Take note, I believe Greenwald deals with the primary objections that have been raised here.
This is just one of his strong arguments: "The New York Times reports today that Yahoo went to court in order to vehemently resist the NSA's directive that they join the PRISM program, and joined only when the court compelled it to do so. The company specifically "argued that the order violated its users' Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures."
If, as NSA (and Silicon Valley) defenders claim, PRISM is nothing more than a harmless little drop-box mechanism for delivering to the government what these companies were already providing, why would Yahoo possibly be in court so vigorously resisting it and arguing that it violates their users' Fourth Amendment rights? Similarly, how could it possibly be said - as US government officials have - that PRISM has been instrumental in stopping terrorist plots if it did not enhance the NSA's collection capabilities?"
Actually, I think the bits you quote exactly show how Greenwald isn't demonstrating a very high standard of integrity here. I really want to take him seriously (although, in honesty, I also really want to believe that my employer, Google, is ethical), but even in the small bit you quoted, there are two major mistakes that completely change the story.
First, the NYT article that Greenwald links, by Claire Cain Miller, does make that claim (that Yahoo resisted joining Prism). However, it gives zero evidence, and in fact accidentally gives evidence against the thesis. As their evidence that Yahoo fought against Prism, they cite a court report that doesn't talk about Prism at all. It talks about Yahoo fighting FISA orders. (I didn't read every word, but I can manage a text-search. And while the docs never mention the Prism program (admittedly there are many many redactions), it does use the word "prism" in an innocent context. Would you let that slide, if you were redacting a document about a secret program called Prism?) As far as I know, nine out of nine accused companies agree that they comply with FISA orders if they receive any, and yes that presumably includes complying with the gag orders. On the other hand, while we're on the subject of those orders, several of the companies have publically stated that they fight to limit the scope of those orders, often refusing to fulfill requests until they're clarified or narrowed (or until a judge says "yes, really, do it like I said the first time").
It's kind of amazing that Greenwald turns such actions, protective on behalf of users, into an accusation of hypocrisy.
Second, far less important but still evidence of Greenwald's modest commitment to getting the details right... I have yet to see a statement by any of the nine companies that "Prism" is "a dropbox". I've read articles by reporters saying that insiders said that. Meanwhile, several of the companies, including Google, have publicly said that there is no such dropbox, and that information is delivered by various means, including SFTP and courier. (I admit, I liked the dropbox/work-tracker theory. Oh well.)
I would really like Greenwald's core goal, of focusing the public ire on getting some light shed on surveillance, and surveillance policy. I think there's a lot of good to be done there. But this article is just crammed full of dodgy claims. In fact, now that I've gotten started, let me pick a few more of them apart.
In the section marked (3), he says that Drake wrote that he (Drake) saw all the same things at the NSA that Snowden is writing about. Read the source. Drake very obviously means that at a very high level; Drake saw stuff that seemed unethical, Snowden saw stuff that seemed unethical. And then he says that Binney said that Snowden's claims are absolutely true. Watch the video or read the transcript, that's not what Binney says. Binney says that he believes Snowden (which is interesting, true, but not the same). Regarding Prism specifically, Binney spends most of his time talking about something else (wiretapping fibreoptics), and then ends with something equivalent to "but I bet they'd like to have access to more data, more directly" (paraphrasing mine, emphasis mine, read it for yourself). Seriously, that is some seriously deceptive writing by Greenwald.
Small quibble: I note that he says they didn't allege the Prism accusations, but rather claimed that they had a document claiming these things, and cites his own headline. I think he's insane. When a headline says "NSA program taps into user data of Apple, Google, others", that sure sounds to me like the headline is claiming that it's true. I guess this kind of weaseling is what it's like to be a yellow journalist.
Further down he references Elias Groll's week-old article about "spin", extensively quoting Chris Soghoian. I'm not a big fan of that article, but the day it was published, it wasn't obviously full of nonsense. It claims that the wording of various public statements was very legalistically chosen to be technically true but give the wrong impression. I disagree, but respectfully. But by the time Greenwald references that article a week later, every one of the claims made in that article have been debunked, in the sense that executives (in Google's case, that means Larry Page and David Drummond) have clarified and said "no no, we weren't weaselling... no access at all... you asked us about direct access, we answered about that, but there's no access of ANY kind, and we don't do sweeping surveillance, and we always have a lawyer in the loop, and so on and so on". I mean, they could be lying. But Groll's claim that they're weaseling is obviously false, at this point. Why, then, does Greenwald reference Groll's now-disproven article? Oh, right, demagoguery.
