Miranda

Guardian/GCHQ names: A free press must have some balls

Posted on by louisemensch

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There was some traction today on the Guardian’s trafficking of GCHQ agents’ names abroad, because the Telegraph had the guts to challenge the cosy journalists’ club.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/10426204/Guardian-refuses-to-say-whether-it-sent-details-of-British-spies-overseas.htm

Written by Tom Whitehead, the story printed all my facts from yesterday’s blog, including calling the Guardian out for their earlier lies.

The British newspaper has previously announced that it has shared some of its leaked GCHQ files with international partners but insisted on at least one occasion, that the identities of British spies were not included.

The sub for the online story wrote:

Guardian under fresh scrutiny as New York Times report on leaked GCHQ files contains detailed information on eavesdroppers

It went on:

Asked last night whether this suggested the files sent to the US contained the details of British spies, a spokeswoman for the Guardian said: “It is well documented that we are working in partnership with the New York Times and others to responsibly report these stories.

…

The development comes ahead of the latest legal battle surrounding the GCHQ files in the High Court this week.

I am truly grateful to the Telegraph for having printed this story. The more so, because it is fair to say I cordially detest its editor Tony Gallagher, (@GallagherEditor ) and he me, as our frequent spats on Twitter will attest.

But it is fairly obvious that just about every word in Tom Whitehead’s piece came from my blog yesterday. The reason that we can safely say this is, if it were a piece of original research, it would have been written up on Sunday, when the New York Times exposed that the Guardian had handed them the NSA-GCHQ wiki, and then printed on Monday.

Here’s what didn’t come from me:

 Asked last night whether this suggested the files sent to the US contained the details of British spies

You see what Tom Whitehead did, rest of the British press? He asked them the goddamned question.

A free press depends on a ballsy press. It depends on a lack of collusion. It depends on journalists showing no fear and no favour. Will Lewis (then Telegraph) went after MPs on their expenses and the whole world cheered, and now MPs who oppose the Leveson straitjacket cite that story to fight the royal charter,

But if the UK press closes ranks, acts like those few bent coppers in the Mitchell affair, declines to ask Rusbridger and Gibson any tough questions because well, they know them, they’re mates with them, they drank with James Ball in a pub once – then that really sucks. Freedom of the press totally depends on the guts of journalists and a willingness to investigate your own, your side, your mates.

I have always been against Leveson and the Royal Charter, in Parliament and out of it. My campaign against the Guardian is on a particular issue, the fact that they have very clearly sold our intelligence agents out for money. I do give a shit about the men and women in GCHQ who protect us. Those suckers the Guardian sneered at because they only make £25,000 a year to risk their lives. I don’t believe in state control of the press, and investigating whether highly paid corporate executives like Rusbridger and Gibson have broken the law is not state control of the press. I believe that existing laws are good enough. There’s a hacking trial going on right now, isn’t there? And those saying ‘hey there have been no arrests at the Guardian’ have forgotten that  the Metropolitan police have opened a criminal inquiry after the arrest of Miranda. Don’t assume they aren’t looking at that NSA-GCHQ wiki stuff.

But if there’s going to be collusion amongst papers to protect their own, then fuck it, perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps Ed Miliband was right, and the press should be controlled by the government. Maybe @HackedOffHugh and the Brian Cathcart pizza party were on the right track at 3 am.

Here are exchanges today between me and the normally sensible journalist John Rentoul, of whom I am a long-standing admirer.

John Rentoul ‏‪@JohnRentoul

/‪@LouiseMensch Do you think you could make your case against The Guardian without using the words “lie”, “trafficking” & “mule”? Thank you

        ‏‪@LouiseMensch‬ 5h 

. ‪@JohnRentoul unfortunately not, since they lied, they trafficked, and they muled, and there is chapter and verse on all three.
Details 
           

 ‏‪@LouiseMensch‬ 5h 

. ‪@JohnRentoul it would be fantastic if a paper other than the ‪@Telegraph had the guts to challenge them on their lies. Like, say, yours.

