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NSA Wants To Reveal Its Secrets To Prevent Snowden From Revealing Them First

Posted by samzenpus on from the coming-clean dept.

binarstu writes "According to a recent report by Tom Gjelten of NPR, 'NSA officials are bracing for more surveillance disclosures from the documents taken by former contractor Edward Snowden — and they want to get out in front of the story. ... With respect to other information held by Snowden and his allies but not yet publicized, the NSA is now considering a proactive release of some of the less sensitive material, to better manage the debate over its surveillance program.'"

6 of 216 comments (clear)

  1. Imminent Catastrophe by MarkvW · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Where's the great catastrophe for all the TRILLIONS of dollars we are wasting at the NSA?

    This is unimaginable waste for negligible gain. And these people call themselves patriots . . ..

  2. What's really scary by dutchwhizzman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What really scares me isn't that the Americans themselves don't seem to care a lot. Europe has been a prime target of all this and even there the reaction is "meh". How many USA ambassadors have been summoned to explain and apologize? The USA has treated their allies worse than most of Europe would treat their enemies and still nothing came of this. It turns out Europe isn't that different after all....

    --
    I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
    1. Re:What's really scary by ImOuttaHere · · Score: 4, Interesting

      What really scares me isn't that the Americans themselves don't seem to care a lot.

      "Freedom" and "liberty" are abstract concepts to most Americans. The only thing "real" in their lives are their TV, cellphones, and the perception that "We're number ONE!" . They don't call it "programming" for nothing.

      Europe has been a prime target of all this and even there the reaction is "meh".

      Er... no. There are many responses to the NSA revelations. European business are actively moving away from using Goggle's and other US corporate services because they have confirmation that their data is not secure. European governments are dealing from a much stronger position on trade talks currently taking place. The citizens of Europe (well, at least the ones I've spoken with, and you really should listen to Radio France Info) are well aware of the issues of privacy and they are demanding their governments take action to secure their liberties and freedoms against US spying.

      How many USA ambassadors have been summoned to explain and apologize?

      US ambassadors have been called by France, Germany, Spain... um, should I continue? Or should I add the British ambassadors that have also been called?

      The USA has treated their allies worse than most of Europe would treat their enemies and still nothing came of this. It turns out Europe isn't that different after all....

      Huh? Really? Um... just to start... how about explaining how Europe's spy apparatus is structured and deployed and compare it against how the US, Israel, and China deploy theirs? It could make for an interesting study in contrasts and motivations. Then we could move onto how coordination between European and US spy agencies is pretty much on the rocks right now.

  3. Re:Americans: NSA needs more oversight by erikkemperman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Funny thing about "oversight". On the one hand it means some mechanism to keep tabs on some process making sure it doesn't run amok. On the other hand it also means to neglect something.

    Seems to me the NSA oversight is more like the latter, except not by accident.

    --
    Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
  4. Re:Americans: NSA needs more oversight by s.petry · · Score: 4, Interesting

    In both countries the governments own the media. More appropriately, the same people controlling the governments control the media. Neither place has had any type of reform, just discussions of reform which are being drowned out by other noise in the media.

    To the people pulling the strings, it's simply a waiting game. As we saw with Benghazi, Fast and Furious, etc.. nobody has been held accountable and the public is no longer thinking about those items. I have little confidence that enough people are awake to change that, and the same thing is being played against the anti-surveillance crowd. Unless we can change the messages from the media, nothing will change. Word of mouth is something that works, but is also very taxing on the people that are awake.

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    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

  5. Re:Americans: NSA needs more oversight by Daniel_Staal · · Score: 3, Interesting

    So, we can't be glad they changed their mind when they realized what they'd done?

    --
    'Sensible' is a curse word.