19 ms·

Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks

247 points by teawithcarl 13y ago

mpyne 13y ago
I didn't know the WaPo story had been authored by someone working with Assange to make a documentary on WikiLeaks. That would at least explain why "data directly from" was misinterpreted to mean "backdoor direct access" since I doubt she had the training to disambiguate the terms used. Not that it matters too much anyways, I'm assuming it wasn't an OpEd and therefore she'd still have received the normal editing and source-checking services. But I do wonder if there is any reporting that was done by those who don't hold quite as much of a bias as Poitras and Greenwald, for the same reason I would be suspicious of a history of the Iraq invasion authored by Rumsfeld...
- danso 13y ago
  The Washington Post story was double-bylined (and also credited several other reporters and researchers), and the lead byline went to Barton Gellman, who used to be full-time at the WP but (AFAIK) is at TIME magazine. Not sure what the publishing process for this story was about (it seems unusual to have a story lead-bylined by only non-staff members), but I imagine it had something to do with the Guardian dropping their bombshells and the WP deciding that it also should publish (perhaps this story had been in the works, but wasn't originally going to be published this week). disclosure: I know Gellman as an acquaintance through a colleague and consider him to be a great reporter...but I'd probably say that anyway just based on him wining the Pulitzer for his reporting on Dick Cheney (http://www.pulitzer.org/citation/2008-National-Reporting http://www.pulitzer.org/citation/2008-National-Reporting)
- eli 13y ago
  It's not yet clear that anything in the original piece is actually wrong, despite some carefully worded denials. I think it's unfair to judge him as misinterpreting something (yet).
  - mpyne 13y ago
    As best as I can tell Greenwald was claiming that the NSA managed to backdoor most major Internet PIM service providers for the unbelievably low cost of $20 million. You couldn't really do that for $20 million just on labor cost alone, so it was clear there was more to the story, it was just a question of what. To be clear the story is important enough that I don't think it should be required to overstate or mislead either. Transparency of data collection and intelligence services is a conversation that America should at least have, whether it's backdoors or not.
- grey-area 13y ago
  There are many reporters working on this, not just Greenwald or Poitras. The most recently released slide directly contradicts the statements by Google and Facebook: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/08/nsa-prism-server-collection-facebook-google http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/08/nsa-prism-server... Given that they used the same phrases in their denials, it would seem they have been fed talking points, and are are using a novel interpretation of direct access. For example if Google or FB interpret a real-time mirror as 'not direct access', their statements are technically true, while at the same time being misleading. Doubtless the truth will come to light eventually, but for now we'll have to wait for more information and denials.
  - mpyne 13y ago
    It's not really a "novel interpretation" of direct access if all access to a company's servers have to go through the company. That's a subpoena-on-steroids and not much more, and this additional slide which the Guardian was so kind as to decide to provide to the masses doesn't really dispute that interpretation.
  - ig1 13y ago
    No, if anything it supports the Google/FB interpretation. From this slide it appears the distinction between the two types of data collection are between "indirect" on-the-wire intercepts and "direct" where the data's obtained from the company holding it. Given the context it could be referring to FISA obtained documents.
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- aaronbrethorst 13y ago
  Obama is currently meeting with China's President Xi in California. It seems unlikely to me that the US government would publicly reprimand China while its executive is meeting with theirs.
mtgx 13y ago
So which is it? Is he "welcoming a debate over spying on Americans" or is he prosecuting the whistleblowers (again) and requesting state privileges to protect themselves against further scrutiny? I don't think the two can really co-exist. And if all of this was "already known" what's there to prosecute then? The amount of double-speak from the Obama administration astonishes me.
- mayneack 13y ago
  What's the point of classified information if you don't punish those that leak it? Don't get me wrong, the treatment of Bradley Manning is absurd, and there shouldn't be any sort of prosecution of the journalists involved (which has been happening recently), so it's fair to complain that they are coming down too hard on whistle-blowers. However, you have to expect some sort of investigation into who did the original leaks. We can also have the debate about whether they overly classify things and should be more open in the first place, but that's not the same thing.
  - kingraoul3 13y ago
    We can't have that debate if we aren't informed about what's being kept from us.
    - ownagefool 13y ago
      We barely even need to have that debate, we know our Government are using classified information to cover their own asses and for political reasons. Transparency is pretty much the only weapon we have against Government corruption, thus we really should to be doing more to help protect legitimate whistle blowers and to stop documents being classified or redacted without some overseeing from a party without skin in the game.
      - jivatmanx 13y ago