  1. .‏‪@JohnRentoul‬ 3h 

‪@LouiseMensch Guardian statement to Daily Mail on 9 Oct may have been incomplete & misleading but it was not a lie. ‪http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2456843/MI5-concerns-The-Guardian-sending-secret-files–Fedex-Newspaper-used-public-courier-firm-post-data-country.html#ixzz2je7dOu7r …

 

 

@JohnRentoul‬ 3h 

‪@LouiseMensch I disagree. Deliberately misleading is different from lying. Distinction is important itself but also as a matter of tactics.

So here we have a senior, well-respected journalist asking me to drop the word “lie” and “mule” and “traffick”. When challenged, however, John admits that on October 9th the Guardian deliberately misled the Daily Mail when they denied to them that they sent agents names to America by FedEx (because they had sent them, according to the New Yorker, using James Ball, a 27 year old ex wikileaks activist). But Rentoul argues that “deliberately misleading” is different from “lying”.

FFS John, man up. Ask the bloody paper why they lied.

As to his objections to the very clear “mule” and “traffick”  I asked him:

‏‪@LouiseMensch ‪@JohnRentoul what is your objection to “mule”? New Yorker cites ‪@jamesrbuk and ‪@janinegibson boasts of flying people “round the world”

He didn’t answer.

That kind of clubby “they deliberately misled but they didn’t lie” and “don’t use mule and traffick even when Janine Gibson boasted online that that’s exactly what they did” is fear-and-favour journalism, the kind that looks after its own.

Earlier, John Rentoul tweeted that when Julian Smith MP raised a point of order about the Guardian shipping out GCHQ agents’ names, “the Speaker says it’s no such thing.” I hate to say it to a journalist I really do admire and like, but that was sheer bollocks. A point of order is almost always a rhetorical device in the House of Commons. John Rentoul, a political journalist, knows that full well, he knows it like the back of his hand. He was being dishonest. The Speaker condemned the Guardian’s “equivocation” on whether they had passed the names of spies to American papers. John didn’t have the guts to report that, however, because it didn’t fit his agenda. Paul Waugh of politics home did.

Look, British press, get some bloody balls. Challenge Rusbridger. Here is a British paper that has sold the names of GCHQ agents out for money, and you are closing ranks and not asking the questions. The New York Times is challenging Glenn Greenwald more effectively than any of you are doing. Don’t make a blogger (me) do all the heavy lifting. I am a columnist for the Sun on Sunday, and proud of it. I have featured this story again and again in my column. Do your part. I’m not an investigative journalist. Some of you call yourselves that. I don’t see much bloody sign of it. I see chumminess that would shame the smoke-filled rooms of a Tory selection committee circa 1954.

Here – off the top of my head –  are seventeen sample questions you could ask the paper, if any of you had even a tiny bit of shame. And by “the paper”, I mean Alan Rusbridger. And Janine Gibson. They are the editors. Any chance of holding them to account?

