Newspaper: Snowden documents reveal surprising depth of NSA activities

[unhappycamper]

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/11/03/207332/newspaper-snowden-documents-reveal.html


Newspaper: Snowden documents reveal surprising depth of NSA activities
Posted by Mark Seibel on November 3, 2013 Updated 7 hours ago

WASHINGTON — The New York Times published in its Sunday print edition a wide-ranging look at the contents of the leaked Snowden documents that I recommend you read. You can find the full story here --> http://tinyurl.com/kv9ew9h.

WikiLeaks called the article a “spoiler” in a tweet this morning and accused the Times, with which it has a hate-hate relationship, of undercutting the work of its competitors by providing just a sentence or two on revelations that deserved far more exploration.

That is one way to look at the piece. I counted at least 15 items laid out in the article’s 5,000 words that deserved a separate headline, starting with the first two paragraphs where we learn that the NSA somehow pirated a list of U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s talking points ahead of a friendly meeting with Barack Obama in April.

To give you a taste of the story’s range: The NSA’s Dishfire database “stores years of text messages from around the world, just in case.” The Tracfin program “accumulates gigabytes of credit card purchases.” SNACKS, which stands for Social Network Analysis Collaboration Knowledge Services, tries to figure out who reports to whom in an organization by analyzing texts. NSA gave information on the location of FARC guerrillas to the Colombian government. Its listening post in Texas helped thwart a plot against Swedish artist who had drawn pictures of the Prophet Mohammed. It tracked the visit to Kurdistan Province of Iran’s supreme leader so well that it recorded the advance team’s discussion of how to get an ambulance and a fire truck aboard other vehicles for the journey.

[bemildred]

1. Maybe: Ex-NSA Director Has A Radical Idea For Handling The Snowden Leaks

“My advice would be to take everything you think Snowden has and get it out yourself,” Bobby R. Inman told the Times. “It would certainly be a shock to the agency. But bad news doesn’t get better with age. The sooner they get it out and put it behind them, the faster they can begin to rebuild.”

http://www.businessinsider.com/ex-nsa-directors-radical-idea-for-snowden-leaks-2013-11