Navy Deploys USS Barbra Streisand After Firing A Captain For Expressing His Coronavirus Concerns

from the walking-your-own-plank dept

In the midst of a pandemic, a Navy captain pleaded for the health and safety of his sailors. And for that, he was relieved of duty.

A letter to Navy officials, written by Captain Brett Crozier of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, was obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle. Social distancing doesn't work when you're stuck on a ship. Just ask anyone stuck on the handful of luxury cruise liners that became floating attack vectors for the coronavirus.

“This will require a political solution but it is the right thing to do,” Crozier wrote. “We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset — our Sailors.”

In the four-page letter to senior military officials, Crozier said only a small contingent of infected sailors have been off-boarded. Most of the crew remain aboard the ship, where following official guidelines for 14-day quarantines and social distancing is impossible.

“Due to a warship’s inherent limitations of space, we are not doing this,” Crozier wrote. “The spread of the disease is ongoing and accelerating.”

Crozier went through the proper channels but one copy of his letter made its way to the press. This resulted in the acting Secretary of the Navy, Thomas Modly, relieving him of command -- supposedly for not ensuring his letter was not leaked to the press.

On Thursday, after the letter was leaked to the San Francisco Chronicle, the acting secretary of the Navy, Thomas Modly, declared that he’d “lost confidence” in the captain and was therefore relieving him of his command.

This wasn't necessarily Modly's idea. But it appears to be Modly's idea of what he thought the Commander-in-Chief would want him to do.

Two days later, David Ignatius reported in the Washington Post that Modly had told associates he’d acted at the behest of President Donald Trump. Modly then phoned Ignatius at 1 a.m. to deny the story, saying he’d moved against Crozier before he heard from Trump. Rather, he acted in anticipation that Trump would want him to do so.

The removal of Crozier from the ship should have been the first indication the Navy would be unable to control this narrative. Several recordings exist of Crozier's exit from the ship, accompanied by sailors applauding him and chanting his name. Here's one of them:

Modly made it worse by boarding the ship and addressing the sailors. His efforts to win hearts and minds consisted of telling sailors to stop complaining and do their jobs, punctuated by him insulting the man he had fired.

“If he didn't think, in my opinion, that this information wasn't going to get out into the public, in this day and information age that we live in, then he was either A, too naive, or too stupid to be a commanding officer of a ship like this,” Modly told the Theodore Roosevelt’s crew on April 5. “The alternative is that he did this on purpose. And that's a serious violation of the UCMJ which you are all familiar with.”

A recording of this speech leaked, too. An unknown sailor speaks for everyone at the 1:57 mark, when he responds to Modly's "too naive or too stupid" comment with a very audible "WHAT THE FUCK?"

The Navy's damage control continues, but it appears to consist solely of dispatching more shovels and shovel operators to its hole. A self-serving communication from Navy brass telling sailors to STFU about the Crozier debacle was leaked to another journalist, which made its way to social media immediately.

Here's the best bit of Navy's insistent self-Streisanding:

*** Please engage with your sailors onboard and let them know that they need the person's permission to record them and put them online. If they posted SECNAV's 1MC remarks on social media, they need to take them down immediately. ***

It does not get any less laughable:

I know everyone's emotions are running high but posting negative comments on social media regarding Senior Leaders will not help our current situation.

[...]

Bashing a Senior Leader online will not rally the troops.

Looks like the troops are plenty rallied already, judging from the fond farewell they gave to their unceremoniously shit-canned senior officer. And they seemed pretty united in their rejection of SECNAV Modly's "shut up and go back to work" speech.

Modly appears to have belatedly realized his speech to the Theodore Roosevelt sailors was a mistake. But his non-apology isn't going to make things any better. Modly wants people to believe he was misunderstood by everyone that heard his comments, rather than actually take responsibility for the things he said.

I want to apologize to the Navy for my recent comments to the crew of the TR. Let me be clear, I do not think Captain Brett Crozier is naive or stupid. I think, and always believed him to be the opposite. [...] I apologize for any confusion this choice of words might have caused.

Shorter Modly: "I'm sorry you thought I called Crozier naive and stupid when I was calling him naive and stupid."

