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Comment by tmuir | Hacker News Reader

This was public relations, plain and simple. Paint Snowden like a weirdo, ask softball question after softball question, give vague hints about the scary threats that deem this all necessary, and blindly trust the answers of the guy in charge of the entire operation, as if he had no incentive whatsoever to mislead anyone. Then wrap it all up with "Just how did we get this access that no other news agency could?" Gee, maybe it has something to do your extensive track record of reporting any story without even a shred of investigation into it's veracity.

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Watching these "interview with officials" I always remember Manufacturing Consent by Edward Herman and Chomsky. It just explains so well the attitude, the approach, the type of questions asked, how they answered and how the presentation is done.

As a contrast, then there is a interview with Assange from a while back. It was immediately confrontational. He didn't have a chance to present his views or what the organization stands for, talk about "global persistent boogeymen", none of that. Reporter zoomed in on the rape (please, true or false?). And that's that. Due to the constraints and rules these agencies operate under and comparing the two approaches it is funny how similar the external effects to that of a state run propaganda agency. It is like having RT report on Putin pretty much.

John Miller might as well be a thawed out frozen sea bass and this piece might as well be a "released by NSA" PR piece. I would laugh normally as it is pretty funny, but this stopped being funny a while back, now it is just scary.

What annoyed me is that, as with anything, the devil is in the details. And the questions failed to clarify on details.

A few examples (all quotes paraphrased):

1. "we only listen to conversations of non americans"

-----Ok, so what happens when an American has a conversation with a non American? Do you tap it at all? Do you get both sides of conversation? Only one side?

2. "you can only look at a protected phone number if you have access"

----Awesome, but this is sort of a non-answer. How many people have access? How long does it take to get access? How easy is it to request access? Do you need access per phone number or if you get access for one protected number do you now get access to all of them?

3. "PRISM only lets us target US persons with probable cause under court order"

-----What is a US person? US Citizen? Person living in the US? This also contradicts so much of what I thought I knew about PRISM that I'm baffled that no clarification was asked for.

3. note the use of the word target instead of listen

> What is a US person? US Citizen? Person living in the US? This also contradicts so much of what I thought I knew about PRISM that I'm baffled that no clarification was asked for.

Uh, these details were actually all hashed out in the media within the couple of weeks after PRISM was initially revealed.

USPER == Anyone in the physical borders of the United States, whether a citizen or an alien.

Likewise it is true even when PRISM was described that a USPER couldn't be accessed without an Article III warrant. The big question was whether this was a technical safeguard or a "analyst follows policy" safeguard. But even for non-USPER PRISM still required at least an NSL (which the receiving company could escalate to the FISC if they felt the NSL was illegal).

If this all surprises you about PRISM then I'd humbly suggest that you've been getting fed so much misinformation that you should possibly consider using alternate sources instead of sitting back in an echo chamber. ;)

Yes. Put them in front of a group of young college students that have had time to hone their critical thinking skills, instead of government media shills, and you will get a very different perspective.

If you haven't seen this yet, it's absolute gold. The NSA getting grilled at a UWisconsin recruiting session.

http://mobandmultitude.com/2013/07/02/the-nsa-comes-recruiti...

Taking a wider view... it seems the politicians have not yet figured out that the Internet is a total game changer in terms of their ability to manage the political and social agenda, spin the "truth" and the events of the day in their favor, etc. Going on 60 Minutes to give your side of the story is so last century, lol. This was from a pre-Internet playbook and it won't work (except maybe on the older folks who still get their news and analysis from ABC/NBC/CBS but their numbers are dwindling as even that generation is going online now) but its all they know.

Here is a link to one of the best explanations that I have read about how the Internet has changed the social, political and power structures of our time. We are living in the greatest political and social revolution since the invention of the printing press. The entrenched powers can no longer use the press like 60 Minutes or the NY Times to maintain their control. Nobody knows how this will end.

http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking...

At the very least, it's encouraging that the NSA feels the need to do keep up this sort of damage control because it suggests that people in the agency feel its public image continues to be damaged (or at least threatened) by the leaks. I doubt they would be actively trying to massage public opinion like this if the story had died by now, or if only a negligible portion of the public cared.

If you look at the "behind the scenes" stuff you see they avoided all the tough questions. It was less about the NSA's justifications for their actions as much as how the NSA and people feel about the situation.

Many people can't exercise critical thinking, or will be trusting of what is said, but none the less I am glad this was posted.

I have critical thinking skills, I can asses what is said based on it's merits, and I'm not the only one. So to me this was an interesting (though mildly infuriating) article.

I do believe it's fair to give the opposing position a fair say. In charged issues, it's not uncommon for anything an opposing party said to be labeled as malicious propaganda, while supporting parties hurling emotionally charged insults are propped up as uncompromising paragons of truth.

This should be taken at it's word, this article is telling us that many people in the NSA truly believe that holding this much data on everyone isn't a problem, that there are such devastating threats (such as a BIOS virus who's vector is social engineering). That the meta data is harmless.

Don't call it propaganda, just respond.

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