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Attention, Guardian: Just Because They're After You Doesn't Mean You're Not Paranoid
Feb 20, 2014 2:36PM ET
Philip Bump
... "Within hours of publication of the first [Snowden story] – which revealed that the NSA was mass-scooping data from the US telecoms company Verizon – diggers arrived outside the Guardian's loft office in Broadway. It was a Wednesday evening. They dug up the pavement and replaced it. The same thing happened outside the Guardian's Washington bureau, four blocks from the White House, and the Brooklyn home of US editor-in-chief Janine Gibson."
Harding first made this claim earlier this month. It presupposes that the NSA — or its British equivalent, GCHQ — has a crew of people (or access to a crew of people) that can quickly mobilize with construction equipment to appear as needed to … do what? If anything, we've learned that the NSA has near-universal access to online communications, as needed. So what might they be installing? Listening equipment, underground? Video surveillance tools? If so, why dig up the street? Did they want to mess with The Guardian's toilets? ...
"Chris wanted to take my photo, buy me a beer, go for dinner. I declined the beer and dinner, later texting my wife: 'The CIA sent someone to check me out. Their techniques as clumsy as Russians.' She replied: 'Really? WTF?' I added: 'God knows where they learn their spycraft.' This exchange may have irritated someone. My iPhone flashed and toggled wildly between two screens; the keyboard froze; I couldn't type."
It's very possible that "Chris" was a government agent of some kind. It's possible that he was there to distract Harding while the NSA accessed his iPhone remotely. It's highly unlikely that they used Chris to physically access the phone, but who knows. But the idea that they messed with his phone because he insulted their "spycraft"? Eh ...
Harding first made this claim earlier this month. It presupposes that the NSA — or its British equivalent, GCHQ — has a crew of people (or access to a crew of people) that can quickly mobilize with construction equipment to appear as needed to … do what? If anything, we've learned that the NSA has near-universal access to online communications, as needed. So what might they be installing? Listening equipment, underground? Video surveillance tools? If so, why dig up the street? Did they want to mess with The Guardian's toilets? ...
"Chris wanted to take my photo, buy me a beer, go for dinner. I declined the beer and dinner, later texting my wife: 'The CIA sent someone to check me out. Their techniques as clumsy as Russians.' She replied: 'Really? WTF?' I added: 'God knows where they learn their spycraft.' This exchange may have irritated someone. My iPhone flashed and toggled wildly between two screens; the keyboard froze; I couldn't type."
It's very possible that "Chris" was a government agent of some kind. It's possible that he was there to distract Harding while the NSA accessed his iPhone remotely. It's highly unlikely that they used Chris to physically access the phone, but who knows. But the idea that they messed with his phone because he insulted their "spycraft"? Eh ...
http://www.thewire.com/politics/2014/02/attention-guardian-just-because-theyre-after-you-doesnt-mean-youre-not-paranoid/358337/