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Global surveillance and journalism is a subject covering journalism or reporting of governmental espionage, which gained worldwide attention after the Global surveillance disclosures of 2013 that resulted from Edward Snowden's leaks. Since 2013, many leaks have emerged from different government departments in the US, which confirm that the National Security Agency (NSA) spied on US citizens and foreign enemies alike. Journalists were attacked for publishing the leaks and were regarded in the same light as the whistleblowers who gave them the information. Subsequently, the US government made arrests, raising concerns about the freedom of the press.
A whistleblower is someone, particularly an insider or employee of a company, who brings to light wrongdoing by an employer, a government, or a law-enforcement agency, and who is commonly vested by statute with rights and remedies against retaliation. [1]
The Obama administration was characterized as much more aggressive than the Bush and other previous administrations in its response to whistleblowing and leaks to the press, [2] prompting critics to describe Obama's crackdown as a battle against whistleblowers. [3] [4] [5] A public statement by the Obama campaign said that "the Obama administration has prosecuted twice as many cases under the Espionage Act as all the other administrations combined. [6] [7] [8] [9] Eight people have been charged under previously rarely used leak-related provisions of the Espionage Act of 1917. [10]
In 2011, the Department of Defense's Office of the Inspector General declassified documents which are the only response to the four whistleblowers' claims. The documents further explore NSA responsibility for wasting resources on the failed attempt at Trailblazer. [11]
Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, a State Department contractor who reportedly had a conversation about North Korea with James Rosen of Fox News [12] and Jeffrey Sterling, an alleged source for James Risen's book [[State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration|State of War]]. Risen has also been subpoenaed to reveal his sources, a rare action by the government. Shamai Leibowitz, a contract linguist for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), was convicted of leaking information from embassy wiretaps. [13] Like John Kiriakou, he is serving a thirty-month prison term for disclosing that intelligence officers were using torture. Many whistleblowers witness serious crimes and are severely punished when they expose them, but the perpetrators of the original misdeeds are not held accountable. [11]
Chelsea Manning was a United States Army soldier convicted in 2013 for illegally downloading military reports that were unclassified and sensitive military documents. The documents were from both wars where the US was involved: in Iraq and Afghanistan. Manning had acquired the documents on the military base in Baghdad. [14]
Manning provided Wikileaks with evidence of Collateral Murder when the US Army killed 12 unarmed citizens with an Apache attack helicopter. The attack happened in a Baghdad suburb and two Reuters staff were among the victims. Manning commented on the video, finding the "delightful bloodlust" the soldiers appeared to have disturbing. [15] As seen on the footage and aerial weapons team asks a wounded Iraqi to hold up a gun so that they could have reason to engage. [16]
On August 21, 2013, Manning was sentenced to thirty-five years in prison for providing sensitive documents to WikiLeaks. She only served seven years before President Barack Obama commuted her sentence in 2017. While in prison, Manning attempted to take her life twice over her struggles with gender dysphoria and attempts to get a gender reassignment. [17]
James Hitselberger, a former contract linguist for the US Navy in Bahrain is charged with possessing classified documents. [18] Edward Snowden, a technical contractor for the NSA and former employee of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), is currently at large and has been charged with theft and the unauthorized disclosure of classified information to columnist Glenn Greenwald. [19] [20]
Reporters Without Borders' 2014 Press Freedom Index [21] saw a drop of 13 ranks for the United States due to her "treatment of whistleblowers, leakers, and those who assist them" in 2013. The country fell to 46th place, between Romania and Haiti. The United Kingdom fell three places for similar reasons. The Index is meant to highlight places where journalists and photographers are free to do their work, as well as places where the work puts them in danger. [22] Reporters Without Borders' executive director Christian Mihr stated: "In the US, state persecution of investigative journalists and their sources by security services has reached an unprecedented level. If sources can no longer be trusted, we face a significant curtailment of press freedom and a dramatic step backward when it comes to democracy." [23]
The Guardian is a UK-based newspaper with an international reach. In 2013, The Guardian received a copy of data from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
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Video from The Guardian including footage of destruction |
In June and July 2013, Prime Minister David Cameron sent Jeremy Heywood, the Cabinet Secretary, to meet with Alan Rusbridger, editor of The Guardian. [24] Accordingly, Heywood ordered the editor to cease publishing articles based on the Snowden disclosures. According to The Guardian, Heywood said: "We can do this nicely or we can go to law", adding that "A lot of people in government think you should be closed down". [24]
On July 20, the destruction of computer hard-drives was carried out by several Guardian staff members under the observation of experts from GCHQ. [24] [25]
