The Gamut

The Telcos are denying that they participated in an information sharing program with the NSA, and the NSA cites national security to refuse to either confirm or deny the program's existance, but there's a problem with the NSA's strategy. You can only use that particular tactic effectively if you have always employed it as a matter of policy. But in the past, the NSA has been quick to both deny or confirm stories that have the same level of national security attached. So this leads us to scrutinize the argument that if they don't confirm it or deny it, then we can't read anything into it. But I disagree.

Consider; the only way the argument holds up is if there is a valid reason for them to not confirm and a valid reason for them not to deny if the story is either true or false. This leads us to examine all four combinations.

• The story is true and they cannot confirm it because it would jeopardize the program if they did.
• The story is true and they cannot deny it because if they did they would be lying.
• The story is false and they cannot confirm it because if they did they would be lying.
• The story is false and they cannot deny it because ...

If the story is false, there is no reason why they cannot deny it. They could use this argument if they had a policy of issuing no denials or confirmations, but as we have already seen, that is not the case. Therefore, since they have not denied the story, we can assume that the story is true.