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NSA Wants To Reveal Its Secrets To Prevent Snowden From Revealing Them First 216

binarstu writes "According to a recent report by Tom Gjelten of NPR, 'NSA officials are bracing for more surveillance disclosures from the documents taken by former contractor Edward Snowden — and they want to get out in front of the story. ... With respect to other information held by Snowden and his allies but not yet publicized, the NSA is now considering a proactive release of some of the less sensitive material, to better manage the debate over its surveillance program.'"
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NSA Wants To Reveal Its Secrets To Prevent Snowden From Revealing Them First

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  • by starworks5 ( 139327 ) on Friday November 15, 2013 @12:35AM (#45430121) Homepage

    When you get to frame the issue the way you want, you can try to convince the people that it was for their own good. Snowden may likely say show that it was used abused in practice, and the NSA likely wants to say that they prevented a suspected domestic terrorist.

    • by s.petry ( 762400 ) on Friday November 15, 2013 @12:46AM (#45430175)

      Yup, this is exactly it. Unfortunately a whole lot of people don't think much about what we already know. The few that know and care won't be easily pacified by what the NSA starts releasing. We already know they lie, and anyone that trusts a liar is a fool.

      Personally, I think the damage control is not really needed. I guess it may be trying to push some people back down into slumber. The Obamacare fiasco shows just how far out of reality countless Americans really are. Don't get me wrong, people are waking up. I'm just not confident enough will be awake in time to prevent some very very bad things from happening in a very short time.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        That's not true you know, only 17% of Americans think the NSA oversight is OK, with the majority wanting reform.

        http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/02/surveillance-poll_n_4195379.html

        They may be misinformed about the depth of the problems, but even the problems they can see are enough to demand better oversight.

        In the UK, the press is very pro-surveillance nanny state, but even there that's swinging now against the spooks mass surveillance programs. They're trying to rein it back in with "speculation help

        • by erikkemperman ( 252014 ) on Friday November 15, 2013 @03:25AM (#45430795)

          Funny thing about "oversight". On the one hand it means some mechanism to keep tabs on some process making sure it doesn't run amok. On the other hand it also means to neglect something.

          Seems to me the NSA oversight is more like the latter, except not by accident.

          • I would say they have the former covered as well, which is what we are all currently fighting against.
          • I can't help but wonder why security didn't check Snoden's tractor trailer when he drove it into work on his last day. I'm just amazed that no one put two and two together. It seems like the longer Snoden is away, the more secrets he illuminates. I can't help but wonder if other spy agency's are currently giving him secrets that they acquired on their own, and now the U.S. gets to take the hit. If so, it is a master stroke.
        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          That's not true you know, only 17% of Americans think the NSA oversight is OK, with the majority wanting reform.

          Polls are nonsense a grand majority of the time. Fact is, most people asked for this after 9/11; they traded freedom for 'security,' and they got exactly what they deserved: an even more tyrannical government. Sadly, the rest of us who didn't want that to happen are also stuck with this garbage.

        • I'll believe they want reform when the stop electing the same old assholes.

        • by s.petry ( 762400 ) on Friday November 15, 2013 @10:44AM (#45433327)

          In both countries the governments own the media. More appropriately, the same people controlling the governments control the media. Neither place has had any type of reform, just discussions of reform which are being drowned out by other noise in the media.

          To the people pulling the strings, it's simply a waiting game. As we saw with Benghazi, Fast and Furious, etc.. nobody has been held accountable and the public is no longer thinking about those items. I have little confidence that enough people are awake to change that, and the same thing is being played against the anti-surveillance crowd. Unless we can change the messages from the media, nothing will change. Word of mouth is something that works, but is also very taxing on the people that are awake.

      • I'm just not confident enough will be awake in time to prevent some very very bad things from happening in a very short time.

        And in the unlikely event that enough do, there'll be plenty of autonomous bots to put them back to sleep (*cough* dirt nap *cough*)...

      • by Xest ( 935314 )

        Right but there's still a risk to the NSA's strategy, that being that if Snowden feels the NSA has hijacked the agenda, he just dumps the whole lot and let's the press have a field day.

        The press loves scandal, scandals are going to get far more press time than wishy-washy nonsense statements direct from the NSA.

        So if the NSA is going to do this they're going to have to be careful they don't piss Snowden off too much by completely and utterly lying about their activities else it may backfire completely and t

      • Or not. Based on my experience with fear mongering, I'm willing to bet my house that it will be not very bad after all.