The Guardian said the authorities were told of the existence of multiple copies of the data outside the UK. The deputy editor, Paul Johnson, who was involved in the destruction told Luke Harding about the experience. "It was purely a symbolic act", Johnson said. "We knew that. GCHQ knew that. And the government knew that. It was the most surreal event I have witnessed in British journalism". [26]
In August 2013, the Metropolitan Police detained Greenwald's partner David Miranda at London's Heathrow Airport under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000, while he was traveling home from Berlin. [27] [28] [29] A February 2014 court decision upheld the detention as appropriate. [30]
Greenwald described his partner's detention as "clearly intended to send a message of intimidation to those of us who have been reporting on the NSA and GCHQ". [31] Miranda was detained for nine hours and his laptop and other items were seized. He has since sued the Metropolitan Police for misuse of their powers. According to The Guardian, the claim "challenging controversial powers used under schedule 7 to the Terrorism Act 2000, maintains that Miranda was not involved in terrorism and says his right to freedom of expression was curtailed". [32]
In December 2013, Greenwald and Miranda openly advocated for asylum in Brazil for Edward Snowden in exchange for the fugitive leaker's cooperation in investigating the NSA. [33] Brazil responded by saying that it was not interested in investigating the NSA. [34]
In 2006 Wikileaks was created by Julian Assange and the goal for Wikileaks is to capture the truth by any means, which has put them in the International Spotlight over the years. Since its birth, Wikileaks has released classified documents regarding the war effort in the Middle East, documents regarding the detainees in Guantanamo Bay, and releasing emails from Democratic National Committee staffers. [35]
On April 11, 2019, Assange was arrested after being taken from the Ecuadorian embassy. The U.S. Justice Department believes that with the position of Wikileaks during the 2016 elections, he, Julian Assange, had a key role in the Russian attack on the 2016 elections. During the same election, Assange had released DNC staff flies as well, which many believe that he released them because the next day was a democratic election. Soon after, a DNC staffer named Seth Rich was murdered and was believed to be leaking the e-mails. Also, the U.S. Department of Defense believes that Assange had conspired with Chelsea Manning in cracking a password that was on a U.S. Department of Defense computer, which is stored on a U.S. government network and she had downloaded 1,000 classified documents. [36]
Director Clapper has referred to Snowden's "accomplices", [37] while Rep. Peter King explicitly accused Greenwald of having Snowden as an "accomplice". [38] UK Conservative politician Liam Fox has contacted the UK Director of Public Prosecutions to consider whether journalists at The Guardian "breached counter-terrorism laws". [39] [40]
Computer Science Professor Matthew Green of Johns Hopkins University posted a statement critical of the NSA. The university issued a statement it had "received information that Matthew Green's blog contained a link or links to classified material", after which it asked him to remove the post. [41] [42] Following this, the NSA's logo was removed and the material was published in many different news outlets so the Interim Dean, Andrew Douglas, will have the post restored. [43]
Cryptome was an online library and 501(c)(3) private foundation created in 1996 by John Young and Deborah Natsios and closed in 2023. The site collected information about freedom of expression, privacy, cryptography, dual-use technologies, national security, intelligence, and government secrecy.
Glenn Edward Greenwald is an American journalist, author, and former lawyer.
WikiLeaks is a publisher and media organisation founded in 2006. It operates as a non-profit and is funded by donations and media partnerships. It has published classified documents and other media provided by anonymous sources. It was founded by Julian Assange, an Australian editor, publisher, and activist, who is currently challenging extradition to the United States over his work with WikiLeaks. Since September 2018, Kristinn Hrafnsson has served as its editor-in-chief. Its website states that it has released more than ten million documents and associated analyses. WikiLeaks' most recent publication was in 2021 and its most recent publication of original documents was in 2019. Beginning in November 2022, many of the documents could not be accessed.
The Sam Adams Award is given annually since 2002 to an intelligence professional who has taken a stand for integrity and ethics. The Award is granted by the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence, a group of retired CIA officers. It is named after Samuel A. Adams, a CIA whistleblower during the Vietnam War, and takes the physical form of a "corner-brightener candlestick".
The Granai airstrike, sometimes called the Granai massacre, refers to the killing of approximately 86 to 147 Afghan civilians by an airstrike by a US Air Force B-1 Bomber on May 4, 2009, in the village of Granai in Farah Province, south of Herat, Afghanistan.
Julian Paul Assange is an Australian editor, publisher, and activist who founded WikiLeaks in 2006. He came to wide international attention in 2010 when WikiLeaks published a series of leaks from US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning: footage of an airstrike in Baghdad, military logs from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and US diplomatic cables.
Laura Poitras is an American director and producer of documentary films.
