Rep. Alan Grayson Asks Eric Holder If US Citizen Glenn Greenwald Will Actually Be Allowed Back Into The US Without Arrest

from the shameful-that-this-question-is-asked dept

It's horrifying enough that this question needs to be asked, but Rep. Alan Grayson, who has been one of the most vocal members of Congress in calling out the NSA's bad behavior has sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, seeking assurance that if US citizen Glenn Greenwald were to come back into the US that he could do so without being arrested. Grayson notes that a variety of prominent people, both within and outside the government (but who have influence on the government) have called for Greenwald to be arrested and prosecuted.

Mr. Greenwald, a United States citizen currently living in Brazil, has been publicly attacked by Members of Congress such as Representative Peter King, who on multiple occasions has called for his arrest merely because of his reporting as a journalist on the NSA. The Chairs of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, Senator Dianne Feinstein and Representative Mike Rogers, have appeared to echo this threat, as have prominent foreign-policy commentators such as Alan Dershowitz and Marc Thiessen.

He also highlights the infamous UK detention of Greenwald's partner, David Miranda. And then asks the basic question of whether or not the US government will agree that Greenwald can enter his own country without arrest for the crime of "journalism the government doesn't like."

I regard this as regrettable, because: (1) the commission of journalism is not a crime; (2) on the contrary, it is protected explicitly under the First Amendment; and (3) Mr. Greenwald's reports regarding these subjects have, in fact, informed me, other Members of Congress, and the general public of serious, pervasive violations of law and constitutional rights committed by agents of the government.

Bearing in mind that Mr. Greenwald is a citizen of the United States, please let me know: (1) whether the Department of Justice intends to bring charges against Mr. Greenwald, and (2) should Mr. Greenwald seek to enter the United States, whether the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, or any other office of the federal government intends to detain, question, arrest, or prosecute Mr. Greenwald, or to monitor or interfere in any way with his entry into or movement within the United States.

It's a sad and shameful comment on the state of the US government today that this question needs to be asked, no matter what the eventual answer is. We've strayed very very far from the ideals that this country is supposed to embrace.

Filed Under: alan grayson, eric holder, glenn greenwald, us citizens

UK Officials Argue That David Miranda Was, In Fact, A Terrorist

from the oh-really-now? dept

You may recall the farce in the UK that is the story of the nine-hour detention of Glenn Greenwald's partner, David Miranda, while he was held over while flying through Heathrow to get from Berlin to Brazil. Miranda's devices were seized under an anti-terrorism law, which can only be used to deal with terrorism. Even though many have admitted it was really just to send a message to Greenwald and other reporters, many UK officials have maintained that the detention was fully justified, despite no evidence to support that. Even the author of the law that was used to stop Miranda has argued that it was not intended for such uses.

However, last week in court, the UK laid out its case, as presented by Scotland Yard -- and they actually are going to try to claim that Miranda's actions -- carrying some of Snowden's encrypted documents -- is a form of both espionage and terrorism.

Intelligence indicates that Miranda is likely to be involved in espionage activity which has the potential to act against the interests of UK national security," according to the document.

"We assess that Miranda is knowingly carrying material the release of which would endanger people's lives," the document continued. "Additionally the disclosure, or threat of disclosure, is designed to influence a government and is made for the purpose of promoting a political or ideological cause. This therefore falls within the definition of terrorism..."

Read that again and let it sink in. UK officials are arguing that if you have any material which, if disclosed, might "influence a government," you are, by definition, a terrorist. That makes a very large number of people terrorists. By this definition, basically any whistleblower is a terrorist. Anyone with embarrassing, but factual, information about a government official might be deemed a terrorist as well. Something is very broken if that's considered the actual standard in the law.

Filed Under: david miranda, glenn greenwald, schedule 7, terorrism, uk

Greenwald On The Reporting Of The NSA's Recent Denials: So, Now We Trust The Liars?

from the maybe-it's-the-uniforms... dept

The NSA has taken a different approach to addressing the recent leaks involving the surveillance of foreign officials (and foreign citizens). Rather than limit itself to bland statements about oversight and legal framework, the NSA has chosen to claim the reporting is "misleading," if not flat out wrong. (The NSA and the administration are also taking turns throwing each other under the bus. While this is very amusing, it does very little to address the veracity of the leaks…)

Glenn Greenwald notes on his blog that these recent tactics have a hint of desperation about them, considering they were only deployed after news broke of the NSA's surveillance of high-level foreign officials.

