For me, the most worrying part of the whole Snowden affair is the absence of anything even close to resembling a debate in parliament. The silence almost speaks for itself.
First, Julian Smith secured a 30-minute Westminster Hall tirade on the "The Guardian and its impact on National Security". It was like watching a prosecution with no defence; Smith just declined to give way to any MPs who held a different view.
Next, there was an exercise in PR from the three heads of the intelligence services at the select committee. The questioning was appalling. It failed to inspire any confidence in the committee's ability to oversee the secret services.
Then, another committee had the audacity to call in the editor of The Guardian to explain himself. Questioning again appalling. "Do you love your country?" asked Keith Vaz. Others accused Rusbridger of being a criminal.
As far as I see it, other than the odd equally pointless question at PMQs and a measly motion passed at the Lib Dem annual conference, the aforementioned's about it in terms of any debate.
The issue that should be at the heart of the debate--state surveillance--has been glossed over in parliament's response. There ought to be a public inquiry into surveillance but, as Boris would say, I've about as much chance of being reincarnated as an olive.
Interesting. Though not a US national, I couldn't help but find it hilarious that the head of the US Intelligence Committee would in the same breath both condemn Snowden for not bringing his concerns following approved channels, and call for wholesale warrantless surveillance to be codified into law.
Agreed. The calamity of politics never ceases to beggar belief. As concerned as I am about the surveillance revelations, I'm positively perplexed by how a 29-year-old contractor for a foreign government was allowed access to British secrets like the names of covert agents. If anyone has breached national security--it's not The Guardian who have been _relatively_ responsible--it's those who allowed such a blindingly dangerous situation to arise. So many questions, so few answers, so much for the “mother of parliaments”.
Being a bit cynical, I'm sure there's some gravy-train-follow-the-money-ism here. With the NSA getting the many billions of military-industrial-complex money that are suddenly threatened by these public disclosures, I suspect much of what we are seeing could be attributed to a circle-your-wagons mentality surround the treasure chests...
I wonder if they've thought through what this intimidation is likely to bring about. The way I see it, if they hit the Guardian or its staff with charges, the leaks will just go somewhere governments have demonstrably been unable to get at them, i.e. Wikileaks or similar. From a government perspective, this is dreadful compared with the conservative publishing approach taken by the Guardian.
Besides, the government wouldn't mind being watched if they didn't have anything to hide.
Edit: I'll just make clear the last sentence was mostly in jest.
Agree entirely but that would go against the state's current policy of limiting press freedom. They're already issuing warnings and roughing up editors. One step forward and we're there. To be honest we won't know if we're there when we are, if we're not already. A lot goes on behind the scenes that we don't see but probably should.
Our government plainly works on the principle of: better to ask for forgiveness than permission.
Inquiries are all lead by alumni of the same organisations as the politicians so it's hardly worth it. Plus they'll probably seal the verdicts.
Best option we have is to take the information from the government and publish it without the politicians or the paper's involvement.
Rather an honest criminal than a politician or a newsman.
I would posit that the reason there is no debate in Parliament is that MPs are afraid of what GCHQ / NSA / etc. might leak about them. What I find more worrying is that there is absolutely no debate about a) the fact British intelligence services have been compromised in the past and are still most likely compromised, imagine what a Kim Philby could do with all this data and b) the possibility of inserting false information into these data stores thus making even completely innocent people vulnerable to being blackmailed.
I like Carl, maybe because I also prefer Dustin Hoffman over Robert Redford (who played Woodward)...but this letter, and also how he's decided to teach journalism at a public instead of prestigious private college, makes me think he's a real standup guy as well as one of our most famous investigative reporters.
> “I didn’t want to go to an Ivy League college or university — too many of them are stuck in a rarified approach to learning. I also wanted to be among a student body that had more young people who were not there by virtue of legacy or earning power of their parents.
Also, Bob Woodward has not been as gracious during the whole Snowden affair, basically annoyed that Snowden didn't go to him, as opposed to his apparently inferior WaPo colleagues, such as Barton Gellman, who's a Pulitzer-winning journalist (twice) himself:
He can and should teach wherever he wants of course. But to cloak it in some kind of higher purpose or respectability as if he is better than the person who decides they do want to teach at a particular prestigious school I just don't agree with that.
