The idea here from a public relations viewpoint is to reveal a small crime to conceal a large one. Individuals will be described to have violated the NSA's str

The idea here from a public relations viewpoint is to reveal a small crime to conceal a large one. Individuals will be described to have violated the NSA's strict internal rules and snooped on their cheating spouse or whatever. One, two, three incidents. Look, we've come clean! Not mentioned will be the wholesale storage of every communication of every American, which the NSA does not deem to be surveillance until they specifically search on your name while knowing you are an American. This is pretty much the exact same playbook as we observed with Abu Ghraib. Rape rooms run by the government are NOT illegal; that's official US government rape, and covered by memos saying it is legal, so everything is fine. And if over 100 people are killed by U.S. official torture and rape, that too is just fine. But if overenthusiastic PFCs make prisoners lay on top of each other and give a thumbs-up, that's an error that needs to be disclosed and heavily punished. The idea in each case is to make the unobservant member of the public think that all the abuses have been disclosed, and they are minor, and the individuals responsible have been punished.