[T]hese exact same Boundless Informant documents have been used by newspapers around the world in exactly the same way for months. The NSA never claimed they were inaccurate until yesterday: when it is engulfed by major turmoil over spying on European allies.

The same documents the agency now claims are wrong or misleading have been public for months now, but it's only now, after the administration and Sen. Feinstein turned on the NSA, that Gen. Alexander and James Clapper are pushing the narrative that the documents themselves are being misinterpreted. Greenwald points out that both have been very careful not to deny the gist of the story itself (large scale collection of foreign phone metadata) but rather that the slides deployed by reporters in Spain and France are being misread.

The agency also made the dubious decision to implicate the foreign intelligence agencies that feed them information in hopes of undermining the reporting (as well as spreading the blame.

[T]he fact some of this data is collected by virtue of cooperation with a country's own intelligence service does not contradict our reporting. To the contrary: the secret cooperation between some European intelligence agencies and the NSA has been a featured part of our reporting from the start…

The NSA spies extensively with (but rarely on) its four closest, English-speaking surveillance allies in the "Five Eyes" group: the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. But for many European nations, the NSA cooperates with those nations' intelligence services but also spies on their populations and their governments without any such cooperation. That negates none of our reporting: it is simply a restatement of it.

The NSA seems to be running short on credible counter-arguments. Many representatives in DC simply aren't buying the lines about "oversight" and "legality" any more. Even its defenders have begun distancing themselves. So, it's decided to start casting doubt on those reporting on the leaks. Fair enough, I suppose. There are many rhetorical tactics it could deploy and seeding doubt by questioning the reporting is just one of them. The problem is that the press in general has been more than happy to give the NSA's responses a credibility they haven't earned.

NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander asserted yesterday that two "Boundless Informant" slides we published - one in Le Monde and the other in El Mundo - were misunderstood and misinterpreted. The NSA then dispatched various officials to the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post to make the same claim, and were (needless to say) given anonymity by those papers to spout off without accountability. Several US journalists (also needless to say) instantly treated the NSA's claims as gospel even though they (a) are accompanied by no evidence, (b) come in the middle of a major scandal for the agency at home and abroad and (c) are from officials with a history of lying to Congress and the media.

Sadly, despite a very long history (that spans several administrations) of general untrustworthiness in both intelligence agencies and administrations themselves, government officials (even those speaking from under the cover of anonymity) are instantly given more credibility than any journalist, even when those officials have the most to gain by lying.

Journalists who consistently lie or are repeatedly inaccurate tend to be speedily expelled from the system. Government and intelligence officials who lie tend to remain employed, or at worst, exit via the revolving door, landing well-paying gigs in the private sector. Journalists have the most to lose, while government officials (especially when granted anonymity) have nearly nothing to lose, not if the misstatements and disinformation help shore up the narrative.

Knowing this, why would journalists take these statements at face value? Even worse, why would they help the government PR machine by publishing a narrative handed to them by a faceless, nameless "official" who has everything to gain from spinning the story? That's not journalism. That's "reporting."

Greenwald quotes the EFF's Trevor Timm on this baffling attitude.

"Oh, NSA says a story about them is wrong? Well, that settles that! Thankfully, they never lie, obfuscate, mislead, misdirect, or misinform!"

Greenwald has taken a lot of heat for his lack of objectivity, but judging from this, more journalists need to be questioning statements coming from "officials" looking desperately for a place to plant their unreliable narratives. Four months of the NSA having to eat the words of each previous denial after each new leak should be more than enough proof that if its collective lips are moving, it's lying. At best, it's offering its least egregious "untruths."

Filed Under: glenn greenwald, nsa, nsa surveillance

Why Won't Eric Holder Guarantee First Amendment Rights For Journalists?

from the shameful dept

On September 18th, John Cusak wrote a rather powerful open letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, asking if he'll guarantee the First Amendment rights of Glenn Greenwald and Laura Potras, two American journalists at the center of the Ed Snowden leak reporting.

