Greenwald vows to publish ALL Snowden documents

[tangent4ronpaul]

http://rt.com/news/greenwald-threatens-more-leaks-201/

“The more the US and UK threaten, the more I will publish,” Glenn Greenwald has told French radio. The Guardian journalist revealed the scope of US spying on France was “enormous,” but the French government is also complicit in US espionage.

In an interview with Radio France Internationale (RFI), Greenwald spoke candidly about the threats he had received from the US and UK and his intention to publish all the documents handed to him by former CIA worker Edward Snowden.

“I intend to publish all the documents I have. The more threats I get from the US and UK, the harder I will work to publish this information,” said Greenwald, adding that the previous revelations on the NSA’s spying activities had fed the debate on internet privacy.

-t

ps: another article said there were 5,000 documents. I believe he's published parts of 47, to date. Don't hold your breath.

[better-dead-than-fed]

I intend to publish all the documents I have.http://rt.com/news/greenwald-threatens-more-leaks-201/

He had said that publishing them would "enable other states to enhance their surveillance capabilities".


https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/statuses/348457084842549248

Barton Gellman, a Washington Post reporter who has seen all the Snowden docs, said this about publishing them: "Some things were obvious no-go. Picture a bomb recipe."


https://twitter.com/bartongellman/statuses/344625474250620928
https://twitter.com/bartongellman/statuses/344627027325882369

[Mani]

I like the way they are letting it out one at a time.

It keeps it relevant and an issue that just WONT go away. It keeps the issue in the forefront and on people's minds, and forces the MSM to discuss it. It also forces the NSA or administration to respond.


And the continuing effect keeps making the NSA look less and less credible. And everytime the NSA says, "Ya but we don't do that..." A new leak says, "Yes you did" and their credibility and trust is further eroded.

NSA is now more of a joke and has lost a LOT of credibility. I noticed when the news first came out, still a lot of people defended the NSA. But as leak after leak, separately and overtime came out....The defenders of the NSA from the general populace seems to be less and less.

I think if it was 1 blast of info it would not have had the impact these continual leaks are having.

All it takes is one war or Celebrity Nip slip or twerk or whatever and the public loses it's focus on the issue, but then BOOM, NOT AGAIN, the NSA is still spying on you...and it seems the public is saying, WTF? AGAIN. They did that TOO!?!


I hope they keep the continual damning leaks going on and on. Hit the people with the DOCUMENTED facts...The NSA is spying on you. You are the enemy. Make the public feel it.

[idiom]

Snowden is still not as awesome as that dude who leaked all the 9/11 planning documents with all the Bush admin signatures all over them.

[bolil]

He needs leverage, if he published all at once he would likely wind up dead.

[kcchiefs6465]

He needs leverage, if he published all at once he would likely wind up dead.
The argument could be made either way.

[better-dead-than-fed]

You could write [a Dead Man's Switch (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_man%27s_switch)]. There are also plenty of orphaned Open Source ones out there you could pick up that need to be finished, if you want a head start.

http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=22878085

[Mini-Me]

Snowden is still not as awesome as that dude who leaked all the 9/11 planning documents with all the Bush admin signatures all over them.

LOL, WUT? ;)

Seriously though, Greenwald and Snowden are truly great men. Greenwald is playing with fire though. It's wise to release everything bit-by-bit to maximize exposure and mindshare and catch the NSA in its lies, but I hope he has taken the necessary precaution of entrusting copies of all 5000 documents to several other people to release if something happens to him. He clearly doesn't want to release everything without curating it first, but the threat of doing exactly that as a "last resort" just might help keep him alive. Really though, he should be torrenting a strongly encrypted version so a third party only needs to release the encryption key if something happens...much like Assange's "insurance" file.

[GregSarnowski]

No doubt he has multiple contingency plans. I wish Michael Hastings had revealed what he was working on to someone else before he was assassinated by the feds. Then again maybe he did but whoever it was is too intimidated.

