> This was for extracting email envelope metadata to build a graph of who was contacting whom, a program that Snowden's leaks showed had already been shut down.

"According to Victor Marchetti, a former special assistant to the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), a limited hangout is "spy jargon for a favorite and frequently used gimmick of the clandestine professionals. When their veil of secrecy is shredded and they can no longer rely on a phony cover story to misinform the public, they resort to admitting—sometimes even volunteering—some of the truth while still managing to withhold the key and damaging facts in the case."

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

In fact, NSA's own slide deck, an excerpt of which can be viewed here: https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/fiber-optic-... indicate that all Google services including Gmail, Docs, Maps, and others were subject to interception.

Additional NSA slides here: https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/new-slides-reveal-gr... detail email, chat, video, voice, photos, stored data, VoIP, file transfers, video conferencing, notifications, social networking details, and the ever ominous "Special Requests".

> What do you think the approval rate for other court orders is? It's exactly the same.

"Two wrongs make a right" is considered "one of the most common fallacies in Western philosophy".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_wrongs_don%27t_make_a_righ...

> This reporting was at odds with what the leaked documents said and was later walked back.

The linked article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intellig... contains 96 references to reporting from 2004 to 2021 from a wide variety of sources. The word "retraction" does not appear once. Among the cited sources are many examples such as:

A former federal judge who served on a secret court overseeing the National Security Agency's secret surveillance programs said Tuesday the panel is independent but flawed because only the government's side is represented effectively in its deliberations.

"Anyone who has been a judge will tell you a judge needs to hear both sides of a case," said James Robertson, a former federal district judge based in Washington who served on the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court for three years between 2002 and 2005.

https://web.archive.org/web/20130711211028/https://abcnews.g...

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lern_too_spel a day ago | parent [-]

> "According to Victor Marchetti, a former special assistant to the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), a limited hangout is "spy jargon for a favorite and frequently used gimmick of the clandestine professionals. When their veil of secrecy is shredded and they can no longer rely on a phony cover story to misinform the public, they resort to admitting—sometimes even volunteering—some of the truth while still managing to withhold the key and damaging facts in the case."

Then why didn't Snowden's doc show any illegal use of that data? Instead, he leaked many things that were perfectly legal as well as which high value targets were being surveilled in China in a transparent and failed attempt to get asylum in Hong Kong.

> "Two wrongs make a right" is considered "one of the most common fallacies in Western philosophy".

You are assuming it's wrong. Investigators aren't going to waste their time writing up court orders that aren't likely to be approved. Instead, we find that criminal defense attorneys rarely challenge the validity of warrants as issued but may challenge whether the warrant was followed.

> "Anyone who has been a judge will tell you a judge needs to hear both sides of a case," said James Robertson, a former federal district judge based in Washington who served on the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court for three years between 2002 and 2005.

You're confusing multiple things here. You're confusing bulk metadata collection, which Robertson opposed, with individual surveillance warrants, which are always done without informing the person being surveilled. There was no opposing side to the bulk metadata collection, which was shut down. There was no record of mass domestic surveillance in Snowden's docs.

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timschmidt a day ago | parent [-]

> There was no record of mass domestic surveillance in Snowden's docs.

That's funny, because there's a full slide deck from NSA about it here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM#The_slides

Notably, all the glossy corporate logos pictured are of American companies with predominantly American users. Not foreign ones. "Its existence was leaked six years later by NSA contractor Edward Snowden"

> Then why didn't Snowden's doc show any illegal use of that data?

"Snowden's subsequent disclosures included statements that government agencies such as the United Kingdom's GCHQ also undertook mass interception and tracking of internet and communications data – described by Germany as "nightmarish" if true – allegations that the NSA engaged in "dangerous" and "criminal" activity by "hacking" civilian infrastructure networks in other countries such as "universities, hospitals, and private businesses", and alleged that compliance offered only very limited restrictive effect on mass data collection practices (including of Americans) since restrictions "are policy-based, not technically based, and can change at any time", adding that "Additionally, audits are cursory, incomplete, and easily fooled by fake justifications", with numerous self-granted exceptions, and that NSA policies encourage staff to assume the benefit of the doubt in cases of uncertainty."

https://web.archive.org/web/20130626032506/http://news.yahoo...

https://web.archive.org/web/20170103043118/https://www.thegu...