Put simply, will Attorney General Eric Holder, the US State Department, and the FBI promise safe passage to journalists, their spouses and loved ones, and vow not to interfere with their reporting on these NSA stories?

So far, the answer has been far from clear.

Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras, the two American journalists at the center of these stories, have been doing their reporting from Brazil and Germany respectively. The US government has not, so far, stated publicly whether they can enter the country without receiving the same outrageous treatment that Miranda received. Or worse.

Can they practice journalism in the United States, without their hard drives being confiscated, without an unconstitutional search-and-seizure taking place at the border? Are they free to enter the United States without being served a subpoena, or even jailed? Unlike the UK, the United States is supposed to be bound by the first amendment of the constitution, which exists to bar such treatment of journalists.

And, of course, it goes well beyond those two (as Cusack acknowledges). The recent story of On The Media producer Sarah Abdurrahman and her family and friends (all US citizens) being detained at the border for no real reason (other than the obvious: the fact that they were Muslims, which is not a reason to detain them), highlights how the Constitution-free situation at the US border is incredibly problematic and chilling for journalists.

At the very least, the US government should provide an answer as to whether or not it will respect the freedom of American journalists to come back into their own country, but so far, Holder has remained silent.

The federal government keeps talking about how it wants to regain the trust of the American people. One way to do that would be to stop intimidating and spying on journalists -- even those critical of the administration's practices -- and to let them do their reporting. After all, the best way to build up the trust is to allow those journalists to do their jobs, only to discover that there's nothing legitimate to attack. The only reason to go after them would be if the administration knows that there are plenty of things to hide that will make them look bad. And then we're right back to the reason that there's no trust.

Filed Under: eric holder, first amendment, free speech, glenn greenwald, john cusack, laura poitras, nsa, nsa surveillance

UK Asked New York Times To Destroy Edward Snowden Documents; NY Times Ignored Request

from the good-for-them dept

There's been some back and forth concerning the David Miranda legal fight today and it's getting fairly ridiculous. The UK government is making some extraordinary claims about Miranda and the encrypted information he was carrying. They claim that some of the information was potentially incredibly damaging to UK national security interests (the same rhetoric we always hear, but is rarely shown to be true) and they also claim that they found a piece of paper on Miranda that allowed them to "decrypt one file on his seized hard drive." Furthermore, they claim that Miranda (and Greenwald and Poitras) "demonstrated very poor judgment in their security arrangements with respect to the material," in order to suggest that it might easily fall into dangerous hands.

Of course, there are many reasons to suggest that this is all hogwash. The choice of wording from the UK government is pretty precise. Note that they don't actually claim they've unencrypted any of the Snowden files. They make two separate claims in succession: one is that there were 58,000 documents that Miranda had and then, separately, that he had a password that allowed them to get into a file on his drives, and then they use that to insist that there was poor security. But they don't reveal what that one file was, nor do they admit to having figured out what was actually on the drives. Glenn Greenwald says that it's a flat out lie that Miranda had a password on him that would allow anyone to decrypt the documents (suggesting any password he might have had on him was totally unrelated). Greenwald also mocks the idea that Poitras's security was "sloppy," since it appears that the UK hasn't yet been able to figure out what was actually on the hard drives.

However, the strongest response to all of this comes from The Guardian itself, who reveals that after the Prime Minister's office ordered them to destroy hard drives, the Guardian told the UK government that the NY Times and Pro Publica also had copies of all of the documents related to the UK spying by GCHQ... and the UK government didn't seem particularly concerned:

"The government wanted the judge to believe that they have at all times behaved with the utmost urgency because of a grave threat to national security represented by newspapers working responsibly on the Snowden documents and their implications for society," he said. "But for most of the time since early June little has happened. On July 22 the Guardian directed the government towards the New York Times and ProPublica, both of whom had secret material from GCHQ. It was more than three weeks before anyone contacted the NYT. No one has contacted Pro Publica, and there has been two weeks of further silence towards the NYT from the government. This five weeks in which nothing has happened tells a different story from the alarmist claims before the court. The government's behaviour does not match their rhetoric in trying to justify and exploit this dismaying blurring of terror and journalism."

