NSA Goes on Deep Background

It's always a good idea to try to give journalists background information to help them write better informed stories in a broader context. Too often, they come to stories under-prepared, which they think is a sign of strength ("I can cover anything") and too often results in shallow, inaccurate stories.

The problem most of us have is that we can't get journos to take the time to do backgrounding. But the bigger you are, the easier it is.

And so it was with our own National Security Agency, which apparently held such informational sessions for journalists between 2002 and 2004, in an effort to educate journalists about what the NSA considered to be the dangers of publishing stories on NSA's electronic surveillance programs.

Kudos to the New York Sun for requesting Freedom of Information documents that confirmed the program. You can read their story here.