date:20130821

Interesting and poignant commentary.

Even with the possible negative aspects of the cable releases, the only person
being punished is Manning. (And by extension, Assange, confined to the
Ecuadorean embassy in London because he can't resolve his legal issues in
Sweden for fear of extradition to the USA.)

To the best of my knowledge, no one has been held to account for the crimes and
offenses Manning helped to expose.

https://prism-break.org/

On Aug 21, 2013 2:30 PM, Maxim Kammerer wrote:

On Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 11:59 PM, Shelley
wrote:

> Sure, but I think Manning has a zero chance of obtaining a pardon.

Col. Morris Davis: “Military has detailed regs on confinement credits

& parole eligibility. My best est is he'll do about 8-9 yrs, out by

age 33-34.”

https://twitter.com/ColMorrisDavis/status/370223513400913920

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_Davis

If true, a pretty fitting sentence, I think, for indiscriminately

publishing huge amount of classified information that potentially

endangered many people, and considering that USA has unusually harsh

sentences for a developed country.

An interesting comment on Reddit, of all places:

“Significant amounts of foreign service agent names were released.

These are civilians working for their government in some official

capacity (think spies, except not all of them are cloak and dagger

types). These were people stationed in hostile countries (Pakistan, SE

Asia, Middle East, Africa) and if their cover had been blown while in

country they could have been sought out.

Luckily, as I understand it most of the people that were exposed were

notified by their handlers in advance (basically as soon as word go

out that diplomatic cables had been compromised) and were extracted. A

friend of mine works in a field that draws a lot of foreign service

agents to it due to the nature of the work, and they were camped out

in northern Pakistan with her crew. She woke up one morning (the

morning after the diplomatic cables were released) and half her crew

was gone. They got word in the middle of the night and left. They

couldn't even tell the people they were with why they were gone, and I

imagine it was quite unsettling to be there and be missing people all

of the sudden.”

http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/1kszc9/bradley_manning_sentenced_to_35_years_in_jail/cbsg58x

Maxim Kammerer

Liberté Linux: http://dee.su/liberte

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Re: [liberationtech] How Laura Poitras Helped Snowden Spill His Secrets

2013-08-21 Thread Lina Srivastava

"There's enough heroism to go around. To get a story of this magnitude
out requires courage from both sources and journalists. And safety is in
no way guaranteed for anyone involved. Plenty of journalists have lost
their lives in the course of their job, but the truth is that courage is
truly contagious -- journalists know this and hope that follow-on
coverage will help protect them from retribution.

Silence in the face of wrongdoing is corrosive. It will eat you alive
if you let it. =/"

Thanks for that. Griffin. Just putting a good word in for documentary
filmmakers and investigative journalists who also put their lives on
the line, to shape, frame, and communicate these stories and set a
stage for activists to do their end of the job. I work with a number
of them who don't think of themselves as heroes, but are just driven
to do this work through a sense of social justice.

Lina

On Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 6:19 PM, LilBambi  wrote:
> --snip--
>   There's enough heroism to go around. To get a story of this magnitude
> out requires courage from both sources and journalists. And safety is in
> no way guaranteed for anyone involved. Plenty of journalists have lost
> their lives in the course of their job, but the truth is that courage is
> truly contagious -- journalists know this and hope that follow-on
> coverage will help protect them from retribution.
>
>   Silence in the face of wrongdoing is corrosive. It will eat you alive
> if you let it. =/
> --snip--
>
> You got that right!
>
> On Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 5:57 PM, Griffin Boyce  wrote:
>> Tom O wrote:
>>> So it's now become about the "heroism" of the journalists and not
>>> Snowden and mass govt surveillance. Right.
>>   There's enough heroism to go around. To get a story of this magnitude
>> out requires courage from both sources and journalists. And safety is in
>> no way guaranteed for anyone involved. Plenty of journalists have lost
>> their lives in the course of their job, but the truth is that courage is
>> truly contagious -- journalists know this and hope that follow-on
>> coverage will help protect them from retribution.
>>
>>   Silence in the face of wrongdoing is corrosive. It will eat you alive
>> if you let it. =/
>>
>> ~Griffin
>>
>> --
>> "Cypherpunks write code not flame wars." --Jurre van Bergen
>> #Foucault / PGP: 0xAE792C97 / OTR: sa...@jabber.ccc.de
>>
>> My posts, while frequently amusing, are not representative of the thoughts 
>> of my employer.
>>
>> --
>> Liberationtech is a public list whose archives are searchable on Google. 
>> Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: 
>> https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, 
>> change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at 
>> compa...@stanford.edu.
> --
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Re: [liberationtech] Bradley Manning's sentence: 35 years for exposing us to the truth

2013-08-21 Thread Richard Brooks

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

I guess this is progress.

In ancient Greece and the Middle Ages, exposing people to
the truth would get you killed.
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Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/

iEYEARECAAYFAlIVP+EACgkQEwFPdUjsHjDCoQCaAxcCPUGSs6ibezZNEsA/LDx/
/3oAnR1q0HMpCJEaiNzm+3x+ga6BO6od
=ZOgu
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Re: [liberationtech] Bradley Manning's sentence: 35 years for exposing us to the truth

agreed.

On Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 6:15 PM, Mike Perry  wrote:
> Thus spake Tom O (winterfi...@gmail.com):
>
>> To be honest, this was probably the best he could have hoped for.
>>
>> He was facing 90. He got 35 with parole after 12.
>>
>> It's shit, but not as shit as the other options.
>>
>> If Snowden gets captured, you can bet he will be getting much much worse.
>
> This would be really unfortunate, especially since by any objective
> measure Snowden has been significantly more careful with what he's
> allowed to be revealed than Manning was. Thankfully, public opinion also
> seems to indicate that most people understand this effort on Snowden's
> part, despite the media circus.
>
> Even still, I am not in the "Snowden would get a fair trial in the US"
> camp, either.
>
> I am also worried by the fact that the lawlessness of the gangster
> governments that most Western democracies have devolved into has
> necessitated this whole insurance file business again. Let's hope at
> least that bit works out better this time, for everyone involved.
>
>
> --
> Mike Perry
>
> --
> Liberationtech is a public list whose archives are searchable on Google. 
> Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: 
> https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, 
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Re: [liberationtech] How Laura Poitras Helped Snowden Spill His Secrets

--snip--
  There's enough heroism to go around. To get a story of this magnitude
out requires courage from both sources and journalists. And safety is in
no way guaranteed for anyone involved. Plenty of journalists have lost
their lives in the course of their job, but the truth is that courage is
truly contagious -- journalists know this and hope that follow-on
coverage will help protect them from retribution.

  Silence in the face of wrongdoing is corrosive. It will eat you alive
if you let it. =/
--snip--

You got that right!

On Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 5:57 PM, Griffin Boyce  wrote:
> Tom O wrote:
>> So it's now become about the "heroism" of the journalists and not
>> Snowden and mass govt surveillance. Right.
>   There's enough heroism to go around. To get a story of this magnitude
> out requires courage from both sources and journalists. And safety is in
> no way guaranteed for anyone involved. Plenty of journalists have lost
> their lives in the course of their job, but the truth is that courage is
> truly contagious -- journalists know this and hope that follow-on
> coverage will help protect them from retribution.
>
>   Silence in the face of wrongdoing is corrosive. It will eat you alive
> if you let it. =/
>
> ~Griffin
>
> --
> "Cypherpunks write code not flame wars." --Jurre van Bergen
> #Foucault / PGP: 0xAE792C97 / OTR: sa...@jabber.ccc.de
>
> My posts, while frequently amusing, are not representative of the thoughts of 
> my employer.
>
> --
> Liberationtech is a public list whose archives are searchable on Google. 
> Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: 
> https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, 
> change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at 
> compa...@stanford.edu.
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Re: [liberationtech] Bradley Manning's sentence: 35 years for exposing us to the truth

2013-08-21 Thread Mike Perry

Thus spake Tom O (winterfi...@gmail.com):

> To be honest, this was probably the best he could have hoped for.
> 
> He was facing 90. He got 35 with parole after 12.
> 
> It's shit, but not as shit as the other options.
> 
> If Snowden gets captured, you can bet he will be getting much much worse.

This would be really unfortunate, especially since by any objective
measure Snowden has been significantly more careful with what he's
allowed to be revealed than Manning was. Thankfully, public opinion also
seems to indicate that most people understand this effort on Snowden's
part, despite the media circus.

Even still, I am not in the "Snowden would get a fair trial in the US"
camp, either.

I am also worried by the fact that the lawlessness of the gangster
governments that most Western democracies have devolved into has
necessitated this whole insurance file business again. Let's hope at
least that bit works out better this time, for everyone involved.


-- 
Mike Perry
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Re: [liberationtech] How Laura Poitras Helped Snowden Spill His Secrets

2013-08-21 Thread Griffin Boyce

Tom O wrote:
> So it's now become about the "heroism" of the journalists and not
> Snowden and mass govt surveillance. Right.
  There's enough heroism to go around. To get a story of this magnitude
out requires courage from both sources and journalists. And safety is in
no way guaranteed for anyone involved. Plenty of journalists have lost
their lives in the course of their job, but the truth is that courage is
truly contagious -- journalists know this and hope that follow-on
coverage will help protect them from retribution.

  Silence in the face of wrongdoing is corrosive. It will eat you alive
if you let it. =/

~Griffin

-- 
"Cypherpunks write code not flame wars." --Jurre van Bergen
#Foucault / PGP: 0xAE792C97 / OTR: sa...@jabber.ccc.de

My posts, while frequently amusing, are not representative of the thoughts of 
my employer. 

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Re: [liberationtech] Bradley Manning's sentence: 35 years for exposing us to the truth

2013-08-21 Thread Maxim Kammerer

On Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 11:59 PM, Shelley wrote:
> Sure, but I think Manning has a zero chance of obtaining a pardon.

Col. Morris Davis: “Military has detailed regs on confinement credits
& parole eligibility. My best est is he'll do about 8-9 yrs, out by
age 33-34.”
https://twitter.com/ColMorrisDavis/status/370223513400913920
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_Davis

If true, a pretty fitting sentence, I think, for indiscriminately
publishing huge amount of classified information that potentially
endangered many people, and considering that USA has unusually harsh
sentences for a developed country.

An interesting comment on Reddit, of all places:
“Significant amounts of foreign service agent names were released.
These are civilians working for their government in some official
capacity (think spies, except not all of them are cloak and dagger
types). These were people stationed in hostile countries (Pakistan, SE
Asia, Middle East, Africa) and if their cover had been blown while in
country they could have been sought out.
Luckily, as I understand it most of the people that were exposed were
notified by their handlers in advance (basically as soon as word go
out that diplomatic cables had been compromised) and were extracted. A
friend of mine works in a field that draws a lot of foreign service
agents to it due to the nature of the work, and they were camped out
in northern Pakistan with her crew. She woke up one morning (the
morning after the diplomatic cables were released) and half her crew
was gone. They got word in the middle of the night and left. They
couldn't even tell the people they were with why they were gone, and I
imagine it was quite unsettling to be there and be missing people all
of the sudden.”
http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/1kszc9/bradley_manning_sentenced_to_35_years_in_jail/cbsg58x

--
Maxim Kammerer
Liberté Linux: http://dee.su/liberte
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Re: [liberationtech] Bradley Manning's sentence: 35 years for exposing us to the truth

Sure, but I think Manning has a zero chance of obtaining a pardon.




https://prism-break.org/

On Aug 21, 2013 1:49 PM, Blibbet  wrote: 

 >> Outrageous.

 > tragic.



Would this work?



http://www.justice.gov/pardon/pardon_instructions.htm




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Re: [liberationtech] Bradley Manning's sentence: 35 years for exposing us to the truth

2013-08-21 Thread Blibbet


>> Outrageous.
> tragic.

Would this work?

http://www.justice.gov/pardon/pardon_instructions.htm

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Re: [liberationtech] Cryptocat: Call for Translators. Please Participate!

2013-08-21 Thread Nadim Kobeissi

Thanks so much for your help, everyone.

We just added two additional sentences that need translating.
https://www.transifex.com/projects/p/Cryptocat/resource/cryptocat/

NK

On 2013-08-20, at 1:38 PM, Buddhadeb Halder  wrote:

> I will do Bengali.
> 
> On Tuesday, August 20, 2013, Neil Blazevic  wrote:
> > What would be the process to add other languages? I could potentially round 
> > up some Swahili translators one day.
> > Neil
> >
> > Sent from a mobile device
> >
> > On 20 Aug 2013 14:42, "Nadim Kobeissi"  wrote:
> >>
> >> Dear Libtech,
> >>
> >> Echoing Commotion's recent call for translators on this list:
> >>
> >> Cryptocat is adding cool new features (and modifying some existing ones) 
> >> over the upcoming weeks, all of which necessitate the translation of 
> >> various new words and sentences for the user interface. Currently, 
> >> Cryptocat is available in almost 40 languages, and maintaining these 
> >> translations would be impossible without the participation of language 
> >> speakers from around the world.
> >>
> >> You can very easily contribute to Cryptocat translations here:
> >> https://www.transifex.com/projects/p/Cryptocat/resource/cryptocat/
> >>
> >> Just pick a language and fill it up to 100%! If you know people who can 
> >> help, I urge you to please forward this email to them.
> >>
> >> The following languages are priority. Any language not on this list is 
> >> considered not necessary to fully translate at the moment.
> >> Catalan
> >> Arabic
> >> Chinese (Hong Kong)
> >> Chinese (China)
> >> Urdu
> >> Tibetan
> >> Russian
> >> Estonian
> >> Czech
> >> German
> >> Danish
> >> Spanish
> >> Basque
> >> Greek
> >> Farsi
> >> French
> >> Japanese
> >> Hebrew
> >> Bengali
> >> Italian
> >> Khmer
> >> Korean
> >> Latvian
> >> Dutch
> >> Norwegian
> >> Polish
> >> Portuguese
> >> Bulgarian
> >> Swedish
> >> Turkish
> >> Vietnamese
> >> Uighur
> >>
> >> Thanks very much, and please don't forget to pass this around to people 
> >> who may know these languages and be able to translate from English.
> >>
> >> NK
> >>
> >> --
> >> Liberationtech is a public list whose archives are searchable on Google. 
> >> Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: 
> >> https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, 
> >> change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at 
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Re: [liberationtech] Bradley Manning's sentence: 35 years for exposing us to the truth

When international media is primarily dominated by multinational US
corporations, voices that are affected outside that realm seldom get heard.