This whole response has been the epitome of "naive and stupid." The Navy's best option for letting this debacle get swept under the tidal wave of news that flows through social media every day would have been to let its original response -- given to the San Francisco Chronicle -- be its only response. Within 48 hours, no one would have cared. But it chose to fire an obviously-beloved and respected captain, insult him in front of his crew, and threaten unhappy personnel with punishment for sharing anything about this on social media. The Navy's measured response to the leak of Crozier's letter is all but forgotten now, buried under layer after layer of self-sabotaging hubris.

And, of course, as the finishing touches were being put on this post, Modly announced he was resigning. Apparently he realized that he was either "too stupid or too naive" to run the Navy, if he didn't realize how nearly all of his decisions in the last few days would play out.

Filed Under: brett crozier, coverup, covid-19, donald trump, leadership, leaks, streisand effect, thomas modly, us navy, uss theodore roosevelt, whistleblowing

Donald Trump Fires Inspector General Who Brought Ukraine Phone Call Whistleblower Complaint To Congress

from the just-more-retaliation-targeting-the-proper-channels dept

No one really needs to wait until Friday afternoon to bury bad news. Not these days when bad news is all we seem to have, occasionally mixed with even worse news. But the White House remains the White House, so the time-honored process of dumping stuff you want to stay out of the headlines right before everyone punches out for the weekend remains in place.

The government as a whole claims it wants whistleblowers to report wrongdoing through the proper channels. It then routinely follows this up by ensuring the proper channels remain the best way to see good deeds punished.

The whistleblower that reported President Trump's inappropriate conversation with Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky saw their report buried by the White House's Office of Legal Counsel. So much for the proper channels. President Trump himself asked for the whistleblower to be outed, undermining the protections the federal government has established to ensure wrongdoing is reported.

The only party receptive to the whistleblower's complaints has now been fired by President Trump, closing the loop on the White House's retaliatory actions.

President Donald Trump on Friday fired Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, who had told Congress about the whistleblower complaint that led to Trump's impeachment, the President told Congress in a letter obtained by CNN.

So, there's another spot open in the administration -- one that will probably be filled by an underqualified suck-up, rather than someone who can actually do the job. Trump's faith in appointees often appears to be directly related to how good they make him look, rather than how well they do their jobs.

"As is the case with regard to other positions where I, as President, have the power of appointment ... it is vital that I have the fullest confidence in the appointees serving as inspectors general," Trump wrote. "That is no longer the case with regard to this Inspector General."

Atkinson's response letter is worth reading. It makes it clear his firing was politically motivated and had nothing to do with his ability to carry out his duties.

It is hard not to think that the President's loss of confidence in me derives from my having faithfully discharged my legal obligations as an independent and impartial Inspector General, and from my commitment to continue to do so.

More of the same from this administration, which isn't all that different from the actions of the administrations that preceded Trump's. Whistleblowers get punished. Those aiding whistleblowers in their efforts by following the law are also retaliated against with alarming frequency.

This is what whistleblower laws are supposed to deter. But they're ultimately toothless, especially when it comes to presidential appointees who can be hired and fired at will. Since the protections only go so far, whistleblowers are likely to be deterred by appointees inhabiting the "proper channels," who may selectively bury reports to ensure their own employment continues. Those that do pass on information that will displease the administration put their own necks on the line, and that's the sort of ideal that rarely has a 100% participation rate in Washington, DC.

It would be nice if these protections -- and the rules against retaliation -- were respected across the board. But they'll never be. They'll only be used when they're politically expedient.

Filed Under: donald trump, friday night massacre, inspector general, leaks, michael atkinson, retaliation, whistleblower protections, whistleblowers

DOJ's First Attempt To Prosecute Accused Vault 7 Leaker Ends In A Mistrial

from the if-at-first-you-fuck-things-up... dept

The DOJ has taken an open-and-shut espionage case and managed to somehow misplace the back cover. Does this say something about the unintended consequences of charge-stacking? Maybe. Whatever it is, it isn't pretty.

The case against alleged Vault 7 leaker Joshua Schulte seemed pretty air tight, especially when Schulte continued to leak sensitive documents while behind bars, as well as attempting to rope his family into committing contempt of court violations on his behalf.

He also, as Marcy Wheeler pointed out, gave the government pretty much everything it wanted or needed, but the DOJ's prosecutors failed to present evidence in a coherent way, resulting in a whole lot of juror confusion.