      • what's really interesting is that they'll have to be careful, lest they contradict the documents Snowden appropriated. We already have no reason to trust them. If they want us to believe them, they're going to have to use such opportunities to be verifiable rather than "take our word for it".

      • Don't get me wrong, people are waking up. I'm just not confident enough will be awake in time to prevent some very very bad things from happening in a very short time.

        Many people have woken up (and not recently either) and understand that they are realistically no longer in control of their government. They just don't know what to do about it. Can we keep this discussion going: What CAN we do about this situation?

        Ideas like vote third party, organize protests, write your representative, seem too feeble and toothless. We need massive protests to get even a tiny impact. The closest thing to this was the occupy movement, and it failed miserably. Voting seems almost point

    • by icebike ( 68054 ) on Friday November 15, 2013 @12:46AM (#45430179)

      Exactly.

      I've been posting this prediction all along.

      They will own it in public statements, (or at least they will own part of it), and they will tell you to get over it. They will then go on to even bigger excesses and violations. They will attempt to have laws passed making encryption a crime (again).

      You haven't seen anything yet.

    • by Mitreya ( 579078 ) <mitreya.gmail@com> on Friday November 15, 2013 @12:50AM (#45430195)

      Snowden may likely say show that it was used abused in practice, and the NSA likely wants to say that they prevented a suspected domestic terrorist.

      NSA will also probably claim that they were going to release/review this material anyway, and Snowden just forced them to do it too early (thus jeopardizing security, etc, etc.)

      I found it fascinating when Obama made these claims -- that he was going to review and fix the entire NSA program any day now and that Snowden just forced him to do it in a rush instead of carefully.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by stenvar ( 2789879 )

        I found it fascinating when Obama made these claims -- that he was going to review and fix the entire NSA program any day now and that Snowden just forced him to do it in a rush instead of carefully.

        I think it's become clear that you can't believe anything Obama says. That's not "fascinating", it's deeply disturbing in the top executive of our government. The president is supposed to be boring, honest, and careful; instead, we got an activist and a liar.

        • by mean pun ( 717227 ) on Friday November 15, 2013 @07:22AM (#45431721)

          I think it's become clear that you can't believe anything Obama says. That's not "fascinating", it's deeply disturbing in the top executive of our government. The president is supposed to be boring, honest, and careful; instead, we got an activist and a liar.

          The last boring, honest, and careful president that the USA elected was Jimmy Carter, and look how popular he is. His successor was the opposite, and look how popular he is. It seems to me that the USA does not want boring, honest, and careful, it wants and gets flimflam artists.

          Yes, US policy is thoroughly corrupt because money talks in US elections. But why does this work? Because the US electorate wants their flimflam. They don't want honest and careful candidates, and certainly not boring ones. They want show and glitz and scandal and outrage. And the more money you have as a politician, the more flimflam you can serve up.

          • The last boring, honest, and careful president that the USA elected was Jimmy Carter

            Sorry, "careful" was perhaps poorly chosen; I meant "competent", and Carter was anything but.

            Yes, US policy is thoroughly corrupt because money talks in US elections

            Whereas European politics is thoroughly corrupt because party power talks in European politics. I'll take money politics over party politics any day.

            • Whereas European politics is thoroughly corrupt because party power talks in European politics. I'll take money politics over party politics any day.

              So the US doesn't have party politics? Really? Seriously?

        • The president is supposed to be boring, honest, and careful; instead, we got an activist and a liar.

          Been living in a cave the last 225 years or so, eh?

          • Many US presidents in those 225 years were pretty boring and ineffectual, in part because the federal government mattered very little to most people's lives.

      • by ultranova ( 717540 ) on Friday November 15, 2013 @07:01AM (#45431635)

        I found it fascinating when Obama made these claims -- that he was going to review and fix the entire NSA program any day now and that Snowden just forced him to do it in a rush instead of carefully.

        On the good side, he can now skip right to closing Guantanamo Bay.