[Mini-Me]

No doubt he has multiple contingency plans. I wish Michael Hastings had revealed what he was working on to someone else before he was assassinated by the feds. Then again maybe he did but whoever it was is too intimidated.

You have to cautiously assume the feds work like a certain television character too: If they're going to kill someone who might talk, they just might kill everyone they can think of within a two minute window. That's why you have to entrust things to a number of people they won't think of or know anything about. That's also why it's better to prerelease everything in encrypted form, because it's a lot easier for a nameless helper to anonymously slip out a 256-bit (or 512-bit, or whatever) AES key than several gigabytes of documents.

[GregSarnowski]

I think what might have happened with Hastings is they knew he was on the right track and got to him before he could obtain and disseminate conclusive evidence. Unfortunately he was naive about just how evil the elements he was dealing with are.

Interesting point about releasing the encrypted files ahead of time.

[Mani]

You have to cautiously assume the feds work like a certain television character too: If they're going to kill someone who might talk, they just might kill everyone they can think of within a two minute window. That's why you have to entrust things to a number of people they won't think of or know anything about. That's also why it's better to prerelease everything in encrypted form, because it's a lot easier for a nameless helper to anonymously slip out a 256-bit (or 512-bit, or whatever) AES key than several gigabytes of documents.

Good point.


By the time you might know they are on to you, they may already know the people you trust, seen your phone and email records to have an idea where you might go and who you might go to.

Fucked up situation for sure.

Luckily so far Greenwald has had these documents for 4-6 months now, so I'm guessing he's taken supreme caution to get his things in order. He knows the bullseye is now on him maybe even more than Snowden.

[Mini-Me]

Good point.


By the time you might know they are on to you, they may already know the people you trust, seen your phone and email records to have an idea where you might go and who you might go to.

Fucked up situation for sure.

Luckily so far Greenwald has had these documents for 4-6 months now, so I'm guessing he's taken supreme caution to get his things in order. He knows the bullseye is now on him maybe even more than Snowden.

Yep. Social media sites like Facebook make it even easier to trace people's connections, and even the people you aren't officially "friends" with will still be "friended" to a number of your other "friends," thereby increasing the likelihood you know them. In this kind of situation, you really can't go to family and trusted friends (except as a last resort and tertiary plan), or anyone you've had any recent visible contact with at all really, because the severity of the leak means the NSA is likely to be closely monitoring all of them. Instead, you have to go to people you respect but don't know personally, long-lost acquaintances you knew were honorable people decades ago, and new friends that nobody else knows about. All three are thankfully pretty easy for Greenwald: As a journalist with international reach, he's come into contact with a lot of people in his travels (particularly foreigners), and this is probably accelerating now that he has to be wary of US authorities.

[jmdrake]

Snowden is still not as awesome as that dude who leaked all the 9/11 planning documents with all the Bush admin signatures all over them.

http://ct.fra.bz/ol/fz/sw/i48/5/3/21/frabz-Not-Sure-If-Serious-899491.jpg

What leaked 9/11 planning documents?

[idiom]

http://ct.fra.bz/ol/fz/sw/i48/5/3/21/frabz-Not-Sure-If-Serious-899491.jpg

What leaked 9/11 planning documents?

Exactly.

Everybody in IT pretty much knew what the NSA was up to before Snowden, but it was TIN. Now you can actually get your Boss to pay to upgrade the security system.

Its what the truther movement doesn't have yet. At this point its probably too late anyways. The public outrage statute of limitations has probably passed.

[TaftFan]

Pretty sure he already said he is screening the documents and only publishes those which won't damage national security.

[Feeding the Abscess]

Pretty sure he already said he is screening the documents and only publishes those which won't damage national security.

Probably just said that to pre-emptively counter the 'oh you're hurting national security' talking point.

[jllundqu]

Why do I feel the need to throw the BS flag?

Greenwald is awesome, but I still call BS

[better-dead-than-fed]

Pretty sure he already said he is screening the documents and only publishes those which won't damage national security.