According to InnerCity Press (virtually the only press covering the Schulte verdict watch), by end of day today the jurors had sent out 25 notes, most questions but also problems with two of the jurors. At the end of the day they told the Court they “aligned” on two of the charges, but were at an impasse on the other. Given that there’s slam dunk evidence that he committed the least serious crimes (false statements and contempt), that suggests at least some members of the jury have reasonable doubt that the guy who wrote a virtual signed confession to committing the most damaging leak in CIA history actually did so.

The verdict is now in, what there is of it. The case initially involved charges ranging from false statements to CFAA violations to copyright infringement (!) to child porn possession (!!!). Barely any of those charges have survived. A mistrial has been declared with jurors only finding Schulte guilty on the two least serious charges: false statements and contempt. Those won't be enough to keep him in jail since he'll likely be credited with time served. Schulte has been in jail since December of 2018.

This doesn't mean it's over. Marcy Wheeler says the government will very likely take another stab at presenting a coherent case.

The two sides will have a conference on March 26 to decide what to do. The government will certainly push to retry Schulte; Sabrina Shroff [Schulte's lawyer] asked for an extended deadline to file motions. She may try to do something further about the government’s late notice that Michael, a key witness, got put on paid leave last August (though the government has argued compellingly that Michael’s underlying lack of candor has been noticed to the defense throughout). She also may make yet another bid to get more access to the forensics, something I’ve argued that the government should have permitted in the first place.

The mistrial declaration is a credit to Shroff, who performed the unenviable task of shepherding an extremely unhelpful client through a federal espionage prosecution. Facing espionage charges drastically reduces a defendant's options. Drawing additional judicial scrutiny by attempting to leak sensitive material while incarcerated and spending your free time openly insulting the FBI and federal prosecutors isn't a course of action recommended by anyone.

Prosecutors needed to present a case containing a wealth of technical detail to jurors with clarity and conciseness. The twenty questions given to the judge by jurors a few days before the mistrial declaration showed the jury still remained confused about the facts of the case and, in a couple of instances, focused on information that had little to do with the criminal charges they were deliberating.

The government may get more charges to stick the second time around. But this initial failure is an indictment of the prosecution and its apparently misplaced confidence that the evidence spoke for itself. When you have to prove something beyond a reasonable doubt, quantity is no replacement for quality. As for Schulte, he's still at the DOJ's mercy until it exhausts its prosecutorial options. This isn't going to work out well for Schulte who's shown he's unable to quietly bide his time and capitalize on the government's missteps. He seems compelled to make things worse for himself during his unfortunately ample downtime.

Filed Under: doj, espionage, hacking tools, joshua schulte, leaks, mistrial, vault 7

Brazil Refuses To Drop Bullshit Charges Against Glenn Greenwald; Appeal Judge's Ruling Throwing Out The Case

from the chilling-effects dept

Earlier this year, we wrote about the bogus "cybercrimes" charges brought against Glenn Greenwald in Brazil for his reporting on government corruption. As has been noted, a court and law enforcement had already said that Greenwald did not break any laws in his reporting, and had followed ethical journalistic guidelines. And yet, he was still charged with a crime for reporting on leaked documents, with prosecutors claiming that Greenwald's suggestions to the whistleblower on how not to get caught constituted a "clear role in facilitating the commission of a crime." This was clearly a charade, as the Bolsonairo government in Brazil seemed mostly to just want to intimidate Greenwald and the press away from reporting on what now appears to be an extremely corrupt government.

A few weeks after the charges were announced, a court again said that it was clear that Greenwald broke no laws and refused to allow the case to go forward. However, as the Freedom of the Press Foundation has now announced, prosecutors have chosen to appeal that ruling and to continue to go after Greenwald.

In a troubling development for press freedom, Brazilian authorities have appealed a federal judge’s ruling that rejected criminal charges against Intercept Brasil founding editor Glenn Greenwald. The charges stem from that outlet’s investigative series documenting corruption involving high ranking prosecutors and Sergio Moro, the Justice Minister in President Jair Bolsonaro’s right-wing administration.

Again, whether you agree with Glenn or not, this is a blatant attack on a free press, and an obvious attempt at creating a chilling effect around necessary reporting on government malfeasance. It's shameful that the Brazilian government is doing this, and it's important for everyone to be aware of what's happening down there and how they're seeking to scare off reporters from investigating corruption.

