NSA broke privacy rules thousands of times per year, audit finds

[steve2470]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-broke-privacy-rules-thousands-of-times-per-year-audit-finds/2013/08/15/3310e554-05ca-11e3-a07f-49ddc7417125_story.html

The National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008, according to an internal audit and other top-secret documents.

Most of the infractions involve unauthorized surveillance of Americans or foreign intelligence targets in the United States, both of which are restricted by law and executive order. They range from significant violations of law to typographical errors that resulted in unintended interception of U.S. e-mails and telephone calls.

The documents, provided earlier this summer to The Washington Post by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, include a level of detail and analysis that is not routinely shared with Congress or the special court that oversees surveillance. In one of the documents, agency personnel are instructed to remove details and substitute more generic language in reports to the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

In one instance, the NSA decided that it need not report the unintended surveillance of Americans. A notable example in 2008 was the interception of a “large number” of calls placed from Washington when a programming error confused U.S. area code 202 for 20, the international dialing code for Egypt, according to a “quality assurance” review that was not distributed to the NSA’s oversight staff.

[cantbeserious]

1. The Truth Keeps Exposing The Depth And Depravity Of NSA Actions

eom

[indepat]

3. But the proof that those actions are benign is no unconstitutionally procured information is ever

used against any person for persecution or possible prosecution, i.e., by being turned over to the DEA, et al.

[pscot]

6. I am NOT boiling this frog

And the proof is that the frog, though uncomfortably warm, is still alive.

[PowerToThePeople]

2. Confidence...

"It's not enough for me to have confidence in these programs," Obama said. "The American people have to have confidence in them as well." So send in the propaganda team in to DU, they are making too much noise about this issue.

[quinnox]

4. And these are the folks who say, "Trust us, nothing to see here, we are doing nothing wrong"

Only authoritarians and slavish sycophant types would defend this nonsense at this point.

[Catherina]

5. When NSA couldn't "practicably filter out the comms of Americans" they just collected it anyway

In what appears to be one of the most serious violations, the NSA diverted large volumes of international data passing through fiber-optic cables in the United States into a repository where the material could be stored temporarily for processing and selection.

The operation to obtain what the agency called “multiple communications transactions” collected and commingled U.S. and foreign e-mails, according to an article in SSO News, a top-secret internal newsletter of the NSA’s Special Source Operations unit. NSA lawyers told the court that the agency could not practicably filter out the communications of Americans.

All I can say is Thank you Edward Snowden!

[Catherina]

7. "Once added to its databases... the communications of Americans may be searched freely"

It just gets worse

The NSA uses the term “incidental” when it sweeps up the records of an American while targeting a foreigner or a U.S. person who is believed to be involved in terrorism. Official guidelines for NSA personnel say that kind of incident, pervasive under current practices, “does not constitute a . . . violation” and “does not have to be reported” to the NSA inspector general for inclusion in quarterly reports to Congress. Once added to its databases, absent other restrictions, the communications of Americans may be searched freely.

In one required tutorial, NSA collectors and analysts are taught to fill out oversight forms without giving “extraneous information” to “our FAA overseers.” FAA is a reference to the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which granted broad new authorities to the NSA in exchange for regular audits from the Justice Department and the office of the Director of National Intelligence and periodic reports to Congress and the surveillance court.

Using real-world examples, the “Target Analyst Rationale Instructions” explain how NSA employees should strip out details and substitute generic descriptions of the evidence and analysis behind their targeting choices.

[ProSense]

8. Here's the key part:

Here's the key part:

Members of Congress may read the unredacted documents, but only in a special secure room and are not allowed to take notes. Fewer than 10 percent of lawmakers employ a staff member who has the security clearance to read the reports and provide advice about their meaning and significance.

The limited portions of the reports that can be read by the public acknowledge “a small number of compliance incidents.”

Under NSA auditing guidelines, the incident count does not usually disclose the number of Americans affected.

“What you really want to know, I would think, is how many innocent U.S. person communications are, one, collected at all, and two, subject to scrutiny,” said Julian Sanchez, a research scholar and close student of the NSA at the Cato Institute.