        It's one thing to oppose a system such as PRISM in the legal abstract, quite another thing to hear about the wanton details of a real one, and see the CEO's of Microsoft, Facebook and Google publicly fib under FISA gag orders.
onecommentonly 13y ago
Expected, unless the leaked doc said "ignore court order" or "kill the Presi..." leaking is illegal. The person that leaked this knew that he /she would be prosecuted, if... Let's hope that he took care not to leave any crumbs as he gave the info to the Guardian
eli 13y ago
The author of the original WaPo story said yesterday that the source was expecting to be caught. "I don't even think [the source] wants to stay masked forever." Good interview if this is a story you care about. http://www.washingtonpost.com/video/thefold/nsa-leak-source-believes-exposure-consequences-inevitable/2013/06/07/fb15c0fe-cf94-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_video.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/video/thefold/nsa-leak-source-...
philwelch 13y ago
It's incredible how the presence of the word "leaks" turns the whole headline from promising to sinister. Why can't they investigate the NSA for once? Isn't that what a democratic country would do?
- kunai 13y ago
  > Isn't that what a democratic country would do An informed democratic country, yes. But people in the United States are misled, misguided, and taught not to question government. I know this from personal experience. My parents taught me to be afraid of government. Many of my friends were also taught the same thing. Everywhere I go, everyone in my age group either worships the government or fears it. There is absolutely no democratic attitude here; it's frightening and totalitarian.
- claudius 13y ago
  It appears this was justified by a specific law that was passed by the representatives of the people for the people, so why should they investigate the NSA, especially in a democratic country?
  - AnthonyMouse 13y ago
    Are you saying they should investigate Congress instead? (I noticed that nobody has specified who the "they" is. In a democracy, maybe the "they" is supposed to be "us"?)
    - deleted 13y ago
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  - philwelch 13y ago
    Well, representatives of the gerrymanders for the gerrymanders.
yekko 13y ago
US justice system in ‘calamitous’ collapse
beachstartup 13y ago
anyone else notice there's been none of the usual China-bashing going on ever since this whole thing broke? which is funny because it should be at an all time high, what with the meeting of the Chinese president Xi and Obama. maybe they're sharing tips on how best to spy on and kill their own citizens! it is the most important economic and political bilateral relationship in the world, after all. i kid, i kid. but seriously, wasn't one of the talking points of the meeting going to be Obama redressing Xi on how the Chinese hack/spy on american companies and citizens' communications? LOL x 10.
paul 13y ago
If the government hasn't done anything wrong, then they shouldn't have anything to hide from us :) More seriously, some amount of surveillance is probably necessary, but they need to be a lot more open and transparent about it. Secret laws and secret courts are not the stuff a free society is made of.
- mtgx 13y ago
  Apparently, they do. FISA spying has been found unconstitutional since 2011, but they are keeping it a secret: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/government-says-secret-court-opinion-law-underlying-prism-program-needs-stay https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/government-says-secret... This is happening in the "beacon of democracy" of the world.
  - cinquemb 13y ago
    So basically, trying to engage in a debate about such gives something (like the president suggests), that shouldn't have legs to stand on constitutional grounds, is just more fuel for the machine? Good to know.
    - mh- 13y ago
      I tried to parse your comment way too many times.
      - cinquemb 13y ago
        Yeah it reads weird because I should have put the comma after such (with the parenthetical reference before it). At least entering comments doesn't work like a complier so I don't have to spend hours trying to figure out where all my syntactical errors are haha.
  - enraged_camel 13y ago
    For the record, the only people who see the USA as the "beacon of democracy" are Americans. I'm not saying this to start a flame war, but to simply point out that the USA is no more democratic than many other Western nations. (My personal opinion is that the USA is much more of a beacon of imperialism than of democracy. But that's neither here nor there.)
martythemaniak 13y ago
Out of curiosity, has anyone's opinion of Bradley Manning, Julian Assange or Wikileaks changed over the last few days? From the previous times the topic has come up, my impression is that this community is more or less whether they're doing good work or not.
- wnight 13y ago
  No. I'd vote Bradley Manning for president. This is just more reason.
- shardling 13y ago
  You've get some editing errors that make your comment hard to parse.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  @wnight: You have been hellbanned for several days.
venomsnake 13y ago
Remove the power to classify long term information from the executive branch and put it into the judicial. It is obvious that it is abusing it currently with classifying everything. If they have to compelling interest to classify something that can jump at least the standard for a warrant.
joelrunyon 13y ago
This makes me wonder how we have the balls to go into other countries and yell about all their problems with surveillance & censorship when we do it more & arguably, better than all of them combined.
ig1 13y ago
