Yesterday, The Intercept published an extremely important report based on secret documents from an NSA contractor. It showed that Russia not only intervened in the U.S. election in favor of Trump in ways we already knew. But it also attempted to intervene in far more troubling ways: apparently seeking to sabotage the voter registration and voter tallies in individual counties and states.
Before it published the story, the media outlet approached the NSA to confirm the information. This gave the agency a warning about the data breach and the opportunity to find the culprit. As soon as the story was published, the FBI arrested Reality Leigh Winner, who was employed by an NSA contractor based in Atlanta. She now potentially faces several decades in prison for performing an important service to the American people. She will certainly be prosecuted with a vengeance by the Trump Justice Department.
DOJ charges 25-yr-old woman with giving secret NSA docs to unnamed news org (others are reporting as the Intercept) https://t.co/Qdac077LA0
— Sheera Frenkel (@sheeraf) June 5, 2017
As Sheera Frenkel, who’s just started a new job as technology reporter for the NY Times noted in this tweet, media outlets like The Intercept must stay one step ahead of the government entities on which they’re reporting in order to protect sources. While it didn’t expose Winner intentionally, it failed to take steps that might have offered her more protection.
I won’t go deeply into the technical measures which allowed the FBI to identify her. But as I understand them, they involve the fact that the images of the documents she leaked were published with the news report and revealed a creased fold which indicated the report had been printed in hard copy. This in turn showed that she’d used an agency printer in order to transfer the documents to The Intercept. From there, it was just a matter of time before they narrowed in on who had access both to the document and printer. Further, there are codes embedded in printed documents which link back to the printer on which they’re printed. This too permitted narrowing the scope of the inquiry till they reached Winner.
As Frenkel noted, this is not a problem confined to The Intercept. In the case of Anat Kamm, Haaretz printed images of the actual secret IDF documents she leaked to Uri Blau. They showed her commanding officer and his subordinates engaged in deliberate murder of unarmed Palestinian militants. The editors failed to redact the cc: list, which enabled a former Shabak agent, Jonathan Dachoach-Halevi, to eliminate the various military offices included on the cc: list till he could isolate the specific office from which the memo originated. That in turn permitted Shabak agents to narrow their search to the specific personnel in the office of Lt. Gen. Yair Naveh, which is where Kamm worked. Had Haaretz been more careful about concealing this identifying information, Shabak might never have discovered Kamm; or at least taken considerably longer to do so.
There is obviously no guarantee for the protection of whistleblowers. They take enormous risks. But if the media wishes such courageous people to continue coming forward, they must consider offering state of the art protections to them. We as citizens must support whistleblowers once they’re exposed and face government jeopardy. And we must demand of our legislators that they grant them real rights and protections. Whistleblowers are the currency of democracy. We must cherish, and not be profligate with them.
I understand that there are reasons to conceal from the Russians what we know of their methods and exploits. But there are equally compelling reasons to alert the American public to the menace that Russia represents to our democracy.
Finally, I had a similar relationship with Shamai Leibowitz and published details from top-secret transcripts of conversations the FBI or NSA was intercepting from Israeli diplomatic facilities in the U.S. We focused in particular on the perception management campaign waged by Israel in this country seeking to lead us a war against Iran. To my horror, Shamai was exposed, arrested and imprisoned as a result of offering these documents to me.
Unlike Haaretz or The Intercept, I never published the documents. I excerpted small portions and did my best to conceal them within my reporting in an effort to protect Shamai. I do not know or believe that anything I did directly led to his exposure. Nevertheless, when a source goes to prison because of information he gave you, it’s one of the hardest things a journalist can face. But nothing compared to what the whistleblower faces.
Subsequently, Shamai has inexplicably renounced his former deeds, offered a revisionist explanation for them, and denied having any relationship with me. This too causes a journalist remorse, though the steps he took as a whistleblower he took freely and despite my warnings of what might be the result (due to Obama’s draconian witch hunt, those were far worse–20 months in federal prison–than anything I conceived) .
