Neither Confirm Nor Deny
How a sunken nuclear submarine, a crazy billionaire, and a mechanical claw gave birth to a phrase that has hounded journalists and lawyers for 40 years and embodies the tension between the public’s desire for transparency and the government’s need to keep secrets.
- Duration
- 30m
- Broadcast on
- 04 Jun 2019
- Audio Format
- other
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How a sunken nuclear submarine, a crazy billionaire, and a mechanical claw gave birth to a phrase that has hounded journalists and lawyers for 40 years and embodies the tension between the public’s desire for transparency and the government’s need to keep secrets.
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WNYC Studios is supported by WISE. WISE, the smart way to manage the currencies you need around the world. With a WISE account, you can send, spend, and receive in up to 40 currencies, with only a few simple taps. Be smart, get WISE. Download the WISE app today. Terms and conditions apply. Oh, wait, you're listening to RadioLab. From WNYC. I'm Chad Abumrod. This is RadioLab. A couple of years ago, we did a show about a crazy Cold War CIA operation and a little trick that the CIA invented to say something without saying anything at all. And it just felt like this one sort of vibed with the moment, with a Mueller report coming out, and all the redactions, and intelligence, and counterintelligence about Russia. I don't know, this story just kind of resonated with us again. It also sort of feels like a throwback to an earlier simpler time. So we're just going to replay it this week. Hey, I'm Chad Abumrod. And I'm Robert Kolwich. And today on the podcast... Hey Robert, can you skip back a little bit, run the mic? I think I won't worry. We have a cloak and dagger maritime adventure in secrecy and truth from reporter Julia Barton. So Jeff, maybe first you could start off just by introducing yourself. Yeah, so the story for me begins with this guy. Yeah, my name is Jeff Larson. I'm the data editor at ProPublica. ProPublica's this investigative journalism outfit, and Jeff does a lot of their... Data-based reporting. So in any case, it was summer of 2013. You know that big story about how the NSA had just been monitoring millions of Verizon customers that just came out. Jeff's watching the story like all of us are. And then the thought occurred to him, "Geez, they're monitoring all of these people." Hey, does that include me? So he goes over to the NSA's website. He was surprised to find that right there on the site. You could file a privacy act request for your metadata. They have a little online form right there. It's a service that they offer to everybody. And so I went ahead and did that. And this is yourself you're requesting. You're saying what do you know about who I called and who I heard from? Yes, exactly. What were you expecting? The best case scenario would be just a page of all of the communications actually to my wife.
Transcription truncated.
How a sunken nuclear submarine, a crazy billionaire, and a mechanical claw gave birth to a phrase that has hounded journalists and lawyers for 40 years and embodies the tension between the public’s desire for transparency and the government’s need to keep secrets.