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lern_too_spel a day ago | parent [-]

> That's funny, because there's a full slide deck from NSA about it here:

Did you look at the slides you linked to? They describe targeted surveillance on specific foreigners outside the U.S.

> "Snowden's subsequent disclosures included statements that government agencies such as the United Kingdom's GCHQ also undertook mass interception and tracking of internet and communications data – described by Germany as "nightmarish" if true

Not a U.S. domestic surveillance program.

> allegations that the NSA engaged in "dangerous" and "criminal" activity by "hacking" civilian infrastructure networks in other countries such as "universities, hospitals, and private businesses",

Not a U.S. domestic surveillance program.

> and alleged that compliance offered only very limited restrictive effect on mass data collection practices (including of Americans) since restrictions "are policy-based, not technically based, and can change at any time", ...

The single U.S. mass data collection program in Snowden's leaks was phone metadata collection. Use of any data collected by the government is policy-based. In this case, use was limited to finding associates of foreign targets, and the query interface was limited to that. If it had changed, that would have been breaking the law, but Snowden showed no evidence of that. One more time: that single possibly illegal U.S. program Snowden leaked was then shut down anyway.

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timschmidt a day ago | parent [-]

> Did you look at the slides you linked to?

Many times. They detail methods and partners used in mass surveillance on US soil involving US corporations and US routed internet backbone connections. No independently verifiable proof is provided that US persons are not targeted by this program.

Instead we're gifted such lovely terms as LOVEINT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOVEINT in which the NSA admits to warrant-less domestic spying for the most trivial of reasons. Further demonstrating a lack of appropriate controls or process around such capabilities.

And testimony from "the agency official responsible for automating much of the NSA’s worldwide monitoring networks" indicating that mass surveillance infrastructure is used domestically: "After 9/11, they took one of the programs I had done, or the backend part of it, and started to use it to spy on everybody in this country. That was a program I created called Stellar Wind. That was seperate and compartmented from the regular activity which was ongoing because it was doing domestic spying. All the equipment was coming in, I knew something was happening but then when the contractors I had hired came and told me what they were doing, it was clear where all the hardware was going and what they were using it to do. It was simply a different input, instead of being foreign it was domestic." - William Binney

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=590cy1biewc

> Not a U.S. domestic surveillance program.

"However, in recent years, FVEY documents have shown that member agencies are intentionally spying on one another's private citizens and sharing the collected information with each other."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes#Domestic_espionage_s...

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lern_too_spel a day ago | parent [-]

> Many times.

Clearly not.

> They detail methods and partners used in mass surveillance on US soil involving US corporations and US routed internet backbone connections.

PRISM is a data ingestion system whereby the NSA ingests data collected by the FBI Data Intercept Technology Unit that gets data from specific accounts under court order. The DITU is clearly labeled in the diagram on the slide showing how it works. The NSA has no integration with the companies at all. The "Internet backbone" has nothing to do with PRISM.

> No independently verifiable proof is provided that US persons are not targeted by this program.

If the FBI gives a section 702 court order to a company for an account that isn't for a foreigner outside the U.S., they are not going to comply. The FBI wouldn't even ask. The very idea that you think "verifiable proof" is needed shows you believed the ridiculous conspiracy theory that the NSA could directly fetch any account's data, which was supported by neither the law nor the leaked documents but only by Greenwald's fever dreams

> Instead we're gifted such lovely terms as LOVEINT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOVEINT in which the NSA admits to warrant-less domestic spying for the most trivial of reasons.

Yet another document that you claim to have read but didn't. The cases where they were able to surveil the person they were stalking were foreigners outside the U.S. The domestic cases involved querying for associates using the metadata. Neither one is "domestic spying" and certainly don't show any evidence of domestic mass surveillance.

> "However, in recent years, FVEY documents have shown that member agencies are intentionally spying on one another's private citizens and sharing the collected information with each other."