“I want to burn the White House down”, said Reality Winner, in a twitter post.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/08/us/reality-leigh-winner-nsa-secrets-plea.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
It sounds to me that Ms Winner is a person who should not be protected. Rather, she should be behind bars.
@ Ilene: I object to you & the NYT reporting what the federal prosecutor says about a suspect who is innocent till proven guilty. Neither you nor the NYT has read or heard a single word from her defense about her & her motives. You don’t know whether this claim is true any more than you know on what hour I was born. You only know what someone said, which is useful as an arbiter of proof.
Do you know anything about prison? Have you ever served a day there? Do you know anyone who has? If you did, you wouldn’t express such disgusting, heartless & ignorant comments about being jailed. You might want to try to spend a single night in your local jail just to see what the experience is like before shooting off your big mouth.
ROFLMAO!
YOU, who spend most of your waking hours violating gag orders and exposing the identities of alleged criminals and security personnel in Israel, have the audacity to object to the NY Times!
In a free country, the press can attend a defendant’s bail hearing. At Winner’s bail hearing, is when and where the Federal Prosecutor informed the Court about Ms Winner’s troubling statements and flight risk.
At her bail hearing, “.. the judge denied the request, citing her notebook musings on the Middle East and comment about burning down the White House as unsettling.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/06/09/judges-denies-bail-for-accused-nsa-leaker-reality-winner-after-not-guilty-plea/
For your information, a person is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. There is no presumption of innocence in the court of public opinion. Would you like a gag order on Ms Winner’s case?
Actually, I was arrested once, and it’s very unpleasant.
@ Ilene: I don’t spend “most of my waking hours violating gag orders” nor any of the other “crimes” you’ve accused me of. Nor does this have anything to do with the NYT shoddy coverage of Leigh Winner’s hearing. The case presented at the hearing was completely the prosecution’s. Nor did the judge show any interest in the defense’s case or explanations. They weren’t even mentioned in the article at all. As if there was no defense. This is inexcusable witch hunt journalism. As are your views.
Unlike you, I believe in forcing the government to prove guilt & when someone has taken the risks she has for a worthy cause I do not become a shill for the prosecution as you have.
You are done in this thread. And you may not be long for this [blog’s] world. Keep it up and your shelf life grows shorter & shorter.
Washington based ‘whistleblower’ attorney, explains to us why Winner is no ‘whistleblower’.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/06/08/reality-winner-isnt-a-whistleblower-or-a-victim-of-trumps-war-on-leaks/?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-c%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
@ Ilene: Frankly I’ve never heard of your supposed whistleblower lawyer & I’ve studied & researched whistleblower/national security issues for years. And his argument that Snowden, Manning, etc. are NOT whistleblowers shows his prejudices clearly. So his views on Winner are largely irrelevant.
BTW. I told you you were done in this thread. You apparently disagreed. Since you’ve decided you’d prefer to make your own rules, I’m reminding you that I make them. YOu are moderated. Future comments that respect the comment rules will be published. Ones that do not, will not be.
I feel obligated to say that anytime someone presents good arguments or contradictions etc. they seem to disappear from your blog.
It is unfortunate because it presents more than a one-sided point of view.
That everyone who maybe pro-Israel is a hasbarist is absurd unless you mean that everyone that is pro-Israel is a hasbarist{seemingly employed w/salary} is also very not likely.
@ shaul: I only delete comments which violate the comment rules. THere are literally tens of thousands of comments published here which disagree with my views & which have been published in full.
Take a look at the rules you will hopefully understand why comments disappear. If you like any of these deleted comments & miss them you may visit any of 100 other blogs or media outlets which host this sort of pro-Israel drivel. This site doesn’t exist to reinforce your prejudices. It exists to express my political analysis & views and conduct a dialogue about the subjects on which I write.