Edward Snowden, We Love You: Why We Should Resist the Hero Worship
by Michael Moynihan Jun 10, 2013 4:45 AM EDT
... Even a generous reading of the programs exposed by Snowden should deeply trouble those of us who are skeptical of the ever-growing American security state. And even if the administration’s explanations and justifications of the NSA’s snooping programs are to be trusted—the program foiled terror attacks, was focused only on foreign nationals, and no calls were listened to, etc.—it nevertheless raises ethical and moral issues that demand further public debate ...
But even after Snowden’s disclosures, do we even understand what, exactly, the NSA is engaged in? As journalist J.M. Berger rightly points out, “the information we lack vastly outweighs the information we have. We should be cautious in interpreting data summaries we don’t fully understand.” And when we do understand that information, as the story thickens and clarifies, it’s possible that the worst-case readings by journalists and independent analysts were too cautious. But even in the past few days, some aspects of the program originally reported as terrifying and incontrovertible fact have changed.
For instance, the Post claimed that the NSA was “tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies” with the express consent of the companies involved. The Guardian made similar claims. But as one intelligence source told CNET, the program is “not as described in the histrionics in the Washington Post or the Guardian. None of it’s true. It’s a very formalized legal process that companies are obliged to do.” The Post updated its story, no longer claiming that major tech companies such as Google and Facebook provided the NSA with direct access to their servers. As tech journalist Ed Bott wrote, “Almost no one who reacted to the story initially did so with any skepticism about the Post’s sources or its conclusions.”
Indeed, ZDNet, along with Gizmodo, Forbes, The Week, TechCrunch, and many others, reported last week that the hacker collective Anonymous also was getting in on the NSA action, having “leaked” a series of classified documents. But the tedious material “released” by Anonymous was publicly available white papers and PowerPoint presentations, available to anyone who cared enough to spend their evenings trawling government websites. Last month, something similar happened when a number of media organizations fell for a WikiLeaks’ “leak” of documents long available of the National Archives website ...
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/06/10/edward-snowden-we-love-you-why-we-should-resist-the-hero-worship.html
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