30 June 2013 - elected spies 2

What are we to think when the NSA gives us a list of 50 plots stopped by secret surveillance and journalists almost immediately cross off many of them? The cloak-and-dagger explanation is that the NSA is concealing the extent of its power. And the smoky-back-room explanation is that the NSA is concealing the nature of its goals, which have less to do with terrorism and more with knowing which arms can be twisted.