I don't think Greenwald has said anything like that about "national security". I don't believe he holds the United States' interests above the interests of any other nation, and he seems to share Justice Black's view that "security" ultimately would be undermined by the suppression of information:


The word "security" is a broad, vague generality whose contours should not be invoked to abrogate the fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment. The guarding of military and diplomatic secrets at the expense of informed representative government provides no real security for our Republic. The Framers of the First Amendment, fully aware of both the need to defend a new nation and the abuses of the English and Colonial governments, sought to give this new society strength and security by providing that freedom of speech, press, religion, and assembly should not be abridged. This thought was eloquently expressed in 1937 by Mr. Chief Justice Hughes—great man and great Chief Justice that he was—when the Court held a man could not be punished for attending a meeting run by Communists.


The greater the importance of safeguarding the community from incitements to the overthrow of our institutions by force and violence, the more imperative is the need to preserve inviolate the constitutional rights of free speech, free press and free assembly in order to maintain the opportunity for free political discussion, to the end that government may be responsive to the will of the people and that changes, if desired, may be obtained by peaceful means. Therein lies the security of the Republic, the very foundation of constitutional government.

http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=17571244799664973711

Greenwald's concern, in his own words, is "gratuitous harm" that could be caused by release of documents, but he has not clarified what he means by that:

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/statuses/344256166815227905

[better-dead-than-fed]

Why do I feel the need to throw the BS flag?

Greenwald is awesome, but I still call BS

Snowden is awesome. Greenwald, meh.

[HOLLYWOOD]

Too Bad Snowden didn't have evidence of all the corruption and dirt on Congress, the White House, Campaign donors, Wall St. and Fascist corporate Media.

Really need some 'Grand-Slam' data to expose the great CON JOB going on.

[Mini-Me]

Too Bad Snowden didn't have evidence of all the corruption and dirt on Congress, the White House, Campaign donors, Wall St. and Fascist corporate Media.

Really need some 'Grand-Slam' data to expose the great CON JOB going on.

Greenwald already mentioned the "worst is yet to come." If we're lucky, they might actually have exactly that: Evidence that the NSA has successfully blackmailed politicians into following the script.

[NIU Students for Liberty]

Snowden is awesome. Greenwald, meh.

What's wrong with Greenwald?

[kcchiefs6465]

What's wrong with Greenwald?
He blocked BDTF on Twitter.

ETA: And that he said he was withholding some of the documents.

[tangent4ronpaul]

Greenwald already mentioned the "worst is yet to come." If we're lucky, they might actually have exactly that: Evidence that the NSA has successfully blackmailed politicians into following the script.

And judges...

Yes, that would change everything!

-t

[AngryCanadian]

He blocked BDTF on Twitter.

ETA: And that he said he was withholding some of the documents.


Well he has to i cant imagine how many threats he had received. I cant blame him for withholding some of the documents till the right moment.

[kcchiefs6465]

Well he has to i cant imagine how many threats he had received. I cant blame him for withholding some of the documents till the right moment.
Greenwald said that ones that compromised "National Security" he would withhold, IIRC. Something about ones that would help other nations develop the same systems as the NSA has.

I like Greenwald's reporting. He is up there with Scahill, Balko, or Swann. Him withholding documents to prevent other governments from mimicking the system the NSA has created is great. I take his word that that is the case. He is one hell of a journalist and brave for reporting on what he does... even in the face of Hastings' death. I don't have a problem with Greenwald.

BDTF has an issue with censorship of any kind. IIRC he asked Greenwald what authority he had to withhold some of the documents... or something along those lines. Greenwald ended up blocking him on Twitter. BDTF takes shots at Greenwald every once in a while because of that.

As long as Greenwald keeps reporting on the files I am fine with it. Especially considering it is his source who wished the files vetted before release. I personally would rather have the files available across the spectrum for anyone to download and report on; The information would come out quicker. But if your source requests something as a condition for their coming forward you honor it. And Greenwald appears to take his commitment to his sources very seriously.

