> 4. It is entirely legitimate to challenge Snowden's grasp of what NSA was doing, especially in the wake of his more extravagant claims....
Legitimate because you've seen the entire 36 page document and are basing your objections on actual evidence? Or legitimate because you are arguing from authority?
As far as I can tell, you either fail to understand the significance of the leak or are a shill. Case in point, questioning whether Snowden "understands" what the actual NSA documents say is meaningless since he did not write them and has never been alleged to have written them. So unless you are asserting that the materials are not in fact genuine, all you are doing is distracting attention from the only meaningful question: whether (1) the NSA is so grossly incompetent that it does not understand its own surveillance apparatus, or (2) the organization is in fact engaging in what most reasonable people would consider excessive and dangerous levels of data collection.
I'm saying it's legitimate to ask the question, and that it's illegitimate to tar anyone who does as a propagandist.
Snowden isn't just sharing materials he acquired from NSA; he's also giving interviews and making apparent sweeping statements about the capabilities and actions of NSA. His credibility is extraordinarily relevant.
Has he been asking anyone to take those claims at face value? He claims to want to start a public discussion, and explaining his own motivations is a part of that. So here's how that might go:
Public: Is it true that an arbitrary analyst at a government contractor has the technical ability to read anyone's personal email?
NSA: No. That would be illegal.
Public: Given the scope of what has already been revealed, and your demonstrated commitment to lying to us, what assurances can you offer to us that this is NOT taking place?
How is Snowden's credibility relevant to this discussion at all?
In a video interview with The Guardian, Snowden claims to have had incredibly broad authority to wiretap Americans, saying "I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal e-mail."
Are you quoting that out of a belief that I haven't seen the interview? I have. I also remember the part, I think immediately after, when he said "I think the public is owed an explanation."
Aren't we? How, again, is Snowden's credibility at issue? At all? Sure, assume he is lying. So?
I don't know how much clearer I can make the point that Snowden's credibility is highly relevant to the newsworthy claims Snowden is himself making that aren't backed up by the source material he leaked.
I've said over & over here: I agree that his credibility isn't relevant to the contents of 3 Powerpoint slides.
You keep repeating that you think it's relevant. You still haven't actually said how. What difference does it make? Does the public deserve less of an assurance that these systems aren't being abused because one source made a claim that wasn't evidential, nor presented as evidence?
I'll repeat myself now: What makes you think Snowden himself, or anyone on the pro-democratic-debate side of this, wants you to take his claims at face value?
I'm not smart enough to understand this comment. Seriously. I just don't see what you're getting at. Yes, if Snowden's claims don't matter, neither does his credibility; but since that's simply the inverse of what I just said, you must be trying to make a different point.
Your original argument, as I understand it, was that since Snowden made a claim in an interview that was not backed by evidence, and that claim was reported as news by others, current and future accusations against his personal credibility are not propaganda but legitimate rebuttals to those unsourced claims.
What I'm saying is I'm willing to grant that these offhand, unsourced statements, made in context of the man explaining his own motivations, should not be treated as anything more. Further, I'll grant that regardless of Snowden's personal credibility or lack thereof-- his credibility is unimportant. Further, I expect Snowden would agree with me, since he's said that he came forward so that this would not be about him, but about the questions we should be demanding answers to from our government. Questions to which Snowden himself is completely irrelevant.
It's because of that irrelevance that accusations leveled at his personal credibility, and thus at his personal statements, absolutely are propagandistic poisoning of the well aimed at discrediting his very real evidence.
Although in fairness, many of them may be mere journalistic incompetence.
The rest of the slides might have more conclusive evidence that contradicts the tech companies' and government's statements. We should be asking for those slides to be authenticated and published.
Snowden has also taken "credit" for leaking the Verizon order, though there is speculation on that front. We are to believe there are many more to come.
In any event, this isn't about PRISM. This is about what the government should be allowed to keep secret, and who should be allowed to decide that.
I never claimed to speak for anyone else. But "I'm just talking about a random blog post" strikes me as rather feeble.
I mean, respond to whatever you like. But you would have to be very shortsighted, or very partisan, to look at the heart of what's happening right now and see some PowerPoint slides or a well-produced video.
I believe I am neither and that I do not see the same thing in this story that you do. But either way, you're on a thread commenting on my comment on Juan Cole's article, which quotes a substantial portion of that article; I do not think you can reasonably accuse me of distracting from the "real" issue here.
It seems like your complaint is better addressed to Juan Cole.
Oh, I don't believe you are either-- apologies. But I also believe you see more here than you're letting on, and I'm happy to leave it at that.
I think my complaint, such as it is, would not productively be addressed anywhere. As I said, there are thousands of stories, and I'm not usually one to piss in the ocean. But it pains me to see intelligent people engage with toxic arguments, and that's why I decided to reply to you specifically.
That, and to pass the time :) I do take this subject very seriously, perhaps more than I have cause to, and I hope that isn't coming off as animosity.
