original to: http://pressthink.org/2013/08/conspiracy-to-commit-journalism/
Conspiracy to commit journalism
Aug. 20, 2013.
If sunlight coalitions are to succeed, they wont succeed by outwitting
surveillance. Not better technology, but greater legitimacy is their
edge.
Alan-RusbridgerThe mood toughened just over a month ago, when I received a
phone call from the centre of government telling me: Youve had your fun.
Now we want the stuff back. There followed further meetings with shadowy
Whitehall figures. The demand was the same: hand the Snowden material back
or destroy it. I explained that we could not research and report on this
subject if we complied with this request. The man from Whitehall looked
mystified. Youve had your debate. Theres no need to write any more.
Alan
Rusbridger,
editor
of
The
Guardian
Thats the government telling the editor of a national newspaper: Times
up, no more of that journalism stuff! Well decide when theres been
enough debate. Stop now or well make you stop. Rusbridgers response: We
will continue our careful reporting of the Snowden material. We just
wont do it from London. (The Guardian has a U.S. operation based in New
York.) From Reuters:
The Guardians decision to publicize the government threat and the
newspapers assertion that it can continue reporting on the Snowden
revelations from outside of Britain appears to be the latest step in
an escalating battle between the news media and governments over
reporting of secret surveillance programs.
This battle is global. Just as the surveillance state is an international
actor not one government, but many working together and just as the
surveillance net stretches worldwide because the communications network
does too, the struggle to report on the secret systems overreach is
global, as well. Its the collect-it-all coalition against an expanded
Fourth Estate, worldwide.
When Wikileaks first exploded onto the political scene in 2010, I wrote
this about it:
If you go to the Wikileaks Twitter profile, next to location it
says: Everywhere. Which is one of the most striking things about it:
the worlds first stateless news organization. I cant think of any
prior examples of that. (Dave Winer in the comments: The blogosphere
is a stateless news organization.)
Wikileaks was modeling the concept. Now we are seeing different
expressions of it every day. We just wont do it from London is one. The
collaboration among Edward Snowden, an American exile living in Russia,
filmmaker Laura Poitras, an American living in Berlin, and Guardian
columnist Glenn Greenwald, an American living in Brazil thats another. A
few days ago, when Greenwalds spouse, David Miranda, was detained at
Heathrow airport by the UK branch of the surveillance state, Greenwald
naturally alerted The Guardians lawyers in the UK, but he also alerted
officials in the Brazilian government, who brought pressure to bear
through the foreign ministry.
This tells us something. The battle I referred to is not a simple matter
of the state vs. civilians. Its not government vs. the press, either.
Its the surveillance-over-everything forces within governments (plus the
politicians and journalists who identify with them) vs. everyone who
opposes their overreach: investigative journalists and sources,
especially, but also couriers (like David Miranda), cryptographers and
technologists, free speech lawyers, funders, brave advertisers, online
activists, sympathetic actors inside a given government, civil society
groups like Amnesty International, bloggers to amplify the signal and, of
course, readers. Lots of readers, the noisy kind, who share and help
distribute the work.
This type of sunlight coalition large and small pieces, loosely joined
is a countervailing power to the security forces, the people who are
utterly serious when they say: Youve had your debate. Theres no need to
write any more, the same people who, as Bruce Schneier has written,
commandeered the internet for their use because, viewed from a certain
angle, its the best machine ever made for spying on the population.
If sunlight coalitions are to succeed, it wont be by outwitting
surveillance. Not better technology, but greater legitimacy is their edge.
This attitude was perfectly captured by Ladar Levison, founder of Lavabit,
who shut down his email service when the surveillance state demanded his
submission. I think if the American public knew what our government was
doing, they wouldnt be allowed to do it anymore, he said.
Sunlight wins when the deeds exposed turn out to lack legitimacy under the
greater scrutiny they receive because of the exposure. That can only
happen through open argument over known facts. The argument is always
about the same thing: what is truly in the public interest, and what
violates justice, decency, common sense, national conscience, the
requirements of a democracy. As Rusbridger told the BBC:
If they were to arrest David Miranda in Heathrow car park they would
have to use bits of the law which have checks and balances to protect
journalistic material, among other things, but by doing it in a
transit lounge they are operating in a kind of stateless way where
they can interrogate someone for nine hours, seize whatever they want,
under rules that are about terrorism. Once you start conflating
terrorism and journalism, as a country I think youre in some
trouble.
