
NSA's Talking Points Defending NSA Surveillance - mtgx
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130613/17490723465/leaked-nsas-talking-points-defending-nsa-surveillance.shtml
======
ck2
They are already trying to dirty Snowden with spin. Yesterday morning on ABC
"News" they kept saying he is dangerous because might defect to China which is
complete speculative BS considering all he has sacrificed (don't normally
watch that disney-owned cr*p but it was on at the laundrymat).

Ha, look what source comes up for news when you google it:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=defect+to+China](https://www.google.com/search?q=defect+to+China)
(ABC "News")

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
Don't forget the "Snowden's girlfriend is a 'pole dancer'" news story that has
been on CNN America, the Daily Mail, Washington Times, Telegraph, USA Today,
the Huffington Post, ABC News, and a few others.

If anyone thinks that Western news isn't propagandist then there is your
proof, right there, that they are. That isn't a real news story. It isn't in
the public interest. It is just a character attack on the man and his family.

She wasn't even in the public eye.

~~~
corresation
Of course she is in the public eye: Friends and family of interesting parties
always get pulled into the public eye, for stories having nothing at all to do
with 'propaganda'. The same is true of so many other details that will always
get looked up on people in this social media/online world time. There is
nothing at all nefarious about it.

Indeed, it is getting bizarre seeing people outraged that some truth about
people is reported. Ms Mills identifies _herself_ as a pole dancer. Snowden
made banal online comments. Snowden dropped out of high school. These are not
smears but are just interesting facts. They don't diminish either of them an
iota in my eyes, but do add colour. A lot of people here seem to think these
are deeply embarrassing facts that should remain hidden.

~~~
jopt
I agree these are interesting details, and I'm happier for knowing more about
the people involved. However, I also believe that these facts are smears. They
are being published not to inform but as ad hominem attacks on Snowden.

When the war logs leaked, I doubted that anyone would take the initial smears
against Julian Assange seriously. I'm Swedish and the sexual misconduct
allegations were a big conversation subject here.

After a while, I realised that though I wasn't impressed by the ad hominems,
they really did work on the general public. Older relatives and friends who
were not in tune with the particular issues of the leak were much more
interested in stories about the people behind it. These stories require no
expert knowledge; they're relatable. It's daunting for a layperson to try to
judge who's right or wrong in issues like war or spying, but it's easy and
familiar to judge people over the perceived wholesomeness of girls they're
involved with. Thus, to my disappointment, these friends and relatives
categorically dismissed anything about the war logs by referring to Assange's
personal affairs.

Things like this are published to create negative associations; to cater to
personal vanity (better-than-thou) and focus judgement on Snowden's character
rather than the faceless institutions he ousted.

~~~
corresation
_However, I also believe that these facts are smears. They are being published
not to inform but as ad hominem attacks on Snowden._

When Snowden bravely outed himself, the media was in a race to find as many
details on him that they could. If they could find people saying that he saved
kittens, they would report that. If they find people saying he dropped out of
high school, they report that. If Ars Technica discovered that he posted
there, of course they're going to capitalize on that and post summaries of the
sorts of things he said.

It required no conspiracy or concerted attack. It happens for spree killers.
It happens for "hackers". It happens for politicians. It happens for heroes.

I just don't buy the ad hominem/smear angle when the things reported thus far
have been rather banal facts that thus far have gone uncontested.

Now if the NSA suddenly claimed that they found child pornography on his
workstation, or mysterious women appeared claiming to have been raped by him,
a serious consideration would be in order. That hasn't happened (yet, at
least), and instead people are seemingly acting knowing and world-weary about
absolutely standard media reporting.

~~~
jopt
> I just don't buy the ad hominem/smear angle when the things reported thus
> far have been rather banal facts that thus far have gone uncontested.

In my view, neither the banality nor even the truth of the allegations are
particularly important. The key reason I chose to file this as a ad
hominem/smear is that it invites judgment of Snowden without pertaining to the
contents of the leak or even the act of leaking.

------
bobwaycott
_These_ are the kinds of leaks I would love to see far more of--be they from
intelligence operatives, contractors, political staffers, journalists, etc.
Talking points are a _huge_ game among the media, pundits, and leaders.
Leaking the talking points as issues arise would make for excellent public
discourse as more people become increasingly aware of their presence
(hopefully) and become able to actually _notice_ the ways in which the
_language_ surrounding issues is carefully constructed to shape public
opinion.

------
quattrofan
I always get annoyed when governments claims secret things they have done have
"protected us from an attack". First off they will never ever give specifics
"because its secret", but secondly prove to me that this attack would not have
been thwarted anyway using more traditional policing methods.

------
asperous
Actual sources:

[https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/713590-fisa-
business...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/713590-fisa-business-
records-talking-points-6-6-13.html)

[https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/713592-nsa-
internet-...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/713592-nsa-internet-
talking-points-6-7-13.html)

They're pretty much just defending that it's legal, which I think we can all
sadly admit is true. I just don't think it's right, our government should not
be keeping that kind of records on its citizens, or anyone.

