Bravo to the New York Times for putting out an article on the NSA that doesn't fall into the hype trap that Glenn Greenwald/The Guardian/Washington Post/etc. have all fallen into. All we've had up until now are documents showing how the NSA is collecting information and theorizing that the same technology is being used to collect on everyone. The only thing that does is stir up hype, fear and distrust of the government.
This is the kind of information that the public needs to ask informed questions on the NSA's activities, like: Is the collection actually valuable to national security? Is it of diplomatic value? Does that value outweigh the diplomatic costs when the collection is revealed? What are the financial costs of the collection? Are those costs worth it? What about all of the collection that is never analyzed? What aspects of the NSA's collection/funding/bureaucratic processes need to be changed to best fit the public interest?
I've argued for some time that how the NSA is collecting is not nearly as important as who and why. The initial disclosure about the cell phone metadata was a legitimate call for concern - I agree with everyone on that. The cause for concern there wasn't how they were gathering the data, it was that they were collecting on US citizens and we didn't know why. They left those questions to be answered by the administration, who has published a good deal of detail on the Section 215 collection program[1]. If their explanation is innacurate, then the ball is back in the media's court to pull evidence showing so from that collection of 50,000 documents that Snowden gave them. Meanwhile, Congress is continuing to debate this collection now.
My issue is with most of the other reporting. Most of the other leaks so far have revealed how - PRISM, XKeyScore, the Google/Yahoo collection, etc. What the media outlets have failed to do is show evidence linking this back to collection against ordinary citizens. Articles that would be more accurately titled something like "The NSA collects vast amounts of data using X" instead are presented as "The NSA collects vast amounts of Americans' data using X". They conflate collection authorities and present it as fact to the audience. For example, the NSA is permitted by law (under certain interpretations - the EFF is looking to challenge this in court) to collect American cell phone metadata under Section 215, but is expressly forbidden from collecting American data under FAA 702 authorities. Leaked slides show that the PRISM program is their mechanism for collecting FAA 702 data. Any article claiming that the NSA is collecting such-and-such data against Americans but then goes on to cite PRISM as evidence is conflating the evidence.
The how matters to the people being targeted. The who and why matters to everyone regardless of targeting. If there is evidence linking these other programs back to collection against ordinary citizens, we need to know. If we are being targeted, we need to know the how to protect ourselves. What we've been getting, though, is descriptions of collection programs with "they're probably using this to collect on everyone!" sprinkled into the description. If these programs are only used to target legitimate foreign intelligence targets, then what have we ordinary citizens gained by knowing how? In revealing this, what have those being targeted learned and how does that affect national security, diplomacy, etc.?
If you read through the whole 7 pages of this article, they talk a good deal about who is being targeted and why; discuss the successes and failures, hint at what intelligence has had valuable impact and what hasn't; talk about the immense funding and bureaucratic stumbling blocks that has led to an excess of collection that has never been and may never be analyzed; etc., and do so in a manner that the administration says will not affect ongoing operations. I stand by my statement that this is important information that the public needs in order to ask informed questions to their elected representatives. I would ask why it took this many months to surface, and why it didn't come from The Guardian or the Washington Post, who have had this information for much longer.
If you disagree with me, I invite you to state your reasons why and continue with the conversation rather than downvote.
This is the kind of information that the public needs to ask informed questions on the NSA's activities, like: Is the collection actually valuable to national security? Is it of diplomatic value? Does that value outweigh the diplomatic costs when the collection is revealed? What are the financial costs of the collection? Are those costs worth it? What about all of the collection that is never analyzed? What aspects of the NSA's collection/funding/bureaucratic processes need to be changed to best fit the public interest?