The thing that must happen now is to not let them get away with it. If they
do get away with it, that is now carte blanche approval for EVERYONE to do
it.


On Thursday, August 22, 2013, Sana Saleem wrote:

> Even a large segment of media discourse seems to dwell on "his choice of
> destination". Rather than focus largely on the issues he exposed. The
> repercussions of NSA revelations are heavily influencing discourse in other
> countries esp Pakistan. Where we first heard "look at china progressing
> despite censorship" now we hear "United States does it, how do you expect
> us not to?"
>
> More broadly it seems non US citizens do not even exist. Even the
> discussions on NSA violations have largely been focused on how US is spying
> on its own people. I as a brown woman in Pakistan do not exist. Tragic,
> shameful and appalling.
>
>
>
>
> --
> Director, Bolo Bhi, Advocacy-Policy-Research [http://bolobhi.org]
> Blogger: Dawn.com [http://blog.dawn.com/author/sana-saleem/]
> Global Voices: [http://globalvoicesonline.org/author/sana-saleem/]
> The Guardian:[ www.guardian.co.uk/profile/sana-saleem]
> Blog: http://sanasaleem.com] Twitter: 
> @sanasaleem
>  @bolobhi  
>
>
> On Thu, Aug 22, 2013 at 1:11 AM, Tom O 
> 
> > wrote:
>
>> It's for his choice in destinations that will get him worse. Aiding the
>> enemy could be politically sensitive. Do you really want to call China &
>> Russia the enemy?
>>
>> Prosecution and conviction under the espionage act is a given.
>>
>> I suspect his trial won't be as open as Mannings.
>>
>>
>> On Thursday, August 22, 2013, Sana Saleem wrote:
>>
>>> If Snowden gets captured, you can bet he will be getting much much worse
>>>
>>> It's extremely sad that not many people realize that, the discourse
>>> critiquing snowden for his 'choice' destinations is appalling.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Director, Bolo Bhi, Advocacy-Policy-Research [http://bolobhi.org]
>>> Blogger: Dawn.com [http://blog.dawn.com/author/sana-saleem/]
>>> Global Voices: [http://globalvoicesonline.org/author/sana-saleem/]
>>> The Guardian:[ www.guardian.co.uk/profile/sana-saleem]
>>> Blog: http://sanasaleem.com] Twitter: 
>>> @sanasaleem
>>>  @bolobhi  
>>>
>>> On Thu, Aug 22, 2013 at 1:03 AM, Tom O  wrote:
>>>
 If Snowden gets captured, you can bet he will be getting much much worse
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> --
>> Liberationtech is a public list whose archives are searchable on Google.
>> Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated:
>> https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech.
>> Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at
>> compa...@stanford.edu > 'compa...@stanford.edu');>.
>>
>
>
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Re: [liberationtech] Bradley Manning's sentence: 35 years for exposing us to the truth

>>I suspect his trial won't be as open as Mannings

I seriously doubt he'd get even a kangaroo court trial.  Something would 
"happen" to his plane on the way back, etc.

These are thugs and war criminals we're talking about in the alphabet agencies 
and above.  They don't seem to believe they are bound by rule of law.




https://prism-break.org/

On Aug 21, 2013 1:11 PM, Tom O  wrote: 

It's for his choice in destinations that will get him worse. Aiding the enemy 
could be politically sensitive. Do you really want to call China & Russia 
the enemy?
Prosecution and conviction under the espionage act is a given. 

I suspect his trial won't be as open as Mannings. 



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Re: [liberationtech] Bradley Manning's sentence: 35 years for exposing us to the truth

2013-08-21 Thread Sana Saleem

Even a large segment of media discourse seems to dwell on "his choice of
destination". Rather than focus largely on the issues he exposed. The
repercussions of NSA revelations are heavily influencing discourse in other
countries esp Pakistan. Where we first heard "look at china progressing
despite censorship" now we hear "United States does it, how do you expect
us not to?"

More broadly it seems non US citizens do not even exist. Even the
discussions on NSA violations have largely been focused on how US is spying
on its own people. I as a brown woman in Pakistan do not exist. Tragic,
shameful and appalling.



--
Director, Bolo Bhi, Advocacy-Policy-Research [http://bolobhi.org]
Blogger: Dawn.com [http://blog.dawn.com/author/sana-saleem/]
Global Voices: [http://globalvoicesonline.org/author/sana-saleem/]
The Guardian:[ www.guardian.co.uk/profile/sana-saleem]
Blog: http://sanasaleem.com] Twitter: @sanasaleem
 @bolobhi  


On Thu, Aug 22, 2013 at 1:11 AM, Tom O  wrote:

> It's for his choice in destinations that will get him worse. Aiding the
> enemy could be politically sensitive. Do you really want to call China &
> Russia the enemy?
>
> Prosecution and conviction under the espionage act is a given.
>
> I suspect his trial won't be as open as Mannings.
>
>
> On Thursday, August 22, 2013, Sana Saleem wrote:
>
>> If Snowden gets captured, you can bet he will be getting much much worse
>>
>> It's extremely sad that not many people realize that, the discourse
>> critiquing snowden for his 'choice' destinations is appalling.
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Director, Bolo Bhi, Advocacy-Policy-Research [http://bolobhi.org]
>> Blogger: Dawn.com [http://blog.dawn.com/author/sana-saleem/]
>> Global Voices: [http://globalvoicesonline.org/author/sana-saleem/]
>> The Guardian:[ www.guardian.co.uk/profile/sana-saleem]
>> Blog: http://sanasaleem.com] Twitter: 
>> @sanasaleem
>>  @bolobhi  
>>
>> On Thu, Aug 22, 2013 at 1:03 AM, Tom O  wrote:
>>
>>> If Snowden gets captured, you can bet he will be getting much much worse
>>
>>
>>
>>
> --
> Liberationtech is a public list whose archives are searchable on Google.
> Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated:
> https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech.
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>
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Re: [liberationtech] Bradley Manning's sentence: 35 years for exposing us to the truth

I agree with what you've said, but it's still an outrage that Manning will 
serve (more) time for exposing war crimes while the criminals walk free.

Also agree that Snowden would fare far worse.  Here's hoping it won't 
happen.



https://prism-break.org/

On Aug 21, 2013 1:06 PM, Tom O  wrote: 

To be honest, this was probably the best he could have hoped for. 
He was facing 90. He got 35 with parole after 12. 
It's shit, but not as shit as the other options. 

If Snowden gets captured, you can bet he will be getting much much worse. 

On Thursday, August 22, 2013, LilBambi  wrote:

tragic.



On Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 11:32 AM, Shelley  
wrote:

> Outrageous.

