3 ms·

Which still doesn't mean that the NSA has "direct access" to any server owned by Google/Facebook/Microsoft.

by brown9-2 13y ago

grey-area 13y ago
Did Snowden say "direct access" in his interview or elsewhere? I thought that was an extrapolation of journalists writing about his story afterward (who also got details like the salary slightly wrong), taken from the wording on the slides, and reinforced in people's minds by the denials from Google et al which talked of backdoors etc? I don't think he made any claims about direct access, only that he could access all account details including emails etc if he had 'the proper authorities' as he puts it (which is pretty consistent with the slides and with the Google claims). I don't remember him using that particular phrase at all at least in his initial video - I remember him talking about the ease with which they could access data using a 'selector' like an email address, not making claims about specific connections to servers or anything similar. He's not responsible for what journalists say, and we can't expect them to clearly restate it all the time, but what we do know about the extent of surveillance is disturbing. It's still unclear exactly what is recorded, when and how and I'm sure we'd all love to know more, but in the meantime it's not very useful to try to discredit his claims based on the interpretations of others. https://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2013/06/10/edward-snowden-interview-transcript-full-text/ https://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2013/06/10/edward-snowden-int...
- brown9-2 13y ago
  Yes, it's an extrapolation from the slides. My beef with the phrase though is that Greenwald keeps repeating it and sticks by the story that the NSA slides said it so it must mean something, without bothering to ask his supposedly very knowledgable source to expand further on the topic.

3 ms·

Which still doesn't mean that the NSA has "direct access" to any server owned by Google/Facebook/Microsoft.

by brown9-2 13y ago

Which still doesn't mean that the NSA has "direct access" to any server owned by Google/Facebook/Microsoft.

grey-area 13y ago
Did Snowden say "direct access" in his interview or elsewhere? I thought that was an extrapolation of journalists writing about his story afterward (who also got details like the salary slightly wrong), taken from the wording on the slides, and reinforced in people's minds by the denials from Google et al which talked of backdoors etc? I don't think he made any claims about direct access, only that he could access all account details including emails etc if he had 'the proper authorities' as he puts it (which is pretty consistent with the slides and with the Google claims). I don't remember him using that particular phrase at all at least in his initial video - I remember him talking about the ease with which they could access data using a 'selector' like an email address, not making claims about specific connections to servers or anything similar. He's not responsible for what journalists say, and we can't expect them to clearly restate it all the time, but what we do know about the extent of surveillance is disturbing. It's still unclear exactly what is recorded, when and how and I'm sure we'd all love to know more, but in the meantime it's not very useful to try to discredit his claims based on the interpretations of others. https://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2013/06/10/edward-snowden-interview-transcript-full-text/ https://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2013/06/10/edward-snowden-int...
- brown9-2 13y ago
  Yes, it's an extrapolation from the slides. My beef with the phrase though is that Greenwald keeps repeating it and sticks by the story that the NSA slides said it so it must mean something, without bothering to ask his supposedly very knowledgable source to expand further on the topic.