I canÂt stand it.
A few days ago, I wrote in some detail about the National Security AgencyÂs data-mining program in hopes of calming the hysteria that has been whipped up in the last number of days by incorrect and misleading reports, as well as by plenty of ill-informed commentary based on those errors. At this point, IÂve decided that I need to tell a little bit more.
Some explanation up front: I spent seven years investigating the national-security systems and policies established in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks for my book 500 Days. I learned a fair amount about the data-mining programs of the N.S.A. and wrote about it. I summarized those findings in my last post. However, now it has become obvious to me that I need to go further than I did in my book, at least in hopes of calming things down. When discussing errors, IÂm going to mention Âreports regarding news articles, but IÂm not going to identify themÂthe last thing I want is for this to become a back-and-forth between reporters.
First, the much-ballyhooed PRISM program is not a program and not a secret, and anyone who says it is should not be trusted because they donÂt know what theyÂre talking about. PRISM is the name for the government computer system that is used to handle the foreign-intelligence data collected under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
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A good read.
(via RandomMonster - http://www.balloon-j.../#comment-4489437 )
Cheers,
Scott.