http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/29/speech-nsa-snowden-journalism
I think Greenwald makes some mistakes in his analysis and the first of those is to frame the issue of NSA mass surveillance state as a privacy issue or rights based issue. It is that, but much more important is that the problem is the gross manipulation of the basic political acts of a society. So I think it is a tactical mistake because the real problem with the mass surveillance state is not that it can know the dirt on individuals, but that it can foreclose and forestall meaningful political activity. The core a democracy is the public political act and that is what is infinged.
Anyway, the other thing is on journalism. One of the great contributions that Mcluhan made, at least for me, was to articulate what I think of as the media `envellope'. It is the summed total of what is available to percieve the world beyond the immediate, tangible experience. That's the social perceptual system through which we learn about, understand, and act accordingly on, and it is of vital importance that we understand both the totality of that structure or system of structures and we understand the forces that form and perform it. That's what the NSA is about and most especially what journalism is about and should be about--the public perception of the world.
Anyway, its worth watching ...
CG