The question I most wanted to see asked was a request to expand on the notion that he had the ability to wiretap anyone up to the president. When this came up he simply went on a philosophical rant about the nature of bureaucratic creep and how our constitutional rights should extend past our borders.
>Yes, I stand by it. US Persons do enjoy limited policy protections (and again, it's important to understand that policy protection is no protection - policy is a one-way ratchet that only loosens) and one very weak technical protection - a near-the-front-end filter at our ingestion points. The filter is constantly out of date, is set at what is euphemistically referred to as the "widest allowable aperture," and can be stripped out at any time.
So, he stands by what he said and expanded on the scope of his capabilities by addressing the claims that there are "systems" in place to prevent someone (such as himself) from grabbing domestic data. He details that there are "policy" protections --that he asserts are effectively no protection at all-- and "one very weak technical protection" that acts as a filter of some sort on incoming data. He goes on to describe the filter as "constantly out of date" and specifically configured to be as ineffective at its stated purpose as possible by letting us know that the configuration is "euphemistically referred to as the 'widest allowable aperture.'"
Really, I'm just retyping what Snowden has already said. It looks to me like he most certainly did expand on his claim.
>"I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you, or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the President if I had a personal email."
He doesn't say he has the capability, he says he has the authority. That is an important distinction.
>"Yes, I stand by it."
He doesn't waiver in his initial statement.
>"US Persons do enjoy limited policy protections"
While it might not be clear in the initial interview, I think most people would assume that this type of power isn't given to everyone so some type of policy protection was obvious. Snowden doesn't add anything new here because he doesn't give any details and his statement just raises more questions. The question that relates directly to his first statement is whether he really did have the authority to wiretap the president like he initially claimed? But I would also like to here more explanation of these policies. Was this an honor system? Was there any oversight? Did these things require a warrant or any approval?
>"(and again, it's important to understand that policy protection is no protection - policy is a one-way ratchet that only loosens)"
Part of the philosophical musings that I mentioned in my initial post.
>"and one very weak technical protection - a near-the-front-end filter at our ingestion points. The filter is constantly out of date, is set at what is euphemistically referred to as the "widest allowable aperture," and can be stripped out at any time."
This is another vague and almost worthless statement. At this point and with this level of detail, we can only speculate on these "technical protections". It would seem to imply that there is a technical filter in place that prevents information about US citizens from ever entering the system. But the way Snowden dismisses it as soon as he brings it up makes it seem like it is useless. Some followups would have been helpful here. What does he mean that the filter is constantly out of date? What does "widest allowable aperture" mean? Who has the authority to "strip it out at any time"?
I don't think he provided anything new here outside of simply confirming that there were policy and technical limitations in place, something that would likely be assumed by most people.
Snowden definitely needs to expand more on these things and talk about the technical aspects more specifically. It seems that Greenwald (who admitted he is very nontechnical) is guiding Snowden into dumbing down his technical descriptions (for whatever reason, maybe its to avoid declassifying stuff that would actually impact national security) and that is doing him a disservice.
Snowden seems to be exaggerating in the sense that he, a knowledgeable IT contractor employed to overlook the NSA infrastructure would be able to get the data he needs, bypassing the policy protections. I don't think he means that any "associate" level NSA agent without technical knowledge of the infrastructure can easily get any data he wants, even with the policy protections. This is just my interpretation, based on how I've seen other technical people exaggerate.
He's answering questions as to why, not what, which is great, since it gives people a more balanced view of who the man is behind these things, and serves as a counterbalance to the "omg high school dropout with a stripper girlfriend" smear stories that have been plastered all over the news lately.
Binney on the existence of this list: "what they do is take their target list, which is somewhere on the order of 500,000 to a million people. They look through these phone numbers and they target those and that’s what they record." [1]
This appears to be separate from the Main Core list of 8 million Americans "which contains personal and financial data of millions of U.S. citizens believed to be threats to national security." [3]
Another Binney interview: "he [Snowden] had access to go in and put anything... If he knew their phone numbers or attributes, he could insert them into the target list which would be distributed worldwide." [2]
[1] http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/10/what-do-they-know-about-yo...
[2] http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/16/snowd...