The documents provided by Snowden offer only glimpses of those questions. Some reports make clear that an unauthorized search produced no records. But a single “incident” in February 2012 involved the unlawful retention of 3,032 files that the surveillance court had ordered the NSA to destroy, according to the May 2012 audit. Each file contained an undisclosed number of telephone call records.

They're still talking about metadata, not all the searches produce records, inadvertently targeting U.S. persons may or may not be the reason for the compliance problems (the report doesn't say), and it appears the minimization procedures work (records destroyed).

[mindwalker_i]

9. Two points

1: It's reasonable at this point to question whether the only data collected and examined in meta-data, given that there have been multiple lies about these programs already.

2: As many have pointed out, collecting meta-data is quite possible more intrusive than the contents of the calls themselves. It also seems like it would be easier to link people with other people using connections from meta-data and erroneously draw the conclusion that someone is a terrorist or, more likely, a drug dealer.

The real conclusion is that, no matter what comes out, you always reply that, essentially, we shouldn't worry about it - Obama is not doing anything illegal, or Obama is not doing anything wrong. Since data doesn't affect your opinion, your opinion doesn't reflect the reality of the situation and is useless for forming any kind of opinion.

[ProSense]

11. Fine,

1: It's reasonable at this point to question whether the only data collected and examined in meta-data, given that there have been multiple lies about these programs already.

2: As many have pointed out, collecting meta-data is quite possible more intrusive than the contents of the calls themselves. It also seems like it would be easier to link people with other people using connections from meta-data and erroneously draw the conclusion that someone is a terrorist or, more likely, a drug dealer.

The real conclusion is that, no matter what comes out, you always reply that, essentially, we shouldn't worry about it - Obama is not doing anything illegal, or Obama is not doing anything wrong. Since data doesn't affect your opinion, your opinion doesn't reflect the reality of the situation and is useless for forming any kind of opinion.

...and since you didn't refute my point, the "real conclusion" is that you clearly are upset that I made it.

I mean, your point one is about it being "reasonable at this point to question." Did I say it wasn't? That's the whole point if the goal is reform.

As to your second point, many people dispute that assertion.

[mindwalker_i]

30. No, I didn't refute your point

I said your point is dumb. Specifically, collecting meta-data, if that's only what they did, is just as worse if not more worse. I also brought up that there are some real good reasons to doubt it's just meta-data.

As to the main concludion, it's like arguing with a bunch of people about the tar sands pipeline, where one always extolls how great the pipeline would be. They continuously say it would be really great: would help the economy, would bring down gas prices, would end unemployment. They post articles about these things, interviews, and whatnot. But then you discover (quickly) that there are all sorts of articles that come to the opposite conclusions, that the articles posted so far present a very one-sided view of the issues. There might even be some good points to those articles, but they need to be compared and contrasted to the rest to see whether their arguments can hold.

As time goes by, this hypothetical person continues to support the pipeline regardless of what new information comes up. You realize that they are bringing no new information to the argument and not presenting a reasoned analysis of any new issues. That's person's "contributions" are just noise at that point. Even worse, you are suspicious of any information they do contribute - is it factual, does it comprehend data, or is it just pro-pipeline propaganda?

So when one source defends Obama at every turn, regardless of the issue or information, I become suspicious of that source and their motives. Setting up a huge apparatus to collect all the phone calls and internet traffic of people, including those in this country, is an evil thing to do, but more inportantly it's very dangerous to a democracy in that it stifles dissent and conversations about the direction of the country. What we've heard about so far is definitely enough that we should be highly concerned about it, yet your arguments only attempt to deflect the conversation.

[Bolo Boffin]

12. Another important mitigating factor

We are getting a handle now on how many mistakes were made. We don't have any information on the error rate.

If there were only 10,000 total searches/retentions of data in one year and 2772 of them had compliance issues, then yes, there's a huge problem. That's an error rate of 27.7%, and that's a firing number.

But if there are 100,000 total in one year, then 2772 compliance issues means an error rate of 2.8%. Still a big problem, but not as bad as the first example.

And if there are 500,000 total in one year, 2772 compliance issues is an error rate of 0.6%.

Since this is just one facility, though, there are going to be more compliance issues out there - but more searches/retentions as well. Until we know the total number of both over a decent range of time, we won't know how large a problem this really is. And it would also be good to know error rate by facility and what's being done to cut those mistakes down.