[brandon]

That's also why it's better to prerelease everything in encrypted form, because it's a lot easier for a nameless helper to anonymously slip out a 256-bit (or 512-bit, or whatever) AES key than several gigabytes of documents.


Unless of course some of the documents are about a backdoor/crack in the AES algorithm :eek:

[dinosaur]

Isn't this one of those situations where one is better off not announcing it ahead of time?

[better-dead-than-fed]

What's wrong with Greenwald?

When addressing the issue of whether he should be arrested under the Espionage Act, he's supported the idea that some people have more First-Amendment rights than others; and he is a communist:




here are views I've publicly advocated...:

opposing all cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid;
advocating for robust public financing to eliminate the domination by the rich in political campaigns, writing: "corporate influence over our political process is easily one of the top sicknesses afflicting our political culture";
arguing in favor of a public option for health care reform (repeatedly);
repeatedly condemning the influence of corporate factions in public policy making;
praising and defending the Occupy Wall Street movement as early and vocally as anyone;
co-founding and working extensively on a PAC to work with labor unions and liberal advocacy groups to recruit progressive primary challengers to conservative Democratic incumbents;



http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?419406-Greenwald-s-Views-(-quot-Decide-for-yourself-if-the-libertarian-label-applies-quot-)


He blocked BDTF on Twitter.

So you support communism like Greenwald?

[better-dead-than-fed]

Greenwald said that ones that compromised "National Security" he would withhold, IIRC.

You're remembering wrong.


IIRC he asked Greenwald what authority he had to withhold some of the documents... or something along those lines.

You're remembering wrong.


BDTF takes shots at Greenwald every once in a while because of that.

More like, you have your facts mixed up.

[kcchiefs6465]

You're remembering wrong.

You're remembering wrong.

More like, you have your facts mixed up.
Meh. IIRC denotes that I may have forgotten or may be mixed up. It wasn't any defining moment so that's understandable. Feel free to correct me further on how I misrepresented the scenario.

I remember the general conversation we had on censorship and Greenwald blocking you. I don't remember the exact wordage of what you were asking him. You taking shots at Greenwald was because he said he was going to selectively censor documents he felt went against the interest of national security. You asked him something about how he was going to determine which was which. It's been a few months and I don't really care. Greenwald has kept the pressure on and continues to report on the documents Snowden handed over.

ETA: Ahh, that was it. After reading post #30 I see what you mean. Sorry for the misrepresentation. You were inquiring about why he didn't take on the Espionage Act.

[better-dead-than-fed]

You taking shots at Greenwald was because he said he was going to selectively censor documents he felt went against the interest of national security.

You are 100% wrong.


I don't really care.

So you're talking crap about me, but you don't care.

[better-dead-than-fed]

After reading post #30 I see what you mean. Sorry for the misrepresentation. You were inquiring about why he didn't take on the Espionage Act.

Thank you.

Plus he's a communist.

[kcchiefs6465]

So you support communism like Greenwald?
No, obviously I do not. If they wished to start a commune that would fine and good so long as the majority whim isn't used to subjugate the minority.

I read his work and take in the information he has compiled. Much the way I read Scahill or Balko. Their opinions I may not agree with but the facts they gather are going to be second class to none. From there I can apply them to the concept of liberty. They have saved me many hours by compiling work into an easily readable and factually honest format.

There are only a few authors I may find myself in total agreement with. Of the few, the list could include Ron Paul, Andrew Napolitano, and what I have read of Tom Woods. A lot of the foreign policy guys are bad in economics and vice versa. I can analyze the information available for myself.

[better-dead-than-fed]

I read his work and take in the information he has compiled. Much the way I read Scahill or Balko. Their opinions I may not agree with but the facts they gather are going to be second class to none. From there I can apply them to the concept of liberty. They have saved me many hours by compiling work into an easily readable and factually honest format.