He next quotes an NYT piece on "secret meetings", but read the piece, you'll see that it's a combination of "the government WANTS crazy access" (which I believe), and "MAYBE SiVa gave up the goods!!" speculation (which is... well, wild speculation).
Then he brings up Perlstein, and calls him a liar. Read Perlstein's piece (linked), and Perlstain's "Response to Glenn Greenwald" (not linked), and you'll see that Perlstein's right: Greenwald hasn't answered the point that Perlstein thinks is critical. And Greenwald gives an interview on MSNBC as an example of him answering the points, and he's crazy, he doesn't answer the points at all (though Greenwald does, overall, make a very good showing in that interview, IMO). Perlstein's specific point is a (totally technically-correct) nit-pick about the word "servers" (the only discussion of this in the MSNBC interview involves Greenwald saying, in effect, "I have no idea if it's true, I'm just telling you what I was told"). Perlstein's broader claim, btw, is somewhat similar to my own here, which is that Greenwald is combining good reporting with sometimes-very-sloppy reasoning, and that it's sabotaging his own credibility, and he should get it right.
And finally, in Update 1, is the bit you quoted, possibly the worst reasoning in the piece.
---------
The thing is, there's a lot of good stuff in this article. It starts with a totally excellent reference to reporting on Loretta Sanchez's on-the-record remarks, which the public should hear about. And it's worth reminding people, as he does, that Wyden and Udall were yelling over a year ago, perhaps on this very topic (since they were vague, it's hard to be sure). I agree with him that this shit should make you think twice about partisan politics. And I agree that the meta-secrecy, blocking the EFF/ACLU/etc from even knowing about court rulings that may or may not rule the secrecy legal, are mind-boggling and very very hard to see in a positive light. (Tho I do take writings from the EFF with a grain of salt, much as I love them overall).
Moreover, Greenwald overall puts his focus where it should be: on the government. I mean, if he's right about all this complicit bullshit from tech companies, some focus is due there too, but it's minor by comparison. The real issue is government, and Greenwald agrees.
Goddammit, Greenwald, you're right about so much. Get your fucking act together on the last 20%, man!
As the old adage goes, "It's not fascism when we do it."
I see far too many people who believe that Democrats can do no evil and that Republicans are evil incarnate, when the reality is that it took both parties, working together for decades, to arrive at the current juncture.
Fascism has a particular meaning that most people misuse. While presidents like FDR took a lot of inspiration from the fascists, it's tough to say that the US is authentically fascistic. First of all, it's mistaken to proclaim that a government is something that it claims that it's not. Second, the US is too pluralistic in terms of policy towards culture to be considered fascist.
You can say that a system is bad or dysfunctional without likening it to the Italian and German/Austrian governments under Mussolini and Hitler. If you read Mussolini's speeches + books or Hitler's books + speeches (not that they're terribly interesting except as historical documents), you learn that most people using 'fascist' as a pejorative don't really understand what it means.
The US is just as it claims it is: a democracy. There are good reasons as to why thinkers ranging from the founding fathers of the US to Aristotle were skeptical about the long term viability of democracy as a system of government. All these brutal, freedom-sacrificing policies are absolutely necessary to maintain democratic government. This is something most modern Westerners are unwilling to acknowledge. Spooks in the NSA and elsewhere at least comprehend that what they do is necessary to maintain their government, as reprehensible as their actions are.
What do you get when you give 300m+ people political power? The same disaster that many of the founders predicted would happen: tyranny, social dissolution, and foul policies motivated by envy.
> "There are good reasons as to why thinkers ranging from the founding fathers of the US to Aristotle were skeptical about the long term viability of democracy as a system of government."
QUESTION: Isn't that erection of barriers to democracy woven through the entire history of the United States?