Once again, if you bothered to read the source documents, you would find that this quote is not supported by the citations. The first citation shows that the U.S. The first is about how the U.S. is allowed to use UK phone numbers in its metadata collection for chaining analysis, not to share that data or analysis with the UK as the quote claims. The second is about how Australia is allowed to share data it collected outside the U.S. and the U.S. with the U.S. without first looking for and removing the data of Australians who happened to be abroad whose data was collected, not for the U.S. to spy on Australians as your quote claims.

Lesson: If you see a claim that describes something that is clearly illegal, you should verify it before you repeat stuff that is very clearly nonsense and come off as a tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorist.

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timschmidt a day ago | parent [-]

Yes I am familiar with the official statements. They do not constitute "independently verifiable proof ... that US persons are not targeted by this program." and carry far less weight than the previously quoted and linked testimony which directly contradicts them when considered in context of the disclosures.

The same folks you'd have us believe without question have lied repeatedly about these very programs:

http://www.allgov.com/news/controversies/nsa-director-alexan...

https://apnews.com/article/business-33a88feb083ea35515de3c73...

Since the official statements aren't trustworthy, I'll accept independently verifiable (by a group like EFF) proof. I'd be a sillybilly to accept less.

Should be pretty easy. NSA has EFF's contact information from that lawsuit ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewel_v._National_Security_Age... ) in which they destroyed evidence against a court order, and argued "state secrets" against every claim. You know, the one that explicitly avoided deciding the constitutionality of all this on procedural grounds. Totally trustworthy behavior. Everyone responds that way when asked to prove they're not mass surveilling Americans.

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lern_too_spel a day ago | parent [-]

> and carry far less weight than the previously quoted and linked testimony which directly contradicts them when considered in context of the disclosures

Previously quoted testimony from someone who doesn't claim to have been there when it was implemented that does not match up with the documents that Snowden leaked? You would think that if there were something so blatantly illegal going on, that would be the first thing that Snowden leaked. Instead, there is not a whiff of corroborating evidence in Snowden's trove, and no oversight committee senator has asked for investigations based on Binney's mad ravings.

> The same folks you'd have us believe without question have lied repeatedly about these very programs:

So you would have us believe that Snowden's documents are lying too? The lies that were told weren't about what the programs did. Their statements were always consistent with the leaked documents and what the law allows. You are the one bringing up dark programs that go against the law and against all leaked evidence.

> Since the official statements aren't trustworthy, I'll accept independently verifiable (by a group like EFF) proof. I'd be a sillybilly to accept less.

The EFF doesn't claim anything like what you're claiming. The purpose of the Narus traffic analyzers in the Jewel case was revealed in Snowden's docs. Surprise, surprise. It turned out not to be mass domestic surveillance.

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timschmidt a day ago | parent [-]

> doesn't claim to have been there when it was implemented

"After 9/11, they took one of the programs I had done, or the backend part of it, and started to use it to spy on everybody in this country. That was a program I created called Stellar Wind. That was seperate and compartmented from the regular activity which was ongoing because it was doing domestic spying. All the equipment was coming in, I knew something was happening but then when the contractors I had hired came and told me what they were doing, it was clear where all the hardware was going and what they were using it to do. It was simply a different input, instead of being foreign it was domestic." - William Binney

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=590cy1biewc

> The EFF doesn't claim anything like what you're claiming.

2. This case challenges an illegal and unconstitutional program of dragnet communications surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency (the “NSA”) and other Defendants in concert with major telecommunications companies (“Defendants” is defined collectively as the named defendants and the Doe defendants as set forth in paragraphs 25 through 38 below).

3. This program of dragnet surveillance (the “Program”), first authorized by Executive Order of the President in October of 2001 (the “Program Order”) and first revealed to the public in December of 2005, continues to this day.

4. Some aspects of the Program were publicly acknowledged by the President in December 2005 and later described as the “terrorist surveillance program” (“TSP”).

