I read the Independent article. Does The Independent claim that Snowden gave The Independent any information? Did I miss something in that article or elsewhere?
D…did you read the TITLE?
Also: LOL at the name of the newspaper that released government propaganda being “The Independent.”
Charlie Stross’s prediction may have come true.
Possibly the only thing protecting us from this contingency so far is that the first law of intelligence agencies is that information goes in, it never goes out. The idea of deliberately seeding the internet with disinformation is profoundly inimical to the usual methods and mission of an intelligence agency. (Organizations such as the KGB could do it only because the KGB wasn’t a pure intelligence agency — it was a secret police force with intelligence gathering as part of its remit.)
If we see the NSA or other US government agencies getting into the disinformation business, then the end game has arrived: there really is a Deep State developing, and it’s adopting the tactics of a secret police agency — not merely enforcing laws, or gathering information, but trying to influence the beliefs of the citizenry by systematically lying to them. (China’s already there, with its national firewall and prior censorship of news media.) But I don’t think we’re there just yet.
I’m no expert, but I think that’s not how secrets are supposed to work.
“The Independent is not revealing the precise location of the station but information on its activities was contained in the leaked documents obtained from the NSA by Edward Snowden.”
The way I understand this is that the Independent read the documents which were leaked already and have come to the conclusion there is some base. They don’t say precisely which documents. But the article doesn’t say they directly received documents from Snowden or that they talked to him.
I think the likely scenario is that some of the information police obtained from Miranda in his “terrorism” detention mentioned this UK base, and one of the law enforcement folks involved in that detention has leaked this, hence the “Snowden” connection.
The funny thing here is that before he was outed by his former employers, Snowden himself was serving as an anonymous source. To now try and imply that using anonymous sources is somehow suspect when another publication does it is laughable. The suggestion that the Independent is working in cahoots with the UK government to discredit Greenwald falls under the category of a smear.
As has been noted, they say that the information comes from Snowden documents, but they don’t say that Snowden handed them over himself. Wikileaks made news recently for putting out a gigantic encrypted file for “safety” purposes. At around the same time, Greenwald’s significant other was exchanging Snowden documents with the person making an Assange approved documentary. It stands to reason that the events are connected. Given the recent turmoil in Wikileaks circles (specifically, the party meltdown in Australia), my personal suspicion is that the encryption key to that file dump was leaked to the Independent by a disgruntled Wikileaks staffer.
Does the Tonkin Gulf ring a bell? Or, for that matter, remember the Maine? The US government has been in the business for a long, long time.
Well…no… First, it wasn’t Snowden’s former employers who outed him, it was in fact Snowden himself, by considered choice, through The Guardian. Second, I have seen zero evidence that Snowden was ever an “anonymous” source. Snowden made contact with Greenwald, Gellman and Poitras, told them he had something, spoke in broad strokes about what that might be and then set about doing what was necessary to establish secure connections, prove his bona fides and gain some credibility with the journalists he was working with. Your entire premise is wrong.
As far as who The Independent was trying to smear, again you’re on the wrong premise. This wasn’t aimed at Greenwald. This was aimed at Snowden. It was an attempt by someone to plant the idea that Snowden was now releasing specific operational and location information which would directly put lives in danger. It was all in all a terrible article, spending many words saying essentially…nothing. Smears are often that way.
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