{"id":59733,"date":"2015-06-22T12:00:47","date_gmt":"2015-06-22T11:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=59733"},"modified":"2015-06-16T15:58:24","modified_gmt":"2015-06-16T14:58:24","slug":"uk-government-murdoch-press-smear-of-edward-snowden-unravels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/06\/uk-government-murdoch-press-smear-of-edward-snowden-unravels\/","title":{"rendered":"UK Government, Murdoch Press Smear of Edward Snowden Unravels"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"sundaytimes-192x300<\/a>16 Jun 2015 – <\/em>A press attack on National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden has backfired on the UK government.<\/p>\n

This weekend\u2019s Sunday Times<\/em> ran an article under the headline, \u201cBritish spies betrayed to Russians and Chinese,\u201d citing numerous anonymous sources from within the government and security services.<\/p>\n

The sources once again painted a picture of Edward Snowden having endangered the lives of spies and informants, jeopardising state operations. The Times<\/em> article was replete with unfounded assertions, distortions and outright lies.<\/p>\n

Both Russia and China were said to \u201chave cracked the top-secret cache of files stolen by the fugitive US whistleblower Edward Snowden, forcing MI6 to pull agents out of live operations in hostile countries, according to senior officials in Downing Street, the Home Office and the security services.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moscow was supposed to have \u201cgained access to more than 1m classified files,\u201d after Snowden \u201cfled to seek protection from Vladimir Putin, the Russian president.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSenior government sources\u201d then \u201cconfirmed that China had also cracked the encrypted documents.\u201d<\/p>\n

A \u201csenior Home Office source\u201d accused Snowden of having \u201cblood on his hands\u201d, \u201calthough,\u201d the Sunday Times<\/em> immediately added, \u201cDowning Street said there was \u2018no evidence of anyone being harmed\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

The only named source, Sir David Omand, the former director of GCHQ, called Russia and China\u2019s supposed de-encryption of Snowden\u2019s files a \u201chuge strategic setback\u201d that was \u201charming\u201d to Britain, America and their NATO allies.<\/p>\n

The Sunday Times<\/em> claimed that a comment made by a \u201csenior Downing Street source,\u201d i.e., from the prime minister\u2019s office, \u201cthat Russians and Chinese have information,\u201d represented irrefutable proof of the veracity of the claims. It was, moreover, \u201cthe first evidence that Snowden\u2019s disclosures have exacted a human toll\u201d.<\/p>\n

This was followed by another \u201csenior Home Office source\u201d declaring, \u201cWhy do you think Snowden ended up in Russia? Putin didn\u2019t give him asylum for nothing. His documents were encrypted but they weren\u2019t completely secure and we have now seen our agents and assets being targeted.\u201d<\/p>\n

All of which goes to prove the old adage, \u201cIf you tell a lie, tell a big one and stick to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Glenn Greenwald, who worked closely with Snowden, issued a devastating rebuttal of the Sunday Times<\/em>, noting, \u201cThe whole article does literally nothing other than quote anonymous British officials,\u201d while offering \u201czero evidence or confirmation for any of its claims.\u201d<\/p>\n

He noted several particularly glaring falsehoods: When Snowden left Hong Kong, he took no files with him, having given them to the journalists with whom he worked, and then destroying his copy so that it wouldn\u2019t be vulnerable as he travelled. \u201cHow, then, could Russia have obtained Snowden\u2019s files as the story claims\u2014\u2018his documents were encrypted but they weren\u2019t completely secure\u2019\u2014if he did not even have physical possession of them?\u201d<\/p>\n

The Sunday Times<\/em> states that David Miranda, cynically referred to as \u201cthe boyfriend of the Guardian<\/em> journalist Glenn Greenwald\u201d, was \u201cseized at Heathrow in 2013 while in possession of 58,000 \u2018highly classified\u2019 intelligence documents after visiting Snowden in Moscow.\u201d Greenwald counters that Miranda \u201chad never been to Moscow and had never met Snowden. \u2026 The Sunday Times<\/em> \u2018journalists\u2019 printed an outright fabrication in order to support their key point: that Snowden had files with him in Moscow. This is the only \u2018fact\u2019 included in their story that suggests Snowden had files with him when he left Hong Kong, and it\u2019s completely, demonstrably false\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