This leads to an even more mystifying situation, in which (as noted above), weeks later, UK officials asked the NY Times to destroy the documents, and the NY Times basically ignored the request entirely:

The British government has asked the New York Times to destroy copies of documents leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden related to the operations of the U.S. spy agency and its British partner, Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), people familiar with the matter said.

The British request, made to Times executive editor Jill Abramson by a senior official at the British Embassy in Washington D.C., was greeted by Abramson with silence, according to the sources. British officials indicated they intended to follow up on their request later with the Times, but never did, one of the sources said.

Ah, freedom of the press. Either way, this suggests that the UK's arguments against Miranda are just misleading FUD designed to paper over the thuggish behavior of detaining Miranda in the first place.

Filed Under: david miranda, ed snowden, encryption, first amendment, freedom of the press, glenn greenwald, jill abramson, national security, uk
Companies: ny times

Reporter Toobin Lashes Out At Reporters Who Use 'Stolen' Documents; Leaves Out His Own History Of Doing The Same

from the it's-just-not-civilized-to-do-real-reporting dept

David Carr, over at the NY Times, has a good article looking at how many of the people who have been involved in reporting on recent leaks concerning government abuses -- from Wikileaks to the Snowden leaks -- have been attacked by more "traditional" journalists, like David Gregory of Meet the Press and Jeffrey Toobin of CNN and the New Yorker. Carr says that this is the war on leaks, "pitting journalist v. journalist," but others have noted that it's a little more involved than that. Ryan Singel simplified it down to journalists vs. sycophants, since those complaining about Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, Julian Assange and others tend to be "insider" journalists -- those who rely on good relationships with government officials to "report" the news. Mathew Ingram, similarly, noted that the old school journalists were dealing with "the shock of inclusion," in that journalism is now done in a different way, and they don't like it.

The unavoidable sense one gets — not just from Carr's piece, but from all the other responses by Gregory and others to the NSA story and to WikiLeaks, and even to events like Reddit's attempt to contribute to the reporting around the Boston bombings — is of an "us vs. them" mentality, in which bloggers like Greenwald or more extreme personalities like Julian Assange are treated like invaders storming the barricades of the journalism establishment. As Carr puts it:

“The larger sense I get from the criticism directed at Mr. Assange and Mr. Greenwald is one of distaste — that they aren’t what we think of as real journalists. Instead, they represent an emerging Fifth Estate composed of leakers, activists and bloggers who threaten those of us in traditional media. They are, as one says, not like us.”

Carr also has this interesting exchange with Toobin, who has been among the angriest haters against Snowden, Greenwald and the rest:

Mr. Toobin agrees that an important debate has been joined, but says no story, no matter how big, justifies journalists’ abetting illegal acts, saying, “Journalists are not above the law.”

“The Jane Mayers, Sy Hershes and Walter Pincuses have all done superb work for decades without the rampant lawlessness that was behind these stories,” he said, adding later, “I’ve never heard any of those journalists endorsing the wholesale theft of thousands of classified government records.”

That seems especially ironic, given that just last week it came out that Toobin himself has been accused of taking a ton of classified documents for a book he was writing:

In journalist Michael Isikoff’s book, Uncovering Clinton: A Reporter’s Story, he described how Toobin was caught “having absconded with large loads of classified and grand-jury related documents from the office of Iran-Contra independent counsel Lawrence Walsh” in 1991:

Toobin, it turned out, had been using his tenure in Walsh’s office to secretly prepare a tell-all book about the Iran-contra case; the privileged documents, along with a meticulously kept private diary (in which the young Toobin, a sort of proto-Linda Tripp, had been documenting private conversations with his unsuspecting colleagues) were to become his prime bait to snare a book deal.   Toobin’s conduct enraged his fellow lawyers in Walsh’s office, many of whom viewed his actions as an indefensible betrayal of the public trust.  Walsh at one point even considered pressing for Toobin’s indictment.

Toobin was “petrified” that he would have to face criminal charges for stealing information for a rather dubious book deal. According to Isikoff, he either “feared dismissal and disgrace, or simply wanted to move on.” Toobin “resigned from the U.S. Attorney’s office in Brooklyn (where he had gone to work after Walsh) and abandoned the practice of law.”