"The law enforcement and security officials, who were not authorized to speak publicly, said the agencies that normally conduct such investigations, including the FBI and Justice Department, were expecting a probe into the leaks to a British and an American newspaper." So basically the fact the NSA leaker was going to be prosecuted was leaked, how can the the security officials who leaked this piece of information not see the irony ?
- khuey 13y ago
  The government (especially prosecutors/police) routinely leak information to serve their own ends.
detcader 13y ago
Greenwald replies to a Twitter user asking "when do we see the full redacted deck?" "@markskogan @nycsouthpaw You won't - it contains very specific technical NSA means for collection - we'd probably be prosecuted if we did." - https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/343454484917280770 https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/343454484917280770 Everyone should be keeping their eye on @ggreenwald's twitter, reveals much about the debate and what's going on with him. He gives bits and pieces of background info..
- mpyne 13y ago
  Greenwald of all people should just redact and spill it. He's under no legal bar toward publishing that material (OBVIOUSLY, as he's already published TS) and he can simply redact anything he's that worried about. By Greenwald's own logic I shouldn't have to "just trust him" either, no? Be transparent, spill the beans! Or is there an ulterior motive?
  - detcader 13y ago
    The Guardian as a news outlet could be prosecuted/gone after for releasing certain things. It isn't just him making the decisions. On Twitter he seems to express the desire to release as much as he can without earning himself a Disappearance; I feel that once this is all over, he might just release the docs the Guardian won't publish somehow.
    - mpyne 13y ago
      Neither the Guardian nor Greenwald are "read in" to the U.S. national security information apparatus. They literally have no legal requirement to avoid publishing what they have. As far as being Disappeared, even Greenwald can't possibly be that dumb, can he? If he has information that the NSA would want to remove him for, and he hasn't already deleted it, it is by far in NSA's best interests to "disappear him" right now. If they wouldn't find it politically possible to disappear him now then it wouldn't be politically possible to disappear him then. Does he just think he's going to string NSA along and that they're simultaneously angry enough to kill him and dumb enough to let him choose to leak it after all? The very fact that you (and surely many others) feel that Greenwald might release this "super sensitive material" later should be all the reasoning you need to understand why NSA will have to remove him now or not remove him at all. Obviously I'm saying the latter will happen, but this means that Greenwald is acting like a tinfoil-hat conspiracy nutter. Hell, even if the former will happen Greenwald is acting like a nutter; his logic is all wrong even for the world he thinks he lives in. Once he releases the information he can pose no further risk to NSA for now, which would make harming him far more politically damaging (as it would be revenge, and not to protect further disclosure). I don't think he's stringing NSA along at all, I think he's stringing the rest of us along.
jzs 13y ago
What is there to investigate? The criminals has clearly been found thanks to the whistleblowers. The whistle blower is the hero while the criminals are NSA and the government for doing such acts against democracy. A democracy needs to be transparent. Otherwise it is a system that you can put no trust in.
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python3 13y ago
So much for not looking back and only looking forward
pvnick 13y ago
Not surprising. This is an incredibly opaque administration that's prosecuted more whistleblowers under the espionage act than every other administration combined. The contrast between campaign Obama and president Obama is staggering. One would not be too far off the mark in calling him a liar, as simply an objective observation. I say this as someone who campaigned for him in 2008, which I now regret immensely.
pvnick 13y ago
I wonder how far in the future we'll have to wait before people like Glenn Greenwald become potential drone strike targets...
- khuey 13y ago
  If he were living in Yemen instead of Brazil it might have already happened.
EWRWE 13y ago
http://www.redabogados.net/profile/proyectoencuestaVenezuela http://www.redabogados.net/profile/proyectoencuestaVenezuela Lawyers. Net - URGENT We pay 700 million USD to SEVEN MILLION DOLLARS Lawyers for Vallejos case. SEVEN present all tests. Drafting and filing of the Petition and complaint to the Inter American Court The Hague and the UN. On behalf of Juan Carlos Vallejos, mental torture case, a citizen of Venezuela Resides in the state of Carabobo, Valencia, identity card, CI 12,108,222, The following presidents denounce North Americans, Europeans, Asians and Latin Americans. For genocide, administrations (2002-2013). -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------- COMPLAINT FOR MURDER, THEFT, VIOLATION, DRUG, TERRORIST USING SATELLITES AND NANO TECHNOLOGY, WITH VISUAL INFORMATION OBTAINED WHICH ACTIVITIES PERFORMED IN dferentes ETAD BY CONBENIO VALLEJOS IF, WITH NICOLAS MATURE POLITICO. 1. - THE PRESIDENT BARAK OBAMA, MICHELLE OBAMA, FROM THE 2000 REPORT DATE OF WIFE WHICH WE SEND THE COMPLAINT. SAW HIS DAUGHTERS THE COMPLAINT WHICH PUBLISHED IN THEIR BLOGS. Note: * 1. - PRIME MINISTER OF CANADA, 2000 FROM THE DATE OF THE COMPLAINT WHICH WIFE WE SEND THE COMPLAINT. SAW HIS DAUGHTERS THE COMPLAINT WHICH PUBLISHED IN THEIR BLOGS. 2. - THE PRESIDENT OF JAPAN FROM 2000 THE DATE OF THE COMPLAINT 2013. WIFE WHICH WE SEND THE COMPLAINT. SAW HIS DAUGHTERS THE COMPLAINT WHICH PUBLISHED IN THEIR BLOGS. 