Meanwhile, let's brace ourselves for another round of OMG.

[bhikkhu]

45. I believe they explained that 2772 was out of millions

so the error rate was pretty infinitesimal.

Most of the "incidents", from what an NPR report said, had to do with monitoring call data from phones that were international numbers from phones used by people who had travelled to the US. Apparently there's no automatic system to tell whether a call from an international phone is being made from within the US (where special rules apply), or outside the US. SO if they find that they have collected call information inadvertently from within the US they register it as a "technical error".

And its still talking about metadata, the same stuff that the carriers compile and store and give you on your phone bill.

[Ms. Toad]

16. Guess again.

The NSA audit obtained by The Post, dated May 2012, counted 2,776 incidents in the preceding 12 months of unauthorized collection, storage, access to or distribution of legally protected communications. Most were unintended. Many involved failures of due diligence or violations of standard operating procedure. The most serious incidents included a violation of a court order and unauthorized use of data about more than 3,000 Americans and green-card holders.

Not just metada. And some of the data was used without authorization.

[ProSense]

17. Maybe

"Not just metada. And some of the data was used without authorization. "

...you should re-read the snip I posted. It cites the incident with more details, and it is "just metadata."

Again, it doesn't state what the issues were, but it does indicate the data was destroyed.

[Ms. Toad]

21. That actually is not what the snip you posted said.

There are multiple incidents, not just the one you included in your snip. Some were not just metadata - as the more detailed article (including the excerpt I posted) point out. And - even the one you chose to snip does not indicate that the call records were limited to metadata (the words "just" and "metadata" do not appear in the snip, nor do any other words which would limit the definition of the call records to metada appear in your snip). And there is nothing other than similarity of numbers and violation of a court order to connect the description of incidents in the portion I quoted which included "violation of a court order and unauthorized use of data against more than 3000 individuals" with your snippet which expressly describes a single incident.

Not to mention that, even if it is the same incident(s), it is a bit late to destroy the data after has already been used without authorization against more than 3000 Americans citizens and green card holders.

[Mojorabbit]

26. Well said nt

[cherokeeprogressive]

19. No... HERE'S the "key part":

"Once added to its databases, absent other restrictions, the communications of Americans may be searched freely."

[mick063]

32. Absoultely

It seems that this point is commonly not understood, recognized, or given proper due.

You have to beat people with a hammer to make them understand the most critical aspect.

The data is archived.

[hueymahl]

34. +1

[ljm2002]

24. We already know they help the DEA...

...with drug busts. For some reason, I have a hard time believing they could do that based on metadata alone.

Articles I've read seem to indicate the NSA at least scans communications for key words or phrases, and retains those communications that show a "hit". And as the article says, "Once added to its databases, absent other restrictions, the communications of Americans may be searched freely."

[hueymahl]

31. Actually, here is the key part:

Your conclusion is wrong:

They're still talking about metadata, not all the searches produce records, inadvertently targeting U.S. persons may or may not be the reason for the compliance problems (the report doesn't say), and it appears the minimization procedures work (records destroyed).

Meta data is just the tip. It is what the NSA wants you to focus on. But taking Meta data is not even considered a "reportable event" by adminstration officials:

Some Obama administration officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, have defended Alexander with assertions that the agency’s internal definition of “data” does not cover “metadata” such as the trillions of American call records that the NSA is now known to have collected and stored since 2006. Those records include the telephone numbers of the parties and the times and durations of conversations, among other details, but not their content or the names of callers.

However, in the very next paragraph, the Post points out that NSA's own internal guidelines shows the opposite:

The NSA’s authoritative def­inition of data includes those call records. “Signals Intelligence Management Directive 421,” which is quoted in secret oversight and auditing guidelines, states that “raw SIGINT data . . . includes, but is not limited to, unevaluated and/or unminimized transcripts, gists, facsimiles, telex, voice, and some forms of computer-generated data, such as call event records and other Digital Network Intelligence (DNI) metadata as well as DNI message text.”

Later, they revealed an incredible telling quote from a secret memo from this year:

The NSA has different reporting requirements for each branch of government and each of its legal authorities. The “202” collection was deemed irrelevant to any of them. “The issue pertained to Metadata ONLY so there were no defects to report,” according to the author of the secret memo from March 2013.