A conspiracy to commit journalism has to operate in the open. Its methods
go beyond investigation, careful editing, truth and accuracy, telling a
good story that brings complex issues home. There is inescapably a
political element. Release-the-information coalitions can only form around
broadly shared goals. People who disagree on other things are likely to
agree on the need for sunlight. Those who would expose the misdeeds of an
agency like the NSA need good arguments, not just good sources and good
lawyers. Not the reach but the overreach of the surveillance state should
be the object of their critique. Its not enough that your story be right
on the facts. Your thinking has to be right on the money. It has to speak
to ends that are almost as universal as the emotion of fear, an always-on
power source for the collect it all consortium.
Those who would expose and oppose the security state also need good
judgment. What to hold back, when not to publish, how not to react when
provoked, what not to say in your own defense: alongside the forensic, the
demands of the prudential. All day today, people have been asking me: why
did The Guardian wait a month to tell us about, Youve had your fun. Now
we want the stuff back? Michael Calderone of the Huffington Post asked
Rusbridger about that. His answer:
Having been through this and not written about it on the day for
operational reasons, I was sort of waiting for a moment when the
governments attitude to journalism - when there was an issue that
made this relevant, Rusbridger said.
That moment came after Sundays nine-hour airport detainment of David
Miranda, partner of Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian journalist at the
center of the NSA surveillance story.
The fact that David Miranda had been detained under this slightly
obscure schedule of the terrorism act seemed a useful moment to write
about the background to the governments attitude to this in general,
Rusbridger said.
Hear it? The holding back. The sensation of a political opening, through
which the story can be driven. The alignment of argument with information.
The clear contrast between a terror anyone can identify with being
detained for nine hours while transiting through a foreign country and
the states obscure use of terrorism law. These are political skills,
indistinguishable from editorial acumen. In a conspiracy to commit
journalism we must persuade as well as inform.
After Matter: Notes, Reactions & Links
You can find all the pieces Ive written on Snowden, the press and the
surveillance state here.
Public radios The World interviewed me about this post. Listen here.
(Its 5:41.)
John Naughton in the UK reacts to this post: Democracy as a game.
The big question, to my mind, is whether the kind of comprehensive
surveillance deemed essential by the national security state is
compatible with democracy.
The answer Im heading towards is No.
Former CIA agent turned novelist Barry Eisler tries to explain why David
Miranda got stopped at Heathrow by the UK authorities. His answer: to make
further journalism about the Snowden material more difficult. I think hes
got it.
The purpose was to demonstrate to journalists that what they thought
was a secure secondary means of communication a courier, possibly to
ferry encrypted thumb drives from one air-gapped computer to another
can be compromised, and thereby to make the journalists efforts
harder and slower.
Does this sort of deny and disrupt campaign sound familiar? It
should: youve seen it before, deployed against terror networks.
Thats because part of the value in targeting the electronic
communications of actual terrorists is that the terrorists are forced
to use far slower means of plotting. The NSA has learned this lesson
well, and is now applying it to journalists.
If you support a free press publishing leaked state secrets you are
apparently condoning terrorism. If you dont object to his detention
loudly, you are condoning the secret state. On CNN.com, former BBC
executive Richard Sambrook reflects on the hardening of positions.
Social media, advocacy journalism, the need to define and claim the
narrative and to be heard leaves little room for middle ground, but it
is there that this conflict will be resolved. In that gray area, the
ethical bridge between these positions will have to be rebuilt.
My contribution to Sambrooks bridging project in this post: Not the
reach but the overreach of the surveillance state should be the object of
their critique.
Mark Ambinder, national security reporter and columnist, explains his
reasons to be troubled the NSA, and, in a separate column, why concerns
about it are overblown: 5 reasons the NSA scandal aint all that. I
really do think tribal feelings determine how you view the significance of
Edward Snowdens revelations, he writes. Conor Friedersdorf isnt buying
it.
The Press Gazette in Britain asks why newspapers in the UK are largely
letting The Guardian go it alone, and not jumping fully into the fray.
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