Read that again, then go back and read Toobin's whining to David Carr. And try not to choke back the laughter. Toobin isn't upset that documents were taken as a part of journalism, since it appears that he, himself, had no problem with that. He's upset that it's used in a way that he doesn't like.

It is true that there are differences between many of those old school journalists and the new school who are breaking all of this news. The old school tried to buddy up with government sources to get their story. The new school would rather get the story. Apparently that upsets the old school, because it makes their stenography "reporting" a bit less interesting.

Filed Under: activism, david carr, glenn greenwald, jeffrey toobin, journalism, laura poitras, leaks

UK's Suppression Of Freedom Of The Press Drives Guardian To Partner With NYT On Snowden Reporting

from the will-they-threaten-the-nyt-too? dept

With the Guardian forced on orders directly from the Prime Minister's office to physically destroy some hard drives with the Ed Snowden documents on them, the Guardian made it clear that the reporting on the leaks would continue, but out of its NY offices, rather than the London ones (and, of course, via Glenn Greenwald in Brazil and Laura Poitras in Germany). However, another bit of fallout from all of this is that the Guardian has teamed up with its nominal "competitor," the NY Times to share some (not all) of the documents and to work together on the reporting of what's in them.

Amusingly, this comes just after a NYT editor argued (somewhat ridiculously) that the NYT has done more to advance the story than any other publication after the very first stories from The Guardian and the Washington Post. That statement is laughable. While the NYT has done some very good reporting on all of this, the Washington Post and the Guardian have continued to "break" a variety of big stories from the documents. The NYT has certainly added to the coverage, and added very important details to some of those stories, but it's been way, way, way behind. It will be interesting to see what happens now. Of course, one of the reasons why Snowden says he didn't go to the NYT originally, was due to stories of how they held onto some other stories, such as the original story about warrantless wiretapping, which it held for many months at the request of the feds.

Filed Under: ed snowden, freedom of the press, glenn greenwald, nsa, nsa surveillance, reporting, uk
Companies: ny times, the guardian

Snowden Accuses UK Gov't Of Leaking Documents He Never Leaked To Make Him Look Bad

from the a-bad-game-of-chess dept

The UK's Independent newspaper today had an "exclusive" article, in which they claim that documents from Ed Snowden's leaks revealed a secret internet surveillance base in the Middle East run by the UK government. There's just one problem. While the article implies (though does not state) that it got those documents from Snowden, Snowden says he's never talked to nor given anything to The Independent. Instead, he argues, that he's worked carefully with key journalists (namely, Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and Barton Gellman) to make sure that the things they publish don't reveal anything that might put anyone in danger. Snowden suggests, instead, that this is the UK government itself releasing this information in an attempt to "defend" the detention of David Miranda.

I have never spoken with, worked with, or provided any journalistic materials to the Independent. The journalists I have worked with have, at my request, been judicious and careful in ensuring that the only things disclosed are what the public should know but that does not place any person in danger. People at all levels of society up to and including the President of the United States have recognized the contribution of these careful disclosures to a necessary public debate, and we are proud of this record.

It appears that the UK government is now seeking to create an appearance that the Guardian and Washington Post's disclosures are harmful, and they are doing so by intentionally leaking harmful information to The Independent and attributing it to others. The UK government should explain the reasoning behind this decision to disclose information that, were it released by a private citizen, they would argue is a criminal act.

If you read the Independent's coverage carefully, they never actually claim they got the documents from Snowden, even if they leave that impression. Instead, they claim that "information on [the base's] activities was contained in the leaked documents obtained from the NSA by Edward Snowden." In other words, they got that information from someone else -- almost certainly the UK government. And, yes, that's convenient timing for the UK government to claim that some of the documents that Snowden downloaded might contain useful information to terrorists, so that they can then turn around and argue that they detained Miranda and took all of his electronics (and destroyed a Guardian hard drive) to avoid having this information "fall into the hands of terrorists."

The Independent article also implies that the UK government is afraid that Greenwald is going to start revealing this type of info in response to the Miranda detention, even though there's no basis to believe that all. Greenwald has been quite careful so far not to reveal any information that puts anyone at risk, so it's odd to believe that he'd start doing so now. Of course, it's fairly bizarre since the Independent story itself contains tons of details -- the kinds of details that Greenwald has avoided.