3. - PRIME MINISTER FROM NORTH KOREA 2000 DATE OF REPORT 2013. WIFE WHICH WE SEND THE COMPLAINT. SAW HIS DAUGHTERS THE COMPLAINT WHICH PUBLISHED IN THEIR BLOGS. 4. - PRIME MINISTER OF CHINA SINCE 2000 THE DATE OF THE COMPLAINT 2013. WIFE WHICH WE SEND THE COMPLAINT. SAW HIS DAUGHTERS THE COMPLAINT WHICH PUBLISHED IN THEIR BLOGS. 5. - PRIME MINISTER OF JAPAN FROM 2000 THE DATE OF THE COMPLAINT 2013. WIFE WHICH WE SEND THE COMPLAINT. SAW HIS DAUGHTERS THE COMPLAINT WHICH PUBLISHED IN THEIR BLOGS. -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------ 1. - The President of Germany. 2. - The Spanish state and its president. 3. - The Swiss state and politicians of their respective cantons. 4. - President of Russia. 5. - The President of Japan. 6. - Prime Minister of China. 7. - Prime Minister of North Korea. 8. - Prime Minister of South Korea, Ban Quee Moon. 9. - The president of Italy. 10. - The president of Canada. 11. - Portugal Anibal Antonio Cavaco Silva and sons Teodoro Patrícia Gonçalves Silva Cavaco Silva. 12. - Mariano Rajoy Brey. 13. - Antoni MARTI PETIT. 14. - Francois Hollande. 15. - Minister of State) Michel ROGER. 16. - Joachim gauck. 17. - Corina Casanova. 18. - AUSTRIA PRESIDENT: Heinz FISCHER. 19. - LIECHTENSTEIN: (Prime Minister) Klaus STCHUTSCHER. 20. - ITALY: PRESIDENT: Giorgio NAPOLITANO. 21. - PRIME MINISTER: Mario Monti. 22. - BELARUS: Aleksandr Lukashenko. 23. - ARMENIA: Serzh SARGSYAN. 24. - RUSSIA: Prime Minister Fredrik REINFELDT. 25. - SWEDEN: President Vladimir Vladimirovich PUTIN. 26. - Felipe González. 27. - José María Aznar. We include other presidents that allow the satellite, 2013: 1. - The president of Colombia. 2. - The president of Argentina. 3. - The president of Brazil. 4. - The president of Ecuador. 5. - President of Cuba. 6. - The president of Mexico. 7. - Nicolas Maduro. They all perform in Venezuela satellite transmissions. Genocide crimes. Some of the tests. http://www.liberenlosya.com/foros/?mingleforumaction=viewforum&f=1.0 http://www.liberenlosya.com/foros/?mingleforumaction=viewfor... Juan Carlos Vallejos. To the Judges and Lawyer Professionals working in international criminal law. Complaints that we would like to present in these courts include theft business models: Perfectible Bank which have video and is the main reason why these agencies perform the cauterization, radiation and torture in Juan Carlos Vallejos. Wells Extraction System terminals, designed for extraction of heavy hydro carbons. The allowances include asking for the victim, that the radiations which occurred for 14 years and the loss of telomeres of each DNA molecule, be paid to the victim, the amount of $ 1,000,000 for each telomere that was lost because of radiation. We have all the evidence to prove it. We made the complaint in the Supreme Court of the state of Carabobo, Valencia, however these records are stolen. The complaint shall be presented by professionals abogados.net, to the competent courts, the complainant, Juan Carlos Vallejos, Chilean, residing in Venezuela, Carabobo, Valencia, Camoruco valleys, street 133, Lopez Latouche, (this is the street Red Cross), Altamira apt bldg 1-b. Payment for the services of lawyers, is 60% of the amount of compensation. The approximate amount for those who are not geneticists is $ 700 million, seven hundred million dollars. Even so you can negotiate the payment. We publish the emails, but the ideal is to communicate by phone. Jcvcorredoresinmobiliarios@yahoo.com, casaenventa2@gamil.com, r_vallejos@yahoo.com Phones: Venezuela + (0058) 0241-823-81-97 / 0414-585-00-44 / 0414-406-68-52 - In case you can not contact the secretary contact the consulate of Chile, Rosalia Vasquez + (0058) 0212-953-14-85 is Vallejos family friend.
EWRWE 13y ago
http://www.redabogados.net/profile/proyectoencuestaVenezuela http://www.redabogados.net/profile/proyectoencuestaVenezuela Lawyers. Net - URGENT We pay 700 million USD to SEVEN MILLION DOLLARS Lawyers for Vallejos case. SEVEN present all tests. Drafting and filing of the Petition and complaint to the Inter American Court The Hague and the UN. On behalf of Juan Carlos Vallejos, mental torture case, a citizen of Venezuela Resides in the state of Carabobo, Valencia, identity card, CI 12,108,222, The following presidents denounce North Americans, Europeans, Asians and Latin Americans. For genocide, administrations (2002-2013). -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------- COMPLAINT FOR MURDER, THEFT, VIOLATION, DRUG, TERRORIST USING SATELLITES AND NANO TECHNOLOGY, WITH VISUAL INFORMATION OBTAINED WHICH ACTIVITIES PERFORMED IN dferentes ETAD BY CONBENIO VALLEJOS IF, WITH NICOLAS MATURE POLITICO.
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cenhyperion 13y ago
I'm just hoping that Greenwald doesn't "get in a car crash."
b2spirit 13y ago
This was not a leak. It was a dare.
beloch 13y ago
1. A small group of people violate the privacy of people everywhere around the world. 2. Another, even smaller group of people violate the privacy of the above group. 3. The first group says, "Hey, trust us. It's for your own good", and then promptly hunts down the second group for being dirty-stinking-traitor-terrorist criminals. 4. Profit?
- TheCondor 13y ago
  Read Top Secret America by Dana Priest. These are among the highest paying government jobs. The strongholds of NSA are in the wealthiest counties in the nation. And we don't even know what they do... I think it's reasonable to call it profiting.
outside1234 13y ago
Is it time to start a petition that asks that this leak not be prosecuted?
EdiX 13y ago
But google, facebook and microsoft all they never heard of PRISM and no such thing exist, why would there be a criminal probe about a work of fiction?
neaanopri 13y ago
This should give a perfect opportunity for mass protests at the trial of whoever did the leak.