Another example:

The NSA uses the term “incidental” when it sweeps up the records of an American while targeting a foreigner or a U.S. person who is believed to be involved in terrorism. Official guidelines for NSA personnel say that kind of incident, pervasive under current practices, “does not constitute a . . . violation” and “does not have to be reported” to the NSA inspector general for inclusion in quarterly reports to Congress. Once added to its databases, absent other restrictions, the communications of Americans may be searched freely.

It is NOT, NOT, NOT about metadata. The evidence at this point is overwhelming:

The NSA audit obtained by The Post, dated May 2012, counted 2,776 incidents in the preceding 12 months of unauthorized collection, storage, access to or distribution of legally protected communications. Most were unintended. Many involved failures of due diligence or violations of standard operating procedure. The most serious incidents included a violation of a court order and unauthorized use of data about more than 3,000 Americans and green-card holders.

Just think how proud and envious Nixon would be about the abilities our government now has. Does anyone really believe that this is all that is going on? This is literally just scratching the surface. The NSA effectively has no oversight (see, e.g. http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/court-ability-to-police-us-spying-program-limited/2013/08/15/4a8c8c44-05cd-11e3-a07f-49ddc7417125_story.html). I will not engage in further speculation. Let's just say that every time someone has tried to minimize or justify the unlawful and unconstitutional actions of the NSA, they have been proven wrong by later evidence. Eventually the evidence, even if circumstantial, becomes overwhelming.

[questionseverything]

37. xcellant post

msm is still saying this was "just" metadata......kellie odonnell is on msnbc lying about it right now...calling these violations "sloppy mistakes"

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. It's gone from ONE in 2012 (which is one too many)

to thousands.

I expect to hear about them pole dancers soon.

[Catherina]

14. And the boxes in the garage! Don't forget the boxes!

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. It's become a running gag

Like eat your bananas. But a necessary gag.

[Catherina]

13. White House and NSA spokesmen said that none of DeLong’s comments could be quoted on the record

Barton Gellman linked this to the article on the sidebar under "More on this story"

The National Security Agency offered these comments on The Washington Post’s article about privacy violations.

....

Obama administration statement on ‘compliance incident’ statistics.

The NSA communications office, in coordination with the White House and Director of National Intelligence, declined to answer questions about the number of violations of the rules, regulations and court-imposed standards for protecting the privacy of Americans, including whether the trends are up or down. Spokesmen provided the following prepared statement.

Looking over a 3-year period that includes the 1st first quarter 2010 through second quarter 2013, the data for that quarter are above the average number of incidents reported in any given quarter during that period. The number of incidents in a given quarter during that 3-year period ranged from 372 to 1,162. A variety of factors can cause the numbers of incidents to trend up or down from one quarter to the next. They include, but are not limited to: implementation of new procedures or guidance with respect to our authorities that prompt a spike that requires “fine tuning,” changes to the technology or software in the targeted environment for which we had no prior knowledge, unforeseen shortcomings in our systems, new or expanded access, and “roaming” by foreign targets into the U.S., some of which NSA cannot anticipate in advance but each instance of which is reported as an incident. The one constant across all of the quarters is a persistent, dedicated effort to identify incidents or risks of incidents at the earliest possible moment, implement mitigation measures wherever possible, and drive the numbers down.

An NSA interview, rewritten

The Obama administration referred all questions for this article to John DeLong, the NSA’s director of compliance, who answered questions freely in a 90-minute interview. DeLong and members of the NSA communications staff said he could be quoted “by name and title” on some of his answers after an unspecified internal review. The Post said it would not permit the editing of quotes. Two days later, White House and NSA spokesmen said that none of DeLong’s comments could be quoted on the record and sent instead a prepared statement in his name. The Post declines to accept the substitute language as quotations from DeLong. The statement is below.