  1. The New Yorker story states that you used James Ball, a young ex wikileaks collaborator, to fly these files to New York and Brazil. Why didn’t you, Rusbridger, take that legal risk on yourself instead of pinning it to a 27 year old?
  2. Why did you lie to the Daily Mail on the 9th October when you stated the files you sent to America didn’t contain the names of any British agents?
  3. Why did you pass these files to bloggers at ProPublica?
  4. If the Guardian has broken the Terrorism Act 2000 should they be prosecuted, or are they above the law?
  5. What was the public interest for your story in August when you reported on GCHQ agents’ gay and lesbian clubs, recreational and charity drives, and the internal chats of GCHQ agents? Why were any of those details necessary? Didn’t they flag up to hostile actors just how much identifying info was in the Snowden files?
  6. Janine Gibson boasted online that ‘by far the hardest challenge has been the movement of materials – we’ve had to do a great deal of flying people around the world’. Given this boast why did you lie about David Miranda’s paid-for role, alleging that he was harassed just because he was Greenwald’s spouse?
  7. Why did you boast in August that the Snowden story had lifted your web traffic above the Daily Mail’s when you were giving out GCHQ agents’ names to achieve this? Kind of a shitty attitude, isn’t it?
  8. The New Yorker story states that Ball flew the files not only to America but also to Brazil, and Gibson uses the words “a great deal of flying around the world”. To how many countries have you shipped our agents’ names?
  9. How many people worldwide have you passed agents’ names to?
  10. Given that every exposed agent is in danger, have you let GCHQ know which agents and their families you have put at risk?
  11. Glenn Greenwald claimed that the Guardian US ran every story under his byline past the NSA for legal reasons, even though it then ignored their objections. Did you give GCHQ a similar chance to object?
  12. Are there any financial rewards or bonuses tied to increased web traffic for Rusbridger, Gibson or any other Guardian executives? If so, how much? And why did you not report that when selling GCHQ agents down the river and boasting of the traffic you derived from it?
  13. You talk about security for your files yet the New Yorker reports you kept them in a room with floor-to-ceiling windows. Are you aware how laser microphones work? In a story on 20 August you admit a government security expert had to explain this to you.  Shouldn’t you have asked GCHQ about secure storage of files previously yourselves?
  14. Given your hilarious “secure room” with the floor to ceiling windows, don’t you think it’s just possible GCHQ might be more aware of security risks than you are?
  15. What precisely is the point of saying – falsely – that you kept files “secure” when you then duplicate them and mule them, as you have said, all over the world?
  16. You’ve been happy enough to give the New York Times, some Brazilians, and ProPublica (at least) copies of the GCHQ files. How about giving a copy back to GCHQ so they can assess the damage you’ve done to the UK, as well as to their agents?
  17. What redactions did you make to the 50,000 GCHQ files you muled abroad to protect British intelligence officers? Did you make any redactions?

And I haven’t even started on the Tor story.

Come on, British press. Show some guts. Do your jobs. There are 6100 agents at GCHQ, so the Guardian tells us. They cannot strike. They cannot protest. They cannot email Alan Rusbridger asking why he is giving the NSA-GCHQ wiki to the New York Times. They have no voice.

You are meant to be their voice. No fear, no favour. Do your bloody job. Have some balls.

* and to those who might think this sexist, I will quote the great Sharon Osbourne: “Women have balls. They’re just higher up.”

UPDATE: 18 questions for the @Guardian

Posted on by louisemensch

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UPDATE: It would appear that – if Buzzfeed is right – an employee/s or agent/s of the New York Times and/or the Guardian knowingly and willingly smuggled life-endangering stolen intelligence across our borders:

Now the Times or an agent for the paper, too, appears to have carried digital files from the United Kingdom across international lines into the United States. Discussions of how to partner on the documents were carried out in person between top Guardian editors and Times executive editor Jill Abramson, all of whom declined to comment on the movement of documents. But it appears likely that someone at one of the two papers physically carried a drive with Snowden’s GCHQ leaks from London to New York or Washington — exactly what Miranda was stopped at Heathrow for doing.

Remember, the Guardian said they agreed to destroy their computers – all of them – that contained the intel; they professed that they did not know what David Miranda was carrying – I believe their corduroy pants to be on fire even as we speak.

If they lied and kept copies and physically shifted the data, the UK and US intelligence agencies should go after them full throttle for espionage. At the bottom of this blog we have the police opening a criminal investigation into Miranda – remember the relief against that bit is only temporary – for transporting this data… if the Guardian have done it, they should be pursued in exactly the same way. Same with the New York Times.

Being a journalist doesn’t allow you to traffic in intel that can endanger lives OR impair the ability of the UK to conduct its intelligence capabilities: The Miranda judge said that clearly today in his draft judgement.