247 points by teawithcarl 13y ago

mpyne 13y ago

I didn't know the WaPo story had been authored by someone working with Assange to make a documentary on WikiLeaks. That would at least explain why "data directly from" was misinterpreted to mean "backdoor direct access" since I doubt she had the training to disambiguate the terms used. Not that it matters too much anyways, I'm assuming it wasn't an OpEd and therefore she'd still have received the normal editing and source-checking services. But I do wonder if there is any reporting that was done by those who don't hold quite as much of a bias as Poitras and Greenwald, for the same reason I would be suspicious of a history of the Iraq invasion authored by Rumsfeld...

danso 13y ago
The Washington Post story was double-bylined (and also credited several other reporters and researchers), and the lead byline went to Barton Gellman, who used to be full-time at the WP but (AFAIK) is at TIME magazine. Not sure what the publishing process for this story was about (it seems unusual to have a story lead-bylined by only non-staff members), but I imagine it had something to do with the Guardian dropping their bombshells and the WP deciding that it also should publish (perhaps this story had been in the works, but wasn't originally going to be published this week). disclosure: I know Gellman as an acquaintance through a colleague and consider him to be a great reporter...but I'd probably say that anyway just based on him wining the Pulitzer for his reporting on Dick Cheney (http://www.pulitzer.org/citation/2008-National-Reporting http://www.pulitzer.org/citation/2008-National-Reporting)
eli 13y ago
It's not yet clear that anything in the original piece is actually wrong, despite some carefully worded denials. I think it's unfair to judge him as misinterpreting something (yet).
- mpyne 13y ago
  As best as I can tell Greenwald was claiming that the NSA managed to backdoor most major Internet PIM service providers for the unbelievably low cost of $20 million. You couldn't really do that for $20 million just on labor cost alone, so it was clear there was more to the story, it was just a question of what. To be clear the story is important enough that I don't think it should be required to overstate or mislead either. Transparency of data collection and intelligence services is a conversation that America should at least have, whether it's backdoors or not.
grey-area 13y ago
There are many reporters working on this, not just Greenwald or Poitras. The most recently released slide directly contradicts the statements by Google and Facebook: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/08/nsa-prism-server-collection-facebook-google http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/08/nsa-prism-server... Given that they used the same phrases in their denials, it would seem they have been fed talking points, and are are using a novel interpretation of direct access. For example if Google or FB interpret a real-time mirror as 'not direct access', their statements are technically true, while at the same time being misleading. Doubtless the truth will come to light eventually, but for now we'll have to wait for more information and denials.
- mpyne 13y ago
  It's not really a "novel interpretation" of direct access if all access to a company's servers have to go through the company. That's a subpoena-on-steroids and not much more, and this additional slide which the Guardian was so kind as to decide to provide to the masses doesn't really dispute that interpretation.
- ig1 13y ago
  No, if anything it supports the Google/FB interpretation. From this slide it appears the distinction between the two types of data collection are between "indirect" on-the-wire intercepts and "direct" where the data's obtained from the company holding it. Given the context it could be referring to FISA obtained documents.

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aaronbrethorst 13y ago
Obama is currently meeting with China's President Xi in California. It seems unlikely to me that the US government would publicly reprimand China while its executive is meeting with theirs.

mtgx 13y ago

So which is it? Is he "welcoming a debate over spying on Americans" or is he prosecuting the whistleblowers (again) and requesting state privileges to protect themselves against further scrutiny? I don't think the two can really co-exist. And if all of this was "already known" what's there to prosecute then? The amount of double-speak from the Obama administration astonishes me.

mayneack 13y ago
What's the point of classified information if you don't punish those that leak it? Don't get me wrong, the treatment of Bradley Manning is absurd, and there shouldn't be any sort of prosecution of the journalists involved (which has been happening recently), so it's fair to complain that they are coming down too hard on whistle-blowers. However, you have to expect some sort of investigation into who did the original leaks. We can also have the debate about whether they overly classify things and should be more open in the first place, but that's not the same thing.
- kingraoul3 13y ago
  We can't have that debate if we aren't informed about what's being kept from us.
  - ownagefool 13y ago
    We barely even need to have that debate, we know our Government are using classified information to cover their own asses and for political reasons. Transparency is pretty much the only weapon we have against Government corruption, thus we really should to be doing more to help protect legitimate whistle blowers and to stop documents being classified or redacted without some overseeing from a party without skin in the game.
    - jivatmanx 13y ago
      It's one thing to oppose a system such as PRISM in the legal abstract, quite another thing to hear about the wanton details of a real one, and see the CEO's of Microsoft, Facebook and Google publicly fib under FISA gag orders.