The claim that the Russian and Chinese governments learned the names of covert agents by cracking the Snowden file, \u201cforcing MI6 to pull agents out of live operations in hostile countries,\u201d he adds, \u201cappears quite clearly to be a fabrication by the Sunday Times \u2026<\/em> [because] not even the anonymous officials claim that Russia and China hacked the entire archive, instead offering only vague assertions that Russian and China \u2018have information\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Greenwald ends by noting, \u201cThe Sunday Times<\/em> has now quietly deleted one of the central, glaring lies in its story: that David Miranda had just met with Snowden in Moscow when he was detained at Heathrow carrying classified documents.\u201d The claim \u201cremains in the print edition and thus requires a retraction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Privacy International, Liberty, MPs Tom Watson and David Davies and many others have pointed to the timing of the Sunday Times<\/em> smear, suggesting that it is a counter to last Thursday\u2019s publication of the official report on UK surveillance laws by David Anderson QC. They have cited in particular its call for judicial rather than ministerial oversight of surveillance.<\/p>\n

This lends unwarranted credibility to a report that in fact justifies existing mass collection of phone and Internet data and the extension of such powers providing only that a \u201cdetailed operational case\u201d and a \u201crigorous assessment\u201d of the intrusiveness, effectiveness, cost and legality of extended snooping powers is made by the security services. This is meaningless, no matter what civil liberties groups might believe or suggest.<\/p>\n

Anderson also supports the compulsory retention of \u201cthird party data\u201d and urges the government to secure the cooperation of Google, Facebook, etc., to this end. He comes out in support of companies handing over encryption keys.<\/p>\n

What is of greater concern for both the government and the Murdoch press is the widespread public opposition to mass surveillance, particularly when the intention is to pass the \u201csnoopers\u2019 charter\u201d into law in the autumn.<\/p>\n

The Draft Communications Data Bill creates wide-ranging powers to compel any communications service provider to collect and retain information about any organisation that interacts with users and produces or transmits electronic communications, even if this information is irrelevant to their business needs. This information includes Deep Packet Inspection that bypasses encryption software and matching data from different sources to create a central database of communications, behaviours and patterns of activity.<\/p>\n

Last week, the Intelligence and Security Committee confirmed that Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is still collecting \u201cbulk personal datasets\u201d from millions of people\u2019s phone and Internet records. Privacy International has launched a legal claim before the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) calling for this practice to be ended\u2014citing the passing of the USA Freedom Act ostensibly curtailing the bulk collection of phone record metadata. In the UK, this is still legal under the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act (DRIPA) passed in 2014.<\/p>\n

In addition, last month GCHQ operatives and the police were made exempt from prosecution for hacking under the Computer Misuse Act (1990). The exemption move was first initiated last June, one week after a case taken out at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal by Privacy International and seven Internet and communications service providers, and was included in the Serious Crime Bill 2015. The IPT case focused on the alleged use of hacking tools to download malicious software allowing users\u2019 cameras and microphones to be remotely hijacked.<\/p>\n

The smearing of Snowden, like that of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, is a vital element in a general effort to create a climate of fear to justify state surveillance and repression. This has long been conducted in the name of combating Islamic terrorism. Now, in line with the predatory aims of British and US imperialism, the threat is said to come from Russia and China.<\/p>\n

In all cases, millions of working people in Britain and internationally are identified as \u201cthe enemy within\u201d, whose democratic rights are trampled on by a ruling elite hell bent on destroying jobs, wages and vital social services.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 wsws.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

16 Jun 2015 – A press attack on Edward Snowden has backfired on the UK government. This weekend\u2019s Sunday Times ran an article under the headline, \u201cBritish spies betrayed to Russians and Chinese,\u201d The Times article was replete with unfounded assertions, distortions and outright lies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-whistleblowing-surveillance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59733\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}