In a post below, I make note the point that the boundaries of security clearances are extremely elastic and will be used by any administration to suit its purposes.
I also decry the media, saying:
The story-hungry press lets them get away with this with impunity, often citing "Administration sources who could not be identified because of the sensitivity of the information" or some such silly moniker.
Little did I know that a few hours later the New York Times would publish this story, with a full explanation of NSA data-collecting algorithms and other information. It contains the following words:
To conduct the surveillance, the N.S.A. is temporarily copying and then sifting through the contents of what is apparently most e-mails and other text-based communications that cross the border. The senior intelligence official, who, like other former and current government officials, spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic, said the N.S.A. makes a “clone of selected communication links” to gather the communications, but declined to specify details, like the volume of the data that passes through them.
Who has the higher ethical lapse here, the administration or the newspaper?
In any event, if Edward Snowden deserves arrest for what he disclosed, what about this person, who provided detailed information on the same topic?
I also decry the media, saying:
The story-hungry press lets them get away with this with impunity, often citing "Administration sources who could not be identified because of the sensitivity of the information" or some such silly moniker.
Little did I know that a few hours later the New York Times would publish this story, with a full explanation of NSA data-collecting algorithms and other information. It contains the following words:
To conduct the surveillance, the N.S.A. is temporarily copying and then sifting through the contents of what is apparently most e-mails and other text-based communications that cross the border. The senior intelligence official, who, like other former and current government officials, spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic, said the N.S.A. makes a “clone of selected communication links” to gather the communications, but declined to specify details, like the volume of the data that passes through them.
Who has the higher ethical lapse here, the administration or the newspaper?
In any event, if Edward Snowden deserves arrest for what he disclosed, what about this person, who provided detailed information on the same topic?
Indeed, the Fourth Rail of government has blurred the line separating integrity from influence. News has become more entertainment, jingoism, and muckraking and less fact-digging than at any time in the last 130 years in the U.S.
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