Reporter Who Wrote Sunday Times 'Snowden' Propaganda Admits That He's Just Writing What UK Gov't Told Him

from the journalism! dept

So we've already written about the massive problems with the Sunday Times' big report claiming that the Russians and Chinese had "cracked" the encryption on the Snowden files (or possibly just been handed those files by Snowden) and that he had "blood on his hands" even though no one has come to any harm. It also argued that David Miranda was detained after he got documents from Snowden in Moscow, despite the fact that he was neither in Moscow, nor had met Snowden (a claim the article quietly deleted). That same report also claimed that UK intelligence agency MI6 had to remove "agents" from Moscow because of this leak, despite the fact that they're not called "agents" and there's no evidence of any actual risk. So far, the only official response from News Corp. the publisher of The Sunday Times (through a variety of subsidiaries) was to try to censor the criticism of the story with a DMCA takedown request.

Either way, one of the journalists who wrote the story, Tom Harper, gave an interview to CNN which is quite incredible to watch. Harper just keeps repeating that he doesn't know what's actually true, and that he was just saying what the government told him -- more or less admitting that his role here was not as a reporter, but as a propagandist or a stenographer. Here's the key snippet: If you can't see or hear that, it's Harper saying "we just publish what we believe to be the position of the British government." This is a claim that he repeats throughout the interview, pleading ignorance to anything factual about the story. In short, his argument is that he heard these allegations through a "well placed source" within the UK government and he sought to corroborate the claim... by asking another source in the UK government who said "that's true!" and Harper ran with it.

Some more highlights. CNN's George Howell kicks it off by asking how UK officials could possibly know that the Chinese and Russians got access to the files, and Harper immediately resorts to the "hey, I just write down what they tell me!" defense:

Um... well... I don't know the answer to that, George. Um.... All we know is that... um... this is effectively the official position of the British government. Um.... we picked up on it... um... a while ago. And we've been working on it and trying to stand it up through multiple sources. And when we approached the British government late last week with our evidence, they confirmed, effectively, what you read today in the Sunday Times.

Again: government official tells them stuff, and they confirm with another government official -- and that's the story. Note that he says he showed the UK government "evidence" yet there is no evidence in the article itself. Just quotes and speculation. He goes on, trying to downplay the entire point of journalism, which should be to ferret out the truth. But, to Thomas Harper, if you question his report, you should be asking the government about it, not him. That's not his job.

It's obviously allegation at the moment, from our point of view. And it's really for the British government to defend it.

So, you publish an explosive story based on anonymous quotes and already proven falsehoods, and then you refuse to defend it, saying that it's the government's job to do so? Do you even know what a journalist is supposed to be doing, Harper?

Howell digs deeper, questioning how the UK government even knows which files Snowden took -- and questioning if the UK government has been able to decipher that as well. Harper, again, pushes it aside, saying he has no idea and they avoided such tricky questions altogether:

Again, that's not something we're clear on. So, we don't go into that level of detail in the story.

It's then that he makes the "we just publish what we believe to be the position of the British government" claim. Howell then points to one of the many contradictions in the story: the idea that Russia/China hacked into the Snowden files... and the claim that they were just handed over. And again, Harper pleads ignorance. He's just the stenographer:

Again, sorry to just repeat myself, George, but we don't know, so we haven't written that in the paper. Um... you know, it could be either. It could be another scenario.

I mean, it could be that the great fairyland dragon from the 6th dimension dreamed up the Snowden documents and then gave them to Russia and China. Who the fuck knows? I'm just a reporter, man. Why would you ask me for evidence or facts? I'm just rewriting what some government guys told me!

Howell then points out that his story is just the British government's claims, and then asks about the MI6 "agents" that were supposedly moved, and again, Harper pleads ignorance:

Um.... Again, I'm afraid to disappoint you, we don't know. There was a suggestion, um, that some of them may have been under threat. Um. Er. Um. But... the um... statement from senior Downing Street sources suggests that no one has come to any harm, which is obviously a positive thing from the point of view of the West.

Huh. So now he's the spokesperson for "The West?" Fascinating.

