Media Hypocrisy: When DC Insiders Leak Gov't Talking Points About NSA, No One Has A Cow

from the how-about-that... dept

If you haven't seen it yet, Glenn Greenwald gave a fantastic speech last week about all of the NSA surveillance leaks. The whole speech is about an hour long, but I wanted to highlight one key point, in which Greenwald discusses how the leaks haven't just outed the NSA surveillance, but the subservience of the DC press to the government they cover. The embed below should start right at the moment he discusses this, but if not, it's at 42:20: Part of what he discusses (around 45:45) is about the conversation where David Gregory asked Greenwald why he shouldn't be arrested for "aiding and abetting" the leaks of confidential surveillance info. The ridiculousness wasn't just in the question, but that in that very same conversation, when Greenwald had brought up the secret FISA court order that supposedly called out the NSA for failing to abide by the 4th Amendment. Gregory insisted that his "government sources" had told him what was in that secret ruling, and he proceeded to lay out what he believed was in that ruling (which Greenwald insists was factually inaccurate). However, as he notes, here was David Gregory, effectively "leaking" a classified FISA Court ruling (wrongly) based on a "leak" from an administration official. And yet, no one seemed concerned about that -- just about whether or not Greenwald should go to jail.

"But what was really amazing was that 90 seconds later, he was calling for my prosecution, for having disclosed classified information, and yet, he, 90 seconds earlier, had just gotten done saying that somebody in the government had come to him and described this top secret court document, which he then disclosed to the public and to the world, by telling me what he thought it said."

He then describes how Barbara Starr, a CNN reporter who covers the Pentagon -- though, Greenwald jokingly calls her the "Pentagon spokesperson who works for CNN as the 'Pentagon reporter'" -- did the exact same thing, disclosing that US officials are claiming that terrorists are "changing tactics" following the Snowden leaks, based on claims from "anonymous" government sources. These anonymous government sources sure are busy. I had been collecting a few such examples, but Michael Calderone at HuffPo beat me to it by highlighting a whole bunch of similar stories:

Anonymous officials this week have told several news organizations -– often using nearly identical language -- that the NSA leaks had prompted members of terrorist groups to change the way they communicate.

A “senior intelligence official” to ABC News on Monday:

“The intelligence community is already seeing indications that several terrorist groups are in fact attempting to change their communication behaviors based on what they’re reading about our surveillance programs in the media.”

A "senior intelligence official" to the Washington Post on Monday:

Already, several terrorist groups in various regions of the world have begun to change their method of communication based on disclosures of surveillance programs in the media, the official said. He would not elaborate on the communication modes.

A "US intelligence official” to CNN on Tuesday:

“We can confirm we are seeing indications that several terrorist groups are in fact attempting to change their communications behaviors based specifically on what they are reading about our surveillance programs in the media.”

Two “US national security sources” to Reuters on Tuesday:

Intelligence agencies have detected that members of targeted militant organizations, including both Sunni and Shi'ite Islamist groups, have begun altering communications patterns in what was believed to be a direct response to details on eavesdropping leaked by the former U.S. spy agency contractor, two U.S. national security sources said.

Two “U.S. intelligence officials” to the AP on Wednesday:

Two U.S. intelligence officials say members of virtually every terrorist group, including core al-Qaida members, are attempting to change how they communicate, based on what they are reading in the media, to hide from U.S. surveillance.

Of course, the details are incredibly sparse to non-existent. And, frankly, that's understandable since it seems like it's almost surely bullshit. The report from Starr claimed the following:

The administration official offered an example of one concern: Terrorists may be less inclined to communicate via "clean" e-mail accounts that have no links to them because they believe the U.S. government can track those.

But... does anyone seriously believe that terrorists are so dumb that they're communicating via basic email accounts like that? We're talking about Al Qaeda, who was so careful with Osama bin Laden's communications that he typed out his emails on a thumb drive, which someone else then took far away to input into a computer. Terrorists know the US government is spying on them, and so far none of the revelations has been all that surprising or revealing about how the government spies on terrorists. The concern has been about how the public is swept up in the process.

