Snowden: UK government now leaking documents about itself

[hootinholler]

The Independent this morning published an article - which it repeatedly claims comes from "documents obtained from the NSA by Edward Snowden" - disclosing that "Britain runs a secret internet-monitoring station in the Middle East to intercept and process vast quantities of emails, telephone calls and web traffic on behalf of Western intelligence agencies." This is the first time the Independent has published any revelations purportedly from the NSA documents, and it's the type of disclosure which journalists working directly with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden have thus far avoided.

That leads to the obvious question: who is the source for this disclosure? Snowden this morning said he wants it to be clear that he was not the source for the Independent, stating:

"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."

In other words: right as there is a major scandal over the UK's abusive and lawless exploitation of its Terrorism Act - with public opinion against the use of the Terrorism law to detain David Miranda - and right as the UK government is trying to tell a court that there are serious dangers to the public safety from these documents, there suddenly appears exactly the type of disclosure the UK government wants but that has never happened before. That is why Snowden is making clear: despite the Independent's attempt to make it appears that it is so, he is not their source for that disclosure. Who, then, is?

We all know that a spook organization would never leak something to damage someone else, right?

More at article.

-=-=-=-

Techdirt article with interesting observation:

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."

[struggle4progress]

1. It's OK to shake salt on the Independent's story with salt, but Greenwald has a history of lying

and so does Snowden

[truedelphi]

2. citations woul dbe nice - if you have them. n/t

[hootinholler]

3. Really??

I haven't seen any lies so far. Care to enlighten me?

[struggle4progress]

7. With regard to Snowden, of course, he deliberately took his BAH job

to steal documents

I suppose you're free (if you want) to justify the dishonesty there, because you believe it was somehow justified, but it's there nevertheless -- and Snowden's tendency to misrepresent various matters was documented almost from the moment he opened his mouth in Hong Kong -- though again I suppose you're free (if you want) to minimize the early examples as somehow unimportant. Such misrepresentations were discussed here at DU extensively in June

It's not surprising: the unreliability of people, who engage in such espionage activities, is a well-known phenomenon in intelligence and counter-intelligence work, and it accounts for the fact that spies don't generally win the trust of people they spy for. This case provides an easy example: despite Snowden telling the Chinese what computers of theirs the NSA had hacked, the Chinese in the end decided not to trust him and encouraged him please to skip from Hong Kong ASAP

[hootinholler]

9. You meant to say the lies told about Snowden

Were debunked vigorously in June, I'm sure.

Snowden didn't give the Chinese jack, that was speculation by your buddies who also want to turn Snowden (and Greenwald) into lying monsters.

So, when you call him a liar again, please be very specific and lay it out like I'm a 5 year old, because at this point I'm not wasting any more time on these sorts of nebulous accusations.

[struggle4progress]

12. You might want to go back and review the South China Morning Post reports in June

[struggle4progress]

8. Greenwald lies habitually, hoping people won't remember details, and

this column is no exception: Greenwald piously claims here that the Independent is engaging in "the type of disclosure which journalists working directly with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden have thus far avoided"

Well, that's demonstrably false. Greenwald himself has released signal intelligence facility information that he says was based on documents he got from Snowden:

... Classified US National Security Agency maps leaked by Mr Snowden and published by US journalist Glenn Greenwald in the Brazilian O Globo newspaper reveal the locations of dozens of US and allied signals intelligence collection sites that contribute to interception of telecommunications and internet traffic worldwide ...
Snowden reveals Australia's links to US spy web
July 8, 2013
Philip Dorling
http://www.smh.com.au/world/snowden-reveals-australias-links-to-us-spy-web-20130708-2plyg.html

[hootinholler]

10. ROFLMAO!

Here is the map you claim that proves the lie by Greenwald.



That's not even close to the same sort of information level.

[struggle4progress]

11. Anyone actually interested can read what I wrote and examine the link I gave:

I provided a short excerpt from Dorling's article in order not to offer a bare link, and the article supports my assertion "Greenwald himself has released signal intelligence facility information that he says was based on documents he got from Snowden"

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. "This can of worms only opens from the inside." From Mississippi Burning.

[Cali_Democrat]

5. In a new twist...

Snowden comes out against leaks.

[truedelphi]

6. Notice the governmental agency hypocrisy...

To consider an article is being done according to commonly established truly journalistic techniques, then there must be proper citing of sources.

Somehow or other, the Independent is pretending that Snowden is the source for what is being released. This is a stretch at the very least, and an outright lie at the most. Snowden may have had these documents available to him, but notice they ahve not been released by Greenwald.

So the Independent reporter is basically allowing themself to be spoon fed information by governmental sources, who of course remain unnamed!


Now there are indeed totally proper reasons for not naming a source. But to implicate Snowden or Greenwald as the source when they had nothing at all to do with this particular piece being published in the Independent, and in fact, a thoughtful reader would conclude that only a governmental official could have been the Independent article's source, is to defy journalistic standards.

As a commentator on another website, CharlesII of DailyKos, has noted: anonymous sourcing has one and only one proper function in journalism: to protect a source from retaliation by more powerful opponents.

CharlesII goes on to say: "It should be obvious why this does not apply to government officials vs. whistleblowers. The only retaliation the government officials have in talking about whistleblowers to fear is from voters, the courts, or Congress.

"If the Independent has a genuine source inside government providing them with information about this wiretapping site, fine, they should protect that source. But who told them that the documents are among those Snowden has? That could only come from Snowden, journalists he has worked with, or the government. And, since Snowden and the journalists deny that information came from them, the Independent is probably protecting the government."

[hootinholler]

13. There's that

And a decided lack of interest today.