Sorry, I wish I had seen your comment two days ago when you posted...
I don't think Mr. Barker's argument was based solely on whether or not the US should be doing it, but also touched upon the journalistic standards behind the reporting. As an analogy:
Headline: Hacker News commentors unfazed by NSA controversy
Discussion repeatedly turned in favor of the NSA's targeting of Islamic extremists on Hacker News, a web forum frequented by many of the internet's technical elite. Summerdown2, a respected contributor, even went so far as to say that "of course the US should do to extremists what Glenn Greenwald does routinely to Republicans." Though also mentioning vague concerns regarding NSA surveillance, he stressed that "it's hardly controversial that journalists reveal hypocrisy" and even went so far as to say that it was "certainly good journalistic practice."
You and I (and anyone else reading this thread) can easily look at the source comments and tell that my hypothetical news blurb is complete bullshit and the crux of your argument was left out entirely. So if the authors are willing to selectively quote from their expert source to avoid having their argument look bad, what else are they selectively quoting to make their arguments? This isn't like Reuters, AP, ITAR-TASS, Kyodo and half a dozen other major news agencies are on the ground writing about what they see as events unfold - Snowden chose which documents to gather, then chose Greenwald and Poitras specifically to give these documents to. These guys have the ultimate control over which documents get reported, what parts of the documents get shared with the public, and which documents get shared with which news agencies. The guy I quoted is stating that he feels Greenwald and the people he is working with had no qualms about selectively quoting from an expert source in order to keep their argument from looking weak. There's little risk to the authors in misquoting Stewart Baker - how many people read his blog? How many people here on HN know about the blog post before I linked to it? There's almost no risk whatsoever in selectively quoting a document from Snowden to make their point - no one has access to it except for the NSA and whoever Greenwald has allowed access.
From the NSA porno article, they pull out a few paragraphs to make their point - what's in the rest of the report? If the information regarding the inconsistency in the public/private lives of those 6 individuals was documented in a "previous SIGINT assessment report", why are they showing us this report instead of that one? Was that other report sent to the Departments of Justice, Commerce and the Drug Enforcement Agency, too? If the information in that other report wasn't sent to them, what information on those 6 individuals was in this report that would have been of interest? Better yet, why can't Greenwald just redact the identifying information and let us read the whole damn report for ourselves?
And it's not just that one. Here's a paragraph from a recent Washington Post article[1]:
One senior collection manager, speaking on the condition of anonymity but with permission from the NSA, said “we are getting vast volumes” of location data from around the world by tapping into the cables that connect mobile networks globally and that serve U.S. cellphones as well as foreign ones. Additionally, data are often collected from the tens of millions of Americans who travel abroad with their cellphones every year.
I have no idea who is saying what in that paragraph, beyond the fact that an anonymous collection manager said "we are getting vast volumes".
Why were the specific encryption systems that the NSA had compromised and the countries targeted redacted from the source documents that we were shown[2] in the BULLRUN leak? Everyone's up in arms about Dual EC PRNG, but that might not even be what that document was refering to. It would be trivial for the media to reveal it and end all doubt, but keeping it hidden and instead writing about how the NSA is betraying our trust and compromising the security of the same crypto systems that we all use makes a better headline.
Or one could ask why we only got a limited subset of the PRISM slides. What else is in there? Why can't we see it? Would that information invalidate their argument?
I see it a little differently, though I agree with your basic point about not being able to work out the whole truth from only partial information.
The reasons I'm happy to give Greenwald's NSA reporting a (qualified) pass on this are:
1) He (and a few others) are the only source of information we have on the level of surveillance we're all exposed to. Greenwald is a commentator speaking up to power, and the justification I see is that there is a basic asymmetry in that power. Without these stories, no-one would be challenging the surveillance.
Note that I'm not giving him a pass because the stories are unsupported. I'm giving him a (temporary) pass because so many have later been confirmed to be true. In essence, we need a debate on the level of surveillance a democracy will have, and without this as a catalyst, it would not be happening.
2) I suspect that a lot of these documents are highly sensitive. As much as I'd like a debate, I don't want to risk people's lives. Hence, if Greenwald produces the minimum documentation that still sparks reform, I think he's done us all a service.
Thanks for continuing the conversation - I don't think I've ever seen a thread continue on for a week here on HN. :)
I suspect that ultimately the truth lies somewhere in between the media's portrayal of the NSA and the administration's own description - there are likely privacy and/or oversight issues at play, but I don't buy the prevailing attitude that the NSA is a rogue agency that is sweeping up everything it can simply for the purpose of sweeping up everything it can.
As a journalist, any time Greenwald wants to release information he needs to evaluate what effect his reporting will have on his journalistic reputation alongside the profitability of his reporting. I think he's unlikely to ever write an article that states that the NSA is doing something beneficial to national interests - it won't bring in nearly as many readers as a story on overzealous infringing of privacy, and it could potentially call into question his previous reporting.
That's not to say that you can't have reporting that's both balanced and worth reading. I've found some of the NY Times' reporting on the NSA to be fairly interesting. In particular, "No Morsel Too Miniscule for Consuming NSA"[1], despite the sensational title, was fairly balanced; definitely not propaganda, but at the same time not falling into the trap of saying "the NSA is likely watching you, your friends and your family 24/7". They go on for 7 pages describing the NSA's problems and successes, inefficiencies, bureaucracy, etc. They manage to ask the reader to call into question privacy issues and ask whether we're getting our tax dollar's worth in terms of foreign intelligence delivered - and they managed to do it without whipping their readers into fear-driven frenzy. It astounds me that two different news agencies can look at the documents that Snowden leaked and get such different interpretations.
Comments
Sorry, I wish I had seen your comment two days ago when you posted...