He said more people in Ivies are there because of legacy/earning power of parents, relative to the average school (which I think is a rather uncontroversial point). He didn't say everyone, which is what you're saying.
You've given as little data to your claim as he did to his. Maybe he said that just to seem noble, or maybe he actually looked into the numbers and is speaking the truth. Without looking those numbers up yourself your comment is just guesswork.
Certainly terrorists are already aware that they are under extensive surveillance, and did not need Mr Snowden or the Guardian to tell them that.
I see this argument used frequently, and I don't understand it all. I've been under the impression that most people did not know about the scale and capabilities of the NSA. This stuff was not public information. If the average person didn't know about it, why would the people being actively targeted know about it? Does the Guardian have evidence that "the terrorists" know about the sources and methods used by the NSA that are being disclosed now?
Rather than hauling in journalists for questioning and trying to intimidate them, the Commons would do well to encourage and join that debate ...
I can't speak for the UK, since I haven't followed the reaction over GCHQ as much, but the heads of the US intelligence community have been called in front of Congress quite a few times since the leaks started to be questioned regarding these programs. Several of their appearances were public, which is rare for intelligence committee hearings. This debate is happening. That said, if the press is holding onto a trove of information that the government claims could do serious harm to national security, what exactly is wrong with calling them forward to answer questions about how they intend to use it and how they intend to ensure that what they disclose will not affect national security? I would think that answers to those questions would certainly fall in the public interest.
Even if you take the most high profile target in the last few years, Osama Bin Laden, you can see that he essentially lived in an electronic black hole. There wasn't even an internet connection or phone line connected to the house he lived in. They'd also burn trash on-site so that it could not be intercepted.
Bin Laden also stopped using Satellite phones after it was clear that the NSA et al were very easily eavesdropping on satellite phones. I don't have any specific sources but this is the sort of the stuff I've read over the years.
Various terrorist groups have been aware of the general capabilities of Intelligence Agencies, whether they knew or understood the nuances of the technology is another thing.
It's us citizens who are shocked about the overarching abuses, I'm sure the bad guys are the least shocked.
Bin Laden did, which was probably why he was so difficult to track down. My understanding of the situation (correct me if I'm wrong) was that the rest of Al Qaeda and their affiliates were not as careful with their security. He might never be caught using an internet connection or cell phone, but it wouldn't necessarily matter if 90% of his organization did.
Nuances would matter quite a bit, too. Bin Laden stopped using his satellite phone after he suspected that the NSA could listen. But what about the satellite phone made it insecure? The fact that uses satellites? Would a cell phone be susceptible? GSM? CDMA? Only Motorolas? Are land lines secure? What if they're encrypted? What encryption schemes are secure? I don't have the documents off hand, either (sorry), but from what I've heard their overall security was pretty lousy - I remember reading that they were doing things like rolling their own encryption.
Oh that's not at all surprising that they tried to roll their own encryption. But if they are already not that sophisticated, then they'd still not be able to glean much value from these revelations.
Surely someone rolling their own encryption doesn't understand the big deal with NSA's BULLRUN program (where they tried to weaken encryption algorithms by planting people in teams and attempted to weaken protocols, or target vulnerabilities in encryption libraries).
Your mistake is giving any shred of credibility to the statements these agencies release. Nearly every public statement they've made on the leaks has turned out to be a lie or misdirection. For example, the primary motive of the surveillance programs clearly has not been to target terrorists, but political and economic espionage.
They're spying on everyone in the world. Anyone who prefers a free society to fascism is going to be to concerned about that, not the prevarications that officials come up with to try to get themselves off the hook. If you really think journalists are the people that need to be questioned in light of all this, I don't know what to say. You've probably already guzzled way too much of the authoritarian kool-aid.