>

> 
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/21/bradley-manning-sentence-birgitta-jonsdottir


>

> Bradley Manning's sentence: 35 years for exposing us to the truth

> This was never a fair trial – Obama declared Manning's guilt in advance. 
But

> Manning's punishment is an affront to democracy

>

> Birgitta Jónsdóttir

> theguardian.com, Wednesday 21 August 2013 10.29 EDT

> Jump to comments (…)

>

> Link to video: Bradley Manning: 35 years in jail for an outsider who had

> trouble fitting in – video

>

> As of today, Wednesday 21 August 2013, Bradley Manning has served 1,182 
days

> in prison. He should be released with a sentence of time served. Instead,

> the judge in his court martial at Fort Meade, Maryland has handed down a

> sentence of 35 years.

>

> Of course, a humane, reasonable sentence of time served was never going to

> happen. This trial has, since day one, been held in a kangaroo court. That

> is not angry rhetoric; the reason I am forced to frame it in that way is

> because President Obama made the following statements on record, before the

> trial even started:

>

> President Obama: We're a nation of laws. We don't individually make our own

> decisions about how the laws operate … He broke the law.

>

> Logan Price: Well, you can make the law harder to break, but what he did 
was

> tell us the truth.

>

> President Obama: Well, what he did was he dumped …

>

> Logan Price: But Nixon tried to prosecute Daniel Ellsberg for the same 
thing

> and he is a … [hero]

>

> President Obama: No, it isn't the same thing … What Ellsberg released 
wasn't

> classified in the same way.

>

> When the president says that the Ellsberg's material was classified in a

> different way, he seems to be unaware that there was a higher 
classification

> on the documents Ellsberg leaked.

>

> A fair trial, then, has never been part of the picture. Despite being a

> professor in constitutional law, the president as commander-in-chief of the

> US military – and Manning has been tried in a court martial – declared

> Manning's guilt pre-emptively. Here is what the Pentagon Papers leaker

> Daniel Ellsberg had to say about this, in an interview with Amy Goodman at

> DemocracyNow! in 2011:

>

> Well, nearly everything the president has said represents a confusion about

> the state of the law and his own responsibilities. Everyone is focused, I

> think, on the fact that his commander-in-chief has virtually given a

> directed verdict to his subsequent jurors, who will all be his subordinates

> in deciding the guilt in the trial of Bradley Manning. He's told them

> already that their commander, on whom their whole career depends, regards

> him [Manning] as guilty and that they can disagree with that only at their

> peril. In career terms, it's clearly enough grounds for a dismissal of the

> charges, just as my trial was dismissed eventually for governmental

> misconduct.

>

> But what people haven't really focused on, I think, is another problematic

> aspect of what he said. He not only was identifying Bradley Manning as the

> source of the crime, but he was assuming, without any question, that a 
crime

> has been committed.

>

> This alone should have been cause for the judge in the case to rethink

> prosecutors' demand for 60 years in prison. Manning himself has shown

> throughout the trial both that he is a humanitarian and that he is willing

> to serve time for his actions. We have to look at his acts in light of his

> moral compass, not any political agenda.

> Manning intentions were never to hurt anyone; in fact, his motivation – as

> was the case for Ellsberg – was to inform the American public about what

> their government was doing in their name. A defense forensic psychiatrist

> testified to Manning's motives:

>

> Well, Pfc Manning was under the impression that his leaked information was

> going to really change how the world views the wars in Afghanistan and 
Iraq,

> and future wars, actually. This was an attempt to crowdsource an analysis 
of

> the war,> --

> Liberationtech is a public list whose archives are searchable on Google.

> Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated:

> https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listin

Re: [liberationtech] Bradley Manning's sentence: 35 years for exposing us to the truth

It's for his choice in destinations that will get him worse. Aiding the
enemy could be politically sensitive. Do you really want to call China &
Russia the enemy?

Prosecution and conviction under the espionage act is a given.

I suspect his trial won't be as open as Mannings.

On Thursday, August 22, 2013, Sana Saleem wrote:

> If Snowden gets captured, you can bet he will be getting much much worse
>
> It's extremely sad that not many people realize that, the discourse
> critiquing snowden for his 'choice' destinations is appalling.
>
>
>
> --
> Director, Bolo Bhi, Advocacy-Policy-Research [http://bolobhi.org]
> Blogger: Dawn.com [http://blog.dawn.com/author/sana-saleem/]
> Global Voices: [http://globalvoicesonline.org/author/sana-saleem/]
> The Guardian:[ www.guardian.co.uk/profile/sana-saleem]
> Blog: http://sanasaleem.com] Twitter: 
> @sanasaleem
>  @bolobhi  
>
> On Thu, Aug 22, 2013 at 1:03 AM, Tom O 
> 
> > wrote:
>
>> If Snowden gets captured, you can bet he will be getting much much worse
>
>
>
>
-- 
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Re: [liberationtech] Bradley Manning's sentence: 35 years for exposing us to the truth

And let's not forget Julian Assange while we are at it.

It is just sad all around for these brave men.

On Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 4:05 PM, Sana Saleem  wrote:
> If Snowden gets captured, you can bet he will be getting much much worse
>
> It's extremely sad that not many people realize that, the discourse
> critiquing snowden for his 'choice' destinations is appalling.
>
>
> --
> Director, Bolo Bhi, Advocacy-Policy-Research [http://bolobhi.org]
> Blogger: Dawn.com [http://blog.dawn.com/author/sana-saleem/]
> Global Voices: [http://globalvoicesonline.org/author/sana-saleem/]
> The Guardian:[ www.guardian.co.uk/profile/sana-saleem]
> Blog: http://sanasaleem.com] Twitter: @sanasaleem @bolobhi
>
> On Thu, Aug 22, 2013 at 1:03 AM, Tom O  wrote:
>>
>> If Snowden gets captured, you can bet he will be getting much much worse
>
>
>
>
> --
> Liberationtech is a public list whose archives are searchable on Google.
> Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated:
> https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe,
> change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at
> compa...@stanford.edu.
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Re: [liberationtech] Bradley Manning's sentence: 35 years for exposing us to the truth

2013-08-21 Thread Sana Saleem

If Snowden gets captured, you can bet he will be getting much much worse

It's extremely sad that not many people realize that, the discourse
critiquing snowden for his 'choice' destinations is appalling.


--
Director, Bolo Bhi, Advocacy-Policy-Research [http://bolobhi.org]
Blogger: Dawn.com [http://blog.dawn.com/author/sana-saleem/]
Global Voices: [http://globalvoicesonline.org/author/sana-saleem/]
The Guardian:[ www.guardian.co.uk/profile/sana-saleem]
Blog: http://sanasaleem.com] Twitter: @sanasaleem
 @bolobhi  

On Thu, Aug 22, 2013 at 1:03 AM, Tom O  wrote:

> If Snowden gets captured, you can bet he will be getting much much worse
-- 
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Re: [liberationtech] Bradley Manning's sentence: 35 years for exposing us to the truth

To be honest, this was probably the best he could have hoped for.

He was facing 90. He got 35 with parole after 12.

It's shit, but not as shit as the other options.

If Snowden gets captured, you can bet he will be getting much much worse.

