New Snowden Leak Reveals GCHQ Collected Emails Of Journalists At NYT, WaPo, Guardian, BBC And Elsewhere
from the marginally-less-dangerous-than-terrorists dept
It's eighteen months since Edward Snowden revealed his trove of secret NSA and GCHQ documents, but it seems that there are still some big surprises lurking there. Here's a pretty shocking story from the Guardian:
GCHQ's bulk surveillance of electronic communications has scooped up emails to and from journalists working for some of the US and UK's largest media organisations, analysis of documents released by whistleblower Edward Snowden reveals.
Apparently, some 70,000 emails were slurped up in less than 10 minutes using one of GCHQ's taps on the fiber-optic cables entering and leaving the UK. Among those emails was correspondence between reporters and editors discussing stories, all of which was made available to cleared personnel on the GCHQ intranet. Although this was classed as a "test exercise", what the Guardian story goes on to reveal about GCHQ's view of journalists does not give any confidence it was an isolated incident:
Emails from the BBC, Reuters, the Guardian, the New York Times, Le Monde, the Sun, NBC and the Washington Post were saved by GCHQ and shared on the agency's intranet as part of a test exercise by the signals intelligence agency.One restricted document intended for those in army intelligence warned that "journalists and reporters representing all types of news media represent a potential threat to security".
It continued: "Of specific concern are 'investigative journalists' who specialise in defence-related exposés either for profit or what they deem to be of the public interest.
Despite that view, GCHQ graciously concedes that journalists are marginally less dangerous as an information security risk than "terrorists":
GCHQ information security assessments, meanwhile, routinely list journalists between "terrorism" and "hackers" as "influencing threat sources", with one matrix scoring journalists as having a "capability" score of two out of five, and a "priority" of three out of five, scoring an overall "low" information security risk.
Alongside this disturbing perspective on investigative journalists, the Guardian story also reveals what seems a serious abuse of surveillance powers:
Terrorists, listed immediately above investigative journalists on the document, were given a much higher "capability" score of four out of five, but a lower "priority" of two. The matrix concluded terrorists were therefore a "moderate" information security risk.The GCHQ document goes on to warn that the fact that billing records “kept under Ripa are not limited to warranted targets” must be kept as one of the agency’s most tightly guarded secrets, at a classification known as “Top secret strap 2”.
So claims that telephone billing records are only obtained in accordance with the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) in a highly controlled fashion, and limited to "warranted targets", turn out to be untrue: they are collected for a much wider group of people. This is such a sensitive matter that the document containing this damaging admission was accorded a level of classification even higher than "top secret".
That is two levels higher than a normal top secret classification -- as it refers to “HMG [Her Majesty’s government] relationships with industry that have areas of extreme sensitivity”.
That's a reminder of why Snowden's leaks are so important: without them, it's unlikely we'd ever know about rules being bent or broken in this way. It's regrettable that many journalists at leading titles still underestimate the importance of Snowden revelations that spy agencies on both sides of the Atlantic are undermining without compunction key elements of liberty and democracy, subject only to minimal and ineffectual oversight. Let's hope the news that they too are being spied upon will help them revise their opinions.
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Filed Under: emails, gchq, journalists, surveillance
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What makes one of the highest priority? If I had to guess, I'd say State actors (PMs, etc.) and top corporate officials. Of course, that would indicate that they are conducting corporate espionage, which we all know they would NEVER do...
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Justice may be blind, but that only makes her easier to rape.
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ahhaha
thats hilarious, almost sounds like some kind of secret government is behind the whole democracy
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Proving once again William Binney gets no recognition for doing the same thing in 2001.
I suppose Techdirt must have refused reporting the information because Binney didn't take any powerpoint presentations when he left.
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quis custodiet?
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As it is, they fall down debunk, debunk, debunk, debunk, debunk, debunk, debunk, debunk all to the bottom of public trust and opinion.
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In fact, this entire "Pics - or it didn't happen" ideology is why the NSA grew since 2001. Also, it didn't help a couple of planes diverted their flight path into a few structures.
This was all the NSA needed.
Now, even with all the knowledge given to the public, nothing will change.
A government doesn't spend $3billion on a new facility just to have it made useless because it circumvents the Constitution.
Again, I applaud Snowden's efforts, but this article just rubbed me the wrong way when it's pretending this information is new to the world.
It's not. Binney wasn't the only one who made the claim.
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Nah, the emails are probably addressed to the guys spying anyway.
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Dont forget bbc using ripa to go for tv licence non contributers and ordinary police being able to ask someone in their department not involved in a case for a shallow warrent to request metadata information on anybody, not limited by law to those that might be denied through tried and tested lawfull means (courts/witnesses/sorces)
It is quite obvious in whose hand this surveilance system being built for "TERRO-CRIMINALS" will end up in...........they will illegally create the system, scratch that, they have created an illegal system , with a goal to implement these new non terrorist laws into society to bypass/circumvent CURRENT laws they feel doesnt quite give them that big government they want...........building a hostile environment for individual freedom and EQUAL rights........thats THEIR terrorism, freedom and rights
Them/their/that - to who it may apply, seing as their so secretive, them/their/that.....to those with an honest heart a genuine understanding and who are legitemitly trying to change things for the better, im sorry for your company
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Encrypt it all!
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Priorities
Terrorists = priority 2/5
So, journalists were a higher priority than terrorists. Sounds about right.
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Think about it, before the Snowden docs went public, how many people would have believed just how vast the NSA's efforts were in scooping up everything they can get their hands on? People who claimed that the government was watching, and intercepting their communications were derided as paranoid lunatics, yet as the evidence showed, they weren't nearly as crazy as people thought, the government is watching, and worse, they're watching everyone, not just a handful of people.
Claims are easy to make, but without backing evidence, ultimately useless in educating the public as to what's really going on.
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Five Eyes under the Microscope of Public Scrutiny!!
The return of the Free Press!!
It literally staggers the mind to imagine what fantastic news stories might occur and what villainous misdeeds night be exposed and how many heinous villains might be incarcerated, were the forces of the Free Press, free to do their traditional jobs once again and report on the wrong-doings of the criminals inhabiting the halls of power.
I'd actually have to upgrade my expectation of complete social meltdown of western culture, to a mere 75% likely to self destruct before the year 2025.
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