Click to access queen-on-application-of-miranda-sshd.pdf

  1. It is also significant that one of the exceptions in Section 10 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 to the protection for journalistic sources and in Article 10(2) is where the interests of national security require disclosure. In X v Morgan-Grampian (Publishers) [1996] 1 AC 1 at 43 it was stated that, once it is shown that disclosure will serve one of the interests specified in Section 10, ie. national security and interests of justice, “the necessity of disclosure follows almost automatically”.
  1. The court also considered inspection and disclosure for the purpose of protecting national security, including by preventing or avoiding the endangering the life of any person or the diminution of the counter-terrorism capability of Her Majesty’s Government (the terms of the exclusion from the undertaking the defendants were prepared to make) should be permitted in the limited period until 30 August, notwithstanding the high importance of protecting journalistic sources

We should also ask why the Guardian is panicking and has run to America (possibly with a copy of the Snowden data it would have been lying about not retaining in the UK).

I speculate, because RIPA and TACT were correctly used to force Miranda to share his passwords: and the UK government and police now have a whole bunch of stuff on Greenwald, Poitras, Miranda, Snowden, Wikileaks and the complicity of the Guardian. They know our guys – and the Americans – have them bang to rights and criminal charges and indictments for Greenwald et al may well be coming down the pipe.

Thanks once more to our security forces at Heathrow for their immense work in catching Greenwald and his non-citizen mule red-handed.

—————————————————————————————

 

1. Why did you initially lie about David Miranda not being offered a lawyer, and then fail  andto correct the record all day long?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/18/glenn-greenwald-guardian-partner-detained-heathrow

To detain my partner for a full nine hours while denying him a lawyer, and then seize large amounts of his possessions, is clearly intended to send a message of intimidation to those of us who have been reporting on the NSA and GCHQ.

2. Why did you alter the original story that included this lie, wiping the fact that it was Glenn Greenwald who filed it?

http://www.trendingcentral.com/who-wrote-the-guardians-initial-report-on-david-miranda/

3. Having known all day long that Miranda had been offered a lawyer, why did you only run your interview with him admitting this at 10pm, after other UK papers had gone to bed and could not correct their supportive editorials?

4. Why did you first give the entire British press the misinformation that David Miranda was merely your journalist’s husband, when he had been paid by you to work on and “assist in the story”?

5. Since you claim the high ground on “press freedom” I am sure you will wish to be transparent, and address claims that you were not engaging in “journalism” here at all, but instead knowingly abetting espionage. Here we go:

You state

The Guardian paid for Miranda’s flights. Miranda is not an employee of the Guardian. As Greenwald’s partner, he often assists him in his work and the Guardian normally reimburses the expenses of someone aiding a reporter in such circumstances

You paid for David Miranda’s flights and expenses because, you claim, he was “assisting Glenn Greenwald” in his work.

But how was he assisting Glenn Greenwald? If he was transporting purely “journalistic materials”  why did Greenwald not use FedEx? If the data needed to be secure, why not use a P2P fileshare site? Why did the Guardian approve paying Miranda’s expenses when there are direct flights from Berlin to Rio that Poitras and Greenwald could have used?

Is it because Glenn Greenwald explained to you that as a US citizen he could not email, transport, or securely share stolen information about US and UK intelligence operations against foreign regimes without committing a serious felony and needed to use his husband as a mule?

In that case is not Guardian Media Group corporately responsible for abetting espionage against the United States and United Kingdom?

6. The question of “Exactly HOW was David Miranda “assisting” in the story while your paper was paying him to do so” arises even more strongly when we look at Miranda’s statements to US TV. Here is a video of him and Greenwald talking to Anderson Cooper at CNN. You will want to slide the cursor to 5:05.

Here you will note Miranda’s hilarious “not me guv” pretence of not being a mule and Glenn Greenwald’s corresponding smirk sitting next to him.

Miranda: “I don’t know that… I was just taking the fi- … those materials back to Glenn. You know Glenn been working with a lot of stories along the years…I didn’t quite follow everything that he writes every day…I can’t follow him, because I have to have a life.”

Get that, Mr. Rusbridger? Your man “assisting on the story” says that he doesn’t even know what this story is about, he wasn’t even paying attention to it, because he “has to have a life”.

In what way then was he assisting in the story and why was the Guardian paying for his flights and expenses – unless the paper knew that Miranda was needed to physically transport stolen classified US intelligence because, unlike Greenwald and Poitras, he is not a US citizen?