On Thursday, August 22, 2013, LilBambi wrote:

> tragic.
>
> On Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 11:32 AM, Shelley 
> wrote:
> > Outrageous.
> >
> >
> http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/21/bradley-manning-sentence-birgitta-jonsdottir
> >
> > Bradley Manning's sentence: 35 years for exposing us to the truth
> > This was never a fair trial – Obama declared Manning's guilt in advance.
> But
> > Manning's punishment is an affront to democracy
> >
> > Birgitta Jónsdóttir
> > theguardian.com, Wednesday 21 August 2013 10.29 EDT
> > Jump to comments (…)
> >
> > Link to video: Bradley Manning: 35 years in jail for an outsider who had
> > trouble fitting in – video
> >
> > As of today, Wednesday 21 August 2013, Bradley Manning has served 1,182
> days
> > in prison. He should be released with a sentence of time served. Instead,
> > the judge in his court martial at Fort Meade, Maryland has handed down a
> > sentence of 35 years.
> >
> > Of course, a humane, reasonable sentence of time served was never going
> to
> > happen. This trial has, since day one, been held in a kangaroo court.
> That
> > is not angry rhetoric; the reason I am forced to frame it in that way is
> > because President Obama made the following statements on record, before
> the
> > trial even started:
> >
> > President Obama: We're a nation of laws. We don't individually make our
> own
> > decisions about how the laws operate … He broke the law.
> >
> > Logan Price: Well, you can make the law harder to break, but what he did
> was
> > tell us the truth.
> >
> > President Obama: Well, what he did was he dumped …
> >
> > Logan Price: But Nixon tried to prosecute Daniel Ellsberg for the same
> thing
> > and he is a … [hero]
> >
> > President Obama: No, it isn't the same thing … What Ellsberg released
> wasn't
> > classified in the same way.
> >
> > When the president says that the Ellsberg's material was classified in a
> > different way, he seems to be unaware that there was a higher
> classification
> > on the documents Ellsberg leaked.
> >
> > A fair trial, then, has never been part of the picture. Despite being a
> > professor in constitutional law, the president as commander-in-chief of
> the
> > US military – and Manning has been tried in a court martial – declared
> > Manning's guilt pre-emptively. Here is what the Pentagon Papers leaker
> > Daniel Ellsberg had to say about this, in an interview with Amy Goodman
> at
> > DemocracyNow! in 2011:
> >
> > Well, nearly everything the president has said represents a confusion
> about
> > the state of the law and his own responsibilities. Everyone is focused, I
> > think, on the fact that his commander-in-chief has virtually given a
> > directed verdict to his subsequent jurors, who will all be his
> subordinates
> > in deciding the guilt in the trial of Bradley Manning. He's told them
> > already that their commander, on whom their whole career depends, regards
> > him [Manning] as guilty and that they can disagree with that only at
> their
> > peril. In career terms, it's clearly enough grounds for a dismissal of
> the
> > charges, just as my trial was dismissed eventually for governmental
> > misconduct.
> >
> > But what people haven't really focused on, I think, is another
> problematic
> > aspect of what he said. He not only was identifying Bradley Manning as
> the
> > source of the crime, but he was assuming, without any question, that a
> crime
> > has been committed.
> >
> > This alone should have been cause for the judge in the case to rethink
> > prosecutors' demand for 60 years in prison. Manning himself has shown
> > throughout the trial both that he is a humanitarian and that he is
> willing
> > to serve time for his actions. We have to look at his acts in light of
> his
> > moral compass, not any political agenda.
> > Manning intentions were never to hurt anyone; in fact, his motivation –
> as
> > was the case for Ellsberg – was to inform the American public about what
> > their government was doing in their name. A defense forensic psychiatrist
> > testified to Manning's motives:
> >
> > Well, Pfc Manning was under the impression that his leaked information
> was
> > going to really change how the world views the wars in Afghanistan and
> Iraq,
> > and future wars, actually. This was an attempt to crowdsource an
> analysis of
> > the war,> --
> > Liberationtech is a public list whose archives are searchable on Google.
> > Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated:
> > https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech.
> Unsubscribe,
> > change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at
> > compa...@stanford.edu .
> --
> Liberationtech is a public list whose archives are searchable on Google.
> Violations of lis

Re: [liberationtech] Bradley Manning's sentence: 35 years for exposing us to the truth

tragic.

On Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 11:32 AM, Shelley  wrote:
> Outrageous.
>
> http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/21/bradley-manning-sentence-birgitta-jonsdottir
>
> Bradley Manning's sentence: 35 years for exposing us to the truth
> This was never a fair trial – Obama declared Manning's guilt in advance. But
> Manning's punishment is an affront to democracy
>
> Birgitta Jónsdóttir
> theguardian.com, Wednesday 21 August 2013 10.29 EDT
> Jump to comments (…)
>
> Link to video: Bradley Manning: 35 years in jail for an outsider who had
> trouble fitting in – video
>
> As of today, Wednesday 21 August 2013, Bradley Manning has served 1,182 days
> in prison. He should be released with a sentence of time served. Instead,
> the judge in his court martial at Fort Meade, Maryland has handed down a
> sentence of 35 years.
>
> Of course, a humane, reasonable sentence of time served was never going to
> happen. This trial has, since day one, been held in a kangaroo court. That
> is not angry rhetoric; the reason I am forced to frame it in that way is
> because President Obama made the following statements on record, before the
> trial even started:
>
> President Obama: We're a nation of laws. We don't individually make our own
> decisions about how the laws operate … He broke the law.
>
> Logan Price: Well, you can make the law harder to break, but what he did was
> tell us the truth.
>
> President Obama: Well, what he did was he dumped …
>
> Logan Price: But Nixon tried to prosecute Daniel Ellsberg for the same thing
> and he is a … [hero]
>
> President Obama: No, it isn't the same thing … What Ellsberg released wasn't
> classified in the same way.
>
> When the president says that the Ellsberg's material was classified in a
> different way, he seems to be unaware that there was a higher classification
> on the documents Ellsberg leaked.
>
> A fair trial, then, has never been part of the picture. Despite being a
> professor in constitutional law, the president as commander-in-chief of the
> US military – and Manning has been tried in a court martial – declared
> Manning's guilt pre-emptively. Here is what the Pentagon Papers leaker
> Daniel Ellsberg had to say about this, in an interview with Amy Goodman at
> DemocracyNow! in 2011:
>
> Well, nearly everything the president has said represents a confusion about
> the state of the law and his own responsibilities. Everyone is focused, I
> think, on the fact that his commander-in-chief has virtually given a
> directed verdict to his subsequent jurors, who will all be his subordinates
> in deciding the guilt in the trial of Bradley Manning. He's told them
> already that their commander, on whom their whole career depends, regards
> him [Manning] as guilty and that they can disagree with that only at their
> peril. In career terms, it's clearly enough grounds for a dismissal of the
> charges, just as my trial was dismissed eventually for governmental
> misconduct.
>
> But what people haven't really focused on, I think, is another problematic
> aspect of what he said. He not only was identifying Bradley Manning as the
> source of the crime, but he was assuming, without any question, that a crime
> has been committed.
>
> This alone should have been cause for the judge in the case to rethink
> prosecutors' demand for 60 years in prison. Manning himself has shown
> throughout the trial both that he is a humanitarian and that he is willing
> to serve time for his actions. We have to look at his acts in light of his
> moral compass, not any political agenda.
> Manning intentions were never to hurt anyone; in fact, his motivation – as
> was the case for Ellsberg – was to inform the American public about what
> their government was doing in their name. A defense forensic psychiatrist
> testified to Manning's motives:
>
> Well, Pfc Manning was under the impression that his leaked information was
> going to really change how the world views the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,
> and future wars, actually. This was an attempt to crowdsource an analysis of
> the war, and it was his opinion that if … through crowdsourcing, enough
> analysis was done on these documents, which he felt to be very important,
> that it would lead to a greater good … that society as a whole would come to
> the conclusion that the war wasn't worth it … that really no wars are worth
> it.
>
> I admit that I share the same hopes that drove Manning to share with the
> rest of the world the crimes of war he witnessed. I am deeply disappointed
> that no one has been held accountable for the criminality exposed in the
> documents for which Manning is standing trial – except him. It shows so
> clearly that our justice systems are not working as intended to protect the
> general public and to hold accountable those responsible for unspeakable
> crimes.
>
> I want to thank Bradley Manning for the service he has done for humanity
> with his courage and compassionate action to inform us, so that we have the
>