But, really, all of those stories above seem a hell of a lot more revealing about US intelligence techniques than anything that Ed Snowden has leaked. MSNBC's Chris Hayes is spot on in this scathing response to Starr and others, and the "media insiders" as he notes that the reports of government officials telling the world that terrorists are changing how they communicate seems a lot more revealing, but no one seems to be calling for any of the reporters above to go to jail: As Hayes says:

This article not only self-servingly advances the narrative that the intelligence community would like us to believe -- that the Edward Snowden leaks have helped the terrorists -- but, in doing so, it could be seen as doing far more in alerting terror groups to what the US intelligence community knows about them and their communications than anything published by the Guardian or the Washington Post. And yet, somehow, I have not heard members of Congress calling Barbara Starr's reporting dangerous, or pushing for her prosecution...

The whole video is great. But, between all of these things, you see the same thing over and over again. The actual leaks from Ed Snowden don't appear to be damaging, other than to the reputations of some in DC. And the later leaks being used to tar and feather Snowden appear to be much more revealing. But, somehow the insider press is fine with "leaks" that support the government's official position, but aren't okay when the leaks actually challenge the government.

Funny how that works. Or, rather, not funny at all.

Filed Under: barbara starr, chris hayes, david gregory, ed snowden, glenn greenwald, hypocrisy, journalism, leaks, media

Latest Leak Showing US Spying On EU Embassies Not That Surprising

from the is-this-a-surprise dept

Over the weekend there were a few more "Snowden" leaks released, starting off with evidence that the US intelligence community (possibly involving the NSA, CIA and FBI) had been bugging a whole bunch of EU officials, including in their US embassies, but also in Europe as well. There is the reasonable and expected outrage from EU officials who really don't like the idea that their own allies are spying on all their calls, emails, faxes, etc. I can see how this may be quite awkward from a diplomatic standpoint, but of the various leaks to date, this one seems the least interesting. This kind of thing is exactly what intelligence agencies do. They spy on each other's government officials. Bugging embassies is a tradition that goes back quite a few decades. I'd actually be more surprised if we found out that the US wasn't bugging those communications.

Of course, that doesn't make things comfortable for the US, who will now certainly have to explain itself to a large number of allies.

The eavesdropping on the EU delegation to the US, on K Street in Washington, involved three different operations targeted on the embassy's 90 staff. Two were electronic implants and one involved the use of antennas to collect transmissions.

[....] The operation against the French mission to the UN had the covername "Blackfoot" and the one against its embassy in Washington was "Wabash". The Italian embassy in Washington was known to the NSA as both "Bruneau" and "Hemlock".

The eavesdropping of the Greek UN mission was known as "Powell" and the operation against its embassy was referred to as "Klondyke".

This kind of stuff just confirms more typical intelligence agency activities. The original leaks about surveillance specifically on the public remains a much bigger concern, though I do wonder if revealing spying on allies may lead to some chillier reactions to various agreements like the upcoming TAFTA negotiations.

Filed Under: allies, cia, diplomatic problems, ed snowden, espionage, eu embassies, leaks, nsa, nsa surveillance, surveillance

Ecuador Pulls Ed Snowden's Travel Papers Because Julian Assange Thinks He's In Charge

from the yay,-politics dept

Things keep getting more and more ridiculous concerning the Ed Snowden asylum drama. It's never been fully explained how or why Snowden decided to link up with Wikileaks to get "help" in finding a place to get asylum, but ever since then, Wikileaks has been presenting itself as Snowden's spokesperson, and apparently that's not going over well with some people, including Ecuador, the one country to most prominently express interest in granting Snowden asylum, and the country which granted him travel documents. Except, in large part because of the Wikileaks connection, Ecuador has pulled those papers, in a move that seems to be a combination of petty politics and spite:

President Rafael Correa halted an effort to help Snowden leave Russia amid concern Assange was usurping the role of the Ecuadoran government, according to leaked diplomatic correspondence published on Friday.

