“And Then There Were Three”: Was A Documentary Filmmaker The ‘Mastermind’ Behind The Snowden Leaks?
Peter Maass of The New York Times has published a long article detailing how documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras helped Edward Snowden leak thousands of classified documents detailing the National Security Agency’s global surveillance apparatus.
What it makes clear is that Poitras’ experience protecting her information enabled Snowden to begin providing documents, and her skills as a filmmaker facilitated him identifying himself.
Basically, Poitras had a much larger role in Snowden’s leaks than previously known. Here’s what we learned:
“I keep calling [Poitras] the Keyser Soze of the story, because she’s at once completely invisible and yet ubiquitous,” Greenwald, referring to the character in “The Usual Suspects” played by Kevin Spacey, a mastermind masquerading as a nobody, told Maass.
When Greenwald began conversing with Snowden in April after he had met with Poitras in New York and installed encryption software on his computer. (Poitras began speaking with Snowden in January, and he got a job as a NSA contractor for Booz Allen in March.)
At that point, Maass writes, their work “was organized like an intelligence operation, with Poitras as the mastermind.”
Greenwald said of Poitras: “None of this would have happened with anything near the efficacy and impact it did, had she not been working with me in every sense and really taking the lead in coordinating most of it.”
Poitras wouldn’t say when Snowden began sending her documents, but she initially received many more than Greenwald (who received about 20).
In May “Snowden sent encrypted messages telling the two of them to go to Hong Kong” and told them that he wanted to go public with his identity.
Glenn Greenwald discovered the top secret order compelling Verizon to hand over all of its call data to the government during the flight to Hong Kong.
Poitras and Greenwald didn’t speak with Snowden between parting ways after he outed himself on June 9 in Hong Kong and early July. He had traveled to Moscow on June 23.
So it’s now clear that the Snowden saga wouldn’t have played out as it has without Poitras.
The article also indirectly touches on a primary mystery: What happened to Snowden between the time he outed himself and when he got on a plane to Moscow two weeks later?
On June 23, with the help of an Ecuadorian travel document obtained through WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Snowden landed in the jurisdiction of Russia’s intelligence services (i.e. FSB). He has since been granted temporary asylum and began establishing his life in Russia.
During this time he has been speaking with Poitras and Greenwald — he answered questions from Maass over encrypted chat — but otherwise he has been lying low while his FSB-linked Russian lawyer has been speaking for him.
Consequently, the significance of Snowden’s arrival in Russia is still unknown.
By: Michael Kelley, Business Insider, August 13, 2013
“Shifting Winds, Changing Landscape”: Eric Holder Steps Up, GOP Stands Down On Sentencing Reforms
If you missed Rachel’s segment last night on Attorney General Eric Holder’s dramatic announcement on sentencing in drug crimes, it’s well worth your time. Indeed, by any fair measure, yesterday may be one of the most important days of the Obama administration’s second term, at least insofar as criminal justice is concerned.
Holder declared what many have long argued: too many Americans convicted of non-violent drug crimes are stuck in too many prisons for far too long. It’s a policy that costs too much, ravages families and communities, and has no practical law-enforcement rationale. That the Attorney General is using his prosecutorial discretion to circumvent mandatory minimums is an incredibly important step in the right direction — it’s the kind of move that will put fewer Americans behind bars for low-level, non-violent drug crimes.
What I was also eager to see were the next-day reactions, most notably from the right. Would Holder face a backlash from Republicans? So far, no. The conservative Washington Times ran this report today:
Grover Norquist, a conservative libertarian Republican and founder and president of Americans for Tax Reform … [claimed] that the Holder directive simply cribs from legislation by Democratic Sens. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois and Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, along with Republicans Mike Lee of Utah and Rand Paul of Kentucky, that would give federal judges greater discretion in sentencing certain drug offenders.
In the House, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, Utah Republican, and Robert C. “Bobby” Scott, Virginia Democrat and ranking member on the House Judiciary subcommittee on crime, terrorism, homeland security, and investigations, also have introduced legislation to reduce recidivism and federal prison costs through post-sentencing risk assessments and other evidence-based programs developed by states.
