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Media Lessons From Snowden Reporting: LA Times Editors Advocate Prosecution of Sources
Media Lessons From Snowden Reporting: LA Times Editors Advocate Prosecution of Sources
Two years ago, the first story based on the Snowden archive was published in the Guardian, revealing a program of domestic mass surveillance which, at least in its original form, ended this week. To commemorate that anniversary, Edward Snowden himself reflected in a New York Times Op-Edon the “power of an informed public” when it comes to the worldwide debate over surveillance and privacy.
But we realized from the start that the debate provoked by these disclosures would be at least as much about journalism as privacy or state secrecy. And that was a debate we not only anticipated but actively sought, one that would examine the role journalism ought to play in a democracy and the proper relationship of journalists to those who wield the greatest political and economic power.
That debate definitely happened, not just in the U.S. but around the world. And it was revealing in all sorts of ways. In fact, of all the revelations over the last two years, one of the most illuminating and stunning – at least for me – has been the reaction of many in the American media to Edward Snowden as a source.
When it comes to taking the lead in advocating for the criminalization of leaking and demanding the lengthy imprisonment of our source, it hasn’t been the U.S. Government performing that role but rather – just as was the case for WikiLeaks disclosures – those who call themselves “journalists.” Just think about what an amazing feat of propaganda that is, one of which most governments could only dream: let’s try to get journalists themselves to take the lead in demonizing whistleblowers and arguing that sources should be imprisoned! As much of an authoritarian pipe dream as that may seem to be, that is exactly what happened during the Snowden debate. As Digby put it yesterday:
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Edward Snowden Calls Canadian Intelligence Oversight Among ‘Weakest’ In Western World
Edward Snowden Calls Canadian Intelligence Oversight Among ‘Weakest’ In Western World
U.S. National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden criticized the inadequate oversight of Canada’s intelligence operations on Wednesday, calling its framework “one of the weakest” in the Western world.
In a live chat moderated by CBC Radio host Anna Maria Tremonti, Snowden touched on the topic of mass surveillance and its potential impacts on Canadians’ civil liberties.
“Canadian intelligence has one of the weakest oversight frameworks out of any Western intelligence agency in the world,” Snowden said in a video link from Russia.
“It’s pretty amazing that we have the Canadian government trying to block the testimony of former prime ministers, you know, who’ve had access to classified information, who understand the value of these programs.”
Four of the country’s former prime ministers — Paul Martin, Jean Chrétien, Joe Clark, and John Turner — added their voices to the debate last month, calling for increased oversight over Canadian intelligence to balance proposed sweeping changes in Bill C-51.
They pointed out the “lack of a robust and integrated accountability regime” impedes their overall effectiveness, making it difficult to meaningfully assess the efficacy and legality of Canada’s national security agencies.”
“This poses serious problems for public safety and for human rights,” they said in a statement.
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Heroes and Villains
Heroes and Villains
The poet W.B. Yeats was right in 1919 when he said the center cannot hold, as if, following the first great industrial slaughter of modern times, he discovered the lethal vacuum at the center of modernity itself. There was a lot to be nervous about after the First World War. And right away, of course, enter, stage-right, Adolf Hitler. We’re still trying to explain that cat to ourselves, and not just the Germans, either. Who cannot be awed by the appearance of genuine evil in the world?
Although, perhaps most remarkable in our time is not merely the presence of evil, but the eerie dearth of heroes, and by that I do not mean supernatural gym rats in spandex outfits swinging from the Frank Gehry condos on cords of spider silk. I mean living, breathing humans willing to engage with great and implacable forces. American sniper Chris Kyle was one of the rarees, and he was a strange case, really. Not just because of his alleged frailties, his tendency to play up his exploits, brag, maybe lie a little, but because he carried out his lethal deeds mostly at a remove — up there on the dusty rooftops of Fallujah, where he could reach out with his sniper-scope and swat human flies from a position of relative safety. Yet it is not hard to identify with his mission to kill “bad guys” — especially two years after his loopy martyrdom on a Texas gun range at the hands of a deranged fellow soldier driven mad on his own wartime mission.
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Snowden Calls for Disobedience Against the U.S. Government
Snowden Calls for Disobedience Against the U.S. Government
In a question and answer session on Reddit earlier today, Edward Snowden wrote:
The progress of Western civilization and human rights is actually founded on the violation of law. America was of course born out of a violent revolution that was an outrageous treason against the crown and established order of the day. History shows that the righting of historical wrongs is often born from acts of unrepentant criminality. Slavery. The protection of persecuted Jews.
But even on less extremist topics, we can find similar examples. How about the prohibition of alcohol? Gay marriage? Marijuana?
Where would we be today if the government, enjoying powers of perfect surveillance and enforcement, had — entirely within the law — rounded up, imprisoned, and shamed all of these lawbreakers?
Ultimately, if people lose their willingness to recognize that there are times in our history when legality becomes distinct from morality, we aren’t just ceding control of our rights to government, but our agency in determining our futures.
How does this relate to politics? Well, I suspect that governments today are more concerned with the loss of their ability to control and regulate the behavior of their citizens than they are with their citizens’ discontent.
How do we make that work for us? We can devise means, through the application and sophistication of science, to remind governments that if they will not be responsible stewards of our rights, we the people will implement systems that provide for a means of not just enforcing our rights, but removing from governments the ability to interfere with those rights.
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Source Code Similarities: Experts Unmask ‘Regin’ Trojan as NSA Tool
Source Code Similarities: Experts Unmask ‘Regin’ Trojan as NSA Tool
Earlier this month, SPIEGEL International published an article based on the trove of documents made available by whistleblower Edward Snowden describing the increasingly complex digital weapons being developed by intelligence services in the US and elsewhere. Concurrently, several documents were published as well as the source code of a sample malware program called QWERTY found in the Snowden archive.
For most readers, that source code was little more than 11 pages of impenetrable columns of seemingly random characters. But experts with the Russian IT security company Kaspersky compared the code with malware programs they have on file. What they found were clear similarities with an elaborate cyber-weapon that has been making international headlines since November of last year.
Last fall, Kaspersky and the US security company Symantec both reported for the first time the discovery of a cyber-weapon system which they christened “Regin”. According to Kaspersky, the malware had already been in circulation for 10 years and had been deployed against targets in at least 14 countries, including Germany, Belgium and Brazil but also India and Indonesia.
Symantec spoke of a “highly complex” threat. Many of the targets were in the telecommunications sector, but others included energy companies and airlines. Both Symantec and Kaspersky did not shy away from superlatives when describing the malware program, calling it a “top-tier espionage tool” and the most dangerous cyber-weapon since Stuxnet, the notorious malware program used to attack the Iranian nuclear program.
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Did Max Boot and Commentary Magazine Lie About Edward Snowden? You Decide.
June 6, 2015
Did Max Boot and Commentary Magazine Lie About Edward Snowden? You Decide.
In the neocon journal Commentary, Max Boot today complains that the New York Times published an op-ed by Edward Snowden. Boot’s objection rests on his accusation that the NSA whistleblower is actually a “traitor.” In objecting, Boot made these claims:
It is literally the supreme act of projection for Max Boot to accuse anyone of lacking courage, as this particular think tank warmonger is the living, breathing personification of the unique strain of American neocon cowardice. Unlike Snowden — who sacrificed his liberty and unraveled his life in pursuit of his beliefs — the 45-year-old Boot has spent most of his adult life advocating for one war after the next, but always wanting to send his fellow citizens of his generation to die in them, while he hides in the comfort of Washington think tanks, never fighting them himself.
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