Re: [liberationtech] How Laura Poitras Helped Snowden Spill His Secrets

Wow. It had to be someone. Who would you have had it been?

On Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 3:43 PM, Tony Arcieri  wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 5:16 AM, Eugen Leitl  wrote:
>>
>> This past January, Laura Poitras received a curious e-mail from an
>> anonymous
>> stranger requesting her public encryption key. For almost two years,
>> Poitras
>> had been working on a documentary about surveillance, and she occasionally
>> received queries from strangers. She replied to this one and sent her
>> public
>> key — allowing him or her to send an encrypted e-mail that only Poitras
>> could
>> open, with her private key
>
>
> Then the NSA MitMed her unauthenticated plaintext email, replacing her
> public key with theirs, and were able to intercept all of the Snowden
> emails. Oops!
>
> --
> Tony Arcieri
>
> --
> Liberationtech is a public list whose archives are searchable on Google.
> Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated:
> https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe,
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Re: [liberationtech] How Laura Poitras Helped Snowden Spill His Secrets

2013-08-21 Thread Tony Arcieri

On Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 5:16 AM, Eugen Leitl  wrote:

> This past January, Laura Poitras received a curious e-mail from an
> anonymous
> stranger requesting her public encryption key. For almost two years,
> Poitras
> had been working on a documentary about surveillance, and she occasionally
> received queries from strangers. She replied to this one and sent her
> public
> key — allowing him or her to send an encrypted e-mail that only Poitras
> could
> open, with her private key


Then the NSA MitMed her unauthenticated plaintext email, replacing her
public key with theirs, and were able to intercept all of the Snowden
emails. Oops!

-- 
Tony Arcieri
-- 
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Re: [liberationtech] How Laura Poitras Helped Snowden Spill His Secrets

So it's now become about the "heroism" of the journalists and not Snowden
and mass govt surveillance.

Right.

On Thursday, August 22, 2013, Scott Elcomb wrote:

> On Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 8:16 AM, Eugen Leitl 
> 
> > wrote:
>
>>
>> (possible dupe)
>>
>>
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/magazine/laura-poitras-snowden.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=1&&pagewanted=all&pagewanted=print
>
> 
>
>>
>> “I read intelligence carefully,” said Senator Dianne
>> Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, shortly after
>> the
>> first Snowden articles appeared. “I know that people are trying to get
>> us. .
>> . . This is the reason the F.B.I. now has 10,000 people doing
>> intelligence on
>> counterterrorism. . . . It’s to ferret this out before it happens. It’s
>> called protecting America.”
>
>
> And here I thought it was called the "Homeland" ... at least that's what
> it's called on her map: <
> http://o.canada.com/2013/08/01/canada-homeland-map/>
>
> Yay for geography and sovereignty.
>
> --
>   Scott Elcomb
>   @psema4 on Twitter / Identi.ca / Github & more
>
>   Atomic OS: Self Contained Microsystems
>   http://code.google.com/p/atomos/
>
>   Member of the Pirate Party of Canada
>   http://www.pirateparty.ca/
>
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[liberationtech] Pakistan: Ministry of IT Pursues Filtration Again

2013-08-21 Thread Sana Saleem

Hi all,

Many of you have been of great support during our campaign to get Ministry
of IT to shelve their plans for a National Level URL Filtration & Blocking
System that was announced in February last year, through your consistent
support and pressure we were able to get the ministry to shelve the plan
last year.

However, as we feared and as now indicated through multiple media
statements, the ministry is pursuing their plans and have in fact now
indicated that the filters will be provided through an ISP for "free for
one year".

As partners and supporters of campaigns run by Civil Society in Pakistan,
we are sending out this note to keep you updated on the situation. We've
issued a detailed statement regarding the issue alongside extensive
resources that we have been producing, including submissions to court in
the YouTube case in which our director is Amicus Curiae

Here's the link to our statement:
http://bolobhi.org/press-releases/minstry-of-it-no-to-internet-filters-censorship/

The successful campaign last year which is now being disregarded :
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/11/26/the_fp_100_global_thinkers?page=0,58#thinker100
 

Submissions to court:
 
http://bolobhi.org/press-releases/minstry-of-it-no-to-internet-filters-censorship/


Best,
Sana

--
Director, Bolo Bhi, Advocacy-Policy-Research [http://bolobhi.org]
Blogger: Dawn.com [http://blog.dawn.com/author/sana-saleem/]
Global Voices: [http://globalvoicesonline.org/author/sana-saleem/]
The Guardian:[ www.guardian.co.uk/profile/sana-saleem]
Blog: http://sanasaleem.com] Twitter: @sanasaleem
 @bolobhi  
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[liberationtech] What NSA does now not so different from what agency has done since its inception

2013-08-21 Thread Yosem Companys

http://www.nytimes.com/1983/03/27/magazine/the-silent-power-of-the-nsa.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all&pagewanted=print

March 27, 1983

THE SILENT POWER OF THE N.S.A.

By David Burnham

David Burnham is a reporter in The Times's Washington bureau. This
article is adapted from Mr. Burnham's book ''The Rise of the Computer
State,'' to be published by Random House in May.

A Federal Court of Appeals recently ruled that the largest and most
secretive intelligence agency of the United States, the National
Security Agency, may lawfully intercept the overseas communications of
Americans even if it has no reason to believe they are engaged in
illegal activities. The ruling, which also allows summaries of these
conversations to be sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation,
significantly broadens the already generous authority of the N.S.A. to
keep track of American citizens.

The decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth
Circuit involves the Government surveillance of Abdeen Jabara, a
Michigan-born lawyer who for many years has represented Arab-American
citizens and alien residents, and reverses a 1979 ruling that the
N.S.A.'s acquisition of Jabara's overseas messages violated his Fourth
Amendment right to be free of ''unreasonable searches and seizures.''
Even while refusing the plaintiff's request for reconsideration, the
Court curiously acknowledged the far-reaching nature of the case,
recognizing that the N.S.A.'s interception of overseas
telecommunications and their dissemination to ''other Federal agencies
has great potential for abuse.'' The Court, however, held that the
problem was ''a policy matter that lies in the domain of the executive
or legislative branch of our Government.''