If Snowden's assertion is correct -- and it does seem like the most plausible argument at this point -- then it highlights the ridiculous lengths to which the UK government is going: releasing potentially damaging information that Snowden himself has avoided revealing just to suggest that Snowden was leaking damaging information. Incredible.

Filed Under: david miranda, ed snowden, gchq, glenn greenwald, leaks, terrorism, the independent, uk

Orders To Destroy Guardian Hard Drives Came Directly From PM David Cameron

from the and-now-the-nation-is-more-secure-than-ever! dept

More details continue to emerge on the UK government's two recent anti-journalist actions. The Guardian reports that the order to (pointlessly) smash up Guardian hardware came from the top.

A spokesman for Clegg made clear that Heywood was acting on the authority of both the prime minister and his deputy. The spokesman said: "We understand the concerns about recent events, particularly around issues of freedom of the press and civil liberties. The independent reviewer of terrorism legislation is already looking into the circumstances around the detention of David Miranda and we will wait to see his findings.

"On the specific issue of records held by the Guardian, the deputy prime minister thought it was reasonable for the cabinet secretary to request that the Guardian destroyed data that would represent a serious threat to national security if it was to fall into the wrong hands.

"The deputy prime minister felt this was a preferable approach to taking legal action. He was keen to protect the Guardian's freedom to publish, whilst taking the necessary steps to safeguard security.

"It was agreed to on the understanding that the purpose of the destruction of the material would not impinge on the Guardian's ability to publish articles about the issue, but would help as a precautionary measure to protect lives and security."

So, let's get this straight. The UK government "understands the concerns" about its recent actions, but apparently wouldn't change a thing if it had to do it all over again.

The usual justification presents itself repeatedly: security uber alles.

The government forced (statement says "request" but we know how these things work) the Guardian to destroy hard drives containing content that was "a serious threat to national security" but still existed elsewhere. The government knew this and still forced the issue and then has the temerity to claim the pointless show of force was about "safeguarding security."

Look at how many times that empty word shows up in this brief statement.

"...serious threat to national security…"

"...taking the necessary steps to safeguard security…"

"...a precautionary measure to protect lives and security…"

None of this was "necessary" or "precautionary." It did nothing. The data that might "threaten national security" is still out there. The government knows because its own defensive statement says the action "wouldn't impinge on the Guardian's ability to publish articles." It was pure muscle-flexing. This security-heavy statement pretty much says precisely that while expending many more words.

There's also this:

The deputy prime minister felt this was a preferable approach to taking legal action.

Awesome. The government would rather throw its weight around than pursue any sort of process that might have allowed the Guardian to dispute the order. How telling. How utterly and vilely telling. Of course the government felt this "approach" was "preferable." Screw the adversarial process. We've got the nation's "security" at stake. Everything else is secondary, including the public's outdated ideals about a free press and a government willing to respect the rights of its citizens.

Filed Under: david cameron, ed snowden, freedom of the press, glenn greenwald, hard drive, the guardian

UK Law Enforcement Told Miranda He'd Go To Jail If He Didn't Reveal His Email, Social Media Passwords

from the shameful dept

It's already pretty damn clear that the UK government had no legitimate "terrorist threat" when it detained Glenn Greenwald's partner, David Miranda, for almost nine hours (the legal limit without an arrest) under an anti-terrorism law. Now, Miranda has also revealed that his interrogators told him they would lock him up in jail if he didn't reveal the passwords to his email and social media accounts.

Mr Miranda told the BBC he was forced to disclose his social media passwords.

"I am very angry. This feeling of invasion. It's like I'm naked in front of a crowd," he said. "They said I had to co-operate or else I was going to jail."

It's difficult to see how this was meant as anything other than an intimidation tactic against Greenwald, and as a weak attempt to try to uncover what Greenwald is working on by getting his partner's passwords. It seems unlikely, given Greenwald's crash course in encryption and government spying, that Miranda's passwords would be helpful in any way. So, instead, it's just more bullying. There was simply no basis to throw Miranda in jail, and yet UK law enforcement intimidated him with such threats to get him to cough up his passwords. Just incredibly shameful.

Filed Under: david miranda, email, glenn greenwald, passwords, social media, uk