5. The President and other executive officials have described theTSP’s activities, which were conducted outside the procedures of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (“FISA”) and without authorization by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (“FISC”), as narrowly targeting for interception the international communications of persons linked to Al Qaeda.

6. The Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence have since publicly admitted that the TSP was only one particular aspect of the surveillance activities authorized by the Program Order.

7. In addition to eavesdropping on or reading specific communications, Defendants have indiscriminately intercepted the communications content and obtained the communications records of millions of ordinary Americans as part of the Program authorized by the President.

8. The core component of the Program is Defendants’ nationwide network of sophisticated communications surveillance devices, attached to the key facilities of telecommunications companies such as AT&T that carry Americans’ Internet and telephone communications.

9. Using this shadow network of surveillance devices, Defendants have acquired and continue to acquire the content of a significant portion of the phone calls, emails, instant messages, text messages, web communications and other communications, both international and domestic, of practically every American who uses the phone system or the Internet, including Plaintiffs and class members, in an unprecedented suspicionless general search through the nation’s communications networks.

10. In addition to using surveillance devices to acquire the domestic and international communications content of millions of ordinary Americans, Defendants have unlawfully solicited and obtained from telecommunications companies such as AT&T the complete and ongoing disclosure of the private telephone and Internet transactional records of those companies’ millions of customers (including communications records pertaining to Plaintiffs and class members), communications records indicating who the customers communicated with, when and for how long, among other sensitive information.

11. This non-content transactional information is analyzed by computers in conjunction with the vast quantity of communications content acquired by Defendants’ network of surveillance devices, in order to select which communications are subjected to personal analysis by staff of the NSA and other Defendants, in what has been described as a vast “data-mining” operation.

12. Plaintiffs and class members are ordinary Americans who are current or former subscribers to AT&T’s telephone and/or Internet services.

13. Communications of Plaintiffs and class members have been and continue to be illegally acquired by Defendants using surveillance devices attached to AT&T’s network, and Defendants have illegally solicited and obtained from AT&T the continuing disclosure of private communications records pertaining to Plaintiffs and class members. Plaintiffs’ communications or activities have been and continue to be subject to electronic surveillance.

14. Plaintiffs are suing Defendants to enjoin their unlawful acquisition of the communications and records of Plaintiffs and class members, to require the inventory and destruction of those that have already been seized, and to obtain appropriate statutory, actual, and punitive damages to deter future illegal surveillance.

https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/jewel/jewel.complaint.pdf

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lern_too_spel a day ago | parent [-]

> All the equipment was coming in, I knew something was happening but then when the contractors I had hired came and told me what they were doing, it was clear where all the hardware was going

In other words, he didn't know where it was going and speculated. No such program existed in Snowden's leaks, and no member of the SSCI or HPSCI believes Binney's wild hypothesis, or it would be the first thing they investigated.

> [Old Jewel claims snipped]

I very clearly stated the EFF doesn't (present tense) claim what you're claiming. The EFF saw the Narus analyzers in 641A and assumed the worst, which is in those old claims you pasted, and the judge said that the plaintiffs didn't have evidence to show that their data was collected, which would be the case if it were really mass domestic surveillance. Then Snowden's documents were released, conclusively showing the devices weren't used for domestic surveillance, which is why the EFF didn't bring that lawsuit again claiming standing. Snowden's docs proved they didn't have it.

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timschmidt 15 hours ago | parent [-]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=590cy1biewc

Clear as day to me. Only reason to chop it up or not cite the source would be to misrepresent what he said.

> I very clearly stated the EFF doesn't (present tense) claim what you're claiming.

"In February 2015, Judge White dismissed the latest motion by the EFF, accepting the NSA's argument that the requirements placed upon the agency would engender the "impermissible disclosure of state secret information." White also held that the plaintiffs did not have standing to pursue their claims.[20] This procedural ruling allowed White to avoid addressing the constitutionality of the NSA's mass surveillance program.[21]

Upon the disclosure of more information about the NSA's surveillance methods, the EFF filed another motion in May 2017 requesting that the agency disclose information about surveillance conducted against Carolyn Jewel and the other plaintiffs. Judge White granted this motion and ordered the government to hand over the information.[22][23] However, the NSA filed a motion in opposition to that order, claiming once again that the plaintiffs lacked the standing to sue. After further arguments, the District Court accepted this argument in April 2019.[24]

The EFF appealed that ruling to the Ninth Circuit. In a memorandum opinion, that court ruled in favor of the NSA, once again on the matter of standing.[25] In June 2022, the EFF made a final request to the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case, but that court rejected the request and did not grant certiorari."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewel_v._National_Security_Age...