I understand the comment. We need only find Snowden credible enough to ask the NSA about the truthfulness of his claims (and then assess their credibility). To me the bar would be little higher than someone leaving a cushy job to seek asylum elsewhere. I'd believe almost anything they say enough to want to investigate further. And I'd find suspicious almost any attempt to discredit them.
Snowden is making claims that are unsupported by the evidence (the evidence being the leaked powerpoint slides).
Snowden's claims have also been contradicted by other parties (ie, Google).
However, some people are simply treating Snowden's claims as true. This is a problem. Since Snowden's claims lack supporting evidence, and have been contradicted by other parties, then Snowden's credibility is the only thing supporting his claims. Thus, his credibility is very relevant.
Again, so? Those people are participating in a sideshow and only matter insofar as they can be used to distract from the conversation we should be having:
Public: So, can you not give us any assurances that
these systems aren't being abused?
NSA: Sorry, you'll just have to trust us.
Public: We want to, but the problem is we think
you're lying to us. You've lied to us before.
NSA: What? Who told you that? THEY'RE lying!
Public: That is literally the least reassuring
thing you could possibly have said.
What kind of assurances would you like from the NSA? How can the NSA prove to you that the systems aren't being abused?
I agree that it's an important conversation we should be having. However, I still don't think Snowden's unsubstantiated claims are irrelevant. We should be asking for more evidence for those unsubstantiated claims.
Specifically, I think it would help greatly if the other slides were released.
Your hypothetical conversation seems likely to devolve into a he-said she-said without more evidence.
I agree that Snowden's credibility is incredibly important here. However, the NSA's credibility (and transitively, the administration's) is also incredibly important since almost their entire defence boils down to "just trust us". Currently I haven't seen anything to suggest that Snowden is lying except that some of his claims are fairly outlandish and some are contradicted by what Google et al are saying - however they're fairly highly incentivised to at least fudge the truth a little under their current constraints. On the other hand it's pretty clear that Clapper lied under oath to a senator ("least untruthful"? Seriously?) so the onus is on them to recoup their credibility. I'm also anxiously awaiting more slides.
> What kind of assurances would you like from the NSA? How can the NSA prove to you that the systems aren't being abused?
Frankly, and not to devalue the difficulty of that problem, it's their problem. "It's hard so we gave up" simply does not fly here.
I agree with you I'd like to see more solid evidence, and I'm pretty sure we will-- Glenn Greenwald has stated that other slides contain potentially damaging intelligence and will not likely be released, but there are further newsworthy documents to come.
Frankly, and not to devalue the difficulty of that problem, it's their problem. "It's hard so we gave up" simply does not fly here.
That is the laziest fucking thing you could have written here. You demand satisfaction, but are unwilling to specify to any useful level of detail the answers you seek -- and still intend to hold the NSA responsible for failing to satisfy your concerns. You demand NSA demonstrate a fact to your satisfaction, without elaborating your standards of evidence in any way.
Completely unbelievable. You don't appear to be stupid, so I can't imagine that this is lost on you. So I have to worry if your head hasn't exploded from the cognitive dissonance.
Here's a standard for you: Complete honesty. No secrets, period. No classifications. All activities and policies related to national security are a matter of public record by law.
What? The intelligence agencies can't operate with full disclosure? Okay, I'm not a radical. They can keep some secrets from me if the actions are morally permissible and for the greater good, and the secrecy is plausibly necessary. I would even accept "trust us" at some point-- but only if they had earned my trust. They haven't. Not with decades of documentation citing immoral secrets kept for personal and political gain. The trust was gone from this relationship before I was even born.
And when you violate my trust, none of it is on me. You're the one who fucked it up. You figure out how to make it right.
As the conditions you set out exclude any/all covert surveillance and collection, you're essentially saying intelligence gathering shouldn't exist. Your profession of non-radicalness notwithstanding, that is exactly what you are and you should state that upfront so that you don't waste any more time pretending to be involved in a good faith discussion about how to reasonably conduct a secret intelligence program.
What kind of assurances would you like from the NSA?
I imagine people would like assurances like these:
That the NSA is not allowed to lie to its oversight committee and congress
That the Court decisions which govern NSA activities are public
That the interpretations of laws which govern NSA activities are public
That the president and administration, and the NSA itself doesn't decide what the NSA can and can't do - that should be a matter of law, publicly debated, not a matter of policy, and overseen by lawmakers who are given the facts, even about details, and certainly about the overall picture.
That the broad scope and coverage of NSA activities are revealed without revealing operational details - this is essential to prevent abuse, and follows from the above requirements.
Snowdon and Greenwald claim the other slides contain operational details that would be damaging to release, but what has been revealed is bad enough - complete collection of all phone records (this is simply astounding), a huge program of surveillance involving US data (3 billion records on the US alone over 1 MONTH), and collection of data from all top US service providers on FISA requests (which could easily be automated, perhaps contributing to the huge total above). I think he is owed the benefit of the doubt on other claims and they should be investigated by those with the authority to do so (i.e. members of congress). I'm not sure releasing all those slides on a particular program would be the best move for Snowdon (opens him up to charges that he caused damage), or for the US public (knowledge of exact details of this surveillance are not as important as the broad scope of it).