Filed Under: brazil, chilling effects, cybercrime, glenn greenwald, journalism, leaks, whistleblowers

Sen. Wyden And Rep. Khanna Introduce Bill That Would Protect Journalists And Whistleblowers From Bogus Espionage Prosecutions

from the you-know,-the-protections-they're-already-supposed-to-have dept

Two consecutive administrations have engaged in wars on whistleblowers. President Obama used the Espionage Act to punish more whistleblowers and leakers than all other previous administrations combined. President Trump promised to "drain the swamp" and reverse all the damage he believes Obama had done to this nation. Apparently that doesn't include ejecting yes men from prominent government positions or scaling back Obama's anti-whistleblower activities.

Now that it's clear Bill Barr's DOJ is just an Oval Office lapdog, Senator Ron Wyden and Representative Ro Khanna are trying to do something to protect journalists who receive and report on leaked documents and other whistleblower activity.

The Espionage Act Reform Act [PDF] would strengthen protections for journalists and whistleblowers, shielding them from vindictive prosecutions for engaging in acts protected by the First Amendment and (supposedly) by the federal government itself.

A FAQ [PDF] released with the bill makes it clear the new law would not prevent legitimate deployment of the Espionage Act to prosecute government employees who hand government secrets to those not authorized to receive them, as well as foreign spies and other agents of foreign powers.

What it would do is keep journalists from being prosecuted under the law and make it easier for whistleblowers to bring their concerns up through the proper channels. Here's what the bill does:

● Protects journalists who solicit, obtain, or publish government secrets from prosecution.
● Ensures that each member of Congress is equally able to receive classified information, including from whistleblowers. Currently, the law criminalizes the disclosure of classified information related to signals intelligence to any member of Congress, unless it is in response to a “lawful demand” from a committee. This puts members in the minority party and those not chairing any committee at a significant disadvantage.
● Ensures that federal courts, inspector generals, the FCC, Federal Trade Commission, and Privacy & Civil Liberties Oversight Board can conduct oversight into privacy abuses.
● Ensures that cybersecurity experts who discover classified government backdoors in encryption algorithms and communications apps used by the public can publish their research without the risk of criminal penalties. It is up to governments to hide their surveillance backdoors; academic researchers and other experts should not face legal risks for discovering them.

This will prevent this administration (and the ones that follow it) from targeting whistleblowers and journalists -- something the Trump administration has been openly doing. It will also open up the official channels, making it easier for whistleblowers to take their concerns to Congress, rather than forcing them to navigate a complicated maze of deterrents with the omnipresent threat of prosecution hanging over their heads.

The protections for security researchers is also a welcome addition. Researchers often become the subject of legal threats and criminal charges just for doing the important work of ensuring data and systems that should be secured are actually secure.

Of course, this bill is being sent into hostile territory. The administration certainly doesn't want to see whistleblowers and journalists protected, and neither do far too many legislators. But if it does become law, it will reset the status quo -- turning the Espionage Act back into the law it was always supposed to be: something to wield against foreign spies and federal employees seeking to do harm to the nation, rather than those who actually wanted to make America better by reporting on wrongdoing.

Filed Under: doj, espionage act, free speech, journalism, leaks, ro khanna, ron wyden, whistleblowers

Stalkerware Developer Demands TechCrunch Remove Article Detailing Its Leaking Of Sensitive Data

from the set-weapons-to-'backfire' dept

Last week, stalkerware purveyor ClevGuard was discovered to be hosting tons of sensitive data harvested from victims' phones in an Alibaba data bucket set to public with no password protection. ClevGuard makes KidsGuard, an app whose name suggests it's something parents can use to monitor their children's cell phone use, but the developer has helpfully noted the software's also great for monitoring spouses and employees.

After being notified of the issue, Alibaba secured the bucket and made sure ClevGuard was made aware of the problem. But ClevGuard's not finished being stupid about this. Rather than quietly go about securing its exfiltrated data -- which includes contacts, photos, GPS location data, and content harvested from a variety of messaging apps -- the company has decided it would like to raise its infamy level and ensure even more people know about its horrific stalkerware.

Zack Whittaker broke the news at TechCrunch, publishing a lengthy expose of both the product and its insecure data storage. And now ClevGuard is baselessly demanding he take down his article.

If you can't see/read the tweet, Whittaker says:

We just received an email from ClevGuard asking us to delete the two articles we published this week about the KidsGuard stalkerware, which has been used to spy on thousands of victims.