Mike Huckabee responded to the AG’s announcement by saying he “finally found something I can agree with Eric Holder on.”
As best as I can tell, not one member of the congressional Republican leadership in either chamber criticized Holder’s decision in any way.
And that matters enormously.
As we discussed earlier in the summer, in the not-too-distant past, the conservative line on these issues lacked all reason and nuance. The right wanted more prisons, more prisoners, harsher sentences, an aggressive “war on drugs,” and no questions. To disagree was to invite the “soft on crime” condemnation. As the nation’s prison population soared to unprecedented levels, the right simply responded, “Good.”
The landscape has, however, changed rather quickly. Twenty years ago, if an Attorney General from a Democratic administration had made this announcement, conservatives would have condemned “letting drug addicts onto our streets.” Yesterday, such reactionary, knee-jerk reactions were muted, and among prominent Republicans, non-existent.
On the surface, this gives the Obama administration some breathing room — Holder and other officials will realize they can adopt common-sense measures without facing political fury and instigating a national uproar. But below the surface, the response suggests more systemic reforms may yet be possible — the A.G.’s move represents progress, but Congress will have to act to make more sweeping changes.
And for the first time in recent memory, that now seems realistic. As Greg Sargent explained yesterday, as the political winds shift on this issue, the “soft on crime” attacks “no longer have anywhere near the cultural potency or political relevance they once did. As a result, “this may now be an area where compromise is possible.”
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, August 13, 2013
“Stop Me Before I Kill Government Again”: Republicans Tying Themselves Into Knots Yet Again
Happy as I am that a bipartisan convergence on sentencing reform just possibly could be in the works, it can’t obscure the more immediate spectacle of Republicans simultaneously trying to identify with and tamp down the “base’s” desire for a government shutdown (or debt default) over “defunding Obamacare.” Greg Sargent nicely diagnoses the malady after watching Reince Priebus tie himself into knots on a Sunday show:
After CNN’s Candy Crowley pointed out some Republicans are challenging the conservative demand for a government shutdown confrontation to force the defunding of Obamacare, Priebus actually responded:
“I think all Republicans are unified on one thing and that is defunding, delaying, getting rid of, eliminating Obamacare. So we have total unanimity on that issue and the question is what are the tactics? And you know, even if you take the position of a Ted Cruz or Mike Lee, basically what they’re saying is we actually are funding 100 percent of the government except for that small percentage of nondiscretionary — excuse me, discretionary funding the Obamacare.
“So Mr. President, if you want to shut the government down because you want to continue to fund this monstrosity that you’ve already admit is half broken, then go ahead. I mean the fact that it’s on the Republican Party I just think is spin from the Democratic Party that you ought not be adopting. I don’t know why you’re adopting that spin….”
[I]t’s not surprising that Republican officials have effortlessly internalized the framing of the coming Obamacare/government shutdown Priebus adopts above. Thanks partly to the GOP leadership’s willingness to lavish years of care and feeding on the base’s preoccupation with Obamacare repeal, large swaths of the party’s base appear to remain convinced that the law is entirely illegitimate and that they need not accept that the law is here to stay. It’s easy to get from here to the conclusion that Obama will be to blame for any catastrophic consequences that flow from the continued showdown over Obamacare; after all, this whole situation was created by Obama’s initial exercise of tyranny (Dems rammed the law through!!!) and is now being perpetuated by his continued tyrannical resistance to undoing it in the face of the popular will.
I’m guessing the next act for “adult Republicans” like Priebus will be to oppose a government shutdown confrontation on grounds that they are saving the country from Obama’s reckless behavior. The truth is that they would be acting to save their own party from the same kind of political disaster the GOP incurred with the same behavior in 1995.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly Political Animal, August 12, 2013
“Pleading Ignorance”: Congress Can’t Pretend It Didn’t Know About NSA Surveillance
Having been, at one place or another in my career, on each side of the perennial debate in Washington about “who knew what and when,” I knew it was a matter of time before we started hearing it about the leaked NSA operations.