Again, Howell, somewhat nicely, points out that Harper is doing nothing more than stenography: "So, essentially, you're reporting what the government is saying, but as far as the evidence to substantiate it, you're not able to comment or to explain that at this point." And, Harper basically agrees.

No. We... we picked up on the story a while back, from an extremely well placed source in the Home Office, um... and then... um... carried on trying to substantiate what was going on through various sources in various agencies throughout Britain. And then finally presented the um... um... story, to the government, and they effectively confirmed what you read in today's Sunday Times.

In short: one government official told them this, and they asked other government officials, who all had a personal interest in having the answer be "yes" and after enough government officials all agreed on the same talking point, good boy Tom Harper wrote it all down and presented it as fact.

A few times in the interview Harper makes the accurate and reasonable point that when you're dealing with the intelligence community, getting evidence is often quite difficult. That's absolutely true. But then there's a way of presenting that kind of story and it's not the way Harper did so. When you have a story like this, where many of the details seem highly questionable, you don't just talk to government officials, but you try to reach out to other sources who can further the story. But Harper admits that they had no interest in doing this -- they were just presenting the government's side of the story. Even that can be done in a journalistic manner, in which case the article should not present itself as presenting factual information, as it does, but the idle speculation of government officials who won't put their names or positions behind what they're saying.

Harper concludes the interview by saying that it's very difficult to say things with "certainty" when reporting on national intelligence issues -- but if that's the case, why did the Sunday Times report present its findings with exactly that kind of certainty? Wouldn't the reasonable thing to do be to highlight the questionable claims and to detail what was known and what was no actually known? But that's not how Harper and the Sunday Times did it at all. And now he's trying to pass off the blame, saying that it's the UK government who needs to defend the "journalism" that he supposedly did. Given that he's admitting he just scribbled down and republished their thoughts, perhaps that's true concerning defending the facts of the story. However, it does seem quite reasonable to ask Harper to defend what sort of journalism he's actually doing.

Filed Under: ed snowden, fact checking, journalism, propaganda, tom harper, uk government
Companies: news corp., sunday times

UK Government Brings In Yet More Counter-Terrorism Measures -- Including Internal Exile

from the time-for-another-solzhenitsyn dept

The UK has the sad distinction of leading the way in the West when it comes to playing up the terrorism threat to justify the introduction of disproportionate surveillance laws. One of the favorite rhetorical tricks employed here is to invoke the "capabilities gap": this refers to the fact that the security services are unable to capture all communications in the same way they once could. But it's a misleading comparison.

It's true that it was easier to spy on the public's communications in the past; the percentage of traffic that can be tracked today may be lower, but the overall quantity of information available to the police and security forces is vastly greater, simply because the range of digital communications is so wide, and their use in everyday life so pervasive. This means that it is quite unnecessary to put in place even more intrusive monitoring in order to gain equivalent amounts of relevant information. However, the UK's Home Secretary, Theresa May, didn't let a little thing like the facts get in the way when she introduced yet another counter-terrorist bill earlier this week:

I remain passionately convinced of the need to address the capabilities gap the authorities face when it comes to communications data. And I am pleased to say that the Bill will go some way to bridging that gap. It will therefore require internet providers to retain Internet Protocol -- or IP -- address data to identify individual users of internet services.

That might seem a curious thing to introduce, since UK ISPs are already required to store metadata. A useful post from the Open Rights Group (ORG) explains this is all about the rise of mobile Internet use:

The new proposal, while being consistent with existing arrangements for ISPs in the UK, is another proposal for blanket retention beyond what is needed for business purposes.

In any case, this is a rather backward proposal, dealing with a problem that exists because the mobile companies continue to rely on out of date technology. To take a moment to explain: the Internet is famously running out of addresses (numbers that identify a point on the Internet – Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) addresses).

To deal with the lack of address space, mobile companies use a technology called "Network Address Translation" or NAT, which allows several devices to share the same IP address. Most people use this at home to allow two or three computers to use the ADSL or cable connection, However the mobile companies do this at a far greater scale called "Carrier Grade NAT" -- and there will be hundreds of different people using the same IP address.