The N.S.A. is much more than a massive computerized funnel that
collects, channels and sorts information for the President and such
organizations as the Central Intelligence Agency and F.B.I. The
National Security Agency, an arm of the Defense Department but under
the direct command of the Director of Central Intelligence, is an
electronic spying operation, and its leverage is based on a massive
bank of what are believed to be the largest and most advanced
computers now available to any bureaucracy in the world: computers to
break codes, direct spy satellites, intercept electronic messages,
recognize target words in spoken communications and store, organize
and index all of it.

Over the years, this virtually unknown Federal agency has repeatedly
sought to enlarge its power without consulting the civilian officials
who theoretically direct the Government, while it also has sought to
influence the operation and development of all civilian communications
networks. Indeed, under Vice Adm. Bobby Ray Inman, N.S.A. director
from 1977 to 1981, the agency received an enlarged Presidential
mandate to involve itself in communications issues, and successfully
persuaded private corporations and institutions to cooperate with it.

[...]

The power of the N.S.A., whose annual budget and staff are believed to
exceed those of either the F.B.I. or the C.I.A., is enhanced by its
unique legal status within the Federal Government. Unlike the
Agriculture Department, the Postal Service or even the C.I.A., the
N.S.A. has no specific Congressional law defining its responsibilities
and obligations. Instead, the agency, based at Fort George Meade,
about 20 miles northeast of Washington, has operated under a series of
Presidential directives. Because of Congress's failure to draft a law
for the agency, because of the tremendous secrecy surrounding the
N.S.A.'s work and because of the highly technical and thus thwarting
character of its equipment, the N.S.A. is free to define and pursue
its own goals.

Despite the impenetrable secrecy surrounding the agency - no public
briefings or access to its premises is allowed - its mission was first
discussed openly in the 1975 hearings of the Senate Select Committee
to Study Government Operations with Respect to Intelligence
Activities. Various aspects of the agency's responsibilities also have
been touched upon in a handful of depositions filed by the agency in
Federal courts, several recent executive orders and a few aging
documents found in the towering stacks of the National Archives.

[...]

The Senate select committee's study of the N.S.A., one of the most
extensive independent examinations ever made of the agency, was
initiated in the wake of Watergate and the disclosure of other abuses
by Federal intelligence agencies. During the course of the
investigation, its chairman, Senator Frank Church, repeatedly
emphasized his belief that the N.S.A.'s intelligence-gathering
activities were essential to the nation's security. He also stressed
that the equipment used to watch the Russians could just as easily
''monitor the private communications of Americans.'' If such forces
were ever turned against the country's communications system, Senator
Church said, ''no American would have any pr

Re: [liberationtech] Seeing threats, feds target instructors of polygraph-beating methods

2013-08-21 Thread The Doctor

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On 08/19/2013 10:42 PM, Tom Ritter wrote:

> ESPECIALLY when polygraphs aren't actually accepted by the courts,
> as far as I know.

They are still a requirement for some security clearances, though
(TS/SCI/LP).  Perhaps someone high up the food chain is afraid that
someone who passed the lifestyle poly will pull a Snowden in the
relatively near future.

- -- 
The Doctor [412/724/301/703] [ZS]
Developer, Project Byzantium: http://project-byzantium.org/

PGP: 0x807B17C1 / 7960 1CDC 85C9 0B63 8D9F  DD89 3BD8 FF2B 807B 17C1
WWW: https://drwho.virtadpt.net/

"The futuristic is paradoxically familiar." --William Gibson

-BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
Version: GnuPG v2.0.20 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/

iEYEARECAAYFAlIVAZsACgkQO9j/K4B7F8EJlwCeJpMBHFLWGGMHX8mrHvQQP/F5
9coAni1TMwMBY8HnnafjUmNOxXN3OZty
=cpTh
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Re: [liberationtech] How Laura Poitras Helped Snowden Spill His Secrets

2013-08-21 Thread Scott Elcomb

On Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 8:16 AM, Eugen Leitl  wrote:

>
> (possible dupe)
>
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/magazine/laura-poitras-snowden.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=1&&pagewanted=all&pagewanted=print



>
> “I read intelligence carefully,” said Senator Dianne
> Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, shortly after
> the
> first Snowden articles appeared. “I know that people are trying to get us.
> .
> . . This is the reason the F.B.I. now has 10,000 people doing intelligence
> on
> counterterrorism. . . . It’s to ferret this out before it happens. It’s
> called protecting America.”


And here I thought it was called the "Homeland" ... at least that's what
it's called on her map: 

Yay for geography and sovereignty.

-- 
  Scott Elcomb
  @psema4 on Twitter / Identi.ca / Github & more

  Atomic OS: Self Contained Microsystems
  http://code.google.com/p/atomos/

  Member of the Pirate Party of Canada
  http://www.pirateparty.ca/
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[liberationtech] Latest developments in Bangladesh

2013-08-21 Thread Yosem Companys

On Tue, Aug 20, 2013 at 8:02 PM, Shahzad Ahmad 
 wrote:

> Dear colleagues,
>
> Wish to draw your kind attention on the latest developments in Bangladesh.
>
> Adilur Rahman is a personal friend and a renowned human rights defender.
> He was picked by the police on 10th August 2013. Some details of the case
> are here https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/node/23539
>
> Following note has been sent to relevant UN Special Procedures and Mandate
> Holders by concerned civil society organizations, however, it will be good
> that you all are also aware and probably can help.
>
> Best wishes and regards
> Shahzad
>
> PS: We dread policy laundering so re very very concerned.
>
>
>
>
> -- Forwarded message --
>
> *Dear Special Procedures Mandate Holders*
>
> This is to alert you regarding the ordinance titled Information and
> Communication Technology (ICT) (Amendment) Act, 2013 being passed and
> approved by the Cabinet of Bangladesh on 19 August 2013.
>
> The cabinet has approved the proposed draft of the “Information and
> Communication Technology (ICT) (Amendment) Act, 2013” which seeks to make
> significant changes to the existing legislation enacted in 
> 2006
> .
>
> *Initial reports indicate that some of the key provisions of the
> amendment are as follows:*
>
> 1. Section 76 of the present Act classifies all offences committed under
> the Act to be Non-Cognizable. However, the 2013 amendment seeks to classify
> some of the offences as cognizable. By doing so, the police could arrest
> persons without issuing a warrant by invoking Section 54 of the Code of
> Criminal Procedure
> .
>
>
>
> 2. Offences under the present Act are bailable, while the amendment seeks
> to make the offences non-bailable.
>
>
>
> 3. The maximum period of imprisonment for offences under the Act has been
> increased to 14 years as against 10 years under the present Act. Penalties
> and fines are also to be enhanced.
>
>
>
> Reports also suggest that the Ordinance is likely to receive the assent of
> the President soon, after which the provisions will come into effect. As
> soon as the copy of the Ordinance is made available to us we will share it
> with you.
>
> We would further like to bring to your notice to the fact that this draft
> amendment has been passed in a hurry by the cabinet while the Parliament is
> scheduled to be in session soon on 12 September 2013. By doing so, the
> government has denied the opposition parties the opportunity to discuss the
> provisions of the amendment and raise objections.
>
> We must also bring to your attention the recent arrest of Adilur Rahman
> Khan, a prominent human rights activist on 10 August 2013 for the alleged
> offences under the Information and Communication Technology Act, 2006. The
> documents submitted before the courts in relation to his arrest also
> suggest that the authorities seek to proceed against Adilur Rahman Khan for
> charges similar to sedition.
>
> We anticipate that further arrests of human rights defenders such as
> Adilur Rahman Khan would be carried out soon after the Information and
> Communication Technology (ICT) (Amendment) Act, 2013 ordinance is
> promulgated by the President.
>
> We therefore call upon your office to urgently intervene and urge the
> Government of Bangladesh and the President of Bangladesh to refrain from
> bringing the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) (Amendment)
> Act, 2013 into force.
>
> Please do contact us should you need any further information or
> clarification.
> --
>
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[liberationtech] Bradley Manning's sentence: 35 years for exposing us to the truth

