Walter Pincus: The question Snowden should have asked Putin

[arely staircase]

http://m.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/in-questioning-russias-putin-about-surveillance-snowden-misses-the-point/2014/04/21/c3e09352-c732-11e3-bf7a-be01a9b69cf1_story.html


The question Edward Snowden should have asked Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday was: “Would you please describe how the three versions of SORM operate and what is done with the intercepted phone, e-mail and other electronic media those systems collect?” The former National Security Agency contractor who in May leaked tens of thousands of highly classified NSA documents that described hundreds of U.S. electronic interception programs, must know about SORM (System of Operative-Investigative Measures), the decades-old but continually upgraded Russian electronic surveillance system.

........

One final word about the Snowden-Putin exchange. In his published response to critics Thursday, Snowden seemed to acknowledge SORM’s scope when he said journalists should ask Putin “for clarification as to how millions of indi apoloiduals’ communications are not being intercepted, analyzed or stored, when at least on a technical level the [Russian] systems that are in place must do precisely that in order to function.”Snowden offers Putin the opportunity to clarify his denial that his country intercepts, analyzes or stores millions of individual communications.

On the other hand, Snowden refers to Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr.’s answer at a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence as a “lie,” when Clapper said that the NSA was not collecting records on millions of Americans. Snowden then ignores Clapper’s apology and fuller statements about NSA programs. Different strokes?

[JI7]

1. i don't think Putin would have allowed that to be asked

[msanthrope]

2. Pincus just smacked Snowden and Greenwald for their utter lack of journalistic preparedness, and

rightfully so.

I mean, after reading the piece in the Guardian obviously written by Greenwald for Snowden, does anyone, and I mean anyone, doubt that this entire PR stunt was anything other than a Greenwald production?