Please, write to your senators, not all of them are convinced. If you are a
foreigner, write to your legal representatives expressing your concern. If we
are loud enough our government will listen. I believe that our government
still listens to its people, but if we don't take action in democracy, our
voice will be lost.

~~~
pyvpx
> They're pretty much just defending that it's legal, which I think we can all
> sadly admit is true. I just don't think it's right, our government should
> not be keeping that kind of records on its citizens, or anyone.

but that's the entire point. it isn't legal. the supreme law of the land is
the Constitution and everything after it is inferior. I could careless what
Congress passes or the NSA writes in its policy documents -- it's not legal.
it's all very much illegal.

------
neebz
I think it's a wrong strategy to defend that the data did not prevent the
subway attack or for that matter whether it's useful or not.

You are standing up for liberties and constitutional rights. And you can't
have it both ways.

It's a good test for anyone against NSA collection:

If NSA proves that the data did stop terrorist attacks, will it be ok to
intrude privacy then or put it another way are you ok with a terrorist attack
on your country in exchange for your privacy ?

~~~
bobsoap
There are so many things wrong with your comment, I don't even know where to
start. I think you might either be 8 years old, or simply trolling. Based on
that, I don't see any reason to invest any time and energy into replying
factually. Instead, I'll resort to just shaking my head, rolling my eyes and
moving on, trusting that nature will take care of itself.

Yeah, I'm cool like that.

~~~
grandpa
From the Hacker News guidelines:

"When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g.
"That is an idiotic thing to say; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 +
1 is 2, not 3."

[http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
bifrost
So IMHO there's a problem with this article, and its this

> Why, then, have so many people, both in the Congress and the public been
> shocked at the extent to which the NSA is snarfing up data?

Because people ignore what they're being told. Eschelon and Carnivore have
been around for a LONG time so none of this should be shocking.

~~~
threeseed
No. It's because the majority of the population (62%) fully support it.

They want the US to be actively preventing the next Boston Marathon bombing or
9/11\. And are more than happy to give up a small amount of their own privacy
in order to do so.

[http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/06/nsa-
spying-p...](http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/06/nsa-spying-poll-
pew/66093/)

~~~
mikevm
>They want the US to be actively preventing the next Boston Marathon bombing
or 9/11\. And are more than happy to give up a small amount of their own
privacy in order to do so.

The thing is that these surveillance tools are never enough. They enhance
them, and a terrorist act happens, and they start saying that they need more
power to prevent something like that in the future. It's baloney.

The only way for them to prevent future crime is to turn the country into an
Orwellian dystopia. The thing is that we don't even know how effective these
surveillance programs are, since the gov't doesn't release any data. Any time
questions of efficacy rise, 'they' say that these programs help catch
terrorists, but they don't give any concrete data.

------
stfu
My question: Is there actually anybody prepping talking points for pundits who
oppose these pro-government spying ideas? I suppose there are already few
think-tanks working on opposing ends, but these tend to be "slightly" partisan
(Cato, etc). Is the EFF active in these kinds of policy circles?

------
wavefunction
This is an awful lot of effort to catch a "liar/criminal" (one precludes the
other).

I think it's time for a "truth and reconciliation" committee where we remove
every sitting congress-person, the Obama Administration at large, and at least
the top-level of bureaucrats involved.

One other thought I had is, was the H1-B thing in the immigration act a
"payoff" to the same tech CEOs selling the world out? A cynical thought, but a
cynical time indeed.

------
nraynaud
In a paranoia bout, I was connecting some dots. The US and EU are currently
dealing a trade treaty. Imagine the treaty mandates that RFPs are to be open
to both side of the pound. Then a US entity (private company or State entity)
starts an RFE. The NSA as part of it's mandate can spy on any EU citizen
without any limit of what it does about the data (yeah, not a US-citizen). So
imagine if by pure luck an NSA employee stumbled on the proposal data of an EU
entity before filling and passed it along to an US competitor of the EU
entity. Now you have the perfect crime because _terrorism_ no investigation
possible at the treaty level and _foreign citizen_ no law as been broken on
the US soil.

There are suspicions that this game has been played between Boing and Airbus
(I overheard that the US was the spy, but being in Europe, my environment is
biased).

------
spikels
I also noticed a lot of similarity between these talking points [1] and
various statements by politicians and pundits as well as newspaper articles
over the past week. However it is hard to track them down.

Does anyone know how to do automated text comparison? It would be interesting
to know who (politicians, reporters, etc) are simply parroting what the NSA
tells them. Google kinda works for this but is pretty inefficient. Something
like a plagiarism system would be perfect.

[1] [https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/713590-fisa-
business...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/713590-fisa-business-
records-talking-points-6-6-13.html) (click on text button in upper left for
raw text).