onecommentonly 13y ago

Expected, unless the leaked doc said "ignore court order" or "kill the Presi..." leaking is illegal. The person that leaked this knew that he /she would be prosecuted, if... Let's hope that he took care not to leave any crumbs as he gave the info to the Guardian

eli 13y ago

The author of the original WaPo story said yesterday that the source was expecting to be caught. "I don't even think [the source] wants to stay masked forever." Good interview if this is a story you care about. http://www.washingtonpost.com/video/thefold/nsa-leak-source-believes-exposure-consequences-inevitable/2013/06/07/fb15c0fe-cf94-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_video.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/video/thefold/nsa-leak-source-...

philwelch 13y ago

It's incredible how the presence of the word "leaks" turns the whole headline from promising to sinister. Why can't they investigate the NSA for once? Isn't that what a democratic country would do?

kunai 13y ago
> Isn't that what a democratic country would do An informed democratic country, yes. But people in the United States are misled, misguided, and taught not to question government. I know this from personal experience. My parents taught me to be afraid of government. Many of my friends were also taught the same thing. Everywhere I go, everyone in my age group either worships the government or fears it. There is absolutely no democratic attitude here; it's frightening and totalitarian.
claudius 13y ago
It appears this was justified by a specific law that was passed by the representatives of the people for the people, so why should they investigate the NSA, especially in a democratic country?
- AnthonyMouse 13y ago
  Are you saying they should investigate Congress instead? (I noticed that nobody has specified who the "they" is. In a democracy, maybe the "they" is supposed to be "us"?)
  - deleted 13y ago
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- philwelch 13y ago
  Well, representatives of the gerrymanders for the gerrymanders.

yekko 13y ago

US justice system in ‘calamitous’ collapse

beachstartup 13y ago

anyone else notice there's been none of the usual China-bashing going on ever since this whole thing broke? which is funny because it should be at an all time high, what with the meeting of the Chinese president Xi and Obama. maybe they're sharing tips on how best to spy on and kill their own citizens! it is the most important economic and political bilateral relationship in the world, after all. i kid, i kid. but seriously, wasn't one of the talking points of the meeting going to be Obama redressing Xi on how the Chinese hack/spy on american companies and citizens' communications? LOL x 10.

paul 13y ago

If the government hasn't done anything wrong, then they shouldn't have anything to hide from us :) More seriously, some amount of surveillance is probably necessary, but they need to be a lot more open and transparent about it. Secret laws and secret courts are not the stuff a free society is made of.

mtgx 13y ago
Apparently, they do. FISA spying has been found unconstitutional since 2011, but they are keeping it a secret: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/government-says-secret-court-opinion-law-underlying-prism-program-needs-stay https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/government-says-secret... This is happening in the "beacon of democracy" of the world.
- cinquemb 13y ago
  So basically, trying to engage in a debate about such gives something (like the president suggests), that shouldn't have legs to stand on constitutional grounds, is just more fuel for the machine? Good to know.
  - mh- 13y ago
    I tried to parse your comment way too many times.
    - cinquemb 13y ago
      Yeah it reads weird because I should have put the comma after such (with the parenthetical reference before it). At least entering comments doesn't work like a complier so I don't have to spend hours trying to figure out where all my syntactical errors are haha.
- enraged_camel 13y ago
  For the record, the only people who see the USA as the "beacon of democracy" are Americans. I'm not saying this to start a flame war, but to simply point out that the USA is no more democratic than many other Western nations. (My personal opinion is that the USA is much more of a beacon of imperialism than of democracy. But that's neither here nor there.)

martythemaniak 13y ago

Out of curiosity, has anyone's opinion of Bradley Manning, Julian Assange or Wikileaks changed over the last few days? From the previous times the topic has come up, my impression is that this community is more or less whether they're doing good work or not.

wnight 13y ago
No. I'd vote Bradley Manning for president. This is just more reason.
shardling 13y ago
You've get some editing errors that make your comment hard to parse.
jlgreco 13y ago
@wnight: You have been hellbanned for several days.

venomsnake 13y ago

Remove the power to classify long term information from the executive branch and put it into the judicial. It is obvious that it is abusing it currently with classifying everything. If they have to compelling interest to classify something that can jump at least the standard for a warrant.

joelrunyon 13y ago

This makes me wonder how we have the balls to go into other countries and yell about all their problems with surveillance & censorship when we do it more & arguably, better than all of them combined.

