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It seems like many have missed some things about the slides that were leaked. Only five pages of the 41 page presentation has been released so far[0]. The fifth page was released after the initial release and contains the phrase "directly from the servers"[1]. The rest of the presentation allegedly also contain more technical details[2].

[0] http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/06/snowden-powerpoint/

[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/08/nsa-prism-server...

[2] https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/343410562245480449

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Is Greenwald technical enough to understand the content? Or is it just going to be buzzwords that have no real technical meaning?

The slice deck already looks like someone was presenting to non-technical management - why would they have put highly technical details in there too?

That the slide deck isn't technical doesn't mean Snowden didn't have access to the technical stuff too.

Greenwald presumably has plenty of access to technical advisors at the Guardian and elsewhere who can help sift through.

Haven't you got the memo yet? According to the media we can't trust Snowden because he didn't graduate high school.

I suspect that Greenwald is not nearly technical enough to understand the content - not that he's not a bright guy, but the level of technical nuance here might be significant.

So then it's all about the quality of the advisors they have access to, but given the nature of the materials, I suspect few people have been able to see them.

We just won't know till the whole thing gets released, if ever.

And to the second point, obviously I couldn't know for sure, not having seen it, but it's very very common with these types of presentations within government agencies and defense contractors to have 5-10 overview slides, the conclusion, and then behind that 20 reference slides that are more of an information dump. The idea is that the first set of slides is enough for most people, but if you want to dig deeper, there's additional detail.

Well Greenwald has already screwed up what NSA jargon for "directly from the servers" means and about tripled-down on it, so for future news releases I'm definitely going to have to look at the source itself and not Greenwald's spin on it.

You simply can't build the system that does what Greenwald claims for $20 million. You can build a drop box + FISA API for that amount though, but that would mean Greenwald is incorrect (or lying, take your pick) and the companies + NSA were telling the truth about that aspect.

Maybe PRISM is just the front-end to the government service. After all, we know they are running multiple services. Greenwald is really sticking to his guns on direct access, and from what he's told us he has a lot more information.

If Greenwald would so much as acknowledge that other theories can explain the details he's leaked to this point I'd give him more credit.

But he doesn't, either because he is obstinate or because he doesn't understand the technical nuances.

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