Quote of the Day, II

None of this damage is due to the NSA programs that are the subjects of the leaks. All of the damage comes from the leaks themselves. Even if a foreign government somehow were to learn through its own capabilities of U.S. collection of signals intelligence aimed at its agencies or leaders, its response would be quietly to intensify efforts to bolster its own communications security. To do otherwise and to raise a stink about the matter would risk further compromising its own counterintelligence capabilities and damaging a relationship it would not be in its own interests to damage. It is only when such collection activity is made public through a leaker, with all of the embarrassment and public pressures that are triggered by such a revelation, that leaders feel obliged to take conspicuous umbrage, with all of the further damage that entails.

— Former senior intelligence official and current Georgetown professor Paul Pillar on the real damage done by wantonly leaking the mundane (and non-abusive) intelligence programs that seem to make up the bulk of Edward Snowden’s document trove.