Certainly terrorists are already aware that they are under extensive surveillance, and did not need Mr Snowden or the Guardian to tell them that.
I see this argument used frequently, and I don't understand it all. I've been under the impression that most people did not know about the scale and capabilities of the NSA. This stuff was not public information. If the average person didn't know about it, why would the people being actively targeted know about it? Does the Guardian have evidence that "the terrorists" know about the sources and methods used by the NSA that are being disclosed now?
Rather than hauling in journalists for questioning and trying to intimidate them, the Commons would do well to encourage and join that debate ...
I can't speak for the UK, since I haven't followed the reaction over GCHQ as much, but the heads of the US intelligence community have been called in front of Congress quite a few times since the leaks started to be questioned regarding these programs. Several of their appearances were public, which is rare for intelligence committee hearings. This debate is happening. That said, if the press is holding onto a trove of information that the government claims could do serious harm to national security, what exactly is wrong with calling them forward to answer questions about how they intend to use it and how they intend to ensure that what they disclose will not affect national security? I would think that answers to those questions would certainly fall in the public interest.
Even if you take the most high profile target in the last few years, Osama Bin Laden, you can see that he essentially lived in an electronic black hole. There wasn't even an internet connection or phone line connected to the house he lived in. They'd also burn trash on-site so that it could not be intercepted.
Bin Laden also stopped using Satellite phones after it was clear that the NSA et al were very easily eavesdropping on satellite phones. I don't have any specific sources but this is the sort of the stuff I've read over the years.
Various terrorist groups have been aware of the general capabilities of Intelligence Agencies, whether they knew or understood the nuances of the technology is another thing.
It's us citizens who are shocked about the overarching abuses, I'm sure the bad guys are the least shocked.
Bin Laden did, which was probably why he was so difficult to track down. My understanding of the situation (correct me if I'm wrong) was that the rest of Al Qaeda and their affiliates were not as careful with their security. He might never be caught using an internet connection or cell phone, but it wouldn't necessarily matter if 90% of his organization did.
Nuances would matter quite a bit, too. Bin Laden stopped using his satellite phone after he suspected that the NSA could listen. But what about the satellite phone made it insecure? The fact that uses satellites? Would a cell phone be susceptible? GSM? CDMA? Only Motorolas? Are land lines secure? What if they're encrypted? What encryption schemes are secure? I don't have the documents off hand, either (sorry), but from what I've heard their overall security was pretty lousy - I remember reading that they were doing things like rolling their own encryption.
Oh that's not at all surprising that they tried to roll their own encryption. But if they are already not that sophisticated, then they'd still not be able to glean much value from these revelations.
Surely someone rolling their own encryption doesn't understand the big deal with NSA's BULLRUN program (where they tried to weaken encryption algorithms by planting people in teams and attempted to weaken protocols, or target vulnerabilities in encryption libraries).
Your mistake is giving any shred of credibility to the statements these agencies release. Nearly every public statement they've made on the leaks has turned out to be a lie or misdirection. For example, the primary motive of the surveillance programs clearly has not been to target terrorists, but political and economic espionage.
They're spying on everyone in the world. Anyone who prefers a free society to fascism is going to be to concerned about that, not the prevarications that officials come up with to try to get themselves off the hook. If you really think journalists are the people that need to be questioned in light of all this, I don't know what to say. You've probably already guzzled way too much of the authoritarian kool-aid.
I put "the terrorists" in quotes because they were Mr. Bernstein's words, not mine. The NSA is tasked with gathering foreign intelligence - in other words, espionage. That's their entire purpose, and has been their purpose since their inception. They should be gathering information on foreign military plans and capabilities, the intentions of foreign heads of state, foreign intelligence service actions carried out against the US, etc. And, of course, the plans of foreign terrorists. I don't like the overuse of the terrorist justification, but I can see why it's used so often. None of the other things I mentioned are of any immediate importance in the day-to-day life of the average American. Everyone remembers 9/11, though. I think it's a bit insulting to the American public to just wrap everything up by saying "we're doing this to protect you from terrorists", and it opens up the administration to a lot additional criticism by citing low incidence of foreign terrorist attacks against Americans.
Very little of what the media has reported to us has been about who the NSA is targeting or what information they're gathering, though - most of it has been centered on how they're collecting the information. Disclosures of sources and methods doesn't just have the potential to hurt counter-terrorist efforts, they have the potential to affect a much larger scope of national interests. It's dishonest on both the government and media's side to say that this is just a debate about terrorism.
Holding public hearings does harm to no one. No one is being arrested; no one is being charged with a crime. They are answering questions. Both sides are presenting information to lawmakers as well as the public. If this is your definition of fascism, then we must using different dictionaries.
The government doesn't hold a monopoly on lies and misdirection, either. There's no reason that you shouldn't be just as skeptical of the reporting of any news agency as you should from a government press release. Given the number of errors, misdirections and retractions that we've seen over the past few months, one really should be closely examining the reporting and asking how much is truth and how much is either misinterpretation or just hype to draw advertising dollars. A few example that I can recall that you wouldn't have seen on the HN front page:
- Stewart Baker, quoted extensively in the "NSA spies on porn" article, claims the authors omitted key parts of his quotes because it would make them look hypocritical: http://www.volokh.com/2013/11/27/understanding-enemy/
So no, I don't give journalists a free pass. The reporters who are looking at these documents have never touched these systems, and they're getting all of their information from a single source. They're not experts and I expect them to make mistakes. The also have newspapers to sell, and some of those articles are looser on the headlines than others. When they release a document, I expect to see members of the intelligence community come before Congress and get grilled over it, so that the public can get a better understanding of what they're seeing in the papers. In the same manner, when the press has information that could affect national interests, I expect them to answer questions in a public hearing about how they're handling that information, especially when they play such a huge role in guiding our understanding of the debate.
I prefer to apply a good deal of skepticism and critical thinking to anything I read on the internet. I like my Kool-Aid that way. How does yours taste?
I mostly agree with your second point, but to your first: even a small-time drug dealer former acquaintance of mine was familiar with ECHELON and other well-studied-but-top-secret sorts of programs, and basically assumed if he said the wrong words on the phone that some computer would start listening. I think anyone with reason enough to be paranoid would probably come to a similar conclusion with a bit of googling.
You can be paranoid and assume things, but that only saves you if your assumptions are correct. In fact, if your goal is to avoid the NSA (or the cops/FBI/whoever in your acquaintance's case), having the wrong assumptions would be detrimental in that you'd be expending a lot of effort to avoid authority with no gain in security. Never mentioning drugs over the phone doesn't help if the police never tap your phone but the guy you just sold to is an undercover cop.
I see this argument used frequently, and I don't understand it all. I've been under the impression that most people did not know about the scale and capabilities of the NSA. This stuff was not public information. If the average person didn't know about it, why would the people being actively targeted know about it? Does the Guardian have evidence that "the terrorists" know about the sources and methods used by the NSA that are being disclosed now?
Rather than hauling in journalists for questioning and trying to intimidate them, the Commons would do well to encourage and join that debate ...
I can't speak for the UK, since I haven't followed the reaction over GCHQ as much, but the heads of the US intelligence community have been called in front of Congress quite a few times since the leaks started to be questioned regarding these programs. Several of their appearances were public, which is rare for intelligence committee hearings. This debate is happening. That said, if the press is holding onto a trove of information that the government claims could do serious harm to national security, what exactly is wrong with calling them forward to answer questions about how they intend to use it and how they intend to ensure that what they disclose will not affect national security? I would think that answers to those questions would certainly fall in the public interest.