CHOMSKY: It goes back to the writing of the Constitution. They were pretty explicit. Madison saw a "danger" in democracy that was quite real and he responded to it. In fact, the "problem" was noticed a long time earlier. It's clear in Aristotle's Politics, the sort of founding book of political theory -- which is a very careful and thoughtful analysis of the notion of democracy. Aristotle recognizes that, for him, that democracy had to be a welfare state; it had to use public revenues to insure lasting prosperity for all and to insure equality. That goes right through the Enlightenment. Madison recognized that, if the overwhelming majority is poor, and if the democracy is a functioning one, then they'll use their electoral power to serve their own interest rather than the common good of all. Aristotle's solution was, "OK, eliminate poverty." Madison faced the same problem but his solution was the opposite: "Eliminate democracy."
> "All these brutal, freedom-sacrificing policies are absolutely necessary to maintain democratic government."
What exactly are you referring to? You seem to be arguing that the word fascism is overused, and then go on to explain that democracy would lead to tyranny, and at least the NSA understands that.
This is so broken I really, really wish you could elaborate. Call it morbid curiosity.
Chomsky agrees with what I said! And it's more than just Madison. Read the Federalist papers. Or this long letter from John Adams to John Taylor, source of this shopworn quote on democracy [1]:
>"You say, I “might have exhibited millions of plebeians sacrificed to the pride, folly, and ambition of monarcy and aristocracy.” This is very true. And I might have exhibited as many millions of plebeians sacrificed by the pride, folly, and ambition of their fellow-plebeians and their own, in proportion to the extent and duration of their power. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty. When clear prospects are opened before vanity, pride, avarice, or ambition, for their easy gratification, it is hard for the most considerate philosophers and the most conscientious moralists to resist the temptation. Individuals have conquered themselves. Nations and large bodies of men, never."
...
>"Democracy is chargeable with all the blood that has been spilled for five-and-twenty years.
>Napoleon and all his generals were but creatures of democracy, as really as Rienzi, Theodore, Massaniello, Jack Cade, or Wat Tyler. This democratical hurricane, inundation, earthquake, pestilence, call it which you will, at last aroused and alarmed all the world, and produced a combination unexampled, to prevent its further progress."
Currently, our politicians quite rightly talk of the US as a democracy, because it is such a universal suffrage state within the shell of a republic.
>What exactly are you referring to? You seem to be arguing that the word fascism is overused, and then go on to explain that democracy would lead to tyranny, and at least the NSA understands that.
This is so broken I really, really wish you could elaborate. Call it morbid curiosity.
I'm actually quite familiar with the Chomsky critique of the American system for restricting democracy. That's not what I'm referring to.
1. I dislike it when people use 'fascist' as an all-purpose insult meaning 'form of government that I don't like that people have been propagandized against.' I suggest that people actually read fascist tracts (like 'The Doctrine of Fascism' [2]) if they're going to use the term. When people use the word, their brains shut off. It's also vulgar to claim that fascism is just the 'unification of corporations and the state.'
Now, part of the problem is that fascists were themselves gooey about the definition of what their system was -- but it's clear that whatever economic system they chose to use was subordinate to their 'spiritual' goals -- and that 'spiritual' outlook is mostly absent in the US system. While the US system may share certain characteristics of fascist states, it is not itself fascistic, and proclaiming that it is just muddles the discussion. It confuses effects with causes.
The reason why that's important is because if you believe that secret fascists are the ones corrupting the republic, all you need to do is find the scapegoats and hang them. The truth is that the source of these abuses comes from a deeper source -- the idea that constitutions the source of some strange law-magic that can restrict the actions of people in government. Regardless of how clever it seemed in the 18th century, it's now quite obvious that paper with words on it is not a source of eldritch government-restricting powers.
2. Yes, the current state under democracy is entirely a predictable consequence of the political form. I would say that Chomsky's reading of 'Politics' is incorrect in a general sense while being correct in a couple specific aspects (saying that democracy is a counter-weight to oligarchy). It'd be very tough to make a case that Aristotle saw a political system based on the first principle that men are equal in any sense as workable (because he writes the opposite in Book V, paragraph 3 [3]). 'Politics' is an essentially cynical work that describes how all political systems tend to crumble with time and the influence of human vice. While I can see why Chomsky would interpret it in the way that he does, I'd say that he's cherry picking to make a point for his favored system. Much in the same way that the founders did, arguably, to lend a classical garland to their new republic.