I put "the terrorists" in quotes because they were Mr. Bernstein's words, not mine. The NSA is tasked with gathering foreign intelligence - in other words, espionage. That's their entire purpose, and has been their purpose since their inception. They should be gathering information on foreign military plans and capabilities, the intentions of foreign heads of state, foreign intelligence service actions carried out against the US, etc. And, of course, the plans of foreign terrorists. I don't like the overuse of the terrorist justification, but I can see why it's used so often. None of the other things I mentioned are of any immediate importance in the day-to-day life of the average American. Everyone remembers 9/11, though. I think it's a bit insulting to the American public to just wrap everything up by saying "we're doing this to protect you from terrorists", and it opens up the administration to a lot additional criticism by citing low incidence of foreign terrorist attacks against Americans.
Very little of what the media has reported to us has been about who the NSA is targeting or what information they're gathering, though - most of it has been centered on how they're collecting the information. Disclosures of sources and methods doesn't just have the potential to hurt counter-terrorist efforts, they have the potential to affect a much larger scope of national interests. It's dishonest on both the government and media's side to say that this is just a debate about terrorism.
Holding public hearings does harm to no one. No one is being arrested; no one is being charged with a crime. They are answering questions. Both sides are presenting information to lawmakers as well as the public. If this is your definition of fascism, then we must using different dictionaries.
The government doesn't hold a monopoly on lies and misdirection, either. There's no reason that you shouldn't be just as skeptical of the reporting of any news agency as you should from a government press release. Given the number of errors, misdirections and retractions that we've seen over the past few months, one really should be closely examining the reporting and asking how much is truth and how much is either misinterpretation or just hype to draw advertising dollars. A few example that I can recall that you wouldn't have seen on the HN front page:
- Stewart Baker, quoted extensively in the "NSA spies on porn" article, claims the authors omitted key parts of his quotes because it would make them look hypocritical: http://www.volokh.com/2013/11/27/understanding-enemy/
So no, I don't give journalists a free pass. The reporters who are looking at these documents have never touched these systems, and they're getting all of their information from a single source. They're not experts and I expect them to make mistakes. The also have newspapers to sell, and some of those articles are looser on the headlines than others. When they release a document, I expect to see members of the intelligence community come before Congress and get grilled over it, so that the public can get a better understanding of what they're seeing in the papers. In the same manner, when the press has information that could affect national interests, I expect them to answer questions in a public hearing about how they're handling that information, especially when they play such a huge role in guiding our understanding of the debate.
I prefer to apply a good deal of skepticism and critical thinking to anything I read on the internet. I like my Kool-Aid that way. How does yours taste?
I mostly agree with your second point, but to your first: even a small-time drug dealer former acquaintance of mine was familiar with ECHELON and other well-studied-but-top-secret sorts of programs, and basically assumed if he said the wrong words on the phone that some computer would start listening. I think anyone with reason enough to be paranoid would probably come to a similar conclusion with a bit of googling.
You can be paranoid and assume things, but that only saves you if your assumptions are correct. In fact, if your goal is to avoid the NSA (or the cops/FBI/whoever in your acquaintance's case), having the wrong assumptions would be detrimental in that you'd be expending a lot of effort to avoid authority with no gain in security. Never mentioning drugs over the phone doesn't help if the police never tap your phone but the guy you just sold to is an undercover cop.
Bernstein's praise is misplaced, being directed at a member of the minor political elite who sacrificed very little, and not to those who sacrificed a great deal.
The people that who stuck their necks out were Snowden and Greenwald, not Rudsbridger. In fact if the material was released in a different way, namely only to a single news organization, or didn't have Greenwald fighting for publication, Rudsbridger would have been loath to sign off on reporting on as much as he did.
But it's this letter that has a small chance of convincing my 65 year-old aunt that Snowden did the right thing, not emphasizing the sacrifice of two individuals.
She's a Democrat, and otherwise a good person (I'd even say she's a remarkably good person) and she truly thinks Snowden is a traitor. In her mind the fact of behind-the-scenes surveillance projects are secrets are like nuclear launch codes or troop movements - e.g. legitimate "trade secrets" that the government needs, in this case to prevent another 9/11 from happening.