We declined.

Whittaker has also put together a how-to guide for removing this stalkerware from your device, which probably isn't improving TechCrunch/ClevGuard relations.

And while we're discussing ClevGuard, let's take a quick look at its marketing efforts, which directly contradict the End User License Agreement the company pushes on users.

Here are the limitations ClevGuard supposedly imposes on users, in all of its original, gloriously-broken English:

You comprehend that the Site and ClevGuard will be utilized just for the reasons for underneath (I) parental control of their kids, (ii) on a gadget, which is of your possession, under such situation, you should get authorization from the client being observed, (iii) other legal points as per the laws in your very own purview. The terms of Child is characterized as underneath:

Youngster: Your very own lawful kid that is under the legitimate age of 18 (as characterized by US law). The kid must be observed utilizing a perfect telephone that you possess. You can't screen a kid on the off chance that you hold one of the accompanying connections:

• Brother/Sister
• Step-Brother/Step-Sister
• Step-Father/Step-Mother
• Aunt/Uncle; Cousin/Nephew
• Grandfather/Grandmother
• Great-Grandfather/Great-Grandmother

Worker: Your representative at an organization you claim or a representative at indistinguishable organization from you and you have administrative duties regarding. The representative must be checked utilizing a perfect telephone claimed by the organization and issued to the worker under your organization's approaches with respect to organization telephones. The representative must give assent and be advised they are being observed before checking can start.

So, according to ClevGuard's own EULA, the stalkerware can only "legally" be used to monitor "youngsters" and "workers." (And only on "perfect telephones," which are generally only found in the Oval Office.)

But the company's quasi-blog suggests customers should use the software in ways that break the EULA, offering up reasons why KidsGuard is better than its competitors for stalking spouses and significant others. Here's a post detailing the "2 Best Ways to Track my Girlfriend's Phone," with KidsGuard beating out the built-in "Find My Phone" feature. Here's a list of the "10 Best Couple Tracker Apps" with KidsGuard topping the list. ClevGuard's site is full of "helpful" posts pushing KidsGuard to monitor something other than "youngsters" and "workers," suggesting it's not just "perfect telephones" that can be spied on with ClevGuard's software.

To sum up: ClevGuard is a terrible company offering a horrible product that can be abused to spy on nearly anyone without their knowledge. The data then -- until recently -- ended up in unsecured data buckets. But why should ClevGuard try harder? This sensitive data belongs to people being spied on. Screw them for being covertly surveilled, I guess. Nothing to hide, nothing to fear, etc. The bogus demand TechCrunch remove its article is just the expired icing on ClevGaurd's garbage cake.

Filed Under: data breaches, kidsguard, leaks, sensitive data, stalkerware
Companies: clevguard, techcrunch

Well Then: Activision Issues DMCA Subpoena To Have Reddit Unmask Whoever Posted That CoD Image Leak

from the the-nuclear-option dept

Well, okay then. We had just been discussing Activision's silly attempt to DMCA to death a leaked image purporting to be the cover art or marketing material for a new Call of Duty game. The whole thing was idiotic in that once word got around that Activision was trying to bury the leak, it immediately caused everyone to think the image was for a real game, rather than some faked pretend leak, which is a thing that sometimes happens. From there, reporting and reproduction of the image in question went mildly viral. In other words, Activision Streisanded the leak it was attempting to bury. Pretty dumb.

But it turns out that Activision isn't screwing around. There were some in our comments who posited that perhaps this was some marketing attempt to create virality of the image. That certainly doesn't appear to be the case, as Activision has issued a subpoena to have Reddit unmask the user who posted the image.

In a filing on February 14, 2020 at a California district court, attorneys acting for Activision requested a DMCA subpoena against Reddit.

“Petitioner, Activision Publishing, Inc. through its undersigned counsel of record, hereby requests that the Clerk of this Court issue a subpoena to Reddit, Inc. to identify alleged infringers at issue, pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (‘DMCA’), 17 U.S.C. § 512(h),” the request reads.

“The DMCA Subpoena is directed to Reddit, Inc. Reddit is the service provider to which the subject of the subpoena – Reddit user ‘Assyrian241O’ – posted infringing Activision content.”