The Afghan War documents leak, also called the Afghan War Diary, is the disclosure of a collection of internal U.S. military logs of the War in Afghanistan, which were published by WikiLeaks on 25 July 2010. The logs consist of over 91,000 Afghan War documents, covering the period between January 2004 and December 2009. Most of the documents are classified secret. As of 28 July 2010, only 75,000 of the documents have been released to the public, a move which WikiLeaks says is "part of a harm minimization process demanded by [the] source". Prior to releasing the initial 75,000 documents, WikiLeaks made the logs available to The Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel in its German and English online edition, which published reports in line with an agreement made earlier the same day, 25 July 2010.
Luke Daniel Harding is a British journalist who is a foreign correspondent for The Guardian. He is known for his coverage of Russia under Vladimir Putin, WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden.
WikiLeaks, a whistleblowing website founded by Julian Assange, has received praise as well as criticism from the public, hacktivists, journalist organisations and government officials. The organisation has revealed human rights abuses and was the target of an alleged "cyber war". Allegations have been made that Wikileaks worked with or was exploited by the Russian government and acted in a partisan manner during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
United States v. Manning was the court-martial of former United States Army Private First Class, Chelsea Manning.
We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks is a 2013 American independent documentary film about the organization established by Julian Assange, and people involved in the collection and distribution of secret information and media by whistleblowers. Directed by Alex Gibney, it covers a period of several decades, and includes background material. Gibney received his fifth nomination for Best Documentary Screenplay from the Writers Guild of America Awards for this film.
Edward Joseph Snowden is a United States and naturalized Russian citizen who was a computer intelligence consultant and whistleblower who leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013 when he was an employee and subcontractor. His disclosures revealed numerous global surveillance programs, many run by the NSA and the Five Eyes intelligence alliance with the cooperation of telecommunication companies and European governments and prompted a cultural discussion about national security and individual privacy.
Sarah Harrison is a British former WikiLeaks section editor. She worked with the WikiLeaks' legal defence and has been described as Julian Assange's closest adviser. Harrison accompanied National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden on a high-profile flight from Hong Kong to Moscow while he was sought by the United States government.
Ongoing news reports in the international media have revealed operational details about the Anglophone cryptographic agencies' global surveillance of both foreign and domestic nationals. The reports mostly emanate from a cache of top secret documents leaked by ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden, which he obtained whilst working for Booz Allen Hamilton, one of the largest contractors for defense and intelligence in the United States. In addition to a trove of U.S. federal documents, Snowden's cache reportedly contains thousands of Australian, British, Canadian and New Zealand intelligence files that he had accessed via the exclusive "Five Eyes" network. In June 2013, the first of Snowden's documents were published simultaneously by The Washington Post and The Guardian, attracting considerable public attention. The disclosure continued throughout 2013, and a small portion of the estimated full cache of documents was later published by other media outlets worldwide, most notably The New York Times, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Der Spiegel (Germany), O Globo (Brazil), Le Monde (France), L'espresso (Italy), NRC Handelsblad, Dagbladet (Norway), El País (Spain), and Sveriges Television (Sweden).
The global surveillance disclosure released to media by Edward Snowden has caused tension in the bilateral relations of the United States with several of its allies and economic partners as well as in its relationship with the European Union. In August 2013, U.S. President Barack Obama announced the creation of "a review group on intelligence and communications technologies" that would brief and later report to him. In December, the task force issued 46 recommendations that, if adopted, would subject the National Security Agency (NSA) to additional scrutiny by the courts, Congress, and the president, and would strip the NSA of the authority to infiltrate American computer systems using "backdoors" in hardware or software. Geoffrey R. Stone, a White House panel member, said there was no evidence that the bulk collection of phone data had stopped any terror attacks.
Commentary on Edward Snowden's disclosure is part of the reactions to global surveillance disclosures made by Edward Snowden.
The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World's Most Wanted Man is a 2014 book by Luke Harding, published by Vintage Books.
David Michael dos Santos Miranda was a Brazilian politician. He was a Federal Congressman representing the state of Rio de Janeiro, serving from 2019 until 2023, and was affiliated with the Democratic Labour Party (PDT), after switching parties from the Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL) in 2022. Prior to that, he was a City Councilman representing the city of Rio de Janeiro. Miranda also played a key role in Edward Snowden's global surveillance leaks.
In 2012, while on bail Julian Assange was granted political asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he sought to avoid extradition to Sweden, and what his supporters said was the possibility of subsequent extradition to the US. On 11 April 2019, Ecuador revoked his asylum, he was arrested for failing to appear in court, and carried out of the Embassy by members of the London Metropolitan Police. Following his arrest, the US revealed a previously sealed 2018 US indictment in which Assange was charged with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion related to his involvement with Chelsea Manning and WikiLeaks.