh Campbell, former counterintelligence chief Frank Figliuzzi and former deputy director Andrew McCabe, the CIA’s John Sipher, Phil Mudd, Ned Price, and many others," Taibbi wrote.