At first, it's hard to see how this makes any sense. Yes, it surely must be annoying to a content creator to have any plans for future content to be upended by a leak. On the other hand, first DMCAing that leak in a failed attempt to bury it, and then going to the lengths of unmasking a Reddit poster is surely the nuclear option when it comes to how to handle a leak of game art.

Except, it seems, this might not be about the Reddit post itself so much as where the leak originally came from.

Contrary to the initial claim, that the user “found this image online”, he or she later confessed to it being sent to them by an “inside source”. That raises the question of who Activision is more interested in – the Reddit user or the person who sent them the image, possibly from inside Activision or a related company.

In other words, this is all looking like an attempt to unmask the leaker of the image, not the Reddit user. Still, these are extreme lengths to go to combat a leak that would have barely been noticed had Activision not gone into legal rage mode.

Instead, the company could have chosen to try to use this all as a marketing opportunity, as comments on the previous post thought they had.

Filed Under: call of duty, dmca, dmca subpoena, leaks, subpoena
Companies: activision, reddit

NYPD Lied About National Security During An Attempt To Obtain A Journalist's Records From Twitter

from the IN-CASE-OF-REALLY-REALLY-WANTING-SOMETHING,-BREAK-GLASS dept

This is a lie. There's no way around it. I'm sure the NYPD will come up with some excuse for this, but it will probably take a lawsuit to obtain the underlying documents, if not the NYPD's internal justifications.

This all started with shooting in New York City. NY Post Police Bureau Chief Tina Moore obtained -- and tweeted -- graphic crime scene photos apparently leaked by an NYPD employee. Rather than limit itself to investigating the leak internally, the NYPD decided to drag the reporter into this.

The subpoena to turn over documents, provided to The Post by Twitter, directs the social media company to produce all device and contact information associated with the user handle @Tinamoorereport, as well as all the handle’s connection history between Oct. 9 and Oct. 14.

During that time, Moore obtained and tweeted a gory crime scene photos from a dice-game shooting in Brooklyn that left four dead and three injured. Those photos appear to be at the center of the NYPD subpoena.

This isn't just sort of wrong. This is very wrong. The state's shield law explicitly says this sort of thing isn't allowed.

New York’s Shield Law codifies the privilege, arising under the First Amendment, that protects professional journalists from compulsory disclosure of confidential sources contacted or materials obtained in the course of gathering information for public dissemination.

Under New York law a professional journalist is defined as one who is engaged in “….gathering, preparing, collecting, writing, editing, filming, taping or photographing of news intended for a newspaper, magazine, news agency, press association or wire service or other professional medium or agency which has as one of its regular functions the processing and researching of news intended for dissemination to the public…”

Maybe the NYPD thought it wasn't breaking the law because it sent the subpoena to Twitter, rather than to the journalist. Maybe the NYPD just didn't care. Either way, the state's law shields Moore from these demands for information. If the NYPD has a leak problem, it needs to handle it without threatening First Amendment-protected activities.

But it somehow gets worse. The NYPD cited two authorities in its subpoena [PDF]. The first is somewhat redundant: Section 14-137 of the New York City administrative code simply gives the NYPD the power to issue subpoenas. The second citation, however, makes no sense. And it's this citation that makes it a lie.

See also USA Patriot Act, P.L. 107-56, Section 211 codified at 47 USCS Section 551(c)(2)(D).

This isn't a terrorism case. This is a standard shooting case not tied to any suspected terrorist activity. But it appears the NYPD thought throwing that on the form would maybe allow it to gather all of the following with minimal protest from Twitter:

any/all detailed subscriber, profile, contact, billing and payment information; any/all associated email account(s)/ screen name(s)/ user name(s)/ domain name(s); any/all associated ISP/ESP provided or externally based storage account(s); any/all SERVER, CM, CPE, DHCP, GUID, FTP, IIS, Twitterpic address history and connection logs; any/all MAC or IP address history, length of service and connection logs related to this request for the account(s), subject(s), and any associated electronic device(s) using the following Twitter user name: @TinaMoorereport

It's a fishing expedition designed to give the NYPD additional entities to throw subpoenas at, presumably with the same nonsensical reference to the Patriot Act attached. It's unclear whether Twitter handed over this info. Whatever the case, it has actually made the pro-NYPD New York Post a bit less supportive of New York's Finest. An op-ed from the paper's editorial board says the NYPD should know better than to go after a journalist's sources… and it definitely shouldn't do this while pretending a normal shooting was somehow related to national security.

