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Comment by btipling | Hacker News Reader

It seems like Snowden is purposefully leaking documents a little at a time in order to keep the story in the press. He may be trying to combat the short term memory of popular stories. It may be a viable strategy for getting enough attention to achieve real progress. I wonder if news will simply stop covering it as front page material as audiences get bored with it. Maybe leaking the least interesting stuff earlier, and ratcheting up interest by saving the best for last may aid such an effort.

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That, too, but the best part is that it gives the government the opportunity to stumble on its own lies.

"We don't collect data without (general) 'warrants'".

One week later, after another leak - "Oh, we were just being the most truthful, or "least untruthful" as we could when we said that."

It completely destroys the credibility of the government, and it should, because they're lying about it at every turn, or at the very least twisting words to appear that they say one thing, but they mean another.

People who are trusting the government without declassified proof that they aren't lying, are being really naive at this point. I wouldn't trust anything the government says now without showing the declassified documents.

The simpler version is "People who are trusting X without proof that they aren't lying, are being really naive."

In God We Trust, All Others We Monitor

Even God has a documented history of turning on us...

God at least followed due process.

Perhaps in a Judge Dredd "I am the law!" sort of way. ;)

What I'm shocked about is that newspapers haven't outright printed in the front page headline "such and such a person lies to congress and the american people about NSA wiretapping". Every time a public servant lies to the citizens they are supposed to serve, it should be the headline on the front page.

UK newspapers have been issued a D-Notice. It's official 'advice' to stop reporting. That's why few news outlets in the UK are following up on the Guardian stories.

http://order-order.com/2013/06/08/d-notice-june-7-2013/

Freedom of the press?

In the U.K.? Not every country is the U.S. :P

I was under the impression that the D-Notice was very specific. Don't print information that exposes national security secrets, such as the actual documents and excerpts from the documents that are being leaked. I do no think it covers the outright dishonesty by public officials.

"Recently leaked documents show that such and such a politicion/official has outright lied/deceived the citizens of this country. Such and such a person said XXX, but the facts contradict his/her statement. The BBC has been served a D-Notice by Some Government Agency that prohibits us from publishing the leaked documents and excerpts thereof because the documents contain information regarding programs of national security. Concerned citizens are encouraged to seek out the leaked documents from foreign news publications who are at liberty to publish the leaked documents."

I think it is also reasonable to believe that the D-Notice in question is specifically referring to the G20 Summit story and the recent GCHQ story. As such it's reasonable to believe that it does not cover stories in the interest of US national security. The BBC should publish our dirt and we can publish theirs.

Is a D-Notice what was used to gag the media about footballer Ryan Giggs having an affair, or was another type of "gagging notice" used there?

That was a high court injunction.

It also helps catch the government in their misleading statements if they release a document, wait for them to make statements and hold hearings, then release another document that shows those statements and hearings were full of lies.

Doesn't Greenwald have Snowden's entire document cache? I assume that it's (primarily, at least) Greenwald who's choosing what to report and when.

This is my understanding. Greenwald has also been letting politicians say one thing for just long enough before he publishes documents to the contrary. Or, in the case of the most recent leak, confirming what politicians have said about storing data for 5 years, but including more information about how analysts choose targets, which has not been officially disclosed.

Agreed. So far, it's working quite well, and is quite clever. I think I would have probably published the documents in this order as well.

It's telling that yesterday's document showing Eric Holder signing off on warrantless surveillance came days after Barack Obama reassured us it wasn't happening.

Does not this D-notice gag order also apply to Guardian/Greenwald? What's up with that?

A DA-notice is only advice, so Greenwald can choose to ignore it if he wishes. IIRC, it falls somewhere between "We'd rather you didn't publish this, as we feel it may harm national interests" and "this story may be illegal under the Official Secrets Act (or similar)", rather than being a straight block on publication.

Lets say there are 10 really earth shattering revelations in these leaks. Which is better?

All 10 released at once, and 8 of them getting lost in the discussion, or releasing 1 bombshell at a time and people like us get to discuss the implications of each?

I think they're doing it right so far.

A few of the recently leaked items, including a new one today, are UK centric. I'm sure that is aimed at trying to get the story to blow up again on the other side of the ocean.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/21/gchq-cables-secret-...

While the president is overseas.

They are UK centric only on outside appearance. Notice how we have given intelligence agencies unlimited powers under the very simple condition that they can not spy domestically? It works the same way in the UK.

So the way this works is that the NSA will spy on Britons, the GCHQ spies on Americans, and everyone comes together to exchange notes.

I mean UK centric in that they will get picked up by the other British papers and will make some noise in London.

That's a great point. Whether that's his intent or not, it seems to be how it's progressing. An alternative explanation: he's obviously been following the news about the whole thing very closely, and so he knows what questions the media and/or general public are asking. He can just release whichever documents answer those questions as the questions arise, and thus avoid leaking any more info than he feels is necessary (since that seems to be a goal of his).

Maybe it's a bit of both.

In his notorious guide to ruling, Machiavelli advised Princes with bad news to deliver it all at once, noting that no matter how bad it is, people will adjust and move on if they feel that's the end of it. Good news, on the other hand, should be judiciously doled out, in small amounts, to maximize the value it brings the person delivering it.

Conversely, if a Prince has good news, and delivers it all at once but with no follow up, people will stop being grateful for what they've gotten, and will start demanding more, which can bankrupt any ruler who tries to comply. Likewise, if there's a steady drip of bad news, minds race ahead, anticipating worse to come and making advance preparations which undermine the stability of the Prince.

This basic psychology works the other way as well. If you have bad news about your adversary, and drop it all at once, they can take the hit and move on. But if you can supply a steady drip of negative stories it becomes impossible to get past the growing sense of distrust, especially when people start imagine the worst, and demand to see proof that their darkest fears are unfounded. This may mean having to prove a negative, which is the epitome of an impossible situation. Reaching this point only accelerates the downward spiral.

Of course, following this strategy means being able to place yourself beyond the reach of retaliatory efforts. It's what Sun Tzu would refer to as selecting the field of battle to play to your strengths while offsetting your weaknesses. If your chosen position also has the inverse effect on your opponent, neutralizing their strengths while amplifying their weaknesses, then it's a double win.

So far, Snowden's strategy has been textbook-perfect.

My impression is that he revealed the most inflammatory documents first: the ones that implicated companies and services we use every day as complicit in a mass spying program. It made for great headlines that the average joe could digest. That might have created false implications, or at least an incomplete picture, but it also might lead to people paying attention to revelations that are actually in fact more damaging.

Well, hopefully this works, but people theorized the same thing about Wikileaks. Its story died without any major change.

I'm guessing Snowden would have been less likely to come forward if Wikileaks and related events hadn't occurred first.

Also Wikileaks crashed more because Julian Assange got accused of sexual assaults. Lets hope Snowden keeps his nose clean...

Do you think that'll work twice? Plus he was an employee of NSA..

It's usually how much money they can make from something, which means viewership staying on channel. They don't put news on the front page because it's important -- it just happens a lot of news people want to see is important - lots is just entertainment though.

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