We want people to report if they have made a mistake or even if they believe that an NSA activity is not consistent with the rules. NSA, like other regulated organizations, also has a “hotline” for people to report — and no adverse action or reprisal can be taken for the simple act of reporting. We take each report seriously, investigate the matter, address the issue, constantly look for trends, and address them as well — all as a part of NSA’s internal oversight and compliance efforts. What’s more, we keep our overseers informed through both immediate reporting and periodic reporting. Our internal privacy compliance program has more than 300 personnel assigned to it: a fourfold increase since 2009. They manage NSA’s rules, train personnel, develop and implement technical safeguards, and set up systems to continually monitor and guide NSA’s activities. We take this work very seriously.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-statements-to-the-post/2013/08/15/f40dd2c4-05d6-11e3-a07f-49ddc7417125_story.html

It looks like DeLong is the "senior NSA official ... speaking with White House permission on the condition of anonymity", "the high-ranking NSA official who spoke with White House authority" mentioned in your OP. The transparency is as opaque as a brick wall.

Edit: WaPo just sent out this tweet:

Washington Post ‏@washingtonpost 6m

This NSA official told us he could be quoted here, then the White House asked us to edit his quotes. We declined. http://wapo.st/1eNMoMR

https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/368198895811428353

[grasswire]

27. maybe The Post will flex it s muscles, with a new owner now. nt

[Catherina]

38. The new owner? You mean the guy who collaborated with the government to shut down Wikileaks?

and signed a $600 million cloud computing deal with the CIA earlier this year? That was sarcasm right? Knowing you, I believe it was but just in case...

News Release

Bezos Buys the Post, Pulled Plug on WikiLeaks in 2010
August 6, 2013

The Washington Post reports: "Washington Post to be sold to Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon."

ROBERT McCHESNEY

McChesney is co-author of Dollarocracy: How the Money and Media Election Complex is Destroying America and author of Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism is Turning the Internet Against Democracy, both published this year. He is professor of communications at the University of Illinois.

Said McChesney: “As the commercial model of journalism is in free fall collapse, those remaining news media franchises have become playthings for billionaires, generally of value for political purposes, as old-fashioned monopoly newspapers still carry considerable influence. The United States went through this type of journalism at the turn of the last century and it produced a massive political crisis that led eventually to the creation of professional journalism, to protect the news from the dictates of the owners. Today professionalism has been sacrificed to commercialism, and the resources for actual reporting have plummeted.

“Perhaps nothing better illustrates the desperation facing American journalism and democracy better than the fact we are reduced to praying we get a benevolent billionaire to control our news, when history demonstrates repeatedly such figures are in spectacularly short supply, and the other times we relied on such a model crashed and burned. America meets an existential crisis with an absurd response. No wonder this is a golden age for satire. We have to do better.”

In December 2010, Amazon.com cut off WikiLeaks from its computer servers after the group released a trove of State Department cables. See this letter to Bezos, "Human Rights First Seeks Answers From Amazon in Wake of WikiLeaks Drop," written at the time.

http://www.accuracy.org/release/bezos-buys-the-post-pulled-plug-on-wikileaks-in-2010/

[Demeter]

18. The Only Thing I want to Hear from my government

with independent witnesses providing confirmation by personal knowledge:

All the spying apparatus is destroyed, all the data is wiped, and the NSA is disbanded, along with the CIA. the FBI is placed under the jurisdiction of 50 people, one from each state, chosen by popular election.

If the govt. wants to engage in espionage, it's going to have to get some legitimate targets. American citizens and random foreign nationals don't cut it. And it's going to need a federal grand jury's authorization.

[RC]

20. +1000

The NSA servers no legitimate purpose. Its real purpose is to collect information on American Citizens and foreign leaders, for the purpose of black mail and control.

[SHRED]

22. "Rules"???

What about the law?

--

[Catherina]

23. "the number would be substantially higher if it included other NSA operating units

"the number would be substantially higher if it included other NSA operating units and regional collection centers."

That's reassuring, NOT.

[DirkGently]

25. Wait. The secret NSA oversight of itself was ... was ...

NOT carried with an ideal level of scrupulousness?

Clearly no one could have foreseen this would be the case.

[djean111]

28. What is troubling now is that it seems that some expect us to ignore this stuff merely because

it might reflect on Obama. To be honest, I think the NSA is a rogue entity that holds whoever is president at any given time as irrelevant.
When Snowden first hit the media, my first thought, and second thought, was not Obama at all - I think agencies like this operate on their own, they see presidents come and go.

