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This helps me understand where you're coming from. I understand your frustration, but I think you're attacking the signal instead of the noise you're talking a
by discostrings 13y ago
This helps me understand where you're coming from.
I understand your frustration, but I think you're attacking the signal instead of the noise you're talking about.
There's definitely a lot of nonsense floating around (optical signal intercepts from these providers, etc.). This is noise.
But there is also a very real signal. A journalist with an inside source is telling us about a program that indicates some of these companies have given the NSA a level of access than most of us who know anything about systems would not be comfortable with.
While the degree to which this is happening has not been supported with evidence, numerous other claims have been. It has already forced the declassification of orders to the phone companies. This seems to be a very credible source.
Instead of attacking the noise, I see you attacking the signal. You're saying "These companies could not be doing this! Why would you believe someone saying they are!"
Maybe there is no such program, maybe the NSA doesn't even know what it's doing enough to make an accurate presentation, maybe the presentation was planted for the guy to find, and maybe the journalists are hacks. These are all possibilities. But with what we know, these are the extreme possibilities, and speculation about them is mostly noise. Defending hack-job articles attacking the source and messenger isn't increasing the quality of the conversation.
- tptacek 13y agoWhy are you so invested in not getting the answers to the questions I'm raising? That's what your argument is: that my questions are unimportant, because they don't address your more important questions.
- daywalker 13y agoYou can't see the wood for the trees, can you?
- tptacek 13y ago"Stop asking questions I won't like the answers to."
- discostrings 13y agoMy view is that we will be getting answers to these questions soon. The journalist is closer to the answers than we are, but he would prefer the government and the companies disclose the answers in a responsible manner so he doesn't have to be the arbiter of what gets released or not. It seems that from what we're getting from the government and companies, we're getting closer to answers, but we're not there yet. If the question you're raising is about the nature of the Prism program, I am very much looking forward to an answer to that. But I think the best approach is to see the evolution of responses from government and companies rather than smear the journalist as a hack for not immediately releasing the whole presentation.
- tptacek 13y agoI'm not smearing him for not immediately releasing the whole presentation. I'm noting places where his own publication contradicts statements that he made, statements that Google and Yahoo and Facebook categorically denied, which are vital to the story.