Hope I've satisfied your morbid curiosity.
Anyway, the NSA's actions are consistent with the addled mission of the American state as a whole. You can't provide security for Europe, the Pacific regions, certain Middle East states, many parts of Asia, and the Americas without a global surveillance state to support that mission. The main issue is that the broad policies are not achievable and shouldn't be pursued in the first place. Trying to limit what the NSA can do while also trying to preserve current US policies is just confused. You can't have both privacy and Empire. The former impedes the latter too much.
Yet, tyrannical aggression, both internationally and domestically, are popular political platforms. 'The people' are just getting cold feet about what that requires. Just another point against giving the wheel of state to the fickle and blood-soaked hands of 'the people.'
However, fascism is not a single, set, ideology, and there are those who view the current spate of "crony capitalism" as a form of fascism, namely "Corporate Fascism."
I have not seen the word "democracy" anywhere within the US Constitution, yet the word "Republic" is present in that "damned piece of paper" which I swore an oath to defend.
http://rense.com/general69/paper.htm
(apocryphal source)
I do agree with your final paragraph, and consider myself lucky to be an American. We could be a lot worse off.
Exactly. This is the kind of thing that completely undermines the free market.
And particularly detrimental to our economy, is not only PRISM - but any secret deal carried out between a corporation & a government agency.
Google has had secret deals with the NSA for years [1] the scope of this relationship is now being revealed, but I'd also love to know if and exactly how much money has been transacted between these two 'partners'. Even if it's $1 that transaction signifies Google's participation in undermining the free market. Because how do we know that the NSA isn't funneling money to Google? If the deals are secret, we have to assume the worst.
Best case scenario there is no money changing hands. Worst case scenario, Google is being funded by the NSA to A) carry out tactics & strategies on behalf of the NSA and B) to gain market-share and competitive advantage so these operations can perpetuate. Highly immoral, deceptive, and completely unfair to any business, startup entrepreneur, or hacker trying to make a living in this industry.
Secret deals with the NSA? First of all, bullshit. Second, that link claims nothing of the kind. Do you even read?
The link claims that a group called Consumer Watchdog made those claims, and then goes on to describe a pattern of partisan attack by that group, preferentially against Google, including wild and implausible allegations. Again, the majority of the column-space at PC World is casting doubt on these allegations.
Maybe you're an NSA agent, mrschwabe, raking muck on innocents to cover up your tracks. Can you prove that you aren't? How much money have they paid you? Way to undermine the free market, you commie nazi! Best case, there's no money changing hands, and you're a liar because you think it's funny. Worst case, you're a traitor. (Note: in case you got hit by Poe's Law, this paragraph is satire of your laughable reasoning, not an actual accusation.)
If Google were in bed with the NSA, they wouldn't be leading the charge against NSL gag orders, by successfully campaigning the feds to let them publish approximate numbers. (Credit where it's due, Calyx Internet is the bravest corporate foe of NSLs that I know of. But after Calyx, I know of no company as active as Google in resisting over-surveillance and fighting for privacy.) (Also, note that NSLs, despite the name, are more-associated with the FBI than the NSA, but my point still holds, because it's fedgov surveillance.)
And Google's just-this-week petition to increase transparency over FISA surveillance is also not consistent with favouring the NSA. More broadly, Google has been trying to draw attention to this for years, but obviously cautiously, because it's too easy for irrational crackpots to make the claims you made.
We don't know for sure that Google isn't doing horrible things. But all of the public evidence is 100% consistent with Google being active protectors of the public against the government, and it is... less consistent, with the opposite.
Your language and name calling stands out, it looks like an authorian in damage control mode trying to influence the more dumb demography into distrusting critique against FISA and the US government.
I suggest you better try that in a different place where that dumber demography reads.
I strongly recommend that everyone be highly critical of FISA. The US government at large is a more complicated subject, but criticism there is also a great idea.
