NPR‘s Dina Temple-Raston
Glenn Greenwald was on Democracy Now! this morning (8/13/14) talking about his new piece in the Intercept (8/12/14) critical of an NPR report (Morning Edition, 8/1/14) describing “tangible evidence” of a “direct connection” between Edward Snowden’s revelations of unchecked National Security Agency spying and increased Al-Qaeda efforts to protect its communications via cryptography.
Greenwald called the report, by NPR reporter Dina Temple-Raston, “a pure and indisputable case of journalistic malpractice and deceit.” It’s hard to say he doesn’t have a point.
The piece is basically a summary of claims made by Recorded Future, described by Temple-Raston as a “big data firm” and “a tech firm based in Cambridge, Mass.” She didn’t describe it, as she did in a 2012 report (Morning Edition, 10/8/12), as a group with “at least two very important financial backers: the CIA’s investment arm, called In-Q-Tel, and Google Ventures. They have reportedly poured millions into the company.”
Not only is Recorded Future financially backed by the CIA, the intelligence community is one of its chief clients (along with Wall Street), and In-Q-Tel. It’s a registered vendor for the NSA itself, though it refused to tell Greenwald whether it has any actual contracts with the agency.
This is the company that Temple-Raston brought in to substantiate claims by “US government officials” that “revelations from former NSA contract worker Edward Snowden harmed national security”–without letting listeners know that it was not an independent authority, but a entity with close financial ties to the intelligence community whose claims it was vouching for. This is indeed journalistic malpractice, and merits a correction by NPR.
But what about the substance of the claim that NPR found newsworthy enough to base a segment around? It doesn’t pass the laugh test. In essence, Recorded Future is saying that there were significant changes made to encryption software distributed by militant Islamic groups after Snowden’s revelations–and that’s “good circumstantial evidence” that Snowden was the cause of those changes.
That is, of course, a textbook example of the logical fallacy known as post hoc ergo propter hoc–Latin for “after this, therefore because of this.” But when you actually look at Recorded Future’s reports, you see the changes weren’t even “after this.” Here’s the timeline as presented by Recorded Future:
The colored dots are activity related encryption programs associated with various Islamist groups–and the blue line is June 2013, when Snowden came out with his revelations. Note that there was a major burst of activity that started well before Snowden came forward and continued afterward–involving Asrar al-Dardashah, a program to encrypt instant messages released in February 2013 by the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Global Islamic Media Front. In its timeline, Recorded Future presents this as the first significant change in jihadist transcription techniques since 2007.
But when it comes time to analyze the timeline, this pre-Snowden release mysteriously disappears:
The timeline above tells a compelling story showing how four to five months after the Snowden disclosures both mainstream AQ, as well as the break-off group ISIS, launches three new encryption tools.
Yes, by blatant cherry-picking you can produce “a compelling story”–as in, good enough to fool NPR.
“good enough to fool NPR.” Indeed.
Temple-Raston seems to fit the bill — a useful fool.
Well, NPR recei
I suppose it’s a bit off the subject, but I fail to understand why folks think that Snowden jeopardized national security rather than the twisted folks he ratted on.
If Temple-Ralston and her bossi knew the provenance of the source of this propaganda
Then the conclusion that NPR was “fooled” constitutes its own logical fallacy, don’t you think?
At first I thought it odd that Naureckas is so enamored of Snowden. After all, Snowden’s politics are generally right-wing — he hates Social Security, wants to return to the Gold Standard, is a gun nut, and so on.
Then I realized that Naureckas, Hart and others at FAIR have followed a peculiar trajectory. They began as purported progressives, but now love the Islamists in Gaza and Iran.
Championing Snowden is a two-fer. Snowden himself is right-wing, and his revelations have helped the Islamists. Grounds for celebration for Naureckas and his ilk!!
William: I fail to see that Snowden’s politial views have anything whatever to do with the subject at hand. Naureckas “and his ilk” are attempting to encourage fairness and accuracy in reporting. Maybe you should try it yourself.
Oh William, so silly. Reporting on something, and trying to get the objective truth out to the public does not constitute “support” of Snowden. Your “logic” is the same as the post-9/11 mindset whereby if you spoke out against the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan you didn’t “support our troops”.
But, back to the point at hand. NPR is often held up as some sort of Leftist bastion, when in reality it’s more of an East Coast Ivy League yuppie outpost. Their reporting on many issues is better than the mainstream media, perhaps, but they are still a corporate media outlet. They often present nonsensical, clearly-fabricated Right Wing viewpoints without any counterpoint from the Center or the Left. Now, is the job of a news outlet to objectively present all sides to every story? No. But if they present only one side of the story – regardless of which side we’re talking about – without questioning the truth of what is being said, then they are merely reading press releases.
Why didn’t Fair issue a media alert calling for NPR to issue a correction?
We all have to realize the William is a Fux Snooze Nitwork moron troll that was made redundant; so while wondering around the streets, he came in for a FAIR cookie, and They haven’t had the Hart to throw em out, so he stands around re-repeating the Fux Snooze Nitwork Blathering points.
Sad really when someone has to act as the parrot to the Fux Snooze Morons.
There is no doubt that Snowden alerted the less attentive supposed terrorists, but don’t try to tell me that people who have essentially declared war on the Fascists of America, would believe they weren’t being spying on already.
