Snowden Documents Reveal Surveillance and Pressure Tactics Aimed at WikiLeaks and Its Visitors

Subject: Re: Snowden Documents Reveal Surveillance and Pressure Tactics
Aimed at WikiLeaks and Its Visitors


It's pretty clear that the one accomplishment of the NSA's "information
gathering", is that it proves that snooping breeds paranoia.
The more they pry into people's private business, the more they fear they
are missing something important...something about them.
I see a day in the not too distant future when science has developed a
device that reads a person's mind. People in that day will look back on
these times and wonder why we didn't stop the snooping before it became
impossible to stop.
Carl Jarvis

----- Original Message -----
From: "S. Kashdan" <skashdan@scn.org>
To: "Blind Democracy List" <blind-democracy@octothorp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, February 19, 2014 5:37 AM
Subject: Snowden Documents Reveal Surveillance and Pressure Tactics Aimed at
WikiLeaks and Its Visitors


Snowden Documents Reveal Surveillance and Pressure Tactics Aimed at
WikiLeaks and Its Visitors



By Alex Kane [2]



AlterNet [1], February 18, 2014 |



http://www.alternet.org/print/world/snowden-files-reveal-nsa-and-gchq-targeting-wikileaks



The whistleblowing website WikiLeaks has long been in the crosshairs of the
U.S. government. Now, more details exposed by The Intercept [3]reveal that
the National Security Agency (NSA)'s British counterpart, GCHQ, monitored
Internet users who visited the WikiLeaks website and that the Obama
administration urged allies to file charges against WikiLeaks and Julian
Assange, the site's founder.



The article was written by Glenn Greenwald and Ryan Gallagher [3], and is
the latest piece on The Intercept based off documents Edward Snowden leaked
to Greenwald and other journalists.



WikiLeaks is a target of a U.S. grand jury case, though the Washington Post
reported [4]last November that the Justice Department has indicated no
charges would be filed since they couldn't prosecute without targeting other
media organizations and journalists. But the grand jury is not the only way
the U.S. set its sight on WikiLeaks, which rose to prominence after they
published hundreds of thousands of secret documents exposing the U.S. wars
in Afghanistan and Iraq and U.S. diplomatic dealings.



Greenwald and Gallagher report on three documents that show the extent of
U.S. and British targeting of WikiLeaks. They contradict the U.S. government's
insistence that they only target "terrorists" for surveillance.



One document shows that the GCHQ used its surveillance system to sweep up
the IP addresses of those visiting the WikiLeaks website and the search
terms people used to reach the site. These included Americans. "How could
targeting an entire website's user base be necessary or proportionate?"
asked Gus Hosein, the head of Privacy International, in an interview with
The Intercept. "These are innocent people who are turned into suspects based
on their reading habits. Surely becoming a target of a state's intelligence
and security apparatus should require more than a mere click on a link."



A separate file reveals how the Obama administration wanted allies like
Australia and Germany to file charges against WikiLeaks for publishing the
Afghan war logs, which detailed civilian deaths caused by soldiers and other
aspects of the war.



A third document shows that the NSA considered designating WikiLeaks a
"malicious foreign actor." According to The Intercept, such a designation
would "have significantly expanded the agency's ability to subject the group's
officials and supporters to extensive surveillance.



Such a designation would allow WikiLeaks to be targeted with surveillance
without the use of 'defeats'--an agency term for technical mechanisms to
shield the communications of U.S. persons from getting caught in the
dragnet." There is no confirmation that the NSA did decide to use the
designation, though.



See more stories tagged with:



wikileaks [5],



nsa [6],



Snowden [7]



Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/world/snowden-files-reveal-nsa-and-gchq-targeting-wikileaks



Links:



[1] http://alternet.org



[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/alex-kane



[3]
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/02/18/snowden-docs-reveal-covert-surveillance-and-pressure-tactics-aimed-at-wikileaks-and-its-supporters/



[4]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/julian-assange-unlikely-to-face-us-charges-over-publishing-classified-documents/2013/11/25/dd27decc-55f1-11e3-8304-caf30787c0a9_story.html



[5] http://www.alternet.org/tags/wikileaks-0



[6] http://www.alternet.org/tags/nsa



[7] http://www.alternet.org/tags/snowden



[8] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B







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