Unfortunately, the NY Post can't bring itself all the way around on the issue, which results in the incongruity of a city paper seeing actual abuse of a law it loves but still refusing to criticize the abused law.

We’ve been firm supporters of the Patriot Act from the start, even as its critics have warned that law enforcement would seek to abuse such extraordinary powers by applying it to cases that have nothing to do with national security.

Now the NYPD — or its lawyers — has just given those critics some powerful fodder, undermining a law that helps keep this terror-target city safe.

Yes, people who abuse easily-abusable laws are bad. But bad laws that lend themselves to abuse are bad too, whether or not anyone gets around to abusing them. That's the hard truth the Post will have to face at some point. But I guess the wholly-unjustified targeting of one of its reporters isn't the "road to Damascus" moment it's looking for.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, abuse, leaks, nypd, patriot act, shield law, subpoena, tina moore
Companies: ny post

Activision Tries To Bury Cover Art For New CoD Game Via Copyright Threat...So Let's All Look At It Together, Shall We?

from the ready-fire-aim dept

Of all the dumb ways that the DMCA process has been misused in the very recent past, one of the most frustratingly stupid certainly has to be certain interests using it to try to bottle up leaks. From Nintendo to Universal to Marvel, among others, each and every time some content, often times unfinished, gets leaked onto the internet, the lawyers fire off a bunch of DMCA notices to try to get the content taken down. And each and every time, the whole thing backfires completely and instead this leaked content gets Streisanded into the public consciousness.

It's with that in mind that we can all take a look at some art for the next unannounced Call of Duty game, entitled Warzone.

What is that image for and where does it come from, you ask? Well, according to a Reddit post from a few days ago, which has since been deleted, it's the cover art for Activision's new CoD game. In that original Reddit thread, a whole bunch of folks seemed to think that the uploader had created fake game art, which occasionally happens. Instead, Activision, in an attempt to stifle this leak to control its own messaging, confirmed the authenticity of the leak by issuing a copyright threat, thereby propelling interest in the image itself.

One Redditor says they received a notice from “Activision/Call of Duty” that this was a “copyrighted image containing key artwork for an upcoming video game Call of Duty: Warzone.”

This is all relatively solid indication that the Warzone name is real, and refers to battle royale. Ghost’s appearance in the image ties it closely to Modern Warfare, and the fact that a ‘classified’ option has joined that game’s main menu suggests it will be available inside Call of Duty proper.

And, so, instead of one Reddit thread that half the readers distrust, Activision has created for itself dozens of internet articles about the image, the forthcoming game, and its own actions in trying to copyright a leak to hell. Meanwhile, as you can see above, the image the company attempted to nuke from the internet is still very, very much available.

Maybe someone needs to create Call of Duty: Modern Internet Warfare?

Filed Under: call of duty, confirmation, copyright, dmca, leaks, overreacting, takedowns, warzone
Companies: activision, reddit

Letter To Judge Details Vault 7 Leaker's Post-Incarceration Leaking

from the sticking-it-to-the-CIA-by-burning-yourself-to-the-ground dept

The accused leaker of CIA phone hacking tools -- the "Vault 7" collection released by Wikileaks in early 2017 -- is still awaiting trial. To pass the time, alleged leaker Joshua Schulte is suing the government for $50 billion and, apparently, generating a whole lot of evidence against himself.

The criminal complaint against Schulte contained far more than accusations of leaking sensitive material. Searches performed on Schulte's devices also turned up 10,000 child porn images and a lot of copyrighted content Schulte was sharing from his own server. Stealing government secrets + child porn + copy infringement: that's the weirdness this case is.

Schulte continues to make the worst case for himself. While some leakers have acted more like whistleblowers, making the public aware of hidden misconduct or civil rights abuses, Schulte has presented himself as a martyr for his own cause. This isn't helping his criminal case (or the civil lawsuit he's filed). After being jailed, Schulte continued to leak classified info from his jail cell, using contraband phones and his access to the evidence the government planned to use against him.

The government pointed this out to the court in November 2018. A recent filing by the government (h/t Emptywheel) details Schulte's post-arrest efforts to continue leaking classified info to journalists -- including the use of his family members to contact journalists and set up new encrypted communications channels for him.