ig1 13y ago

"The law enforcement and security officials, who were not authorized to speak publicly, said the agencies that normally conduct such investigations, including the FBI and Justice Department, were expecting a probe into the leaks to a British and an American newspaper." So basically the fact the NSA leaker was going to be prosecuted was leaked, how can the the security officials who leaked this piece of information not see the irony ?

khuey 13y ago
The government (especially prosecutors/police) routinely leak information to serve their own ends.

detcader 13y ago

Greenwald replies to a Twitter user asking "when do we see the full redacted deck?" "@markskogan @nycsouthpaw You won't - it contains very specific technical NSA means for collection - we'd probably be prosecuted if we did." - https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/343454484917280770 https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/343454484917280770 Everyone should be keeping their eye on @ggreenwald's twitter, reveals much about the debate and what's going on with him. He gives bits and pieces of background info..

mpyne 13y ago
Greenwald of all people should just redact and spill it. He's under no legal bar toward publishing that material (OBVIOUSLY, as he's already published TS) and he can simply redact anything he's that worried about. By Greenwald's own logic I shouldn't have to "just trust him" either, no? Be transparent, spill the beans! Or is there an ulterior motive?
- detcader 13y ago
  The Guardian as a news outlet could be prosecuted/gone after for releasing certain things. It isn't just him making the decisions. On Twitter he seems to express the desire to release as much as he can without earning himself a Disappearance; I feel that once this is all over, he might just release the docs the Guardian won't publish somehow.
  - mpyne 13y ago
    Neither the Guardian nor Greenwald are "read in" to the U.S. national security information apparatus. They literally have no legal requirement to avoid publishing what they have. As far as being Disappeared, even Greenwald can't possibly be that dumb, can he? If he has information that the NSA would want to remove him for, and he hasn't already deleted it, it is by far in NSA's best interests to "disappear him" right now. If they wouldn't find it politically possible to disappear him now then it wouldn't be politically possible to disappear him then. Does he just think he's going to string NSA along and that they're simultaneously angry enough to kill him and dumb enough to let him choose to leak it after all? The very fact that you (and surely many others) feel that Greenwald might release this "super sensitive material" later should be all the reasoning you need to understand why NSA will have to remove him now or not remove him at all. Obviously I'm saying the latter will happen, but this means that Greenwald is acting like a tinfoil-hat conspiracy nutter. Hell, even if the former will happen Greenwald is acting like a nutter; his logic is all wrong even for the world he thinks he lives in. Once he releases the information he can pose no further risk to NSA for now, which would make harming him far more politically damaging (as it would be revenge, and not to protect further disclosure). I don't think he's stringing NSA along at all, I think he's stringing the rest of us along.

jzs 13y ago

What is there to investigate? The criminals has clearly been found thanks to the whistleblowers. The whistle blower is the hero while the criminals are NSA and the government for doing such acts against democracy. A democracy needs to be transparent. Otherwise it is a system that you can put no trust in.

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python3 13y ago

So much for not looking back and only looking forward

pvnick 13y ago

Not surprising. This is an incredibly opaque administration that's prosecuted more whistleblowers under the espionage act than every other administration combined. The contrast between campaign Obama and president Obama is staggering. One would not be too far off the mark in calling him a liar, as simply an objective observation. I say this as someone who campaigned for him in 2008, which I now regret immensely.

pvnick 13y ago

I wonder how far in the future we'll have to wait before people like Glenn Greenwald become potential drone strike targets...

khuey 13y ago
If he were living in Yemen instead of Brazil it might have already happened.

