Accused CIA Leaker Files Complaint Against The Government Seeking $50 Billion In Damages

from the good-points-terribly-made dept

Some CIA phone hacking tools made their way into the wild back in 2017. It didn't take long for the DOJ to find a suspect to charge. Joshua Schulte, a former NSA and CIA operative, was hit with a long list of charges, including espionage, child porn possession, and (at least momentarily) copyright infringement -- the last one on the list being the result of feds discovering a bunch of pirated movies and music on Schulte's server.

As this prosecution has slowly moved forward, it has gotten wilder. The DOJ claimed Schulte was continuing to leak classified info, even after being jailed while awaiting his trial. According to the DOJ's filing, Schulte was using a number of smuggled-in phones to smuggle out classified documents turned over to him by the DOJ in response to discovery requests. The government's filing also made mention of "significant encryption" stymieing its attempts to break into Schulte's contraband phone but left the definition of that term open to discussion.

Marcy Wheeler (of Emptywheel) was the first to come across Josh Schulte's latest filing in his case. And it's… something. Schulte has been openly critical of his incarceration and the US prison-industrial complex generally. Now, he's attempting to nail down the specifics by filing a complaint [PDF] against the US government for depriving him of a number of his rights and demanding, in a Dr. Evil-esque move, 50 BILLION DOLLARS.

The 88-page [!] complaint opens with Schulte's handwritten claim the government has ended a career headed for Bill Gates/Jeff Bezos-level personal fortune. The "Relief" section says:

Section 6: Monetary damages associated with illegal Federal Terrorist actions including torture and the loss of income (p. 65-69)

Total loss of income: $50,000,347,000
Total punitive damages: 5,359,270,693

Among the "illegal Federal Terrorist actions" leading to this $55 billion prayer for relief are a long list of things the government routinely subjects prisoners to, including solitary confinement, 24/7 exposure to bright lights, prison library bans, prison commissary bans, television-viewing bans, shackling, use of certain criminal charges (child porn possession) to leverage plea deals on other charges (espionage), a lack of access to hot water, indefinite pre-trial detention, and so on.

Schulte isn't wrong. A lot of what happens in federal prisons is inhumane. Whether or not it's worth $55 billion is up to the court and I'm pretty sure this complaint will be greeted with a swift dismissal. Construed liberally, it alleges a host of Constitutional violations that could meet the bar needed to move forward. On the other hand, it demands the good faith exception to the Fourth Amendment be declared unconstitutional, along with plea deals, mandatory minimum sentences, and the Classified Information Procedures Act. As a bonus, it asks for the "disbandment of the Fascist Police State including the FBI."

At best, this all seems unlikely to find a judge willing to entertain while presiding over Schulte's criminal trial. Many of Schulte's complaints are legitimate, but they're also things courts have not found to violate anyone's rights while they're incarcerated. Limited contact, extortionate phone call rates, constant surveillance, vetted mail, etc. are part of the prison experience. Many agree these things go above what's needed to keep prisons secure, but few courts (or legislators) are doing anything about it.

But along with the legitimate complaints about prison life, there's other stuff. It's not just the $50 billion Schulte thinks he could have earned if he hadn't been arrested and jailed. It's his comparing his experience to Jews during the Holocaust and insisting that his Second Amendment rights are being violated because they won't let him have a gun in jail.

But perhaps the nadir of the complaint is Schulte claiming possessing child porn is a "victimless crime."

The plaintiff was charged with a non-violent, victimless crime and subject to the presumption of detention. Even though the plaintiff has never been charged before with ANY crime and had worked for the government at the Central Intelligence Agency, the government knowingly lied and claimed the plaintiff was a danger to society.

Schulte's underlying point is solid -- that the government hasn't properly demonstrated why he should not be released to await his trial -- but it's made so badly it almost manages to negate itself.