Amid signs Quito was cooling with Snowden and irritated with Assange, Correa declared invalid a temporary travel document which could have helped extract Snowden from his reported location in Moscow.

Correa declared that the safe conduct pass issued by Ecuador's London consul – in collaboration with Assange – was unauthorised, after other Ecuadorean diplomats privately said the WikiLeaks founder could be perceived as "running the show".

Apparently, some Ecuadorian officials have been urging Ecuador's president to distance himself from Assange, and that the public perception was that Assange was running the show, rather than Ecuador. Of course, I wonder how much of this has to do with other leaks concerning Ecuador's own surveillance efforts as well. Or, perhaps more likely, how much it has to do with threats from the US should Ecuador accommodate Snowden.

It does seem likely that even without Ecuadorian travel papers, some country will happily take Snowden. But, in the meantime, it presents yet another complication.

Filed Under: ecuador, ed snowden, nsa, russia

Ecuador Using Copyright To Try To Take Down Leaked Documents About Its Surveillance Practices

from the copyright-as-censorship dept

While Ecuador has received plenty of attention for granting asylum to Julian Assange and being one possible landing place for Ed Snowden, it's no secret that the country is not exactly known as a bastion of civil liberties protection. In fact, last year, just as it was granting Julian Assange asylum, there were reports coming out about highly questionable activities by the Ecuador government in extraditing someone who had exposed corruption. In that post, it was noted that Ecuardor scrapped its own rules requiring a warrant to investigate someone's IP address and has been known to seize the computers of critical journalists.

So, it should come as little surprise that while so much attention is on Ecuador, it was leaked to Buzzfeed that the country is in the middle of purchasing equipment for widespread surveillance, including a system called "GSM Interceptor" (subtle!) and some unmanned surveillance drones. Basically, the country does not have a great record on protecting civil liberties or freedom of the press.

But, here's where the story gets even more bizarre. Buzzfeed's reporters, Rosie Gray and Adrian Carrasquillo, had posted the various documents they got revealing these purchases on Scribd and embedded them beneath the story. Here's a screenshot: Could there be a copyright claim? Well, unlike the US, many countries do allow government documents to be covered by a form of copyright, but even so it seems ridiculous that Ecuador is clearly using copyright to try to stifle a free press in discussing its surveillance efforts. It's yet another example of copyright being used for censorship, made doubly ironic in that it came about while trying to stifle documents about its surveillance program that only came to light because the of possibility that it might offer political asylum to Ed Snowden for revealing US surveillance. Are there any places left on earth that actually do respect basic civil liberties?

Filed Under: censorship, copyright, ecuador, ed snowden, julian assange, leaks, surveillance

Ecuador Tells US To Take Its Trade Agreement And Shove It, After Threats Relayed Over Snowden

from the wow dept

One of the points that many people have made concerning most countries in the world is that they're loathe to challenge the US on many things, even when they're in the right, because they're so reliant on the US for trade. The US regularly lords this fact over countries in seeking to get its way. In fact, US officials had been very strongly suggesting to Ecuador that if it decides to take in Ed Snowden and grant him asylum, that there could be consequences for trade under the Andean Trade Preference Act that both countries are signed to, but which needs to be renewed next month. Specifically, US politicians suggested that they might not allow the renewal if Ecuador granted asylum.

In response, Ecuador has taken a stand: saying that it's breaking the trade agreement upfront as it doesn't appreciate the attempt by the US to blackmail it in this matter.

President Rafael Correa's government said on Thursday it was renouncing the Andean Trade Preference Act to thwart US "blackmail" of Ecuador in the former NSA contractor's asylum request.

Officials, speaking at an early morning press conference, also offered a $23m donation for human rights training in the US, a brash riposte to recent US criticism of Ecuador's own human rights record.