Since leaving government, I have written before about the weird dynamics of “briefing” Congress on sensitive operations, e.g., Nancy Pelosi’s claim that she didn’t know about CIA’s program of “enhanced interrogations” during the Bush Administration. Now, and perhaps ironically, we have a spate of Republicans saying they knew little or nothing of the NSA operations
So, what’s the real story behind this typical Washington play to the media?
The media, of course, has a field day because on any day, they can get someone in Congress who wants to get their face on TV to say most anything – this whips up the hysteria that gives the story legs.To them, it’s media Nirvana – it’s the Trayvon Martin case of national security, and the best thing since the “torture” scandal.
Here is what’s behind all this political smoke:
There are some traditional Republican vs. Democrat tensions at work, in that it’s an opportunity for Republicans to criticize a Democratic President.
The NSA operations are very awkward for many Democrats to support (and many don’t) because of their liberal views on personal liberties and conciliatory approaches to national security.
Likewise, Republicans – who traditionally are more aggressive in national security matters – are also reluctant to support a Democratic administration, even though they may agree with the NSA operations.
The “tea party” faction of the Republican Party opposes the NSA operations – and as such is aligned with the most liberal Democrats on the issue. Strange bedfellows indeed.
Members of the two intelligence committees, Republican and Democrat, seem generally to support the NSA operations – and they also seem to know the most about them. They should.
However, complaints that “we didn’t know about this” are now being heard from both congressional Republicans and Democrats who are not on the intelligence committees.
Coming, perhaps, are internal divisions within the intelligence committees, some Republican-Democrat spats and some between the committee leaderships and rank and file committee members. This is awkward for the intelligence committee leaderships.
The lawyers at the Department of Justice, are – uncomfortably perhaps – in bed with each other on the NSA ops, because the programs were started in the Bush administration and continued into the Obama administration. And the president himself has supported the programs in every opportunity he has had to talk about them. He clearly believes that privacy and security are in proper balance with the NSA operations – or at least not out of balance.
So, who (probably) knew what and when about the compromised NSA program?
Some relevant background: Ever since Watergate, the Church and Pike Committees, the creation of the intelligence committees and the enactment of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (by the Democrats, FYI) in the 70’s, there have been various legal requirements for the intelligence community to keep the Congress informed about what they are doing. And the Congressional Seniors, often called the “Gang of Eight” (majority and minority leaders of each house and majority and minority members of the intelligence committees), get briefed in more detail on the most sensitive intelligence activities and operations.
Now, put yourself in the place of the directors of the various intelligence agencies. If you have any political sense at all (and you wouldn’t be a director if you didn’t), you are going to tell all about your agency’s various activities and operations, including all the risks – at least to the gang of eight. This way no one can later accuse you of withholding information when one of these sensitive programs goes south or is compromised. And, because the most sensitive activities and operations are often the most risky, the odds of failure or compromise are correspondingly high.
So, we can assume that – at the very least – the gang of eight was fully briefed on the NSA operations. And we can also assume that any other member of the intelligence committees who expressed interest in the programs would have likewise had a complete briefing, including on-site briefings by agency technicians, if such were requested.
How about an ordinary member of Congress who was interested in these programs? They can also get briefings if they request them, and should approach their own party leaderships if they want additional information, or go to the leaderships of their house’s intelligence committee. Are these briefings often complex, technical and time consuming? Yes, for sure.
However, the suggestion that information is somehow being withheld from them is, frankly, silly, just as it was for Pelosi, a 10-plus year member of the gang of eight and a former chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, to say that she didn’t know about the CIA’s enhanced interrogation program.
They know. They may wish they didn’t when the story hits the news, but they know. In fact, it’s to the administration’s advantage – whether Republican or Democrat – that they know all the details. In short, they are all in this boat together, whether they like it or not.
By: Daniel Gallington, U. S. News and World Report, August 12, 2013
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