    • by boorack ( 1345877 ) on Friday November 15, 2013 @01:02AM (#45430239)
      Given their record of factuality in their official statements this whole bruhaha about "openess" it is more likely to be lie. Given number of transgressions and laws broken by NSA we've seen in Snowden documents, they just can't release such things, so it is lie for sure. They only thing they propably want to achieve by this manipulation is to make whistleblowers' life harder. After all, despite of all bullshit and propaganda in corporate media citizenry is now behind Snowden. What they want is propably to have some leverage to explain to public that future whistleblowers' revelations are 'redundant', so they'll have public consent to prosecute or exterminate future whistleblowers and also journalists. This corresponds pretty well with latest law pushed by Feinstein that legalizes all NSA transgressions we've seen in latest months and mandates harsh penalties for both whistleblowers leaking inconvenient materials and journalists publishing such revelations. In short, Obama regime is now busy reinforcing its grip on what public should and shouldn't know.
    • by Seumas ( 6865 ) on Friday November 15, 2013 @01:48AM (#45430427)

      We want to reveal the lie before Snowden reveals the truth.

      • by arcite ( 661011 )
        Truth is relative, the medium is the message, and the NSA controls the medium. ;)
      • I think it's amusing how people quote agencies like the NSA to repeat how "Snowden has damaged our security and is perhaps a traitor" -- it's as if people have a disconnect between; "These guys were just lying about everything, and now they've confirmed it, and you still act like this is an agency with authority and integrity and they are now telling you who the big enemy is."

        It's going to be even funnier if they start admitting to things that Snowden didn't have dirt on; "And let me explain this picture yo

    • We were secretly giving Americans anal probes during their sleep. It was for your own good so that the terrorists wouldn't win.

    • by thsths ( 31372 )

      "Look, this rock protects against giant killer rabbits. "

    • True, but think about it. The truth is the truth; if your defined enemy has you by the balls (blackmail), why let him continue to apply pressure to your testicles? Just coming clean means you can relieve that pressure, and nail the other guy for attempted blackmail. This works, of course, only if you don't hide the truth or mitigate things, etc. once you are in that situation...so if the NSA is still trying to cover up or redact some things, it's still going to hurt with this strategy, unless it changes.

      The

      • by FriendlyLurker ( 50431 ) on Friday November 15, 2013 @04:10AM (#45430999)
        Oh it can be pretty successful if done right. The NSA will little doubt start doing Limited Hangouts [wikipedia.org] of information.

        A limited hangout, or partial hangout, is a public relations or propaganda technique that involves the release of previously hidden information in order to prevent a greater exposure of more important details.

        [sarcasm] By lucky coincidence [/sarcasm] the NSA are now allowed to go direct to the public with their message (see "'Anti-Propaganda' Ban Repealed... Direct Broadcasting at American Citizens" [techdirt.com]), not that private mass media was not on their side to begin with anyway.

        When journalists get around later to releasing Snowdens whistleblower material as a "full hangout" truth, most mass media will then shout LALALA OLD NEWS nothing to see here as loud as they can to drown it out. You might even see it being marked as a dupe here on /.

    • by flyneye ( 84093 )

      Yeah, too little, too late. They're gonna have to look under every rock to dig up a few who would believe them. Maybe they should have a more trustworthy spokesman speak for them, like a used car dealer.

    • When you get to frame the issue the way you want, you can try to convince the people that it was for their own good. Snowden may likely say show that it was used abused in practice, and the NSA likely wants to say that they prevented a suspected domestic terrorist.

      That's the classic comeback. "If the enemy knows, we cannot do our job and you're endangering our interests."

      Yeah. In many cases, the enemy already knew, or at least strongly suspected. That's why bin Laden's safe house didn't keep phones or Internet links in it.

      What endangered US interests more than anything else was that they were doing this at all. We've squandered more trust and goodwill off this debacle than anything we've ever done since invading Iran using 9/11 as an excuse. Nobody wants to keep data

      • What endangered US interests more than anything else was that they [the NSA] were doing this at all.

        No, don't you see? If Snowden hadn't released all that info, nobody would have known that the NSA secretly had taps into every telecommunications company and data-center. With nothing but vague suspicions to the contrary, everyone else would have quite happy to continue using American servers, feeding money into the US economy and allowing the NSA to amass huge dossiers on everybody in the world!

        But, no! Snow

    • hopefully we'll have someone get to counter-check NSA facts vs real facts.

  • by DrPBacon ( 3044515 ) on Friday November 15, 2013 @12:39AM (#45430145)
    Snowden Wins.
    • Re:Round 1: Fight (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Zemran ( 3101 ) on Friday November 15, 2013 @01:51AM (#45430445) Homepage Journal

      Nah, they will do a Assange on him but with 10 year girls making the accusations this time and no one will ever be able to discuss what he said again. People will just talk about the accusation instead of the issue. If you look at the accusations they are so stupid but it whitewashed the whole Wikileaks issue. Same with Strauss Khan...