Furthermore, they made it quite clear that this is entirely about the US' actions in trying to pressure them about Snowden:

"Ecuador does not accept pressure or threats from anyone, nor does it trade with principles or submit them to mercantile interests, however important those may be," said Fernando Alvarado, the communications secretary.

"Ecuador gives up, unilaterally and irrevocably, the said customs benefits."

As the article notes, some of this is surely political. It is a bit of a populist move by the government, and many suspected that the trade agreement was unlikely to be renewed anyway by the US, so in some ways this is an attempt to get out in front of that story and pull something of a "you can't fire me, I quit!" move. Still, it highlights, once again, the way the US bullies smaller countries, and how that can backfire.

Filed Under: andean trade preference act, asylum, atpa, blackmail, ecuador, ed snowden, edward snowden, rafael correa, threats, trade agreements

President Obama Calls Ed Snowden A 'Hacker' When He Didn't Hack Anything

from the smearing dept

This is odd. In talking about Ed Snowden, President Obama referred to him as a "hacker." After being asked about what kinds of efforts the administration was making to capture Snowden, the President (thankfully) claimed that they weren't going to go too crazy over it, but chose an odd descriptor for Snowden:

"I'm not going to be scrambling jets to get a 29-year-old hacker," he told reporters during a news conference in Senegal.

Leaving aside the fact that Snowden recently turned 30, calling him a "hacker" seems like a calculated move to try to reframe these leaks as something nefarious where someone "broke in" to get classified info, rather than a whistleblower on the inside, who saw what was going on, the widespread abuses, the lying to the American public and Congress, and decided to do something about it. This attempt at reframing whistleblowing is all too consistent with the administration's practice of declaring war on whistleblowers.

Filed Under: barack obama, ed snowden, edward snowden, hacker, nsa leaks, whistleblowers

Supporting EFF Means You're A Security Risk?

from the really-now? dept

As lots of folks keep trying to delve into the mind of Ed Snowden without really knowing him at all, Andrew Katz at Time has an article about the security clearance process that people go through to get into a job like that, discussing some of the "blind spots" in the process that might have let an Ed Snowden through. Apparently, the EFF sticker on his laptop should have been a warning sign:

In a photograph posted online after Snowden revealed himself, his laptop displays a sticker touting the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a longstanding advocate for online rights and staunch opponent of government surveillance. That would have been enough of a warning sign to make it into his file, Smith says, but investigators wouldn't have come across it because clearance interviews aren't performed at their homes: "You're not around that person's personal belongings to make any other additional observations about that person's characters."

It seems a bit extreme to suggest that merely supporting a group like EFF automatically makes you suspect for jobs in the intelligence world. After all, isn't EFF defending basic Constitutional freedoms that Americans hold dear, and which our government is supposed to be protecting? But, even more to the point, if having EFF paraphernalia makes you a potential security risk in the NSA, what does that say about NSA Director, General Keith Alexander who attended last year's Defcon in an EFF t-shirt: Clearly, the NSA is doomed. Its boss is a huge security risk who never should have been given clearance!

More seriously though, it's getting fairly ridiculous when supporting basic Constitutional rights suddenly makes you a security risk. We're entering witch hunt territory, which is what happens when people get overly paranoid.

Filed Under: civil liberties, ed snowden, edward snowden, eff, keith alexander, warning signs

Shameful: Other Journalists Now A Part Of Ridiculous Smear Campaign Against Glenn Greenwald

from the digging,-digging,-digging dept

This is just getting ridiculous. We've covered the various stories of politicians and journalists suggesting that Glenn Greenwald should be arrested and charged for merely doing investigative journalism and reporting on the leaks of Ed Snowden. However, Greenwald himself has now revealed that a variety of mainstream press outlets are working on stories that are clearly designed to smear him, digging into minor events from over a decade ago to somehow attack his credibility. Greenwald is (smartly) getting out in front of these by revealing the details ahead of time, though it's ridiculous that he should need to. We won't even mention what the "issues" are, because they're trifling nothings from a decade or so ago that weren't newsworthy then and are not newsworthy today. What they are, clearly, are attempts to attack Greenwald's character for merely being one of the key reporters who has helped to expose massive government overreach in surveillance.

