hell hath no fury like an investigative reporter annoyed

Snowden journalist to publish UK secrets after Britain detains partner

By Pedro Fonseca
RIO DE JANEIRO | Mon Aug 19, 2013
(Reuters) - The journalist who first published secrets leaked by fugitive former U.S. intelligence agency contractor Edward Snowden vowed on Monday to publish more documents and said Britain will be "sorry" for detaining his partner for nine hours.

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"I will be far more aggressive in my reporting from now. I am going to publish many more documents. I am going to publish things on England too. I have many documents on England's spy system. I think they will be sorry for what they did," Greenwald, speaking in Portuguese, told reporters at Rio's airport where he met Miranda upon his return to Brazil.

"They wanted to intimidate our journalism, to show that they have power and will not remain passive but will attack us more intensely if we continue publishing their secrets," he said.

in other spooky news...

EFF summarizes the Washington Post's stories on No Such Agency's No Supervision Agenda:

Today, the Washington Post confirmed that two of those oversight pillars—the Executive branch and the court overseeing the spying, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA court)—don't really exist. The third pillar came down slowly over the last few weeks, with Congressional revelations about the limitations on its oversight, including what Representative Sensennbrenner called "rope a dope" classified briefings. ...

First, the Executive. After a review of internal NSA audits of the spying programs provided by Edward Snowden, the Post lays out—in stark detail—that the claims of oversight inside the Executive Branch are empty. The article reveals that an internal NSA audit not shown to Congress, the President, or the FISA Court detailed thousands of violations where the NSA collected, stored, and accessed American's communications content and other information. In one story, NSA analysts searched for all communications containing the Swedish manufacturer Ericsson and “radio” or “radar.” ... The news reports and documents are in direct contrast to the repeated assertions by President Obama (video), General James Clapper (video), and General Keith Alexander (video) that the US government does not listen to or look at Americans' phone calls or emails. So much for official pronouncements that oversight by the Executive was "extensive" and "robust."

Second, the FISA Court. The Post presents a second article in which the Chief Judge of the FISA Court admits that the court is unable to act as a watchdog or stop the NSA's abuses: “The FISC is forced to rely upon the accuracy of the information that is provided to the Court,” its chief, US District Judge Reggie B. Walton, said in a written statement. “The FISC does not have the capacity to investigate issues of noncompliance." ... So much for claims by officials from the White House (video), NSA, DOJ, and Intelligence Committee members of Congress that the FISA Court is another strong pillar of oversight.

Third, the Congress. Last week, Representative Sensenbrenner complained that "the practice of classified briefings are a 'rope-a-dope operation' in which lawmakers are given information and then forbidden from speaking out about it." Members of Congress who do not serve on the Intelligence Committees in the both the House and Senate have had difficulty in obtaining documents about the NSA spying. Last week, it was even uncovered that the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Mike Rogers, failed to provide freshmen members of Congress vital documents about the NSA's activities during a key vote to reapprove the spying. Senators Wyden and Udall have been desperately trying to tell the American people what is going on, but this year the House Intelligence committee's Subcommittee on Oversight has not met once and the Senate Intelligence committee has met publicly only twice.

another EFF summary, this one terse mode.

EPIC reports that the government has been granted more time to respond to their mandamus petition. in a lovely bit of black humor, the Supremes granted them until september 11th to make their futile attack on the republic. may allah grant them as much success as the last bunch who tried that.

more foreign intercepts

man, this is getting depressing...

Guardian says Britain forced it to destroy Snowden material

By Mark Hosenball and Pedro Fonseca
WASHINGTON/RIO DE JANEIRO | Mon Aug 19, 2013 8:06pm EDT

(Reuters) - The Guardian, a major outlet for revelations based on leaks from former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, says the British government threatened legal action against the newspaper unless it either destroyed the classified documents or handed them back to British authorities.

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[Guardian editor Alan] Rusbridger said that in meetings with British officials, before the [Guardian's] computers were destroyed, he told them the Guardian could not do its journalistic duty if it gave in to the government's requests.

In response, he wrote, a government official told him that the newspaper had already achieved the aim of sparking a debate on government surveillance. "You've had your debate. There's no need to write any more," the unnamed official was quoted as saying.

The Guardian's decision to publicize the government threat - and the newspaper's assertion that it can continue reporting on the Snowden revelations from outside of Britain - appears to be the latest step in an escalating battle between the news media and governments over reporting of secret surveillance programs.

One U.S. security official told Reuters that one of the main purposes of the British government's detention and questioning of Miranda was to send a message to recipients of Snowden's materials, including the Guardian, that the British government was serious about trying to shut down the leaks.

so much for freedom of the press in the UK. serious question: do the subjects of the british crown actually have any rights, or are they at the mercy of their government? britian appears to have a supreme court, but it appears about as useful as FISC. (or at least in the US, the appearance of men in black at a newspaper demanding they cease running inconvenient articles would be met by said paper's lawyers and a request to a district court for an immediate injunction.)


mentioned in passing in Merkel and the NSA: A Scandal That Just Won't Die

The NSA analysts apparently feel that the illegal surveillance of US citizens presents no serious consequences. This is indicated by a document seen by SPIEGEL which states that, if Americans inadvertently fall under the scope of surveillance, it has to be reported internally, but otherwise there is "nothing to worry about."

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In one shaded section of its seven-page declaration, the NSA vaguely writes that it "touches" only about 1.6 percent of worldwide Internet traffic every day -- without providing any further explanation of its unusual use of the word "touch" in this context.

It may not sound like much, but this is actually an enormous amount of data. In effect, 1.6 percent of one day's global Internet traffic means that the NSA "touches" or "collects" some 29 petabytes per day. This would be roughly three times as much data as is contained in the Internet Archive, a nonprofit digital library whose stated mission is to provide "universal access to all knowledge." The archive has stored, among other things, 150 billion websites.

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Writing for London's Guardian newspaper, Internet expert Jeff Jarvis, a professor of journalism at City University of New York (CUNY), said that all pertinent communications in the US amount to just 2.9 percent of Internet traffic. This sheds a totally new light on the purportedly small figure of 1.6 percent. It means that the NSA "touches" roughly half of all communications on the Web -- or, as Jarvis writes, "practically everything that matters."

now show me on this map of the internet where the bad spies touched you...

(did i miss this one in a US source?)