Of course she's horribly wrong, because like most people she's pretty bad at estimating risk. In this case, she's grossly over-estimating the risk from terrorism, and grossly under-estimating the risk we assume when our government gives itself surveillance super-powers over us (and in secret, no less!).
Anyway, this article might open up her eyes to the latter mistake, that she is grossly under-estimating the risk of government granting itself such power, not to mention the risk of a government exerting unprecedented influence over the press. This letter connects this to something she knows about, and feels strongly about: Watergate. So maybe she'll listen, and rethink her position, and for that reason, it's a great article that I'll be emailing to her momentarily.
Bernstein is a journalist writing to a jourlanist (Rusbridger) about journalism. That's his place, and why he is worth paying attention to in this instance.
It is the place of intelligence contractors to speak up and defend Snowden's actions in his role as a defense contractor.
This criticism is not very coherent. Rusbridger is a journalist, not part of the 'political elite', and far from risking nothing, would surly have been mindful of previous British editors, like the BBC's Grek Dyke, who lost their job after challenging the government.
The Guardian (and its predecessor The Manchester Guardian) has a renowned history of liberal investigative journalism, and being in opposition of power (Orwell sometimes praised it - "The Manchester Guardian is the only [newspaper] that leaves me with an increased respect for its honesty." -- from Homage to Catalonia), so I struggle to understand where you gain the insight to claim Rusbridger 'would have been loath to sign off' the Snowden leaks. It is very much in keeping with the history of the paper, which also partnered with Wikileaks around the time of 'Collateral Murder' etc.
There are two false dichotomies: that only those who take risks deserve praise ("Bernstein's praise is misplaced..., and not to those who sacrificed a great deal."), and that competition alone motivates the publication of news ("if the material was released in a different way").
Clearly, in the first case praise is due to those, risk or no risk, who help to inform the public - primary evidence doesn't organise itself. The second point is demonstrably false: the Snowden material was released to a number of papers internationally, which have cooperated in releasing stories. If monopolising the information was Rusbridger's goal the publication would have been handled differently.
> Rusbridger is a journalist, not part of the 'political elite'
He's both a journalist and part of elite society (see his salary, events he attends, social circles/connections etc.) He risked nothing: His defence, as I stated in my comment, is the existence of other publishers whom he uses as actors who forced his hand and made the Guardian's publishing harmless in terms of disclosure.
> The Guardian has a renowned history of liberal investigative journalism
That's what every newspaper claims but it isn't true. See "Manufacturing Consent" by Herman and Chomsky.
> so I struggle to understand where you gain the insight to claim Rusbridger 'would have been loath to sign off' the Snowden leaks.
It is a straightforward application of common sense that is supported by critical media analysis and nearly tautological: Powerful organizations are powerful. The government has a great deal of influence on the Guardian and those who work there. Opposing the government in a serious way typically results in hardship while supporting them yields benefits. You still have to maintain the appearance of seriously challenging power so that people buy your paper but you can go far without actually having to do much of it.
The only reason they got away with it this time is they can claim that they were "forced" by the fact that other newspapers also published and that their publishing wouldn't have been a factor in whether the material was disclosed.
> which also partnered with Wikileaks around the time of 'Collateral Murder' etc.
Same situation with multiple publishers. Even in that case they redacted names of elite, public individuals, claiming it was to protect themselves from libel allegations.
> There are two false dichotomies...
I never made either claim. Surely Bernstein should praise Snowden and Greenwald to the extent he has praised Rusbridger and before he praises Rusbridger? And competition is not the only factor but when competition for a particularly story exists it both forces a publisher's hand and protects them: They look foolish if they don't publish because somebody else will and they can claim their publication made no difference because someone else is going to publish anyway. In fact this might be one of the few reliable ways to pressure publishers to actually publish sensitive material: Leakers should give material to several news organizations in different countries and tell them so without disclosing the names of those organizations.
The praise may be misplaced but it was well timed because an editor is being pressured by the Government.
Also, your comment focuses on a bit of soap opera (who should be praised) at a time when the story is "Government threatens journalism". You do know that is a propaganda technique? The establishment has people paid to do that - you don't have to do their work for free.
