Some Facts About How NSA Stories Are Reported

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Several members of the august “US Journalists Against Transparency” club are outraged by revelations in yesterday’s New York Times (jointly published by der Spiegel) that the NSA has been hacking the products of the Chinese tech company Huawei as well as Huawei itself at exactly the same time (and in exactly the same way) as the US Government has been claiming the Chinese government hacks. Echoing the script of national security state officials, these journalists argue that these revelations are unjustified, even treasonous, because this is the type of spying the NSA should be doing, and disclosure serves no public interest while harming American national security, etc. etc.

True to form, however, these beacons of courage refuse to malign the parties that actually made the choice to publish these revelations – namely, the reporters and editors of the New York Times – and instead use it to advance their relentless attack on Edward Snowden. To these journalists, there are few worse sins than “stealing” the secrets of the US government and leaking them to the press (just as was true in the WikiLeaks case, one must congratulate the US Government on its outstanding propaganda feat of getting its journalists to lead the war on those who bring transparency to the nation’s most powerful factions).

Some Facts About How NSA Stories Are Reported

This is an important point that I think can't be stressed enough. That it is the media outlets, the Guardian, Washington Post, New York Times, Der Spiegel, etc..., making the choice about what to publish and what not to publish.

(3) Snowden has made repeatedly clear that he did not want all of the documents he provided to be published. When Snowden furnished documents to the journalists with whom he chose to work (which, just by the way, expressly did not include the NYT), he made clear that he did not believe all of those materials should be published. Obviously, if he wanted all of those documents published, he could have and would have just uploaded them to the internet himself; he wouldn’t have needed to work with journalists.

As he has said repeatedly, he wanted journalists – not himself – to make these decisions based on what is in the public interest and what can be disclosed without subjecting innocent people to harm. He was adamant that not all of the documents he provided were appropriate for publication, and was especially clear (at least to me) that certain categories of documents not be published (which is why those who demand that all documents be released are arguing, even though they won’t acknowledge it, that we should violate our agreement with our source, disregard Snowden’s conditions for furnishing the documents, and subject him to a wide range of risks he did not want to take).

Another interesting note, I think, is that Greenwald confirms that Snowden did have at least some of this material with him in Hong Kong. I don't believe this was known prior, though it had certainly been speculated about with no shred of proof by some. Greenwald confirms it, however:

(1) Edward Snowden has not leaked a single document to any journalist since he left Hong Kong in June: 9 months ago.

Note, we still have no evidence to indicate that Edward Snowden has any classified material with him in Russia, let alone that he has shared it with the Russian government willingly or unwillingly. It should be noted that a condition of his temporary asylum in Russia is that he not leak any more classified material at all.