For what reason did you not ask Mr. Greenwald why flights and expenses were necessary for Mr. Miranda?

How precisely did you understand Mr. Miranda to be “assisting a reporter in his work”?

Assuming you knew that David Miranda was transporting incredibly damaging, life-threatening CIA and GCHQ national intelligence, how is the Guardian Media Group not complicit in this?

7. If the GMG is indeed complicit, through knowledge and payment, in the cross border smuggling of stolen NSA and GCHQ data, why should not the US authorities and the Home Secretary prepare corporate and criminal charges against the Guardian, David Miranda, Glenn Greenwald, and Laura Poitras?

8. I believe it to be the case (I am open to correction) that Mr. Rusbridger has stated he did not know what David Miranda was carrying. Is this not completely disingenuous, as the only way he would have paid for the flights would be he suspected a human mule was necessary to transport the dangerous files?

9. Alan Rusbridger tweeted what he claimed was a photo of a smashed Macbook destroyed by security services. In fact, the internet soon proved there were parts from at least four computers in the picture. Why was the Guardian storing unbelievably dangerous material that threatens our national security on as many as four office computers, at least, that could easily be remotely hacked by any number of foreign spy agencies?

10. On a total of how many drives and computers did the Guardian copy this material?

11. On a total of how many basic office computers around the world has Guardian Media Group made copies of this material?

12. You know that on Portugese TV your reporter Glenn Greenwald threatened revenge exposure of British spy agencies, & that Mr. Rusbridger claimed this would not happen. Yet yesterday the Independent newspaper exposed a top secret British base working against our enemies in the Middle East, thereby endangering British intelligence efforts against terrorism and the lives of British intelligence agents?

13. Did the Guardian Media Group or, to your knowledge, any of its employees, particularly Mr. Greenwald, leak this incredibly damaging story that endangers UK intel to the Independent, out of a desire for revenge?

14. Why did you assert that Mr. Miranda was carrying “journalistic materials” if you claim you had no idea what he was carrying?

15. Why do you assert that journalism – reporting about a story or news item – is the same as possessing, smuggling, and copying, stolen classified intelligence information that endangers the life and work of British intelligence agents?

16. In deciding to insecurely hold this information on multiple office computers and goodness knows what other means, were you aware that (again speaking in a foreign language) your “reporter” Glenn Greenwald said to Argentina’s La Nacion:

http://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/matthew-dancona-in-this-spy-story-the-state-is-not-so-clearcut-a-villain-8777943.html

Last month, Greenwald told the Argentinian daily newspaper, La Nacion, that Snowden had “enough information to cause more harm to the US government in a single minute than any other person has ever had”

If you are not aware of this, why not? If you are aware of this, why is Guardian Media Group storing this information on insecure basic office computers?

17. Since Mr. Greenwald has made you aware of the incredibly damaging and dangerous nature of this information, why have you not supplied copies to the US and UK governments, so that they can see what Snowden has leaked to China, Russia and Wikileaks, and take steps to protect the lives of their agents and intelligence assets – lives that you and Guardian Media Group are well aware are now at risk from exposure?

Because you yourselves have said you have held back even more damaging and identifying material, you clearly have had sight of it. Why are you not allowing the US and UK to also have sight of it so we can protect our people? Do you literally not care about their lives, knowing full well they’re endangered by your reporter, Glenn Greenwald?

18. Why are you disabling questions on the ironically-named “Comment is Free” on your Greenwald articles? Is it because you have no shame?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10259658/Scotland-Yard-launch-criminal-investigation-over-David-Miranda-data.html

Jonathan Laidlaw QC, appearing for Scotland Yard to oppose a legal challenge by Mr Miranda, said: “That which has been inspected contains, in the view of the police, highly sensitive material the disclosure of which would be gravely injurious to public safety and thus the police have now initiated a criminal investigation.

“I am not proposing to say anything else which might alert potential defendants here or abroad to the nature and the ambit of the criminal investigation which has now been started.”

He added that the material amounted to “tens of thousands of highly classified UK documents”.