EWRWE 13y ago

http://www.redabogados.net/profile/proyectoencuestaVenezuela http://www.redabogados.net/profile/proyectoencuestaVenezuela Lawyers. Net - URGENT We pay 700 million USD to SEVEN MILLION DOLLARS Lawyers for Vallejos case. SEVEN present all tests. Drafting and filing of the Petition and complaint to the Inter American Court The Hague and the UN. On behalf of Juan Carlos Vallejos, mental torture case, a citizen of Venezuela Resides in the state of Carabobo, Valencia, identity card, CI 12,108,222, The following presidents denounce North Americans, Europeans, Asians and Latin Americans. For genocide, administrations (2002-2013). -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------- COMPLAINT FOR MURDER, THEFT, VIOLATION, DRUG, TERRORIST USING SATELLITES AND NANO TECHNOLOGY, WITH VISUAL INFORMATION OBTAINED WHICH ACTIVITIES PERFORMED IN dferentes ETAD BY CONBENIO VALLEJOS IF, WITH NICOLAS MATURE POLITICO. 1. - THE PRESIDENT BARAK OBAMA, MICHELLE OBAMA, FROM THE 2000 REPORT DATE OF WIFE WHICH WE SEND THE COMPLAINT. SAW HIS DAUGHTERS THE COMPLAINT WHICH PUBLISHED IN THEIR BLOGS. Note: * 1. - PRIME MINISTER OF CANADA, 2000 FROM THE DATE OF THE COMPLAINT WHICH WIFE WE SEND THE COMPLAINT. SAW HIS DAUGHTERS THE COMPLAINT WHICH PUBLISHED IN THEIR BLOGS. 2. - THE PRESIDENT OF JAPAN FROM 2000 THE DATE OF THE COMPLAINT 2013. WIFE WHICH WE SEND THE COMPLAINT. SAW HIS DAUGHTERS THE COMPLAINT WHICH PUBLISHED IN THEIR BLOGS. 3. - PRIME MINISTER FROM NORTH KOREA 2000 DATE OF REPORT 2013. WIFE WHICH WE SEND THE COMPLAINT. 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SAW HIS DAUGHTERS THE COMPLAINT WHICH PUBLISHED IN THEIR BLOGS. -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------ 1. - The President of Germany. 2. - The Spanish state and its president. 3. - The Swiss state and politicians of their respective cantons. 4. - President of Russia. 5. - The President of Japan. 6. - Prime Minister of China. 7. - Prime Minister of North Korea. 8. - Prime Minister of South Korea, Ban Quee Moon. 9. - The president of Italy. 10. - The president of Canada. 11. - Portugal Anibal Antonio Cavaco Silva and sons Teodoro Patrícia Gonçalves Silva Cavaco Silva. 12. - Mariano Rajoy Brey. 13. - Antoni MARTI PETIT. 14. - Francois Hollande. 15. - Minister of State) Michel ROGER. 16. - Joachim gauck. 17. - Corina Casanova. 18. - AUSTRIA PRESIDENT: Heinz FISCHER. 19. - LIECHTENSTEIN: (Prime Minister) Klaus STCHUTSCHER. 20. - ITALY: PRESIDENT: Giorgio NAPOLITANO. 21. - PRIME MINISTER: Mario Monti. 22. - BELARUS: Aleksandr Lukashenko. 23. - ARMENIA: Serzh SARGSYAN. 24. - RUSSIA: Prime Minister Fredrik REINFELDT. 25. - SWEDEN: President Vladimir Vladimirovich PUTIN. 26. - Felipe González. 27. - José María Aznar. We include other presidents that allow the satellite, 2013: 1. - The president of Colombia. 2. - The president of Argentina. 3. - The president of Brazil. 4. - The president of Ecuador. 5. - President of Cuba. 6. - The president of Mexico. 7. - Nicolas Maduro. They all perform in Venezuela satellite transmissions. Genocide crimes. Some of the tests. http://www.liberenlosya.com/foros/?mingleforumaction=viewforum&f=1.0 http://www.liberenlosya.com/foros/?mingleforumaction=viewfor... Juan Carlos Vallejos. To the Judges and Lawyer Professionals working in international criminal law. Complaints that we would like to present in these courts include theft business models: Perfectible Bank which have video and is the main reason why these agencies perform the cauterization, radiation and torture in Juan Carlos Vallejos. Wells Extraction System terminals, designed for extraction of heavy hydro carbons. The allowances include asking for the victim, that the radiations which occurred for 14 years and the loss of telomeres of each DNA molecule, be paid to the victim, the amount of $ 1,000,000 for each telomere that was lost because of radiation. We have all the evidence to prove it. We made the complaint in the Supreme Court of the state of Carabobo, Valencia, however these records are stolen. The complaint shall be presented by professionals abogados.net, to the competent courts, the complainant, Juan Carlos Vallejos, Chilean, residing in Venezuela, Carabobo, Valencia, Camoruco valleys, street 133, Lopez Latouche, (this is the street Red Cross), Altamira apt bldg 1-b. Payment for the services of lawyers, is 60% of the amount of compensation. The approximate amount for those who are not geneticists is $ 700 million, seven hundred million dollars. Even so you can negotiate the payment. We publish the emails, but the ideal is to communicate by phone. Jcvcorredoresinmobiliarios@yahoo.com, casaenventa2@gamil.com, r_vallejos@yahoo.com Phones: Venezuela + (0058) 0241-823-81-97 / 0414-585-00-44 / 0414-406-68-52 - In case you can not contact the secretary contact the consulate of Chile, Rosalia Vasquez + (0058) 0212-953-14-85 is Vallejos family friend.

EWRWE 13y ago

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cenhyperion 13y ago

I'm just hoping that Greenwald doesn't "get in a car crash."

b2spirit 13y ago

This was not a leak. It was a dare.

beloch 13y ago

1. A small group of people violate the privacy of people everywhere around the world. 2. Another, even smaller group of people violate the privacy of the above group. 3. The first group says, "Hey, trust us. It's for your own good", and then promptly hunts down the second group for being dirty-stinking-traitor-terrorist criminals. 4. Profit?

TheCondor 13y ago
Read Top Secret America by Dana Priest. These are among the highest paying government jobs. The strongholds of NSA are in the wealthiest counties in the nation. And we don't even know what they do... I think it's reasonable to call it profiting.

outside1234 13y ago

Is it time to start a petition that asks that this leak not be prosecuted?

EdiX 13y ago

But google, facebook and microsoft all they never heard of PRISM and no such thing exist, why would there be a criminal probe about a work of fiction?

neaanopri 13y ago

This should give a perfect opportunity for mass protests at the trial of whoever did the leak.