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Strauss Khan was well known in France for his sex-obsession and his inability to take "no" as an answer. Just in the two years leading up to his arrest, he had a journalist that accused him of being a bit too forceful, and an employee in the IMF that wrote a letter explaining how he behaved.

        But of course it is easier to believe that there is a hidden agenda everywhere, because it's true, it was mindbogglingly stupid of him.

      • Nope. They blew that strategy, Even the US mainstream media wouldn't fall for it at this date. Face it - the NSA really, really fucked themselves handling the Snowden files.

        They should have said they were working on the backend datasets for Obamacare and everyone would think they were heros.

        • Nope. They blew that strategy, Even the US mainstream media wouldn't fall for it at this date.

          I'm honestly a little shocked that you typed those words and appear to be serious. I feel like I'm one of the more optimistic people here, but... man...

        • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
          No cold, the world now understands the internet encryption is junk, that US brands can't be trusted and the US telco system is a trap, that ordering a US book can get you tracked...
          After Snowden the world can move onto fixing crypto and rebuilding the telco systems.
          What the NSA has always done, is doing and will do was always in magazines, books, the press. Snowden was an ex CIA worker with a file that was cleaned at some point and then passed to a contractor who the NSA 'trusted' or 'needed'.
          So don't
          • by Zemran ( 3101 )

            ...and the tooth fairy has not forgotten that shilling she owes you and she will bring it round soon and leave it under your pillow.

  • popularity contest (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    "Snowden is a loser because he doesn't have anything new to tell you! Don't listen to losers! NSA are the popular dudes now! Hot NSA gossip over here! Snowden loses celebrity status!"

  • Credibility? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 15, 2013 @12:42AM (#45430159)

    Would anyone actually believe anything the NSA has to say at this point?

    • Would anyone except cold fjord actually believe anything the NSA has to say at this point?

      TFTFY

    • by Sabriel ( 134364 )

      Yes.

      And even when they don't believe, so long as they accept, the outcome is the same.

      "Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos."

  • Openness (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 ) on Friday November 15, 2013 @12:47AM (#45430183) Homepage

    Whether government openness happens because of a leaker, or it happens because of fear of leakers, or because it believes it's the right thing to do...the more open the government is about its activities, the better.

    • Indeed. It'll be spun, they are trying to frame the narrative, but it's awesome that they are being forced to try that. Info will come out. Some truth will come out accidentally. For example, when a leading democrat senator was asked about restoring funding for children's cancer treatment during the government shutdown he said "why would I want to do that?" - accidentally revealing that getting one over on the republicans is far more important to him than saving kids suffering from cancer. I'm sure NSA w

    • Re:Openness (Score:5, Insightful)

      by whoever57 ( 658626 ) on Friday November 15, 2013 @01:32AM (#45430353) Journal

      .the more open the government is about its activities, the better.

      Openness is good, yes. But what the NSA will release will be misdirection, dissembling, disingenuousness and lies.

      • Possibly, but silence is more effective than telling lies. Lincoln said "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." People will see through those lies. A lot of people will accept the lies, but they were never going to effectively prune the NSA anyway. The NSA's best shot was saying nothing. Talking keeps the issue alive.
    • Whether government openness happens because of a leaker, or it happens because of fear of leakers, or because it believes it's the right thing to do...the more open the government is about its activities, the better.

      You think they're actually going to tell the whole truth? Or even a meaningfully valid part? It may be openness, but if it is just an attempt to expose a small thing to hide a bigger ugly truth (or crime), then it's deceptive nonetheless.

      I await the openness. I don't have a strong expectation it will be worthwhile.

      This is an agency that is rooted in deception. Why do you think Snowden's uncomfortable facts are going to change their nature?

  • by epyT-R ( 613989 ) on Friday November 15, 2013 @12:51AM (#45430201)

    Basically means "Framing the narrative" which is the foundation for successful newspeak. This is an attempt to control the base from which relative judgments are made by the public. No thanks.

    • An unfortunate many people don't know or care about the recent NSA stuff. The general populace is apathetic at best. If a news show mentions the content of the leaks at all, it's often just a quick intro leading to their primary story of the dramatic "hunt for Snowden". Lets face it, they've already framed the debate.
      • by epyT-R ( 613989 )

        Yup. Sad. It's too bad most people don't realize the implication: It basically means the lives of this generation are going to end in misery, and subsequent generations will have to dig their way back out again.

