Forgive me, but I'm thoroughly confused. What objection is brought up here to Greenwald's work? That he's using the noun "program" instead of the noun "document" when discussing the program that the document entails? That Greenwald's tone is not sufficiently interrogative and peppered with "claims" and "alleges" and "supposes"?
There's no substantive difference between "It was followed by Yahoo in 2008" and "The document claims it was followed by Yahoo in 2008." The furor of the past 72 hours has given no reason to question the document's authenticity nor the existence of the program the document entails. The president himself has alluded to the existence of the PRISM program and attempted to assure us all that it was only to keep an eye on foreigners and not citizens.
There is a world of difference between a statement that something is happening and a statement that someone claims it is happening. The latter is specifically about a person talking, which is only evidence insofar as the person and all intermediate transmission channels are trustworthy. Those conditions might in fact be true here, but it is an important distinction.
tptacek is a supporter of Obama's program of extra judicial drone executions, so it goes without saying that he dislikes Glenn Greenwald. Additionally, he feels he can make attacks on the tone and minor details of Greenwald's reporting so he comments on that, but does not comment on this story for example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5844972 where it's more difficult to discredit the messenger.
How about this newer article [1], also by Ambinder, which the top post in your link links to? It seems to be speculation but it's the best reconciliation that I've seen of the leaked document and the denials of the tech companies. I also find it to be plausible, overall, if a little too trusting of the NSA's auditors and methods.
If I read an inflammatory and disturbingly arrogant comment, in which personal opinions are presented as facts, and contrarianism is practiced as an artform, there's a near 100% chance tptacek wrote it.
There's no substantive difference between "It was followed by Yahoo in 2008" and "The document claims it was followed by Yahoo in 2008." The furor of the past 72 hours has given no reason to question the document's authenticity nor the existence of the program the document entails. The president himself has alluded to the existence of the PRISM program and attempted to assure us all that it was only to keep an eye on foreigners and not citizens.