I think it's obvious in my comment that I admire resistance against FISA and NSLs. I believe that Google has conducted such resistence (though I may have been deceived), and insofar as that is true, I admire Google for doing so (and I admire Calyx for doing so). This should be plainly obvious from my comment.
Given that, the fact that you claim I'm trying to trick people into not critiquing FISA and the US govt, I can only conclude that you didn't actually read my comment. With allies like you, who needs a malicious government.
Regarding name-calling, perhaps that's a fair point. But I think not. I asked if Mr Schwabe actually read the article he keeps citing (since it's inconsistent with his claim about it), and I think that's legitimate. And I called his reasoning laughable, but his reasoning IS laughable; he thinks the best case is the null case, which is crazy, because there are lots of better possibilities imaginable, like the possibility that Google is championing user rights and winning (maybe that's wishful thinking, but it IS a possibility).
Regardless of jholman's allegiance - you elude to an important point that should be understood by anyone reading HN. There are people on the payroll of military contractors actively engaged in discussions online via fake accounts on all the major social networks. "Operation Earnest Voice" is has reportedly a budget of $200m.
Yaa101's sentiment is that I sound pro-NSA. That's a joke. Why would you agree with that?
I strongly agree with you about astroturfing though, and I think it's depressing and reprehensible.
And, in case I haven't made this disclosure in a place where you've read it, I am at this time gainfully employed by Google, and I'm sure this distorts my thinking. I really really want to believe that Google is not evil, because if Google is evil than I have to decide if I quit this awesome job, etc etc, and that desire probably has some effect on my judgement. I encourage everyone to be cautious about everything everyone says, including me.
I don't think there's a lot of astroturfing on HN, though, if any. (For one thing, HN is pretty fringe). But also, the comments never say "don't worry it's all okay". Most of the comments raise crazy conspiracy theories, and other ones point out actual holes in crazy conspiracy theories. Hmn, though there are also people jumping on every most-recent theory that makes things look okay, actually... and that would be good astroturfing, so maybe I take it back. Actually, upon consideration, if I was the NSA, I'd post more theories like yours. Not that I'm accusing you personally. (Again, to protect against Poe's Law: this paragraph was sincere, not parody.)
What I'd like to see more of, in these discussions about surveillance, is theories putting the facts together in ways that make sense, and theories that are actually consistent with the facts we have. When you said that that PCWorld link backed up claims of Google-NSA backroom deals, that made no sense. Just read it. When you said (in a more-recent comment) that the CIA is invested in many SiVa companies... well, I don't agree with your conclusions, but your pattern of reasoning is a lot more plausible. Partly because you didn't go too far, like saying "this proves that Google is just a CIA front company". Because it doesn't prove much of anything... but it IS part of the set of facts that are interesting.
I am perpetually disappointed at how everyone seems to read one or two articles, and feel they have enough facts to stop reading and form an opinion.
"A federal appeals court on Friday upheld the National Security Agency’s decision to withhold from the public documents confirming or denying any relationship it has with Google concerning encryption and cybersecurity."
If there was nothing to hide, why do they try to hide it?
And let's not forget Google's relationship with In-Q-Tel, the CIA's venture capital firm, which provided investment to Keyhole, Inc - later acquired by Google (Google Maps). That right there tells you Google has a direct relationship with the intelligence community - at the very least CIA investors. Interestingly, that same 'wing' of Google is driving vans around our neighborhoods with panoramic cameras on top; snooping our WiFi networks.
If Google is in bed with the NSA, as is so blatantly obvious to many, they would be leading the charge on an aggressive PR campaign to discredit and distract people from this issue. Eric Schmidt's denial, Google's call for transparency, Project Loon, etc - rather predictable pattern here.
Well, these are much more interesting links than your last round.
So, if your car has been stolen, and also you have evidence that 100 other cars have been stolen by the same crook, and then you report it to the police, and I go ask the police for comment about your car, and they say "we can't discuss that with you, jholman", does that mean that you have a secret relationship with police? I say no. I think the Google/NSA thing that Wired is refering to is very probably the same type of thing. The NSA are the cops you would go to, if the crook was another entire country. The secrecy the court upheld, reported in your link, was not whether or not Google went to the cops, but whether or not the cops investigated the thing Google asked them to.