Unfortunately for Schulte, the seizure of contraband from his cell has given the government a lot more evidence to work with, especially when it comes to proving his criminal intent. Schulte really wanted a white knight, but none arrived. Taking matters into his own hands (and ignoring the advice of his lawyer), Schulte appears to have engaged in one-man war against the federal government, armed with nothing but shovels.

The letter [PDF] to the court details the contents of notebooks seized from Schulte's cell, as well as communications made to his family and members of the press. While under a protective order forbidding him from discussing the government's search warrants publicly, Schulte sent the warrant (along with several articles he had written) to a reporter. His desire to wage an "information war" against the government while behind bars was stymied by his inability to draft fellow combatants.

Because he was incarcerated, the defendant enlisted his family to communicate with reporters and to post the defendant’s articles online, including on a public Facebook page (the “John Galt Facebook Page”). While the defendant’s family was able to post a version of the defendant’s articles on the John Galt Facebook Page, the articles apparently did not result in the swell of press attention for which the defendant hoped. Over the summer and into the fall of 2018, the defendant grew angrier at his detention, but also his family’s inability, and eventually unwillingness, to publish all of the defendant’s articles and the media’s apparent lack of interest in the defendant’s case.

From there, Schulte went on to attempt to scrub his Gmail accounts of incriminating communications, and to create a number of new accounts for ProtonMail, Twitter, and Facebook so he could continue distributing classified info he knew or had access to. The letter describes four separate occasions Schulte revealed classified info to family members or the public. In total, the letter describes a pretty comprehensive case Schulte has built against himself, detailing everything from the deletion of evidence to the continuous generation of new evidence via Schulte's handwritten "information war" plans.

There's also stuff in there that undermines the whistleblower narrative Schulte has tried to craft.

On this page in the Red Notebook, the defendant states: “If govt doesnt pay me $50 billion in restitution & prosecute the criminals who lied to the judge and presented this bs case then I will visit every country in the world and bear witness to the treachery that is the USG. I will look to breakup diplomatic relationships, close embassies, and U.S. occupation across the world & finally reverse U.S. jingoism. If this is the way the U.S. govt treats one of their own, how do you think they treat allies?” This statement is obviously Intent Evidence—it shows not only that the defendant is growing increasingly frustrated, but, more importantly, that his frustration has risen to the point that he now—according to his own words—plans to destroy the United States’ relationships with its allies, leading to, for example, the shuttering of U.S. embassies in other nations.

The "intent evidence" here sounds more like a personal vendetta than the dissemination of classified info for the good of the public.

[T]he defendant recommends to U.S. intelligence agency employees to “send all your govt’s secrets here: WikiLeaks” until the U.S. government “honors” their service.

There are also things like this, that show even more hubris than the above examples suggest. Here's Schulte stating he feels his family should be willing to put themselves at legal risk for him.

The defendant states: “I text my dad from whatsapp & signal incessantly & finally got a response @ 1% battery. I said please put articles on drafts in gmail. Response: My lawyer advised me not to. Fucking incredible. Fucking. Incredible.”

And here he is mocking the FBI.

[T]he defendant also goes on to write that he designed his “own crypto – how better to fool bafoons like forensic examiners and the FBI then to have custom software that doesn’t fit into their 2-week class where they become forensic ‘experts.’” The defendant then provides classified details of specifics of his work at the CIA.

The government's letter tells the court there's plenty of evidence it wishes to use against Schulte, a lot of it gleaned from the "information war" he tried to wage from the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan.

[T]he MCC Notebooks and the Malware Article help to demonstrate a pattern of conduct that is highly probative of Schulte’s guilt of the WikiLeaks charges. In both instances, the defendant (1) grew infuriated with components of the U.S. government; (2) threatened to expose allegedly damaging information about the CIA to coerce the agency into acting as Schulte wished; and (3) used technologically sophisticated means to conceal his actions, using encrypted accounts and cellphones, and IP-masking techniques at the MCC and deleting logs and securely wiping removable media at the CIA.

Not much of this sounds like whistleblowing. If there is something honorable or altruistic in Schulte's actions, it can't be found here. That's not saying it doesn't exist. The government is a notoriously unreliable narrator and this filing only covers the stuff prosecutors think will help prove their case. But Schulte's narration isn't that reliable either. And he still doesn't appear to realize that acting in your own interest isn't always the same thing as acting in your best interest.

Filed Under: cia, copyright, joshua schulte, leaks, vault 7