

Greenwald: Snowden Has Provided ‘Thousands’ Of Docs, ‘Dozens’ Are Newsworthy - mindcrime
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/greenwald-snowden-knows-he-s-going-to-end

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cheald
I feel really jaded for daring to think it, but I really hope he has the
releases set up on a deadman's switch.

~~~
Taylorious
Well he did allude to all of the insane things he supposedly had access to
like operative names, safe houses, etc. even saying something to the extend of
bring the NSA down in an afternoon. If I was going to have deadman's switch,
it would be all that stuff. He doesn't seem like the type to do it outright,
he doesn't seem to want to cause that level of chaos and damage (if indeed he
does have the power), but who knows what will happen if he shows dead
somewhere.

~~~
cheald
I missed that; can you provide a link?

~~~
pietro
It's in the video interview.

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pvnick
I'm really excited! I like the incremental release, I think it builds momentum
in the way that a full dump could not. Just as one story has been thoroughly
explored, the next one comes out.

~~~
wisty
Basic PR. Dump bad news (at a time when reporters are unlikely to pick it up),
trickle out good news, and it gives you a more positive image. They are doing
the opposite - trying to get maximum outrage over the stuff they leak.

That's why companies often need PR consultants. Because they are tempted to
try to keep stuff under wraps, even when it's slowly trickling out. They need
an adult to tell them "people will find out anyway, so just dump the whole
thing in a press release on a Friday, so you get it all out in one headline".
Plus, reporters will be reporting _your_ spin on it, and you look like you've
made an honest mistake and are coming clean.

The NSA should probably figure out what's getting leaked, then spoil the PR
attack by coming clean. Somehow, I can't see them doing it.

~~~
legutierr
I think this is a pretty sophisticated PR strategy, actually, especially with
regards the timing of the disclosure of Snowden's identity. It's not as
formulaic as you describe...

They release some tantalizing tidbits (they are tidbits, aren't they? we
already had heard about the metadata in 2006, didn't we?), and at the peak of
interest (where did this come from?!?) release Snowden's identity in a
carefully crafted video. They maximize control over his story before the
government even has any idea who he is, before they can even think how to
paint a picture of him in a negative light. Once the media has spent its
powder covering Snowden (letting him speak for himself in a gorgeous HD
video), there is little the government can do to add to the story; Snowden's
identity is largely frozen in the picture that Greenwald et al have painted,
while the government PR machine is struggling to come up with a cohesive
strategy, let alone a response.

Then, after the Snowden story has run its course (at the point where talking
about Snowden any more will mean losing viewers), they drop the big
disclosures. At least that's my prediction. So what might the next disclosures
be? This is pure paranoid speculation, but I think Snowden hinted at it in the
video: the government _is_ recording all telephone conversations, but storing
it according to a legal theory that says that as long as no one actually
listens to the recordings, they don't need a warrant. They obtain a warrant
that is individual-specific, but instead of using that warrant to capture
evidence of current actions, they use that warrant to retrieve all of the
target's past activities.

~~~
caf
It doesn't hurt that he presents very well on camera, either.

~~~
lukifer
It's amazing how calmly he talks. Alex Jones could learn a thing or two.

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meepmorp
I think Alex Jones just acts like that because he's trying to rile up the
rubes as part of his act. Or cause he's crazy, but I tend to think his shtick
is a moneymaking act.

~~~
lukifer
He definitely plays it up for entertainment value, but he's been a true-blue
believer for a long time. I even agree with most of his principles and small
portion of his facts (I don't like to use the word "crazy", which can equally
apply to all of us or none of us), but he's missing proper barometers when it
comes to skepticism, empathy and tact.

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trrocket
Scary that Greenwald has to be quite so specific about Snowden's state of
mind. Between the lines, he's not about to jump off a bridge. It suggests that
they're genuinely worried about what someone might do to Snowden.

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cheald
It's bordering on conspiracy theory territory, but "threat to the government
commits 'suicide'" is so expected, it's cliche.

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orblivion
And as such I wish Snowden had a verified Twitter account.

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orblivion
I hope I wasn't misunderstood. I'd want the Twitter account so he could verify
to the public that he was still alive.

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cheald
I don't think it would be terribly difficult for the NSA to gain access to a
Twitter account if they wanted to.

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orblivion
I was going to say something about PGP signature but obviously not going to
fit in 140 characters. G+ Though.

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smegel
I really dislike the way Wikileaks and this journalist get huge dumps of
information then trickle feed it out, and ultimately don't end up releasing
most of it. It's almost like they are deliberately giving the USG enough time
to shut them down. Infuriating would be an understatement.