I can't think of any value Greenwald has added to Snowden's documents, and in his writing he tends to bury the lead,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_pyramid

which causes me consternation. I disliked Greenwald plenty before he Twitter-blocked me, btw. But he sticks it to the government, so I give him 'meh' instead of a worse rating.

[kcchiefs6465]

I can't think of any value Greenwald has added to Snowden's documents, and in his writing his tends to bury the lead,

Perhaps not the documents themselves as they could probably speak for themselves or others could independently report on them in a more timely manner but Greenwald has done a lot to help Snowden's case. In all of the interviews where Snowden is otherwise portrayed as a traitor or spy Greenwald is often the voice of reason. Him destroying media heads left and right gets him a pass on his political views by me. He says the things I wish I could to these propagandist shills.

I've come to the understanding that the artists I listen to are going to be by and large socialists or communists, those who are actually journalists are going to by and large be socialist leaning or communists.. it's just a fact of life I guess. There are only a small percentage of people who apply libertarian principles across the board.

[surf]

really shouldn't be anyone on here taking shots at Greenwald. we should all be pondering the threats to Mr. Greenwald.

dude's a hero like Snowden

[better-dead-than-fed]

dude's a hero like Snowden

How is he a hero?


really shouldn't be anyone on here taking shots at Greenwald.

Whatever. He has plenty of fanboys without me too.

[Mani]

Perhaps not the documents themselves as they could probably speak for themselves or others could independently report on them in a more timely manner but Greenwald has done a lot to help Snowden's case. In all of the interviews where Snowden is otherwise portrayed as a traitor or spy Greenwald is often the voice of reason. Him destroying media heads left and right gets him a pass on his political views by me. He says the things I wish I could to these propagandist shills.

I've come to the understanding that the artists I listen to are going to be by and large socialists or communists, those who are actually journalists are going to by and large be socialist leaning or communists.. it's just a fact of life I guess. There are only a small percentage of people who apply libertarian principles across the board.


Agreed. I think he has helped the cause. I may not agree with his political beliefs, but when he's on air presenting the information, and the Media heads say something all the State apologists bring up, "But Snowden helped the Terrorists!" He bitch slaps them into reason, makes excellent points and completes his argument without the shills being able to interrupt him.

He is able to do it time and time again, they make a stupid point, and he makes an excellent counter point that shuts them down. He's quick to answer and his answers are to the point and not meandering. And when the shills Mediabots try to change the subject, he brings it back to the importance of the issue.


Not everyone has that skill to say things so eloquently and on live air counterpoint statist bullshit arguments quickly and bring home the message. I'd say it's a great skill and he's one of the few on the side of TRUTH that can do this.

I also admire the fact that there is some risk involve in what he's doing, but he's not backing down.

[Mini-Me]

Unless of course some of the documents are about a backdoor/crack in the AES algorithm :eek:

Before signing on to AES, the NSA did force the standard to include certain questionable elliptical curves as an optional basis for encryption. There have long been concerns that those particular curves were compromised from the start, but thankfully, nobody really uses them anyway. I sometimes wonder if the NSA regrets being so ham-fisted about it. ;) AES needs to be replaced eventually as a matter of course, but I'm pretty confident it remains strong and fundamentally unbroken (at least mathematically; some implementations may be compromised though).

Some of Snowden and Greenwald's future revelations might make me eat crow about AES, but I'm really not too worried about it. I worry more about the public key cryptography we already know the NSA has subverted: TLS/SSL, which is what the entire Internet uses to secure its communications. It's pretty typical for the NSA to weaken standards before ratification, which is what people recently learned about SSL: Given certain assumptions, SSL is mathematically "proven" to be secure...and yet the NSA can decrypt basically any SSL connection, as we've recently learned. How? Well...here's a good article on the matter:
http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2013/09/on-nsa.html