If you can make your way past some of the heated -- but not helpful -- language, you'll find a depressing depiction of everyday prison life. It makes no difference to the government whether or not it's secured a conviction. If it can, it will lock you up until you finally are able to defend yourself against its charges. Until then, your life is over. It belongs to the government and it is willing to treat the presumptively-innocent just as terribly as it treats the guilty.

Filed Under: cia, joshua schulte, leaker, leaks, nsa, prison conditions

FBI Raids House Of 'Second Leaker' Who Provided Terrorist Watchlist Documents To The Intercept

from the FBI's-'Leak-Repair-Kit'-swings-into-action dept

The government appears to have located the "second leaker." Snowden obviously still remains out of reach in Russia, but the other leaker -- one hinted at over the past few months and confirmed in Laura Poitras' Snowden documentary "Citizenfour" -- seems to have been identified by the FBI. Michael Isikoff at Yahoo News breaks the news.

The FBI has identified an employee of a federal contracting firm suspected of being the so-called "second leaker" who turned over sensitive documents about the U.S. government's terrorist watch list to a journalist closely associated with ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden, according to law enforcement and intelligence sources who have been briefed on the case.

The FBI recently executed a search of the suspect's home, and federal prosecutors in Northern Virginia have opened up a criminal investigation into the matter, the sources said.

Once again, we're limited to anonymous "sources" and other unconfirmable information, but it seems the target of the raid was behind the leak of documents related to the federal government's terrorist watchlist program, published by The Intercept on August 5th. This was the same story the government attempted to defuse by leaking an official version to the Associate Press shortly before the Intercept's article went live.

Shortly after publication, government officials began to openly speculate about the existence of a second leaker, something others had been hinting at for weeks after a run of leaked documents at German news site Der Spiegel, none of which were attributed to Ed Snowden.

If the feds have their man, we'll get to see whether this administration will continue its record-setting pace for prosecuting whistleblowers. A hint dropped by one unnamed official suggests the DOJ may not be quite as enthusiastic about leaks punishment as it once was.

One source, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter, said there was concern "there is no longer an appetite at Justice for these cases."

Maybe not, but it's highly unlikely this case will slide if the leaker is caught. First off, there have been no statements from anyone with the requisite amount of power that the US government has softened its stance on Snowden's leaks. As far as they're concerned, he's still a criminal. The documents leaked by the second leaker may not have been as sensitive as those leaked by Snowden, but they still contain information the government wished to withhold. Add to that the ongoing prosecution of journalist James Risen and the recent sentencing of Chelsea Manning, and you still have an environment highly hostile to leaky government employees.

Filed Under: doj, fbi, feds, leaker, second leaker, terrorist guidelines, terrorist watchlist, the intercept, tsa, whistleblower

As DOJ Hunts For 'Second Leaker,' Will It Also Explore Who Leaked The Intercept's Story To The AP?

from the questions-to-ponder dept

Earlier this week, Tim Cushing wrote about The Intercept's latest scoop, concerning the makeup of the US government's federal terrorist watchlist, and the fact that a large chunk of it isn't affiliated with any terrorist groups. While most of the article focused on that point, he made two other notes in passing -- the first was that it was obvious that this release was from a second leaker, not Snowden, and the second was about how the government "leaked" the story in a "friendlier" manner to the AP in order to beat The Intercept. We thought both of these asides were interesting, but they've both turned into big stories on their own.

CNN later confirmed that US government officials are now searching for the second leaker (though "second" may not be accurate either...), more or less confirming what many people had been suspecting. Meanwhile, the "scoop spoiling" by the federal government actually resulted in a semi-apology from the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) who gave the scoop to the AP. The NCTC claimed it had been working with the AP on a story for a while, and after seeing what The Intercept was doing, felt it needed to give them the heads up, though it also says it could have handled the situation better. Of course, this also makes it more likely that The Intercept won't bother giving the government much time (if any) to respond on future stories. Why risk the chance of having the government spoil the scoop again?