It’s easy to tell the lies when the mouth they come out of is an obvious right-wing tool. Rush L, Bill O, et el come to mind. But when it’s public radio or public television, it feels more like deception or betrayal.
When trust is compromised, it’s often impossible to regain. I haven’t listened to NPR now for going on 5 years, and on PBS only watch the special programming like Frontline. Even so, I tend to follow-up on the sources where I once seldom did.
It’s not a good feeling to be witnessing what this country appears to be heading towards, and being a Boomer I keep coming back to Orwell’s warnings on what it could mean…
wow that Frontline special on the NRA completely turned me off. Was that that made me question PBS
Oh dear, William is whining again, guys, this time over FAIR being “enamored” over someone who exposed government illegality, and that FAIR doesn’t have enough enthusiasm for international aggression. He apparently prefers to cheer lead another war in the Middle East. It’s uncanny how he seems to fall into lock-step whenever he’s told to. Yet he calls himself a “progressive”. Hey, William: what gives?
As Greg Palast says, NPR is now National Petroleum Radio.
It’s not a good feeling to be witnessing what this country appears to be heading towards, and being a Boomer I keep coming back to Orwell’s warnings on what it could mean… James
What is worse, is when you realize that Orwell was really behind the times. As pointed often in the old days, 1984 was not the Start of Big Brother, it was simply a date in the life of Winston Smith, and “Big Brother” was contemplating the completion of the take over by 2050. At this point in time, America appears to be ahead of the Curve by 2020, if the corporation have their way, at least with respect to the “B-Vocabulary” – “Minitrue Newthinker bellyful goodthink” – O’Reilly
William, you should look up the term “Orientalism”. It’s a disease of the mind and you’re showing symptoms…
exposed the CIA for the milk that it is worth.
@james – I recall those heady days of “Ca.gov” Reagen and agree; we all felt that big brother had already had his way, and was now working on the rest of America. My father hated him because he was the one who signed the ‘Mental Health’ act that said if a person was ‘incurable insane’ the state no longer had to worry about the person and released of my uncles back on the street to die as a homeless.
Then when Regan was in the Oval office, he came up with the infamous, though not often recalled in the news, statement about not giving federal workers their COLA raise. “The workers will feel better about themselves, because they won’t have made so much extra money, and the public won’t hate them so much”. Only he forgot to explain how we were supposed to pay our bills, as the corporations weren’t slowing their price increasing and the pay raise we got amounted to $10 a month for the upper end, and for folks like me -2$ a month in pay. Then of course, when the executive branch got a 75% pay increase “it was to make sure the best stayed” because the same dirt bags that caused the problems, where the same ones sticking around in the government because they had been booted out every place else. The Minitrue and The MiniPax (which I was working for) all made sure that double think was in good standing then.
But yes, in the end, they were listening to us on the phone, and elsewhere. If you called anyone, and you were in the government, you could always hear the click of the third party on the line hanging up, if you waited just a few seconds after the other person you were talking to hung up.
@Padremellyrn. It is so amazing how revered he is by the right. I sure don’t remember them being all that enamored by him once he started raising taxes in his 2nd term, after he’d untaxed us into the largest deficit in history at that time. Beaten only by Bush Sr, then Jr. His first act in office was to break the Air Traffic controllers union. He screwed the railway system, and started the big push towards privatization and the anointment of Wall Street as the economic benefactor, I mean beneficiary. His Iran-Contra affair and just the way he shook-titled his head and smiled when giving out his Hollywood cowboy wisdom used to give me the creeps like I was being stalked by a pedophile priest.
I lost my career in furniture because of an early equity firm manipulation/buyout. Just like in the film I earlier related to, “Wall Street”. Thanks to Reagan’s lax regulatory stance. I’ve really never recovered from that, and what I did manage, Bush Jr. let get eaten up in 2008.
Remember how Reagan publicly decried homosexuality and refused to help fund AIDS research until his buddy Rock Hudson got it? Then it became one of his mantras. Until he got out of office anyway (the political hypocrisy being what it still is today).
I guess I do see why he’s revered so much today by the right. They don’t remember his failures, only his f*cked up intentions. And that he firmly locked the country onto the doomed economic direction we’ve been on ever since. We clearly saw the contraction at the time when he proclaimed that government was the problem. We all looked at each other and said, but isn’t he the government? So in that respect he was absolutely correct!
And the repercussions are still with us today…
I ponder sometimes if he really meant to hurt so many, or if he was just misled and deluded by more powerful men? That maybe it was a blessing in disguise that he eventually succumbed to Alzheimer’s disease. So he couldn’t see what he’d done, or remember that it was his fault.
That’s my rant, thanks!
When Obama signed the NDAA into law, NPR did a piece on the kind of pen he used–i.e., a free advertizement for corporate amerika. Please think about this stuff before you waste your donations on these monsters. It is an embarrassment on the surface and yet people by the tens of thousands continue to give them money–money to be used against them, money to assault their intelligence and make them stupider rather than more intelligent. JWC
Oh, and look at the image of Temple-Raston. Doesn’t she remind you of something you have seen in “The Wizard Of Oz?” Clearly she has turned.
And “William” doesn’t deserve all this attention. JWC