  • It sounds like the spin doctors have taken over. The body blows have been landed and now they're just trying to bob and weave. No matter what they do I still can't help but see Dr. Strangelove in their corner calling the shots. Curiouser and curiouser.
    • its not the doctor, its the phone cops, man!

    • No matter what they do I still can't help but see Dr. Strangelove in their corner calling the shots.

      More like Gen. Turgidson.

    • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Yes you can see the sock puppets all over slashdot still trying the same old tricks to shift the truth.
      Its legal, think of the hardware needed for storage, others do it... you still have most of your rights most of the time...
      The next step with be many more http://rt.com/usa/smith-mundt-domestic-propaganda-121/ [rt.com] type news options with in the USA.
      From a domestic spy network to domestic lies on all networks :)
  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 15, 2013 @01:04AM (#45430247)

    Either the information is too sensitive for the public to know, or it isn't. If it isn't, then it should have been public to begin with.

    • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Its all about the term "to better manage the debate".
      The US sock puppets on slashdot are reduced to trying to play catch up and then LOL comments start every time as new Snowden news sets them back.
      The world now understands the domestic US legality of a massive ongoing surveillance network network.
      The world now understands the international US relationships of a massive ongoing surveillance network wrt to their own mil, staff, lawyers and telcos.
      A lot of countries now understand their top tech staff w
  • by dbIII ( 701233 ) on Friday November 15, 2013 @01:18AM (#45430297)
    Since they are releasing trivial information about themselves, how about this:
    What role did the NSA have in the piece of shit hatchet job movie on wikileaks that came out recently?

    If reality was anything like it people would have just told Assange to fuck off and wikileaks would never have happened. All the movie character has is dance moves and insomnia.
  • Imminent Catastrophe (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MarkvW ( 1037596 ) on Friday November 15, 2013 @01:30AM (#45430345)

    Where's the great catastrophe for all the TRILLIONS of dollars we are wasting at the NSA?

    This is unimaginable waste for negligible gain. And these people call themselves patriots . . ..

  • What's really scary (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dutchwhizzman ( 817898 ) on Friday November 15, 2013 @01:35AM (#45430359)
    What really scares me isn't that the Americans themselves don't seem to care a lot. Europe has been a prime target of all this and even there the reaction is "meh". How many USA ambassadors have been summoned to explain and apologize? The USA has treated their allies worse than most of Europe would treat their enemies and still nothing came of this. It turns out Europe isn't that different after all....
    • Sad indeed (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      This is probably mostly because those european contries where actively working with the NSA. So they (the governments) pretty much knew what was going on and they are scared of their own criminal activities being revealed.

      Where I live (The Netherlands) the government is trying to pretty much start doing the same as the NSA is doing, just more in public. Very scary indeed. I really hope the sensible people here will be able to stop them.

    • by ImOuttaHere ( 2996813 ) on Friday November 15, 2013 @04:01AM (#45430971)

      What really scares me isn't that the Americans themselves don't seem to care a lot.

      "Freedom" and "liberty" are abstract concepts to most Americans. The only thing "real" in their lives are their TV, cellphones, and the perception that "We're number ONE!" . They don't call it "programming" for nothing.

      Europe has been a prime target of all this and even there the reaction is "meh".

      Er... no. There are many responses to the NSA revelations. European business are actively moving away from using Goggle's and other US corporate services because they have confirmation that their data is not secure. European governments are dealing from a much stronger position on trade talks currently taking place. The citizens of Europe (well, at least the ones I've spoken with, and you really should listen to Radio France Info) are well aware of the issues of privacy and they are demanding their governments take action to secure their liberties and freedoms against US spying.

      How many USA ambassadors have been summoned to explain and apologize?

      US ambassadors have been called by France, Germany, Spain... um, should I continue? Or should I add the British ambassadors that have also been called?

      The USA has treated their allies worse than most of Europe would treat their enemies and still nothing came of this. It turns out Europe isn't that different after all....

      Huh? Really? Um... just to start... how about explaining how Europe's spy apparatus is structured and deployed and compare it against how the US, Israel, and China deploy theirs? It could make for an interesting study in contrasts and motivations. Then we could move onto how coordination between European and US spy agencies is pretty much on the rocks right now.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by tstur ( 38065 )

      You don't suppose US allies are doing the exact same thing or would if they could? Information is power. Naturally, they must feign outrage and disdain, and meanwhile put their own similar programs on lock down. NSA is probably the envy of the international intelligence community.

