NSA whistleblower Reality Winner leaked a secret NSA memo to the journalism website The Intercept, which promptly betrayed her by showing the document to the NSA. Even worse, they told the Agency where it was mailed from. As a result, Winner is now warming the inside of a prison cell. At bare minimum, The Intercept owes Winner and its readers a big apology for burning their source. But who can possibly trust a news organization that has such close ties to the government spooks it claims to be covering?
Et Tu, Glenn Greenwald?
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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Alas, Ted, the Intercept is looking like more and more like the commercial media in the US, i e, a loyal appendage of the national (in)security state. Love to be a fly on the wall during their editorial discussions….
Henri
Not much of a Winner, it turns out…
That said, I recall something about the Intercept being funded by Pierre Omidyar, who is known to work with the American state abroad while pretending to be against it at home. Not that surprising that he’d move to the next level… though this is actually still quite stupid of them. Who would leak anything to the Intercept now?
«Not much of a Winner, it turns out…» Ms Winner seems to be a pawn sacrificed – by which side, one wonders – in the internal warfare presently taking place in Washington. My guess – pure speculation, of course – is that she was suckered into releasing that memo, so that the comment could come into the public domain without incriminating anyone higher up in the organisation. Cannon fodder in the digital age….
Henri
One wonders why Winner was busted, seeing as how there is no evidence of any wrongdoing on the part of the Dastardly Rooskies. I assume those pages must have been blank (other than the watermark.)
Didja no that laser printers all print a unique pattern of yellow dots so that a specific document can be traced back to a specific printer? The gubbmint manufacturers to to include it and they did. Isn’t that nice?
U! S! A!
U! S! A!
U! S! A!
U! S! A!
U! S! A!
U! S! A!
The gubbmint asked manufacturers to /t/o/
Stupid keyboard!
Nice article – The Intercept is obviously very sad that Hillary lost. Just one more bit of indisputable TRVTH proving the existence of a Vast Left Wing Conspiracy comprising the International Intelligence Community, various Cybersecurity firms, media outlets, investigative journalists and Walt Disney’s frozen head.
That’s obviously a much more plausible explanation the absurd idea that they could possibly be telling the truth.
From Peter Van Buren’s Blog:
“Matt Cole, one of The Intercept journalists credited to this story, was also involved in the outing of source CIA officer John Kiriakou in connection with CIA torture claims. Small world!”
https://wemeantwell.com/blog/2017/06/06/hey-intercept-something-is-very-wrong-with-reality-winner-and-the-nsa-leak/
About Peter Van Buren:
United States Foreign Service Officer (ret.) and author of Hooper’s War Peter Van Buren spent a year in Iraq. Following his first book, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People, the Department of State began legal proceedings against him, falsely claiming the book revealed classified material. Through the efforts of the ACLU, Van Buren instead retired from the State Department with his First Amendment rights intact.
«If it frightens you that I invoke the question of the Deep State using journalists to smear the President, just forget I said anything. But if we’re willing to believe the Russians somehow successfully manipulated our entire society to elect their favored candidate, then we can at least ask a few questions.» But really, Glenn, who care what people with experience like Peter van Buren have to say – we know those dastardy Russians hacked the late US elections and therewith basta ! Just ask «yo mamma» & co….
Henri
20 dollars.
1 question.
WoW Ted! – You erased all my replies. I knew they were angry ones, but I thought there was little bit of freedom of speech here – I guess I was wrong. No more guessing. With the Internet (Tower of Babel) constantly monitoring and evaluating everything sent over it, it can get a bit challenging – as you have found out again, Ted
Gone are the days when you could say almost anything and get away it. Really dude – you can’t unless you live in a fortress with billions in gold or whatever. Gone are the days when you could successfully defend yourself well against nuisance lawsuits by rich people. Poof! Gone. Get it?……………I CAN”T HEAR YOU, RECRUIT!!!!
Back on topic: trying to get the government to verify leaked documents is SOP. They might not have known about the watermarks, and talked about the postmark out of sheer incompetence. “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity” (Hanlon’s Razor. Also Heinlein’s)
But of course a much more plausible explanation is that there were very sad because Hillary lost.
The Intercept is the most weasel-worded publication I’ve ever had the privilege to read.
Snowden leaked to the old, defunct Manchester Guardian, a newspaper that foolishly printed the truth. It was, of course, shut down by the constabulary, since every UK newspaper MUST print the official UK government line, and the new, and greatly improved, Guardian does as it was told to do.
The Intercept says it was given an NSA document that irrefutably proves that the Russians hacked the election, and the document was independently verified as 110% TRVE. But then (it says), there is a good chance the document is unreliable. And, after Winner was arrested, Intercept said they had no idea who submitted the document they had independently verified, but they’re sure it was NOT provably Winner.
.. and they were very sad that Hillary lost.
«Snowden leaked to the old, defunct Manchester Guardian, a newspaper that foolishly printed the truth.» Michael, Mr Snowden would have had to be an even greater anomaly than he was in order to leak to Manchester Guardian, which hasn’t been known by that name since 1959. However, you are correct in that the newspaper to which he leaked, with Alan Charles Rusbridger as chief editor, is now defunct. The present chief editor, Katharine Sophie Viner, would certainly never had engaged in an enterprise so beyond the pale as publishing excerpts from the documents leaked by Mr Snowden….
Henri