It is for this reason that the port number for each connection must also be stored under the new proposals. But as ORG goes on to point out, it would be far better if mobile phone companies were encouraged to upgrade their systems to IPv6, which has such an abundance of addresses that this kind of quick fix would be unnecessary. Even then, such addresses would only identify a device, not who was using it at any given time.

Similarly, ORG also notes that this blanket retention could fall foul of a recent ruling by the European Union's Court of Justice that data retention must be "limited to what is strictly necessary. Indeed, because all IP addresses and port numbers are retained, the fear has to be that sooner or later they will be used in an attempt to identify those accused of copyright infringement -- as in Australia.

However, it seems unlikely that the UK government will worry about these kind of details given that the new counter-terrorism and security bill includes even more troubling provisions, such as the following:

in response to the increased threat we face and in response to the police and security services telling us this is what they need, we will legislate to allow TPIM [Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures] subjects to be relocated to different parts of the country.

Yes, you read that correctly: the new bill will introduce internal exile for the UK. The parallels between the UK and Soviet Russia become more painfully apparent by the day.

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Filed Under: exile, ip address, law enforcement, surveillance, theresa may, uk government

UK Gov't Agency Says It Can't Talk About Its Employees' Use Of 'Right To Be Forgotten' Requests

from the law-itself-prevents-any-discussion dept

One of the biggest problems (hard to pick just one...) with Europe's "right to be forgotten" is that it completely fails to consider the fact that those being asked to forget won't take this sort of government intrusion kindly, especially when requests are more related to burying embarrassments than restoring privacy.

It's been one backfire after another since the debacle began. Every notable request seems to be accompanied by a story about the removal, resulting in the generation of even more web content to be targeted for selective amnesia.

Everyone wants to know who's asking to be forgotten and why. A FOI requester in the UK has asked the Dept. of Energy and Climate Change to provide this information on its own employees.

Thank you for your email of 15 August 2014 where you requested the following information:

- “How many times have Ministers in your department, or staff from your department on those Ministers’ behalf, applied to Google or other search engines to have links removed from searches under the ‘right to be forgotten’ following the EU ruling earlier this year?
- Please break this figure down by minister.
- Please detail the web pages run by your department which have been served a notice by Google that they will not be appearing in certain search results as a result of the right to be forgotten.
- How many person-hours have been spent by your staff dealing with the ‘right to be forgotten’ (e.g. writing to or liaising with Google about removal requests)“.

The request pits government transparency against government opacity -- although the latter has been generously extended to European citizens with the "right to be forgotten" law. Unsurprisingly, transparency loses, but only inasmuch as the new law ensures transparency will lose.

To the extent that the “Right to be Forgotten” ruling provides that Individuals (in any capacity “official” or otherwise) have the right - under certain conditions - to ask search engines to remove links with personal information about them where the information is inaccurate, inadequate, irrelevant or excessive for the purposes of the data processing, the department holds no “official” information pursuant to your request.

Certainly not the desired response, but the desired response would undermine the law, which the UK government really can't do. If UK citizens can ask privately to be forgotten, so can public officials. The wording in the response spins the law positively, which is also expected. The only thing the government could have responded to without undermining the law it has to enforce is total up the hours spent dealing with the paperwork.

Presumably, similar requests have been made to other UK government agencies and presumably they will be greeted with similar responses. While this doesn't shed much light on how many government officials and employees are seeking to cleanse the net of information, we can be assured that any notable request will be duly noted by the entities being asked to forget. The UK government can't answer these questions without negating this (very questionable) right, but the private sector can still let the world know who wants what gone. One of the best checks against government power is the public itself -- even when it's citizens themselves who are using a bad law to request dubious removals.