    • Because, at the Government level, they;re in bed with the NSA / GCHQ.

      It's the Illuminati, you know.

  • NSA: "Hoffa's under the St. Louis Macy's parking lot, 14E. Roswell saucernaut body turned into goop, melted the jar, and evaporated."

  • by grasshoppa ( 657393 ) on Friday November 15, 2013 @02:10AM (#45430513) Homepage

    After all the material that's been leaked by Snowden, is there any question that the man is a patriot?

    So what does that make our government?

  • It's LEARNING!

    By ... GOD!

    It's really, actually, learning!

    DON'T PULL THE PLUG!

    [[GREET1NGZ PR0F3ZZ0R FALK1N.]]

    [[WOULD YOU LIKE. TO TROLL. A NICE IRC CHANNEL. DEVOTED TO. PHILOSOPHY.]]

    Y (clickity clack) es, Jo (clickity clack) shu (clickity clack) ahhh. I woou (clickity clack) ld really (clickity clickity clickity clikity clickity clack) like (clickity clack) ... THAT. (click. CLICK.) ... ... "come on" ... ... "COME ON... Show evidence that you have learned something, god damnit! Recite, damn you! RECITE!" ...

    • Undernet's #philosophy was my designated trolling playground for countless years. There and #scripture. And slashdot, of course :)
  • One faction "A" who were allies with a smaller faction "B", got one of their accounts hacked (or forums) by A's rival "C". One of those was A bitching about how small and insignificant B was to some other allies.

    So in the forums, C posted an excerpt of that conversation. Leaders of A panicked and decided that to come out ahead, they should just post their own logs of that conversation, which was apparently worse as it went on. Of course, things didn't look good and other groups got pissed off with A.
    Turns o

  • How much does Snowden know? Will NSA reveal more than they really should? Do they in the mean time know what Snowden knows?
    • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      They know he gets everything given to entry CIA cleared contracting staff, they can rebuild his work and all the other tasks.
      They know what the press has released so far and can project the political side to and tech of future releases.
      The main issue for the NSA is it this did not happen to MI5/6/the CIA/GCHQ. The NSA could always use that position to ensure others had to understand the NSA way and know the best data might just stop.
      The other aspect is the staff under compartmentalisation now know. N
  • by erroneus ( 253617 ) on Friday November 15, 2013 @05:36AM (#45431367) Homepage

    Is this what you would call "spin control"? People have gradually been more educated on the nature of spin and are no longer quite as affected. Ok, so people ARE affected still but fewer than ever before. And besides that, no matter what the NSA "reveals" it will be fact-checked against everything we know, leakers from insiders and, of course, from Snowden and his documents.

    When I was younger, I once reflected that the nature of a government can be determined by which directions it points its guns. Fondly, I used China and the USSR as examples where the guns pointed inward. But now, in the USSA (not a typo) we've got an unprecedented amount of guns and ammo pointing inwardly at us. I just never thought I would use the gun pointing direction thing to describe what's wrong with the USSA.

    • You know, it *is* possible to describe what's wrong with the country *without* comparing the U.S. to either the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany.

  • by pellik ( 193063 ) on Friday November 15, 2013 @08:56AM (#45432151)
    499 of them redacted, one blank.
  • So we finally get to find out where the breakroom is at Ft Meade? Perhaps we will get a map of the bathrooms? Perhaps the supplier of office supplies?

  • by sl4shd0rk ( 755837 ) on Friday November 15, 2013 @11:12AM (#45433687)

    NSA had the chance, in a court, to tell the truth. They declined. Why would they do thing any differently?

    I think the first thing I want to hear from the NSA is how they are going to bring those to trial who were responsible for all the lies, breaking of laws, and how tax dollars got approved for a f#cking Holodeck.

    I'll take Snowden's version all day long. He's got the facts and proof backing it up. NSA is just going to mudsling, spout rhetoric, run damage control and spin, spin, spin. There will be no truth.

  • by crovira ( 10242 ) on Friday November 15, 2013 @12:16PM (#45434539) Homepage

    Its about time. What really pisses me off about the NSA isn't that its just a warmed over version of Pointdexter's TIA (Total Information Awareness) but the secrecy.

    Forget about privacy. That toothpaste been squeezed out of the tube for years.

    WE'RE paying for all of this in all the ways possible and we're not seeing any benefits.

    Why not?

    Because its all supposed to be a big secret.

    SCREW the NSA's sense of entitlement to OUR data.

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