There has been no proof that Snowdon lied so far, only some ambiguities between his claims and the curiously legalistic replies of US corporate executives, who may well know far less than him if (for example) data was collected at the boundaries of the google network. It is worth noting that he has been corroborated by other NSA whistleblowers who say the NSA has been breaking the law as the public understands it (even if they claim they are not on technicalities):
I certainly would prefer to know what data American agencies have been collecting, which I suspect is far more than those detailed in this particular slide deck - as a foreigner and unperson with no rights as far as the NSA is concerned, my communications are being recorded with impunity, a situation I disagree with and which makes me question using US providers, visiting the US, or doing any business in the US. It's easy to forget that US surveillance policy now affects other nations almost as much as it affects their own, and that reactions to it will affect the standing of the US in the world, already at a low ebb.
Out of curiosity, why do you assume that Google is a more trustworthy source when it comes to describing NSA capabilities than actual documents written by the NSA?
I'm not making that assumption. Snowden makes claims that are unsupported by the actual documents.
Those claims have been contradicted by Google and Obama. I'm saying that it's possible that Snowden's unsubstantiated claims might be less than trustworthy (for a variety of reasons).
Snowden's comments are only in contradiction with Google and Obama's if you assume the NSA is using FISA requests to obtain all of its data, and that FISA requests are actually being handled as they were in the late 1990s.
Since it is unlikely that either of these are true, I'm not sure why you want to leap to the conclusion that the NSA (not Snowden) is lying about its own capabilities.
Snowden is irrelevant. The NSA is the one claiming "direct access". Their credibility is what matters.
Cole's point (that you attacked) is that personalizing the debate into a discussion of Snowden's crebility involves distracting from the important matter at hand. In this he is absolutely right. Either you understand this and are a shill, or you do not understand this and are an unknowing dupe who is getting played.
As long as Snowden keeps himself in the story by giving interviews and making claims not substantiated by materials already released, he and his credibility are directly and specifically relevant.
Snowden's claims are directly substantiated by the NSA document which specifies that the NSA has direct access to data from most email service providers.
Yes. Something is clearly amiss, which is why the focus on Snowden is -- as Juan Cole pointed out -- an irrelevant distraction seized on by those who wish to pull attention from the real issue at hand.
I also wonder at the technical naivity of those who believe that the NSA document must be wrong because Google and Obama have issued narrow statements in support of the FISA process. Because if we had to place bets, my guess is that (1) the NSA is either archiving all of the underlying data flowing across US backbone pipes and using this to reconstruct databases such as Google email archives, or (2) it has access to private SSL keys that let it decrypt content transmitted across SSL, or (3) it has automated the process of issuing FISA requests to the point where the process offers no sensible check on the abuse of power or protection of individual privacy.
If the NSA has zero credibility and you determine that Snowden has a little credibility on apposing points, you aren't going to lean towards the person with more credibility?
It's not simply a contest between NSA and Snowden. Snowden has also said things that Google has contracted, and things that Obama has contradicted. The point isn't that any one of these entities should prevail on their "credibility"; it's that the lack of credibility that Clapper has at NSA isn't an indicator of how much credibility Snowden has. From what I've seen of Snowden's claims, he indeed does seem to be a bit delusional.
Until the NSA denies the legitimacy or accuracy of the leaked documents, there is no disagreement between it and Snowden. And if you think Google is more credible than the NSA when it comes to describing the NSA's technical capabilities, then you are the one with a credibility problem....
Rather than debate direct access why doesn't the NSA release a video of what access they do have...
While it might be reasonable to not know who the NSA is searching for, it is reasonable for the public to be informed of what kinds of information the NSA could tap, and whether the public feels that is something the NSA should be doing.
Is that a serious question? NSA is never going to tell you exactly what access they have.
Look at what Google and Microsoft are doing; that's how we'll make progress, by having the NSA finally piss off the wrong kinds of companies (read: not telcos with enormous government-granted monopolies) who will move to force the government to allow them to say what's actually happening.
The NSA doesn't like a leak - any leak. It's hard to confer credibility onto Snowden simply because the head of the NSA was angry about a leak.
The NSA isn't about to tell us, this part of what he said was true, but this part isn't. That's the hard part for the government (and for that matter Google, Facebook, et al). They can't give a full picture of the scope or scale of the story.
Legitimate because you've seen the entire 36 page document and are basing your objections on actual evidence? Or legitimate because you are arguing from authority?
As far as I can tell, you either fail to understand the significance of the leak or are a shill. Case in point, questioning whether Snowden "understands" what the actual NSA documents say is meaningless since he did not write them and has never been alleged to have written them. So unless you are asserting that the materials are not in fact genuine, all you are doing is distracting attention from the only meaningful question: whether (1) the NSA is so grossly incompetent that it does not understand its own surveillance apparatus, or (2) the organization is in fact engaging in what most reasonable people would consider excessive and dangerous levels of data collection.