Filed Under: right to be forgotten, secrecy, uk, uk government

UK Gov't Tries And Fails To Hide Details Of GHCQ/Telecoms Tapping Fiber Lines

from the it-all-comes-out-eventually dept

Apparently, the UK government worked very hard to get the Guardian and others not to publish certain details about how GCHQ (and NSA) tap certain underwater cables that connect the internet around the globe, as it turns out that they get lots of help from BT and Vodafone Cable (via its purchase of Cable & Wireless). Those two companies apparently get paid handsomely for helping the government tap into these undersea cables. The Register decided it doesn't quite care how much the UK government doesn't want this stuff published, and went ahead and did so anyway:

British national telco BT, referred to within GCHQ and the American NSA under the ultra-classified codename “REMEDY”, and Vodafone Cable (which owns the former Cable & Wireless company, aka “GERONTIC”) are the two top earners of secret GCHQ payments running into tens of millions of pounds annually.

The actual locations of such codenamed “access points” into the worldwide cable backbone are classified 3 levels above Top Secret and labelled “Strap 3”. The true identities of the companies hidden behind codenames such as “REMEDY”, “GERONTIC”, “STREETCAR” or “PINNAGE” are classified one level below this, at “Strap 2”.

After these details were withheld, the government opted not to move against the Guardian newspaper last year for publishing above-top-secret information at the lower level designated “Strap 1”. This included details of the billion-pound interception storage system, Project TEMPORA, which were revealed in 2013 and which have triggered Parliamentary enquiries in Britain and Europe, and cases at the European Court of Human Rights. The Guardian was forced to destroy hard drives of leaked information to prevent political embarrassment over extensive commercial arrangements with these and other telecommunications companies who have secretly agreed to tap their own and their customers’ or partners’ overseas cables for the intelligence agency GCHQ. Intelligence chiefs also wished to conceal the identities of countries helping GCHQ and its US partner the NSA by sharing information or providing facilities.

There are also some details about how the UK government authorized the tapping in secret (of course), and suggests that the powers are exceptionally broad (because, of course they are):

Although GCHQ interception of overseas communications can be authorised by a general “external” tapping warrant, the wording of the law does not permit storage of every communication for examination, as GCHQ wished to do. In 2009, the spooks persuaded then Foreign Secretary David Miliband to sign a new warrant legalising what they wished to do. The terms of such warrants have never been published.

The special “external” warrants, issued under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), authorise the interception of all communications on specified international links. Miliband’s first 2009 warrant for TEMPORA authorised GCHQ to collect information about the “political intentions of foreign powers”, terrorism, proliferation, mercenaries and private military companies, and serious financial fraud.

Certificates attached to external interception warrants are re-issued every six months, and can be changed by ministers at will. GCHQ officials are then free to target anyone who is overseas or communicating from overseas without further checks or controls, if they think they fall within the terms of a current certificate.

The article also details how a special team at BT will help GCHQ figure out how to tap cables without others knowing about them:

The GCHQ-contracted companies also install optical fibre taps or “probes” into equipment belonging to other companies without their knowledge or consent.... Snowden’s leaks reveal that every time GCHQ wanted to tap a new international optical fibre cable, engineers from “REMEDY” (BT) would usually be called in to plan where the taps or “probe” would physically be connected to incoming optical fibre cables, and to agree how much BT should be paid.

Considering that The Register claims that not publishing this information is what kept the UK government from taking The Guardian to court, it will be interesting to see how they react to The Reg's decision to publish. The article also has a lot more details about the GCHQ using a top secret base in Oman to capture all of this undersea cable traffic as well, which I would imagine is a big part of what the government had hoped to keep secret. The stuff about the big telco and cable companies helping tap undersea fiber cables (and getting paid for it) doesn't seem particularly surprising at all. It's been known for years that AT&T has done that for the US government, so it's not clear why anyone felt the need to keep the equivalent so secret in the UK.

Either way, it seems like all of these efforts to keep certain aspects of these stories secret eventually fail. And the "top secret" stuff gets revealed one way or another eventually anyway. That doesn't mean that indiscriminate disclosure necessarily makes sense (though some of you will likely disagree), but it should make people realize that there needs to be very good reasons for keeping certain information secret, or it will almost certainly be disclosed eventually.

Filed Under: fiber, gchq, journalism, nsa, oman, surveillance, tapping, uk, uk government, undersea cables
Companies: bt, the register, vodafone cable