"If there was nothing to hide, why do they try to hide it?" I agree, and it looks like Google agrees, but the NSA is crazy. The reason we should think that Google agrees is because Google campaigns to increase transparency, arguing that although national security is important, hiding the numbers of NSLs or FISA orders does not improve security, it just makes abuses possible.
Almost everybody in the valley is related to In-Q-Tel, emphatically including YCombinator. So, yeah, you're right about the facts on that one. I dunno what to make of it. DARPA funded the internet, too. TOR was designed originally by the Navy. Maybe it's all okay? Maybe we should be worried? It's really not clear. If you want more facts for your conspiracy-theory fire, there was an HN link a day or two ago to a Paul Carr article at Pandodaily, responding to a rant by Arrington. (I think Arrington's piece is fucking retarded, personally, but I bet you'll love it. And I think Carr takes at face value too many of the rumours.) But Carr DOES have some juicy facts about relationships between the intel community and Silicon Valley. I don't draw the same conclusions that you draw, but it's good to have the same facts on the table.
I don't think there's anything new to be said about the Wifi/Maps thing. If it was a mistake, as Google alleges, it was obviously an embarrassing one. No one can prove whether it was a mistake or deliberate, though. There's lots of evidence that if Google didn't lie-a-lot then Google was basically not being super-naughty... but if Google was in bed with the NSA then they would have lied really really a lot, and so all that evidence is probably worth nothing.
I think that if you look at the history of NSA collaborators, like the telcos, you will NOT find calls for transparency. The denials, yeah, I mean... no denial would convince you, and I guess that's fair. But why don't you apply the same standard of doubt to everyone else, too? Remember that there is basically no evidence that Google has participated in any illegal surveillance, nor any widespread surveillance (legal or otherwise), except for some really vague allegation in five powerpoint slides, where those powerpoint slides ALSO make claims that are obviously false (like claiming you accomplish this amazing panopticon for $20M, which is hilarous).
Btw, on a completely irrelevant side-note, I don't think "dissemination" means what you think it means.
>>I know that many Democrats want to cling to the belief that, in Perlstein's words, "the powers that be will find it very easy to seize on this one error to discredit [my] NSA revelation, even the ones he nailed dead to rights". Perlstein cleverly writes that "such distraction campaigns are how power does its dirtiest work" as he promotes exactly that campaign.
How in the world could he make this mistake? Are the five slides the only ones he has out of the 40,000 documents that refer to PRISM? Why hasn't Snowden directly commented on this issue, or even better; why didn't Greenwald contact him when this issue came up?
I do think he jumped to conclusions based ont the slide; but the truth is, it isn't a closed issue. Intelligence sources and company executives sources continue to give somewhat differing answers about exactly what PRISM is or does. Some suggest that Greenwald got it about right the first time and it really is capable of pulling data on demand from company servers. Simply saying that PRISM is just a GUI interface doesn't rule out the possibility that such an 'active' data source is closely associated with the program.
Isn't the problem about this PRISM and other similar schemes, due to economic reasons? I mean, hey! These companies have to have, a registered office in some country, if its a big country, you get direct political pressure, and if not, the small country is given a small compensation (big one for it) to get the things moving.
Now this pressure is somehow made possible thanks to the profit motive of these companies, because they have on the line tax structures, say facebook has Ireland (?), so the U.S govt may have used the option available to any govt in this case:
Declare it abuse of law
or
Declare it a clever strategy, they can't do anything about.
So a few heads are cleared, some resignations are made, few whistle-blowers emerge, and you have the perfect recipe of social outrage.
This is just one of his strong arguments: "The New York Times reports today that Yahoo went to court in order to vehemently resist the NSA's directive that they join the PRISM program, and joined only when the court compelled it to do so. The company specifically "argued that the order violated its users' Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures."
If, as NSA (and Silicon Valley) defenders claim, PRISM is nothing more than a harmless little drop-box mechanism for delivering to the government what these companies were already providing, why would Yahoo possibly be in court so vigorously resisting it and arguing that it violates their users' Fourth Amendment rights? Similarly, how could it possibly be said - as US government officials have - that PRISM has been instrumental in stopping terrorist plots if it did not enhance the NSA's collection capabilities?"