[jasmes]

Journalistic integrity balancing with the national security interests of the most powerful nation on the planet is complicated. I am comfortable trusting the NYT to do their job.

I hope that eventually all the technical papers eventually are available out of nerdy curiosity, but I’d prefer that be through declassification and not espionage.

[cwkoss]

The NYT has a long history of being pro-war. People who dislike US using military force to enforce global hegemony would probably disagree with many of the editorial choices they are making behind closed doors.

[bediger4000]

Yeah, I remember the NYT sitting on Risen and Lichtblau's 2004 reporting about NSA dragnet surveillance until 2005, after Bush won.

NYT is not only pro-war, they're very conservative.

[hax0ron3]

The Atlantic and Pacific oceans and the US nuclear triad mean that there is nothing in those documents that could pose any significant threat to US national security.

The NSA might in fact be occasionally helping to stop relatively small-scale attacks. However, as Prigozhin's march on Moscow in Russia and the 10/7 attacks in Israel show, even running an authoritarian surveillance state or a heavily militarized state with top-notch intelligence services can only do so much to prevent attacks. I think that adding more and more surveillance has diminishing returns in preventing attacks, meanwhile its existence is a threat to free society both directly, in that it could theoretically be used against political dissidents, and indirectly, in that it encourages a culture of self-censorship that is antithetical to political freedom.

If no amount of risk is acceptable, then any amount of surveillance is justified. To have a free society some level of risk must be accepted.

[Eisenstein]

> there is nothing in those documents that could pose any significant threat to US national security.

You are saying that because if anyone attacks us with conventional forces we will nuke them/invade them then we have no nation security interest concerning anything in classified documents compiled by our espionage services?

Is this a correct interpretation and if so do you stand by it? If not can you please clarify what you meant?

[hax0ron3]

Revealing what is in those documents might threaten US power projection in the world, but it would not threaten US national security in any significant way. That is, it might hurt the US' ability to shape the world as it desires, but it would not make the US significantly more vulnerable to being attacked because no matter how much people know about the NSA's activities, groups that want to attack the US would still be confronted by the US' overwhelming national security strengths of being surrounded by huge oceans, having a nuclear deterrent, and also having the world's most powerful conventional military.

I can imagine there being classified documents that pose an actual significant national security risk. Perhaps some details about how nuclear plants are secured, or the details of the mechanisms by which authorization to fire nuclear missiles is given. Stuff like that. But there should be nothing like that in the NSA documents. Maybe there is something in there that would tip people off about the NSA's encryption-cracking capabilities. But no system that is actually critical for national security should be vulnerable to such information being revealed. And if there is some system that is vulnerable because of it, more surveillance is not the answer anyway.

[subjectsigma]

> Perhaps some details about how nuclear plants are secured, or the details of the mechanisms by which authorization to fire nuclear missiles is given. Stuff like that. But there should be nothing like that in the NSA documents.

You are wildly incorrect. NSA does lots to help secure the homeland.

[nerpderp82]

For like what 10B out of the 99B the US spends on "Intelligence", we at least get Ghidra and some dodgy cryptography.

[hax0ron3]

Such as what? And is it worth the downsides of mass surveillance?

[subjectsigma]

You can read their website and find out, they address some things you mentioned in the first few lines:

https://www.nsa.gov/Cybersecurity/Overview/

Whether or not that justifies mass surveillance is a different question. I don’t think so. The NSA is a really, really big place. You could work there for a lifetime and not engage in illegal surveillance. I think getting rid of the bad parts shouldn’t require us to get rid of the good as well.

[nerpderp82]

> comfortable trusting the NYT to do their job

Your comfort is one thing. Noted. But do you know enough about the NYT, what would their job be exactly?

They don't have a stellar track record. Iraq-War, Judith Miller.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Miller

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/reporter-judith-...

[ClumsyPilot]

> national security interests of the most powerful nation on the planet is complicated

It's actually the opposite

National security of least powerfull countries, like Korea, is most complicated. They are most at risk and least likely to harm others.

The most powerfull nation on earth is the opposite, it is not really in danger, its very secure, and presents the most danger to others - whether through ignorance or stupidity or malice.

So we should actually be publishing almost everything from US/Russia/China because they often ruin millions of lives, but in practice ofcourse we do the opposite.

[riversflow]

The bigger you are, the farther you have to fall. The most powerful nation on earth also has the most to lose.

[ClumsyPilot]

The richer you are, the more you habe to lose. Thats why welfare state should take care of the richest people first

[Eisenstein]

Do you really think that as a global power the national security interests become less complex and less serious?

[wubrr]

You're basically just saying that you're okay with CIA/NSA doing whatever they want and manipulating public opinion however they want without any accountability whatsoever.

[pauldenton]

Just like they did in 2003 with WMDs in Iraq? Or when they said that Trump colluded with the Russians and that's why he got elected? At least the journalists who said Saddam had WMDs didn't get a Pulitzer Prize, like those reporting on Russiagate did back in 2018. https://nypost.com/2022/02/20/the-absurd-russiagate-pulitzer... Meanwhile NYPost breaks the Hunter Biden Laptop story and gets banned from every major social media and tech site for saying the truth, while NYT and Washington Post get Pulitzer Prizes for telling lies.

[feoren]

> Meanwhile NYPost breaks the Hunter Biden Laptop story and gets banned from every major social media and tech site for saying the truth, while NYT and Washington Post get Pulitzer Prizes for telling lies

"Truth" and "lies" mean something different than "things that emotionally resonate with me based on my a-priori beliefs" and "things that make me angry". It's weird that it's so easy for us humans to forget that. Or perhaps it's "things the correct people say" vs. "things those other people say"? Not sure which definitions you're using here.