[yaakov]

> The head of the National Security Agency hinted yesterday that logs of Americans' e-mail and Web site visits may be secretly vacuumed up by the world's most powerful intelligence agency

Sounds like they have zeroed in on the audit trail of what Snowden was able to access and/or what he has already given to Greenwald or the Washington Post. Some pre-damage control going on here.

> disclosing details about such surveillance would cause "our country to lose some sort of protection."

The people who they would be surveilling really wouldn't have suspected this capability already?

[declan]

Especially after the NYT's disclosures in December 2005, which included mention of email. And an earlier disclosure by a U.S. politician (this is from memory) about intercepting Al Qaeda satellite phone calls, which was probably a disclosure that was actually damaging.

Sometimes claiming, without proof, that revelations will "hurt America" is simply a way to justify secrecy.