60 Minutes, in a fawning feature on the NSA tonight, made it clear to me that they are washed-up as a journalistic entity, their credibility extinguished.
Not missing the opportunity, the NSA had packaged up a nice little tripartite hit piece on Snowden. CBS delivered it without question.
The exchange was elevated into a "Moment of the Week" feature, video is here.
Of course, why would anyone question the claims of the biggest disinformation agency in the world? Why would anyone question their motives?
Instead, John Miller trembles at his "unprecedented access" like a child whose daddy took him up the cockpit of the airplane, where the pilot gave him a pair of junior wings, just like the real thing.
Transcript here:
Inside the NSA, where getting hired requires swearing an oath to your country and signing a vow of secrecy under the penalty of law, the very concept of what Edward Snowden did was hard for many to grasp. Gen. Keith Alexander felt he had a big stake in understanding Snowden, so he and Rick Ledgett who runs the Snowden task force got on a plane to Hawaii. They wanted to see the scene of the crime, Edward Snowden's desk.
John Miller: Did you sit in his chair?
Rick Ledgett: I did not. I couldn’t bring myself to do that.
For Ledgett, the trip was important to understanding who Snowden was, and going back through the bits and the bytes, they discovered the first secrets Snowden stole, was how to cheat on a test to get a job at the agency.
Rick Ledgett: He was taking a technical examination for potential employment at NSA; he used his system administrator privileges to go into the account of the NSA employee who was administering that test, and he took both questions and the answers, and used them to pass the test.
At home, they discovered Snowden had some strange habits.
Rick Ledgett: He would work on the computer with a hood that covered the computer screen and covered his head and shoulders, so that he could work and his girlfriend couldn't see what he was doing.
John Miller: That's pretty strange, sitting at your computer kind of covered by a sheet over your head and the screen?
Rick Ledgett: Agreed.
We also learned for the first time, that part of the damage assessment considered the possibility that Snowden could have left a bug or virus behind on the NSA’s system, like a time bomb.
Rick Ledgett: So, all the machines that he had access to we removed from our classified network. All the machines in the unclassified network and including the actual cables that connect those machines, we removed as well.
John Miller: This has to have cost millions and millions of dollars.
Rick Ledgett: Tens of millions. Yes.
Apparently John Miller thinks he "learned" something, while missing the most basic lesson in journalism. Pick any reputable source here, oh anyone, to ask the most obvious question in the world. "Why should we believe you? Doesn't the NSA have a stake in discrediting Snowden?"
Apparently no one in the entire process of producing this feature had the nerve to suggest actual journalism as a substitute for shilling.