Bruce Schneier's blog is also fantastic. Ultimately, I hope we widely adopt a new public key encryption protocol that eliminates trusted third parties entirely, because they're a HUGE weak link that I always feared enabled NSA man-in-the-middle attacks. I think BitMessage has the right idea, in that it makes endpoint addresses equivalent to public key fingerprints. That's an idea I had been kicking around in my head for a long time for use in phones (where next-generation phone numbers would actually be public key fingerprints), and I'm glad someone less lazy than me decided to implement it for something. Still, it's new, undertested, and mostly unknown, and it goes to such great lengths to provide anonymity that it's too complicated and inefficient for the Internet to adopt the entire protocol as a replacement for TLS/SSL. An ideal next-generation protocol for something like https connections would be a pared-down version providing the security without the anonymity.

[Mini-Me]

How is he a hero?

The information may have fallen into Greenwald's lap, but Snowden gave it to him rather than someone else for good reason. He is one of very few journalists with the guts to follow through. He's disseminating the information bit by bit at great personal risk, with little regard for what the US government might do to him. I find a lot of his political viewpoints horribly misguided and authoritarian, but I used to feel the same way as him on a great deal of issues, and...well, here I am now. I don't expect he'll ever become libertarian like I did, but risking his own neck to expose the surveillance state is good enough for me. George Orwell was a socialist too, but does that negate the contributions he made with 1984? Greenwald is certainly making more personal sacrifices in his fight against Big Brother than most of us have or will, and I think that deserves a great deal of respect, whatever our differences with him (especially considering he tends to fight much harder on the issues we agree with him about than on the issues we disagree with him about).

Frankly, it's actually better for us that Greenwald is a socialist rather than a libertarian: It demonstrates the nonpartisan nature of resisting a totalitarian police state, which is important during a time when Obama and the Democrats are in power and most of the media is kowtowing to them. Do you think the story would continue breaking into the MSM so often if Snowden had given the information to someone like Ben Swann? While corrupt totalitarian socialists and neoconservative fascists are our main political rivals, earnest socialists are our primary ideological rivals. We may fight them bitterly on a large host of issues, but we're ultimately going to have to unite against the establishment on this particular issue if we hope to win. Given the current party in power, Greenwald's political views give him (and therefore us) more credibility on this issue in the eyes of the people who most need a huge slap in the face at this particular point in time.

[better-dead-than-fed]

He is one of very few journalists with the guts to follow through. He's disseminating the information bit by bit at great personal risk, with little regard for what the US government might do to him.... risking his own neck to expose the surveillance state is good enough for me.

I don't see the risk he's taking as heroically-sized, because he is protected by such a shield:


I had access to the full rosters of everyone working at the NSA, the entire intelligence community, and undercover assets all over the world. The locations of every station, we have what their missions are and so forth. If I had just wanted to harm the US? You could shut down the surveillance system in an afternoon.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2013/jun/09/nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-interview-video

All I'm feeling is meh.

[surf]

I don't see the risk he's taking as heroically-sized, because he is protected by such a shield:

seriously? neocons openly giddish at the concept of drones raining down on his rio home, hours and hours spent trying to hack all hid personal date, etc. not to mention kidnapping his partner, a cabal of "journalists" dismissing every thing he does to bring slight credibility back to his profession, fighting for freedom. he's a hero that is evidently facing greater real threats every day - from our government and a few others.

[better-dead-than-fed]

seriously? neocons openly giddish at the concept of drones raining down on his rio home,

The guys with the drones wouldn't do that, because they don't want operatives and missions exposed and the surveillance system shut down in retaliation (see my previous post). The neocons you're talking about aren't taken seriously by anyone, they're the same idiots giddish about launching nukes at China and Russia.


hours and hours spent trying to hack all hid personal date, etc. not to mention kidnapping his partner, a cabal of "journalists" dismissing every thing he does to bring slight credibility back to his profession, fighting for freedom. he's a hero that is evidently facing greater real threats every day - from our government and a few others.

If those characteristics makes him a hero, I know a lot of heroes.