I don't think Mr. Barker's argument was based solely on whether or not the US should be doing it, but also touched upon the journalistic standards behind the reporting. As an analogy:
Headline: Hacker News commentors unfazed by NSA controversy
Discussion repeatedly turned in favor of the NSA's targeting of Islamic extremists on Hacker News, a web forum frequented by many of the internet's technical elite. Summerdown2, a respected contributor, even went so far as to say that "of course the US should do to extremists what Glenn Greenwald does routinely to Republicans." Though also mentioning vague concerns regarding NSA surveillance, he stressed that "it's hardly controversial that journalists reveal hypocrisy" and even went so far as to say that it was "certainly good journalistic practice."
You and I (and anyone else reading this thread) can easily look at the source comments and tell that my hypothetical news blurb is complete bullshit and the crux of your argument was left out entirely. So if the authors are willing to selectively quote from their expert source to avoid having their argument look bad, what else are they selectively quoting to make their arguments? This isn't like Reuters, AP, ITAR-TASS, Kyodo and half a dozen other major news agencies are on the ground writing about what they see as events unfold - Snowden chose which documents to gather, then chose Greenwald and Poitras specifically to give these documents to. These guys have the ultimate control over which documents get reported, what parts of the documents get shared with the public, and which documents get shared with which news agencies. The guy I quoted is stating that he feels Greenwald and the people he is working with had no qualms about selectively quoting from an expert source in order to keep their argument from looking weak. There's little risk to the authors in misquoting Stewart Baker - how many people read his blog? How many people here on HN know about the blog post before I linked to it? There's almost no risk whatsoever in selectively quoting a document from Snowden to make their point - no one has access to it except for the NSA and whoever Greenwald has allowed access.
From the NSA porno article, they pull out a few paragraphs to make their point - what's in the rest of the report? If the information regarding the inconsistency in the public/private lives of those 6 individuals was documented in a "previous SIGINT assessment report", why are they showing us this report instead of that one? Was that other report sent to the Departments of Justice, Commerce and the Drug Enforcement Agency, too? If the information in that other report wasn't sent to them, what information on those 6 individuals was in this report that would have been of interest? Better yet, why can't Greenwald just redact the identifying information and let us read the whole damn report for ourselves?
And it's not just that one. Here's a paragraph from a recent Washington Post article[1]:
One senior collection manager, speaking on the condition of anonymity but with permission from the NSA, said “we are getting vast volumes” of location data from around the world by tapping into the cables that connect mobile networks globally and that serve U.S. cellphones as well as foreign ones. Additionally, data are often collected from the tens of millions of Americans who travel abroad with their cellphones every year.
I have no idea who is saying what in that paragraph, beyond the fact that an anonymous collection manager said "we are getting vast volumes".
Why were the specific encryption systems that the NSA had compromised and the countries targeted redacted from the source documents that we were shown[2] in the BULLRUN leak? Everyone's up in arms about Dual EC PRNG, but that might not even be what that document was refering to. It would be trivial for the media to reveal it and end all doubt, but keeping it hidden and instead writing about how the NSA is betraying our trust and compromising the security of the same crypto systems that we all use makes a better headline.
Or one could ask why we only got a limited subset of the PRISM slides. What else is in there? Why can't we see it? Would that information invalidate their argument?
[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-tr...
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/09/05/us/documents-r...
What a great answer! Thank you for responding :)
I see it a little differently, though I agree with your basic point about not being able to work out the whole truth from only partial information.
The reasons I'm happy to give Greenwald's NSA reporting a (qualified) pass on this are:
1) He (and a few others) are the only source of information we have on the level of surveillance we're all exposed to. Greenwald is a commentator speaking up to power, and the justification I see is that there is a basic asymmetry in that power. Without these stories, no-one would be challenging the surveillance.
Note that I'm not giving him a pass because the stories are unsupported. I'm giving him a (temporary) pass because so many have later been confirmed to be true. In essence, we need a debate on the level of surveillance a democracy will have, and without this as a catalyst, it would not be happening.
2) I suspect that a lot of these documents are highly sensitive. As much as I'd like a debate, I don't want to risk people's lives. Hence, if Greenwald produces the minimum documentation that still sparks reform, I think he's done us all a service.
Thanks for continuing the conversation - I don't think I've ever seen a thread continue on for a week here on HN. :)
I suspect that ultimately the truth lies somewhere in between the media's portrayal of the NSA and the administration's own description - there are likely privacy and/or oversight issues at play, but I don't buy the prevailing attitude that the NSA is a rogue agency that is sweeping up everything it can simply for the purpose of sweeping up everything it can.
As a journalist, any time Greenwald wants to release information he needs to evaluate what effect his reporting will have on his journalistic reputation alongside the profitability of his reporting. I think he's unlikely to ever write an article that states that the NSA is doing something beneficial to national interests - it won't bring in nearly as many readers as a story on overzealous infringing of privacy, and it could potentially call into question his previous reporting.
That's not to say that you can't have reporting that's both balanced and worth reading. I've found some of the NY Times' reporting on the NSA to be fairly interesting. In particular, "No Morsel Too Miniscule for Consuming NSA"[1], despite the sensational title, was fairly balanced; definitely not propaganda, but at the same time not falling into the trap of saying "the NSA is likely watching you, your friends and your family 24/7". They go on for 7 pages describing the NSA's problems and successes, inefficiencies, bureaucracy, etc. They manage to ask the reader to call into question privacy issues and ask whether we're getting our tax dollar's worth in terms of foreign intelligence delivered - and they managed to do it without whipping their readers into fear-driven frenzy. It astounds me that two different news agencies can look at the documents that Snowden leaked and get such different interpretations.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/03/world/no-morsel-too-minusc...