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.
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?
Aren't we? How, again, is Snowden's credibility at issue? At all? Sure, assume he is lying. So?
I've said over & over here: I agree that his credibility isn't relevant to the contents of 3 Powerpoint slides.
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?
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 information in those slides does not necessarily contradict what has been said by the tech companies and the government. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5858387
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.
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 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.
It seems like your complaint is better addressed to Juan Cole.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.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.
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.
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.
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.
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):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/12/snowden-...
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.
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.
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.
I can't believe we are even discussing his credibility, when you hear about the actions of our public officials.
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.
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 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.