British News Staff May Face Terrorism Charges Over Snowden Leaks

[Indi Guy]

Source: Reuters

...During his testimony, Rusbridger defended his decision to publish the leaks and said the paper had used less than one percent of the information and kept the rest stored securely.

"We have published I think 26 documents so far out of the 58,000 we've seen, or 58,000 plus. So we have made very selective judgments about what to print," he said. "We have published no names and we have lost control of no names."

...Countering criticism by lawmakers, Rusbridger said more emphasis was being given to the Guardian's decision to publish the leaks than to the fact they had been so easily obtained in the first place.

"We were told that 850,000 people ... had access to the information that a 29-year-old in Hawaii who wasn't even employed by the American government had access," he said.






Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/03/us-britain-snowden-guardian-idUSBRE9B20TL20131203

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Seems like the paper is doing a better job of guarding sensitive info than the agency charged with that task.

[randome]

1. "Seems like the paper is doing a better job of guarding sensitive info..."

Isn't that kind of the same when a hacker steals financial information and says, "See? Told you it wasn't well guarded." ?

Granted, the Guardian didn't 'steal' anything but the NSA's lack of security does not have anything to do with whether or not the documents should be printed or remain in the hands of civilians who cannot guarantee they won't fall into the wrong hands.

And Snowden obtained those documents, allegedly, by getting others to give up their passwords. That could easily happen at the Guardian, too.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]A ton of bricks, a ton of feathers. It's still gonna hurt.[/center][/font][hr]

[Indi Guy]

2. On a scale of 1 - 10...

...how worried are you that the leaks are going to affect your safety, given that over 3/4 of a million people had the same access as Snowden to the files?

[randome]

3. I pick '1'. Same as how much 9/11 personally affected my life.

But agents and resources could be compromised. I don't know where that 850,000 number came from. I doubt it's true. Maybe he means 'potential' access.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]A ton of bricks, a ton of feathers. It's still gonna hurt.[/center][/font][hr]

[Indi Guy]

4. The Guardian is not known for picking numbers out of the air.

It would be hard to keep a national newspaper in business without a reputation of vetting crucial facts.

[bemildred]

7. I saw that number some time back, in July or thereabouts, but not since.

I've been wondering why? It's a stunner. The context IIRC was the private army of analysts going over the PRISM stuff. If you think about it, it makes sense, that is one hell of a lot of data, and algorithms can only do so much when it comes to analysis of human language. You would have some pre-filters to weed out the babble, and then a great big pile of stuff that might mean something, or not. I still don't know where the number came from.

[randome]

10. We don't know how much data the PRISM program supplies, though.

And all the Internet providers roundly refute the idea that it somehow gives the NSA unfettered access to everyone's data. So I doubt that number has anything to do with poring over data but we don't really know.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]P-E-P! Kellogg's PEP! The Sunshine Cereal![/center][/font][hr]

[bemildred]

11. Maybe I have the wrong acronym, it was the trans-atlantic fiber trunk tap.

You can't tell me that is not going to be huge, and it's nothing to do with internet providers. They wouldn't even know.

Same with the SSL insertion man-in-the middle stuff, but I would agree that is likely smaller scale.

And I'm just reporting what I read, it was a British press report, probably Guardian but I would not swear to that.

And I noticed this because of that number. I've been looking for it. So you make what you like of it.

Ah, here it is:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3109986

And the original source I had:

http://boingboing.net/2013/06/21/brit-spies-gchq-harvest-all-un.html

But it was the Guardian and Tempora.

[randome]

13. "...is made available to 850,000 NSA employees and contractors."

That sounds like 'potential' viewers to me.

The NSA could provide statistics like this that don't have any impact on national security. I don't know why they don't do that.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]

[Indi Guy]

14. You're guessing that 850,000 represents the number of potential viewers.

For the sake of argument, let's say you are correct. What percentage of the 850,000 "potential" employees & contractors would you guess might have criminal intent? Even 1/10th of 1% would be 850 individuals

Also, wouldn't a criminal element be more inclined to target, access, & exploit the glaring vulnerabilities?

I'll stick with my OP comment that the Guardian is doing a better job securing this info than the agency.

[bemildred]

15. You wanted to know where that number came from, now you know.

No no, don't thank me.

[snot]

5. We should be very afraid of these efforts to clamp down on journalism.

[sakabatou]

6. +1

[Indi Guy]

8. Indeed.

The fourth estate is crucial to the preservation of freedom, and in our case -- to the rule of law i.e, our Constitution.

[go west young man]

9. Amazing that this story barely made a blip at DU yesterday.

Especially as the Guardian is now considered the fastest growing news site in the United States. It says more about DU than anything else. Link to Guardian story, video and SoundCloud recording of the hearing in the UK. It was actually one of the best hearings to watch that I personally have seen in a very long time. It reminded me a little of when George Galloway came over and address the yanks over the Iraq war. Good stuff with some great comical moments. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/03/guardian-not-intimidated-nsa-leaks-alan-rusbridger-surveillance#comment-29505709 It even delves into gay british spies being outed at Disney world and has Conservative members using Nazi comparisons against the Guardian of all papers. Laughable stuff.

[truebrit71]

12. This current bunch of Conservatives running the country are determined to use 'V for Vendetta'..

...as a blueprint it would appear...