Is the PRISM spying program a hoax?
How do we know we haven't been looking at altered documents pushed by one of the many Bush holdovers who switched to a civil service position after he left office?
For one thing, is it really reasonable to think that this supposedly massive program has a price tag of only $20 million dollars? That alone should have set off instant alarm bells.
Who are the gullible people here? The ones who are waiting for proof before condemning Obama based on a report by the WA post citing an unnamed career civil servant (who may well be a Bush holdover)? Or the ones who immediately denounced Obama on this issue, even after watching the Rethugs throw three previous fake "scandals" at him at the beginning of his new term?
http://www.businessinsider.com/is-the-nsa-prism-spying-program-a-hoax-2013-6
Twitter users have noted two inexplicable differences in the PowerPoint slides posted online by the Post and the Guardian. On a slide with the header “Dates When PRISM Collection Began For Each Provider,” there is a red box behind the PRISM logo on the Guardian version that is not present in the Post version. And the green arrow running diagonally across the slide is noticeably different in shape and spacing.
SNIP
The key to any successful hoax is to weave at least a few truths into a story that is shocking but (just barely) credible. Late Thursday night, journalist Matthew Keys tracked down two military job listings that identify PRISM as a “collection management system” and a required job skill for “intelligence officer” positions (the same title the Post story uses to describe its anonymous source). Indeed, in an updated version of its story, The Post began to walk back its claims by citing a second classified report that identified PRISM as a program to “allow ‘collection managers [to send] content tasking instructions directly to equipment installed at company-controlled locations,’ rather than directly to company servers.”
If PRISM appears in publicly accessible job postings, it’s likely to be a less important program than the articles lead us to believe. And while PRISM-derived intelligence probably was cited in over 2,400 classified intelligence reports in 2012 (including almost 1,500 delivered to the president), it is appearing less and less likely that PRISM rises to the level of the all-encompassing vacuum cleaner of the Internet that the initial reports indicated.
Why someone would provide a false or partially-true briefing and play up its importance as “a gross intrusion on privacy,” as characterized by the Post’s anonymous source, is an open question. In an environment of shrinking defense and intelligence budgets, battles for scarce resources are often fought using strategic leaks or disinformation. Or, as Clapper claims, the materials provided to the newspapers may simply be inaccurate, a frequent occurrence in government training materials that pass through numerous offices before being approved.
If everything attributed to PRISM proves to be true, there will no doubt be a serious and ongoing national debate regarding where to draw the line between civil liberties and national security. But we shouldn’t be too quick to dismiss the government’s claims that all is not as it might appear. When dealing with leaks and the murky world of top secret intelligence programs, it is best to be mindful of Hanlon’s Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
= new reply since forum marked as read
Shhhh. Don't tell the National Intelligence Director because he's already admitted it's real.
[link:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/07/clapper-secret-nsa-surveillance-prism?guni=Network%20front:network-front%20full-width-1%20bento-box:Bento%20box
osition2:sublinks|
What horrible journalism, he was in no way talking about PRISM. One or two news outfits took the press release out of context and linked it with PRISM and they rest of the news world run with that story. WTF ever happen to fact checking
PRISM is nothing but Science Fiction on a 20 million dollar budget
In the press release he is talking about one program and references one article, and he stats
By order of the FISC, the Government is prohibited from indiscriminately sifting through the telephony metadata acquired under the program.
Here is the complete press release