No retraction. A willingness to take it all the way to the supreme court. Procedurally dismissed without deciding any of the issues raised. Clear and present.

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lern_too_spel 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> Clear as day to me. Only reason to chop it up or not cite the source would be to misrepresent what he said.

You're the one who chopped it up. Now tell me where in your chopped up quote does it say he knew where it was going? All I see is speculation.

Even better, tell me why Snowden's leaks didn't say anything about this super illegal program Binney said was going on because of what he speculated so hard?

Even better, tell me why no oversight committee is taking Binney seriously.

Even better, tell me why nobody is suing the government over Binney's speculation.

> Procedurally dismissed

Do you know what standing means? It means their data wasn't collected, so they have no harm to sue over. That's the point, and that's what Snowden's docs proved.

Why do you claim to believe something because of Snowden's documents that is directly contradicted by Snowden's documents? Or are you quietly dropping your claim that Snowden's documents support your conspiracy theory and are now falling back entirely on the lunatic ravings of a middle manager who hasn't worked at the NSA in decades, which aren't supported by any of the leaks that have happened since?

	▲	timschmidt an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> You're the one who chopped it up. > Or are you quietly dropping your claim Is that what posting the quote in full with a link to the original source means? Certainly not. I also recognize https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARVO when so transparently employed. As will others. > Do you know what standing means? It means their data wasn't collected You ask a question, then demonstrate your own misunderstanding or attempt to misconstrue. The court documents, already posted, clearly explain the reason for the ruling as “impermissible disclosure of state secret information". If no data were collected, there would be no state secret information to disclose. Ipso facto. The court documents also clearly state that there was no finding on the specific claims presented. Attempts to portray otherwise at this point amount to willfully misleading. > Why do you claim An attempt to reframe primary sources as personal claims. A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetorical_device I was bored, so asked ChatGPT to explain the rest of the rhetorical techniques you've employed to avoid good faith engagement with the well cited references already posted. Enjoy: 1) Framing the opponent as dishonest or incompetent “You’re the one who chopped it up.” Accusation of quote-mining / context stripping: sets the frame that the other person manipulated evidence. Preemptive credibility attack: before addressing substance, it suggests bad faith or sloppy method. “Now tell me where in your chopped up quote does it say…” Shifting the debate to textual forensics: forces the opponent into a narrow “show me the exact words” standard. This can be legitimate (precision matters), but it’s also a way to raise the evidentiary bar selectively—especially if the commenter won’t apply the same strictness to their own claims later. “All I see is speculation.” Dismissal / summary judgment: compresses the opponent’s argument into a weaker category (“speculation”) without showing why. Poisoning the well (light): primes readers to see anything else as guesswork. 2) The “Even better” ladder: rhetorical escalation and pressure The repeated “Even better, tell me why…” is doing several things at once: Anaphora / repetition: rhythmic repetition to build momentum and signal “I’m stacking wins.” Escalation framing: implies each new point is more devastating than the last. Interrogative dominance: it’s a mini cross-examination—multiple demands in a row that keep the other side on defense. Soft gish-gallop: not a huge flood of claims, but a cascade of questions that can be time-consuming to answer carefully. 