I know this will be unpopular here, but personally, I would like to see the Guardian prosecuted for its reckless reporting of stolen information in the same way that phone hacking was dealt with.
You can't just steal documents from governments and publish them without any consequences.
If your government is doing something bad, then it should be dealt with legally, and via the established checks and balances. Newspapers shouldn't be above the law.
Whistleblowers like Snowden are apparently a necessary check within our government, when one of them finds such widespread blatantly unconstitutional activity occurring. (I upvoted you for your point though.)
They haven't stolen anything the government still has the information which is public domain.
Citizens have the right to know what the laws of their country are, if the government believes it has the right to snoop your phones calls then it must submit a request to change the law to parliament.
(I'm going to ignore your presumption that information can somehow be "stolen" in any meaningful sense, but you really ought to explore that notion further.)
For your first two examples (my medical records and tax records), that is personal information which is limited utility to others. By contrast, the state "secrets" here directly impact the day-to-day lives of thousands if not millions.
Your third example is exactly something that would be beneficial to know--any enemy presumably already knows about it, and keeping it secret from the public at large only serves to allow the people who should be working on it to function without oversight.
As for the actual information being leaked: that is not personal information; a good chunk of it is operations details for state security apparatus, and that's exactly something that I, a citizen, would prefer to know about.
With such great resources at its disposal and so much power at its beck and call, we simply cannot afford to allow the government any secrecy or opacity in its functioning. To do otherwise is to encourage the sorts of corruption and corrosion that turn a state into a horrendous place to live.
There is a reason we have a public interest defence - the Guardian believes that it is in the public interest that these documents and their implications are made public, discussed and changes made to our security services.
I agree, but I see why others do not - but I ask you, how would we have the debate without the leaks and without the defence? If there is a way, please tell me.
I trust my government to do the right thing. I don't think we have an awful problem in the UK with corrupt greedy government abusing its power in the main.
No shit. Well, I'm for one glad the UK hasn't had any problem with, you know, extraordinary rendition, torture, extrajudicial executions during the Troubles, warrantless surveillance of political opponents during the Thatcher era. And I'm sure Tony Blair was telling the truth, and nothing but the truth, about these weapons of mass destruction.
> Yes I have moral reasoning. It's stolen information.
Well, you're free to believe that the right not to have one's information copied trumps any other concern. How are you feeling about your information being illegally copied by your own government, and freely shared with other security apparatuses?
Why do you feel their reporting is "reckless"? Do you believe that the Guardian's reporting has reduced GCHQ's ability to protect UK citizens? If so, do you have any evidence to support this belief?
booyaa00: I think it's also funny that some people are under the delusion that sites like this and reddit, are actually controlled by the 'voters', and that everyone has the same power.
They're not. They're controlled by editors who will place items where they want to.
For me, the worst part of hacker news is the silent banning if you are critical of any YC funded startup. Censorship is ugly, but it happens routinely.https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6807033
I appreciate the courage it takes to make an unpopular comment. That said, given your interpretation of HN (however accurate) you might express a little caution in calling for the censorship of a newspaper reporting extraordinary information.
This is not about censorship. Newspapers can say what the hell they want. Unless they obtained that information via illegal means - which The Guardian did.
They are absolutely the same as the phone hacking papers.
They are absolutely the same as the phone hacking papers.
No, they are not.
Here's why:
Voicemail hacking - journalists directly hired and instructed investigators to hack voicemail of celebrities and murder victims in order to print salacious stories and earn money, they also paid off police and other public servants to obtain information. They did this to sell newspapers (and for that reason alone) - no other defence could be given for their actions.
Snowden's disclosures - journalists received a story and documents to back it up from Snowden, they did not solicit and pay for the information, and published only those stories which they felt were in the public interest. They informed the public of a major scandal, and potentially illegal actions on the part of the authorities (actions which the spies tried to have legalised retrospectively).
That's the job of the fourth estate - holding the government accountable, keeping them honest, and informing the public. That's why we have a public interest defence (at least in the UK), or a 1st amendment (in the US).