[Wilms]

29. ^

[ProSense]

33. N.S.A. Often Broke Rules on Privacy, Audit Shows

N.S.A. Often Broke Rules on Privacy, Audit Shows
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023470095

[gussmith]

35. Eloquent Spin

All the current hot topics get the Obama spin...eloquent words that provide cover for the abuses clouding our existence - NRA, NSA, IRS, DOJ, DOD, DOE, yada, yada, and now the Egyptian coup.. We are told by the administration eloquentisers that all is well. We need an administration that speaks the truth and deals in facts.

[Nanjing to Seoul]

40. "We need an administration that speaks the truth and deals in facts."

Okay, Mr. "I have 101 posts and have been a member for over 10 years," where were you during the abuse of Chimpy McAwol, Rumsferatu, Dr. Grap-Tooth Rice, Ol' Yellow Stain Wolfowitz and Dick the Cyborg? What were you doing?

Obama spin? Sounds rather Free Repubic speak to me!

[Maedhros]

36. David Sirota makes some simple observations in his article today in Salon:

http://www.salon.com/2013/08/16/what_if_the_president_lied_to_us/

But just as it is utterly absurd to claim Director of National Intelligence James Clapper didn’t lie before Congress (and some reporters thankfully admitted that truth in the open), it has now become almost silly to insinuate or assume that the president hasn’t also been lying. Why? Because if that’s true – if indeed he hasn’t been deliberately lying – then it means he has been dangerously, irresponsibly and negligently ignorant of not only the government he runs, but also of the news breaking around him.

Think about three recent presidential declarations. A few weeks back, the president appeared on CBS to claim that the secret FISA court is “transparent.” He then appeared on NBC to claim that “We don’t have a domestic spying program.” Then, as mentioned above, he held a press conference on Friday to suggest there was no evidence the NSA was “actually abusing” its power.

For these statements to just be inaccurate and not be deliberate, calculated lies it would mean that the president 1) made his declarative statement to CBS even though he didn’t know the FISA court was secret (despite knowing all about the FISA court 6 years ago); 2) made his declarative statement to NBC but somehow didn’t see any of the news coverage of the Snowden disclosures proving the existence of domestic spying and 3) made his sweeping “actually abusing” statement somehow not knowing that his own administration previously admitted the NSA had abused its power, and worse, made his statement without bothering to look at the NSA audit report that Gellman revealed today.

I just don’t buy that he’s so unaware of the world around him that he made such statements from a position of pure ignorance. On top of that, he has a motive. Yes, Obama has an obvious political interest in trying to hide as much of his administration’s potentially illegal behavior as possible, which means he has an incentive to calculatedly lie. For all of these reasons, it seems safe to suggest that when it comes to the NSA situation, the president seems to be lying.

But hey, if Obama partisans and the Washington punditburo want to now forward the argument that the president has just been “wrong” or inaccurate or whatever other euphemism du jour avoids the L word, then fine: they should be asking why, by their own argument, the president is so completely unaware of what his government is doing. After all, if he’s not lying, then something is still very, very wrong.

[Catherina]

39. Thanks for that excerpt. +1 n/t

[sabrina 1]

41. Who needs all those quaint old rights anyhow? If we give them all up, then the

terrorists won't hate us anymore, right?

This country is out of control. We are so willing to give up what people throughout history and even today, are willing to die for.

Home of the Frightened, land of the Terriified!

[creeksneakers2]

42. Some good news was included

One good thing was that the FISA court found a collection method unconstitutional. Not that its good that the NSA engaged in an unconstitutional activity, but the prevailing wisdom up to now was that the FISA court is a 100% rubber stamp for anything the NSA wants to do. Apparently, the truth is the court is willing to intervene.

Its also good that there are audits and oversight activities. That was in dispute before. And it looks like the NSA is making a genuine effort to comply with the law.

This disclosure disproves many comments from here at DU.

[blkmusclmachine]

43. 1,000 cubed (= 1,000 X 1,000 X 1,000), per year.

At least.

[MisterP]

44. "our finest jackbooted cultbots have looked into it more than anyone else, and it isn't happening"

I myself call it "Gigagate"--a billion Watergates

[Swagman]

46. but what has this got to with Greenwald being an egotist ?

isn't that what matters ?