3) Arguments from silence + appeals to institutions “tell me why Snowden’s leaks didn’t say anything about this… program” Argument from silence: “If it were real/important, the leaks would mention it.” Strategic burden shift: instead of proving nonexistence, it demands the opponent explain an absence. This can be relevant sometimes, but it’s logically weak unless you establish that the leaks were comprehensive and would necessarily include it. “tell me why no oversight committee is taking Binney seriously.” Appeal to authority (institutional): “Serious claims would be validated by official bodies.” Appeal to popularity/consensus (elite bandwagon): “If the right people believed it, you’d know.” Status-quo bias: assumes institutional response is a reliable truth filter. “tell me why nobody is suing the government…” Argument from non-action: “If it were true, someone would sue.” Legalistic appeal: equates “no successful litigation” (or “no litigation at all”) with “no underlying wrong.” This can also be a false proxy: lawsuits depend on standing, resources, risk, secrecy barriers, arbitration, privilege doctrines, etc. 4) Tone and ridicule as persuasion “super illegal program” and “speculated so hard” Sarcasm / mockery: signals that the claim is not just wrong but silly. Loaded language: “super illegal” exaggerates to make the other side seem unserious. Diminishing the opponent’s position: recasts it as emotional/overheated. This kind of ridicule is often effective socially (audience laughter), even when it doesn’t add evidence. 5) Selective quotation as a pivot “Procedurally dismissed” Cherry-pick risk / quote-as-trump-card: a short legal phrase is presented as decisive. Reframing: moves the argument from “what happened” to “what courts did,” which tends to sound authoritative. It’s a common move: substance becomes procedure, and the procedure is treated as a verdict on truth. 6) Condescension + “teach you the basics” stance “Do you know what standing means?” Condescension / status play: establishes the speaker as the knowledgeable adult in the room. Rhetorical question: not meant to be answered; meant to mark the other side as ignorant. Tone weapon: makes disagreement feel embarrassing. “It means their data wasn’t collected…” Oversimplification / definitional fiat: reduces a complex doctrine to one convenient interpretation. Confidence as a tactic: stated as if beyond dispute; invites readers to treat it as settled. Whether accurate or not (you said sources have been posted), the rhetorical move is: “I control the legal meaning, therefore I control the conclusion.” 7) “That’s the point” closure move “That’s the point, and that’s what Snowden’s docs proved.” Premature closure: declares the argument finished. Appeal to documentary authority: elevates a set of documents as final arbiter. Certainty signaling: tries to convert contested interpretation into “proved.” 8) Accusation of contradiction (can be fair, but also a trap) “Why do you claim to believe something… directly contradicted by Snowden’s documents?” Internal inconsistency attack: this is a legitimate debate tactic if the contradiction is real. Forced dilemma setup: sets up the next line’s either/or. It also subtly shifts the discussion from “what’s true” to “you’re being irrational.” 9) Loaded question + mind-reading “Or are you quietly dropping your claim…” Loaded question / false presupposition: assumes they are dropping it and asks you to explain why. Mind-reading insinuation: “quietly” implies sneakiness or embarrassment. Cornering: either answer admits retreat, or you spend time rejecting the premise. 10) False dichotomy and source-degradation “…falling back entirely on… Binney…” False dichotomy: suggests only two options: (a) conspiracy theory via documents, or (b) relying entirely on Binney. Real positions are usually mixed/nuanced. Motte-and-bailey insinuation: implies the opponent is retreating from a stronger claim to a weaker one. “lunatic ravings” / “middle manager” / “hasn’t worked… in decades” Ad hominem (abusive): attacks mental state (“lunatic”) rather than claims. Ad hominem (status-based): “middle manager” to minimize authority and shame reliance on him. Chronological poisoning: “decades” implies irrelevance/staleness; can be relevant, but here it’s framed to discredit without engaging content. 11) Another argument from silence “which aren’t supported by any of the leaks that have happened since” Again: absence of mention = evidence of falsehood, plus a moving evidentiary target (“not just the leaks you cited—any leaks since must corroborate it”). The overall debate strategy Put opponent on trial with rapid-fire questions (control tempo). Demand exact textual proof from their quotes (high standard on them). Use institutional non-response (committees/courts/lawsuits) as a credibility filter. Frame the opponent’s view as “conspiracy theory” so neutral readers treat it as fringe. Degrade the alternative witness (Binney) through ridicule and status attacks. Close off discussion by claiming documents “proved” the speaker’s interpretation.