Now you might argue that Snowden broke the law, I'd absolutely agree he did, but some laws are bad laws, and sometimes to fight an unjust system you must break the law - examples from history are legion of people fighting unjust laws who in retrospect are seen as heroes - I suspect Snowden will be amongst them, but arguing over the legality of his actions is a distraction from the to me more important questions of a free press and how we can restrain a government which aspires to know everything about every one of us.
I would be careful with putting so much emphasis on legality. The fact is that there are so many laws, and some of them are so weird and convoluted, and nobody really understands them all; pretty much everyone does several illegal things every day without even realizing it:
Under these kinds of conditions, if someone in an appropriate branch of government wants to nail you for any reason, they can. Especially now that widespread spying makes it much easier to identify specific transgressions.
So I am not so sure why you would take such a hard line on legality when in fact such a stance is just waiting to come back and bite you (and everyone).
... In fact, now it is the government's position that there are SECRET LAWS that you can be violating but not even know why you are violating them; they can arrest you and not tell you exactly why they arrested you, because the reason is secret. How are you supposed to engage in strictly legal behavior when you don't even know what is legal and what is illegal?
Can you provide a citation regarding any of these secret laws that I could be arrested for, or show any example of people being arrested and tried for violating secret laws? Or was all of this done in secret?
The only secret "laws" that I've seen come out of the whole Snowden affair were FISC opinions dictating how the NSA can and cannot act with regards to existing public laws.
The established checks and balances failed. There is a very good reason that journalists often have special protection in a free society: when they do their job, they help to bring balance to what might otherwise be unchecked government power.
I'd agree. But in this case, the claim from GCHQ etc is that they have acted fully within the law.
The guardian just loves anti-government stories, bashing anyone in power.
Look at the "expenses scandal". The Guardian was all over it! Publishing pointless details of how an MP claimed £5 for a taxi to a restaurant.
The inquiry into the "expenses scandal" cost more to the tax payer than the entire amount of expenses given to MPs! What the hell was the point of that then?!
It would be good if people recognised how biased The Guardian is. It has an agenda, and searches out the stories which will further it.
> the claim from GCHQ etc is that they have acted fully within the law.
And you're going to just believe the claim? Come on. Actually, if all that was fully legal, that is IMHO more shocking.
> It would be good if people recognised how biased The Guardian is. It has an agenda
And yet you can't see GCHQ' self-serving agenda. I see that you "trust your government to do the right thing". The right thing for who, them or you? Why do you trust them and not other parties?
> The inquiry into the "expenses scandal" ... What the hell was the point of that
And you don't see the point of uncovering corruption in elected officials either? Perhaps you don't want your trust undermined? Nice selective use of logic there!
The media "bashing anyone in power" is not an agenda. It's a counterweight to the huge, well, power that anyone in power has. It's a very important part of the checks and balances you mentioned.
Feel like I am replying to a obvious troll, but one thing that annoys me is when people blame the press for the leak.
Either the leak is justified or it's not. Either way the press is not responsible.
If the leak is not justified then the blame lies with the leaker and the organisation that the info was leaked from. If private companies poorly secure customer info they often get fined, but there seems to be no comeback when the leak involves a government.
First, Julian Smith secured a 30-minute Westminster Hall tirade on the "The Guardian and its impact on National Security". It was like watching a prosecution with no defence; Smith just declined to give way to any MPs who held a different view.
Next, there was an exercise in PR from the three heads of the intelligence services at the select committee. The questioning was appalling. It failed to inspire any confidence in the committee's ability to oversee the secret services.
Then, another committee had the audacity to call in the editor of The Guardian to explain himself. Questioning again appalling. "Do you love your country?" asked Keith Vaz. Others accused Rusbridger of being a criminal.
As far as I see it, other than the odd equally pointless question at PMQs and a measly motion passed at the Lib Dem annual conference, the aforementioned's about it in terms of any debate.
The issue that should be at the heart of the debate--state surveillance--has been glossed over in parliament's response. There ought to be a public inquiry into surveillance but, as Boris would say, I've about as much chance of being reincarnated as an olive.