However, with all this concern about the "second leaker," Chris Soghoian asks a very good question. If the Justice Department is going to go hunting for whoever leaked the information to The Intercept, will it similarly go after whoever at NCTC was apparently providing the same basic information to the Associated Press? Or how about the person who told CNN that the US government believes there's a "second leaker"? Because that information is also a leak, and potentially a big one, given that it will alert the leaker that the government is searching for him or her.

Somehow, we don't think the DOJ will be too concerned about those leaks. "Official" leaks happen all the time and no one cares. It's just the leaks that make the government look bad that somehow are seen as criminal.

Filed Under: government leaks, leaker, leaks, terrorism, tsdb, watchlist
Companies: associated press, cnn, the intercept

Does The XKeyscore Source Code Leak Point To Another NSA Leaker?

from the new-goal:-a-leaker-a-year-for-the-next-decade! dept

The recent leak of the XKeyscore source code has raised an interesting question. Is there a second leaker? The report written by Jacob Appelbaum and others for DasErste.de detailed the NSA's targeting of Tor users (and even those who just read about Tor) and the harvesting of their communications, but very explicitly did not state that Snowden was the source of this code snippet.

Others noticed this lack of attribution and commented on it. Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing apparently received confirmation that this particular leak was not from Snowden's trove of documents.

Another expert said that s/he believed that this leak may come from a second source, not Edward Snowden, as s/he had not seen this in the original Snowden docs; and had seen other revelations that also appeared independent of the Snowden materials.

Cryptologist and security expert Bruce Schneier (who has seen the documents released to journalists by Snowden) concurred with Doctorow's conclusion.

And, since Cory said it, I do not believe that this came from the Snowden documents. I also don't believe the TAO catalog came from the Snowden documents. I think there's a second leaker out there.

The TAO catalog was originally revealed by Der Spiegel with reporting by (again) Jacob Appelbaum and Greenwald/Snowden partner Laura Poitras. Nothing in the story explicitly states its origin, although the inclusion of Poitras at least suggests the documents can be traced back to Snowden's stash.

Glenn Greenwald, however, offered his agreement with Schneier's take here:

Seems clear at this point RT @ageis @vruz Bruce Schneier: "I think there's a second [NSA] leaker out there." https://t.co/0iCULZWf0L — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) July 4, 2014

If so, then that's two people who have seen Snowden's documents, including one with ongoing access, claiming there's a second leaker. And if so, the NSA's problem, instead of gradually disappearing from the public eye, will become more severe. Coupled with the recent leak published by the Washington Post, which shows the agency harvests and stores plenty of unminimized non-terrorist communications with its 702 collections (the same collection the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board recently found to be more law-abiding and less Constitutionally unsound than the bulk metadata program), the agency now looks worse than ever. It was completely unprepared for the Snowden revelations, but at least by this point, it has a general feel for the leak release process. Now, it possibly has another leaker offering new data and info to journalists, one which is a totally unknown quantity.

At this point, all anyone has is speculation. If there's another leaker, it's doubtful he or she will make his/her identity known any time soon. Snowden revealed himself as a leaker and that hasn't exactly worked out well for him.

But there's also some indications that this snippet of code came from Snowden's leaks. Errata Security (the group of bloggers that exposed the fakery behind NBC's pre-Winter Olympics "report" that all visitors to Sochi would be instantly hacked) has done its own fisking of the code snippet and come to the following conclusions.

1. The signatures are old (2011 to 2012), so it fits within the Snowden timeframe, and is unlikely to be a recent leak.

2. The code is weird, as if they are snippets combined from training manuals rather than operational code. That would mean it is “fake”.

3. The story makes claims about the source that are verifiably false, leading us to believe that they may have falsified the origin of this source code.

4. The code is so domain specific that it probably is, in some fashion, related to real XKeyScore code – if fake, it's not completely so.

