It’s not just the way the NSA communicates. That kind of doublespeak also comes politicians of all stripes, marketing staff, business leaders and smart alec teenagers.
“I didn’t say we saw a movie, dad, I said I was outside the movie theater when I called, so it wasn’t a lie.”
Someone that doesn’t want to be held accountable for their speech and actions can find a way of manipulating the language to make it sound like they said one thing, but technically said something else. It works a lot better on the press than it did on my folks, who have very robust bullshit detectors. Too bad bullshit detectors aren’t standard issue brain hardware, because if we all had them, it would be a different world.