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forgottenpass
There was an NPR interview a few years ago with someone at Wikileaks (must
have been Assange, do they have another public face?). They used to release
information in dumps, nobody paid attention. Teasing it out was the only way
to get the media to bite. It's not a very appealing strategy to those who just
want the information, but a response to the current state of affairs, I guess.

~~~
smegel
Well...provide the dump to as many other journalists as you can first, then
trickle it out. It just doesn't seem like a valid reason to sit on the whole
lot yourself, surely providing a guarantee that the information will get out
eventually is more important than the media management aspect.

And besides, based on this theory, the stream of information being released
should speed up, as once you have the worlds attention, they will pay
attention to more. But we tend to see an initial release of explosive
information, followed by a gradually diminishing stream of information - I am
thinking back to Cablegate in particular - until it basically switches off and
you never hear anything again.

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FreeKill
Less talk and more publishing. The longer they discuss just how great the
additional documents are going to be, the more time the NSA/USA has time to
try convince the guardian not to publish...

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danielharan
If the Guardian didn't publish him, @ggreenwald still has some 171k followers
on Twitter.

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droopyEyelids
If anyone reading this doesn't have strong allegiance to either political
party, you might enjoy his twitter as much as I do
[https://twitter.com/ggreenwald](https://twitter.com/ggreenwald)

I'm almost disappointed by this leak because of how it might affect the
diversity of mr greenwald's tweets.

~~~
Vivtek
For a while. Don't worry, Greenwald will always have plenty of slimy things to
report on.

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dpeck
It is disappointing how news organizations seek to gravitate towards making
themselves the center of whatever story they're telling.

Isn't the role of narrator an incredibly important enough part of every tale?

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davorak
I am not sure if there is a more effective method of spreading the knowledge
however. If it was all dumped at once very few people would be able to absorb
it and understand it in a timely fashion and many would probably give up and
move on. Yes they benefit by drawing it out, but the same technique seems to
elicit deeper impact on the public.

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subsystem
It seems like many have missed some things about the slides that were leaked.
Only five pages of the 41 page presentation has been released so far[0]. The
fifth page was released after the initial release and contains the phrase
"directly from the servers"[1]. The rest of the presentation allegedly also
contain more technical details[2].

[0] [http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/06/snowden-
powerpoint/](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/06/snowden-powerpoint/)

[1] [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/08/nsa-prism-
server...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/08/nsa-prism-server-
collection-facebook-google)

[2]
[https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/343410562245480449](https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/343410562245480449)

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Jabbles
Is Greenwald technical enough to understand the content? Or is it just going
to be buzzwords that have no real technical meaning?

The slice deck already looks like someone was presenting to non-technical
management - why would they have put highly technical details in there too?

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ceejayoz
That the slide deck isn't technical doesn't mean Snowden didn't have access to
the technical stuff too.

Greenwald presumably has plenty of access to technical advisors at the
Guardian and elsewhere who can help sift through.

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eightyone
Haven't you got the memo yet? According to the media we can't trust Snowden
because he didn't graduate high school.

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thwi
Is there any sense of the law which would allow US authorities to seize or
otherwise prohibit these additional documents from being published?

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mindcrime
I'm sure Peter King would say yes. He, or some others, would probably try to
spin it to fall under the Espionage Act[1] or something.

Whether or not that would stand up to Supreme Court scrutiny is, I think, an
open question.

[1]:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espionage_Act_of_1917](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espionage_Act_of_1917)

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dataisfun
Peter King makes my teeth hurt. I'm really shocked that guy says what he does
without any irony for his obvious authoritarian overtones.

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minimize_me
Also the fact that he is a supporter of the IRA, both in his statements for
the past 40 or so years, and also materially (back during the Troubles). How
the hell does a guy like that end up as Committee Chairman for Homeland
Security?

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rtpg
Maybe this time around they'll ask for comment or whatever from the concerned
sources so that they can avoid publishing so much incorrect info this time
around.

I found it really hard to get angry at the PRISM stuff considering that pretty
much every major article went through major revisions over the following 48
hours. Also, the "direct access to servers" meme that was categorically false
doesn't help to take it seriously.

When the people behind the scandal can spend the entire news cycle raising
legitimate criticisms and contradictions to the published articles, it's hard
to get mad.

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pvnick
>Also, the "direct access to servers" meme that was categorically false
doesn't help to take it seriously

I don't think this was ever determined. The documents _specifically_ stated
that access to the servers is "direct," and Glenn Greenwald seems to be
sticking to his guns on that point.

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gohrt
Please describe (in a sketched terms) a technical method by which anyone could
get "direct access" to the user-data servers of Facebook, AOL, Google, etc.

Remember that each company has its own homegrown user-data data storage
format, homegrown distributed data storage system, homegrown datacenters(!),
and firewalls. These companies aren't running MySQL or Oracle, and these
systems are constantly being updated with new features and data model
migrations.

Does that seem plausible? Contrast against what has been freely admitted since
NSLs started appearing:

Each company sets up a "safe-deposit" server for delivering specific one-off
subsets of subpoena'd data, and the company's engineers deliver data to that
server upon demand.

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pvnick
I am a "big data" engineer, and I have _no idea_ how they could do something
like this. However my inability to theorize a potential method of collecting
this data is not evidence for/against its existence. Remember the NSA employs
some of the most brilliant software engineers and mathematicians on the planet
whose job it is over the course of years to figure this sort of stuff out. I'm
sure they've got a few tricks up their sleeve. Time will tell of course, and
more revelations are reportedly "imminent"

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ryanmolden
This. To paraphrase a favorite Daniel Dennett quote: don't mistake lack of
imagination for insight into feasibility.