Errata Security notes some of the oddities of the code, pointing out that it looks more like something pulled from a training exercise or manual rather than directly from XKeyscore itself. More investigation by Errata Security and The Grugq (another security expert) apparently uncovered the fact that the text was pulled from a document (pdf, docx, etc.) rather than an actual source file. But the aspect that seems to indicate this is part of Snowden's stash is the timeline.

As this post to the Tor developer mailing list describes, the signatures in the code are old. The earliest date this file can be valid is 2011-08-08, when the Linux journal reported on TAILS. The latest date might be 2012-09-21, just before a new server was added to Tor that isn't in the XKeyScore list. Since this is shortly before Snowden first tried to contact Greenwald, the dates sync up.

If the code is unrecognizable by those who've had access to the documents, that's probably due to it being compiled from various pages and mocked up into a short code excerpt. Rob Graham at Errata Security doesn't feel it's necessarily fake, but believes the origin of the quoted source code may have been obscured -- hence, no citation of Snowden's leaks or any acknowledgment of existing NSA files.

Of course, this could mean another leaker is simply hiding behind Snowden, and has pulled files roughly in the same date range in order to deliver new leaks in order to remain undetected. If there is another leaker, my guess is he/she will be discovered rather than coming out publicly.

New leaker or no, the one-two punch of published leaks by Jacob Appelbaum and Barton Gellman (of the Washington Post) shows that the NSA is doing everything it's been accused of -- namely, hoovering up and holding onto incidental communications (even those originating from "untargeted" American citizens) and viewing anyone with even a passing interest in anonymity or encryption as "suspicious."

Filed Under: leaker, nsa, source code, surveillance, training manuals, xkeyscore

Microsoft Looked Through Reporter's Hotmail And MSN Chat Accounts To Identify Windows 8 Leaker

from the scroogled? dept

Apparently, Microsoft's desire to track down someone who leaked screenshots of Windows 8 is so strong that it's willing to violate its own privacy guidelines and promises to the public -- even if it means undermining Microsoft's main promotional campaign for email services.

A few weeks ago, Microsoft promoted Mark Penn to chief strategy officer. Penn is most famous as a PR man and political pollster who was the driving force behind Hillary Clinton's failed campaign for President in 2008. He's known for his negative attack ads and his claims to do everything based on data -- though, people who have explored some of his techniques say it's a lot more flimflam than actual statistical analysis. His main contribution to Microsoft over the past few years seems to be its ridiculous "Scroogled" campaign, in which Microsoft -- a company not at all known for its privacy protections -- attempts to portray Google as being bad on privacy. The campaign has been a colossal and expensive flop according to most.

Either way, you'd think that for a company who's main marketing strategy these days is all about how it protects the privacy of your email account wouldn't then break into a user's email account. But that's exactly what Microsoft apparently did in tracking down the guy who leaked Windows 8 to a reporter. Alex Kibkalo, a software architect for Microsoft, sent a French blogger some Windows 8 code and the way to get around its anti-piracy measures. The French blogger posted screenshots and also emailed Microsoft for comment -- and that's when Microsoft apparently decided to throw its privacy promises out the window:

The engineer was caught after the blogger emailed Microsoft to confirm the authenticity of the leaked Windows 8 code. Investigators at the firm then reportedly looked through the blogger’s hotmail account and instant messenger chats to identify the source of the leak, and found an email from Kibaklo.

Of course, Hotmail today has morphed into Outlook.com, and the current ad campaign about it states: "Outlook.com prioritizes your privacy!" and "Your email is nobody else's business." Oh really? I guess Microsoft considers it their business. It's kind of astounding, first, that Microsoft did this, and second that they appear to openly admit that you have no privacy at all in your email if Microsoft suddenly decides it wants to dig through and dig up something.

Update: And, from the criminal complaint we see, indeed, that Microsoft figured it was fine to violate this journalist's privacy:

Filed Under: alex kibkalo, email, hotmail, leaker, mark penn, privacy, scroogled, windows 8
Companies: microsoft