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Also note the absence of even a single concrete example where actual harm for the security and safety of a western countrie's citizens was caused. One would as

• foxhedgehog 11y ago
  Of course, this information, if it existed, would be classified highly. Greenwald's rhetoric has had a declension from "nobody can prove that harm came from any leaks" down to "there was no harm that came from leaks." If known harm did come from leaks, that would (obviously) be valuable information for the people doing the harming. Disseminating it would be highly irresponsible.
  • cnvogel 11y ago
    In general surely that will be valuable information. But we currently have a high lack of confidence in the truthfulness of what secret agencies claim, and the only thing being constantly spread out to the media is fear mongering about how terrible we all suffer, may it be because of Snowden's revelations or slight restriction on bulk data collections. In the end it should be the voting public that gives authority to these dubious agencies, and all over the place it seems that the classification/secrecy preserving methods of control of spies have utterly failed (the U.S. FISA court, or the parlamentary control commission we have in Germany[1] to supervise our secret services). So, in my oppinion it should become common practice to "sacrifice" one or a few operations (which anyhow are said to have failed and had to be abandoned because of Snowden leaks) to perform an as-public-as-feasible post-mortem analysis on how efficient, corresponding to regulations and laws, intrusive to constitutional rights... they have been pursued. [1] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parlamentarisches_Kontrollgremium http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parlamentarisches_Kontrollgremi...
    • foxhedgehog 11y ago
      I'm not sure that I follow. I was providing a reason why this information might be classified, and therefore never eligible for publication. You seem to be arguing a separate point: that, if it was published, it could not be taken seriously. The way that the present system is supposed to work is that there is oversight from Congress over the agencies, oftentimes in public, and that the President disseminates authority to all elements of the federal government. Last I checked, the President and Congress were supposed to be elected by the U.S. voting public. Are you arguing that government should be disintermediated entirely in this case? Aside from various interesting constitutional implications, this also would seem to be an argument against the existence of classified information at all. As for the question of "sacrificing" operations, who gets to make the decision of what to sacrifice?
    • cnvogel 11y ago
      [foxhedgehog, I seem not to be allowed to reply to your last comment (too deeply nested?) so I'll put it here] You said "Disseminating [information about actual harm] would be highly irresponsible." And my claim is that disseminating of this information is necessary to reinstate trust on control of secret agencies, even if some harm is done by this additional disseminating.
      • foxhedgehog 11y ago
        Ok. My guess is that the institutions that be have made a cost-benefit decision on this and decided otherwise. In the case of WikiLeaks, specifically, I can't blame them: not giving material information to the Taliban is probably more important than any short-term PR boost that is going to be diluted with skepticism.
• mahranch 11y ago
  > Also note the absence of even a single concrete example where actual harm for the security and safety of a western countrie's citizens was caused. I'm no expert on geopolitics (none of us are), but I'm fairly certain that kind of thing cannot be quantified. It's like trying to quantify how much love you have for someone. The harm isn't direct and measurable, any harm would be almost entirely indirect. Before the leaks, maybe Russia wouldn't have invaded Crimea because they were unsure what the U.S/NATO plans are or were and didn't have enough information to move. After the leaks, they had all the information they needed and moved forward with their plan. Or maybe they invaded precisely because they had the evidence which showed the U.S would be unlikely to act. Those kinds of things aren't inherently measurable so quantifying them is a futile endeavor. I'm no fan of the government but to pretend there are zero negative consequences for us as a country is ignorant and naive. Like it or not, there is a bigger picture and ignoring it doesn't mean it goes away or ceases to exist.
  • cnvogel 11y ago
    I don't think that the NSA really deals with plans about military operations. And also the original article mainly concerns itself with agents that had to leave hostile countries once their cover has been blown. But yes, certainly some of the information in the Snowden revelations might have been valuable, but one would have to compare their impact with the constant stream of information obtained by reciprocal spying which is going on all of the time and (I'm convinced) is highly targeted...
    • foxhedgehog 11y ago
      The NSA is under the Department of Defense and, by their charter, provides information to the USG about military operations. You are also confusing the issue of what NSA produces vs. what information they have access to. I'm also not sure that I follow this second argument. Snowden's revelations are clearly supplemental to any espionage that might have been going on against the U.S.