The actual story is about the government's overreach. But, rather than deal with that, reporters from newspapers like the NY Times want to write Greenwald into the story? Really? We have a huge opportunity for journalists to dig into the real story: just how much spying on people various governments around the globe are doing today. And yet, instead, they want to focus on minor quibbles from a decade ago involving the reporter who actually did the work they failed to do? It's a shameful reflection on the state of much of the media today.

Filed Under: ed snowden, glenn greenwald, journalism, nsa, nsa surveillance, smear campaign
Companies: ny times

Jimmy Wales Thinks Snowden Is 'An Innocent Party' And 'A Hero'; Wants To Know If He Ever Edited Wikipedia

from the another-mystery dept

A post on Examiner.com points out that Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia's co-founder, is interested in Edward Snowden:

I'm sure this has been discussed somewhere. In the media there have been reports of user accounts used on various tech discussion sites by Edward Snowden. He was apparently quite an active person online, particularly a few years back when he was younger. It seems highly likely to me that he would have edited Wikipedia -- most people who fit his profile (tech savvy, internet activist types) will have done so. Do we have any evidence of that, or suspicions about that?

As Wales says, it certainly seems possible that Snowden might have fiddled with a bit or two on Wikipedia, as one does, so it's a reasonable question to pose. But there's a complication, also pointed out in the Examiner.com story:

However, a key problem for Mr. Wales is that Wikipedians aren't allowed to snoop into the identity of other other Wikipedia editors who have not disclosed their real name on Wikipedia.

This tension between wanting to know if Snowden was a Wikipedia editor, and rules that say the identity of editors should not be revealed unilaterally, is explored in a fascinating -- and lively -- discussion underneath Wales's original post that's well-worth reading. His position on the matter is the following:

It is not 'outing' when the user ids in question are already published widely in the media in reliable sources. I looked for a couple of variant spellings and found nothing, so I asked to see if others could find anything. I think it is not only acceptable but highly desirable for people to openly discuss such matters. If someone discovers or knows something that they feel would be inappropriate to post publicly, then they should send it to me privately.

Snowden's relationship with Wikipedia remains a mystery; Wales's views on Snowden, by contrast, are pretty clear:

I personally think in general Snowden is an "innocent party" -- a hero, in fact.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

Filed Under: ed snowden, editors, jimmy wales, wikipedia
Companies: wikipedia

NSA's Response To Snowden Leaks Isn't To Stop Spying, But To Make It More Difficult To Blow The Whistle

from the wrong-lesson dept

In response to the revelations, via Ed Snowden, that the NSA's surveillance apparatus is sweeping up a lot more information on the public than most people realized, you might think that the proper response would be to stop collecting so much information. But, of course, the NSA's actual response is to try to make it more difficult for the next Ed Snowden to leak information by instituting a "two-person rule" for accessing information.

The director of the N.S.A., Gen. Keith B. Alexander, acknowledged the problem in a television interview on Sunday and said his agency would institute “a two-man rule” that would limit the ability of each of its 1,000 system administrators to gain unfettered access to the entire system. The rule, which would require a second check on each attempt to access sensitive information, is already in place in some intelligence agencies. It is a concept borrowed from the field of cryptography, where, in effect, two sets of keys are required to unlock a safe.

From government agencies to corporate America, there is a renewed emphasis on thwarting the rogue I.T. employee. Such in-house breaches are relatively rare, but the N.S.A. leaks have prompted assessments of the best precautions businesses and government can take, from added checks and balances to increased scrutiny during hiring.

Basically: we won't fix the actual problem, we'll just makes sure it's much more difficult for the next whistleblower to expose us. That's not particularly comforting.

Filed Under: ed snowden, nsa, two person rule, whistleblowing