Outrageous.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/21/bradley-manning-sentence-birgitta-jonsdottir

Bradley Manning's sentence: 35 years for exposing us to the truth
This was never a fair trial – Obama declared Manning's guilt in advance. But
Manning's punishment is an affront to democracy

Birgitta Jónsdóttir
theguardian.com, Wednesday 21 August 2013 10.29 EDT
Jump to comments (…)

Link to video: Bradley Manning: 35 years in jail for an outsider who had
trouble fitting in – video

As of today, Wednesday 21 August 2013, Bradley Manning has served 1,182 days in
prison. He should be released with a sentence of time served. Instead, the
judge in his court martial at Fort Meade, Maryland has handed down a sentence
of 35 years.

Of course, a humane, reasonable sentence of time served was never going to
happen. This trial has, since day one, been held in a kangaroo court. That is
not angry rhetoric; the reason I am forced to frame it in that way is because
President Obama made the following statements on record, before the trial even
started:

President Obama: We're a nation of laws. We don't individually make our own
decisions about how the laws operate … He broke the law.

Logan Price: Well, you can make the law harder to break, but what he did was
tell us the truth.

President Obama: Well, what he did was he dumped …

Logan Price: But Nixon tried to prosecute Daniel Ellsberg for the same thing
and he is a … [hero]

President Obama: No, it isn't the same thing … What Ellsberg released wasn't
classified in the same way.

When the president says that the Ellsberg's material was classified in a
different way, he seems to be unaware that there was a higher classification on
the documents Ellsberg leaked.

A fair trial, then, has never been part of the picture. Despite being a
professor in constitutional law, the president as commander-in-chief of the US
military – and Manning has been tried in a court martial – declared Manning's
guilt pre-emptively. Here is what the Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg
had to say about this, in an interview with Amy Goodman at DemocracyNow! in
2011:

Well, nearly everything the president has said represents a confusion about the
state of the law and his own responsibilities. Everyone is focused, I think, on
the fact that his commander-in-chief has virtually given a directed verdict to
his subsequent jurors, who will all be his subordinates in deciding the guilt
in the trial of Bradley Manning. He's told them already that their commander,
on whom their whole career depends, regards him [Manning] as guilty and that
they can disagree with that only at their peril. In career terms, it's clearly
enough grounds for a dismissal of the charges, just as my trial was dismissed
eventually for governmental misconduct.

But what people haven't really focused on, I think, is another problematic
aspect of what he said. He not only was identifying Bradley Manning as the
source of the crime, but he was assuming, without any question, that a crime
has been committed.

This alone should have been cause for the judge in the case to rethink
prosecutors' demand for 60 years in prison. Manning himself has shown
throughout the trial both that he is a humanitarian and that he is willing to
serve time for his actions. We have to look at his acts in light of his moral
compass, not any political agenda.
Manning intentions were never to hurt anyone; in fact, his motivation – as was
the case for Ellsberg – was to inform the American public about what their
government was doing in their name. A defense forensic psychiatrist testified
to Manning's motives:

Well, Pfc Manning was under the impression that his leaked information was
going to really change how the world views the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,
and future wars, actually. This was an attempt to crowdsource an analysis of
the war, and it was his opinion that if … through crowdsourcing, enough
analysis was done on these documents, which he felt to be very important, that
it would lead to a greater good … that society as a whole would come to the
conclusion that the war wasn't worth it … that really no wars are worth it.

I admit that I share the same hopes that drove Manning to share with the rest
of the world the crimes of war he witnessed. I am deeply disappointed that no
one has been held accountable for the criminality exposed in the documents for
which Manning is standing trial – except him. It shows so clearly that our
justice systems are not working as intended to protect the general public and
to hold accountable those responsible for unspeakable crimes.

I want to thank Bradley Manning for the service he has done for humanity with
his courage and compassionate action to inform us, so that we have the means to
transform and change our societies for the better. I want to thank him for
shining light into the shadows. It is up to each and everyone of us to use the
information he p

Re: [liberationtech] Dubious sources feed national-security reporter Eli Lake a fraudulent story for political purposes — once again

2013-08-21 Thread Andrés Leopoldo Pacheco Sanfuentes

Sorry, language mismatch in "auto-corrector"..
On Aug 21, 2013 8:29 AM, "Andrés Leopoldo Pacheco Sanfuentes" <
alps6...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Wells, what elasticidad would you expectativas from "The Washington Times?"
> On Aug 21, 2013 4:40 AM, "Eugen Leitl"  wrote:
>
>>
>> How  very  surprising.
>>
>> http://harpers.org/blog/2013/08/anatomy-of-an-al-qaeda-conference-call/
>>
>> Anatomy of an Al Qaeda “Conference Call”
>>
>> Dubious sources feed national-security reporter Eli Lake a fraudulent
>> story
>> for political purposes — once again
>>
>> By Ken Silverstein
>>
>> Share Single Page
>>
>> Cartoon by C. Clyde Squires (September 1907)
>>
>> Two years ago, following the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in
>> Pakistan, a
>> number of journalists wrote dramatic accounts of the Al Qaeda leader’s
>> last
>> moments. One such story, co-authored by Eli Lake in the Washington Times,
>> cited Obama administration officials and an unnamed military source,
>> described how bin Laden had “reached for a weapon to try to defend
>> himself”
>> during the intense firefight at his compound, and then “was shot by Navy
>> SEALs after trying to use a woman reputed to be his wife as a human
>> shield.”
>>
>> It was exciting stuff, but it turned out to have been fictitious
>> propaganda
>> concocted by U.S. authorities to destroy bin Laden’s image in the eyes of
>> his
>> followers. Based on what we know now, the SEALs met virtually no
>> resistance
>> at the compound, there was no firefight, bin Laden didn’t use a woman as a
>> human shield, and he was unarmed.
>>
>> The White House blamed the misleading early reports on the “fog of war,”
>> but
>> as Will Saletan pointed out in Slate, “A fog of war creates confusion,
>> not a
>> consistent story like the one about the human shield. The reason U.S.
>> officials bought and sold this story is that it fit their larger
>> indictment
>> of Bin Laden. It reinforced the shameful picture of him hiding in a
>> mansion
>> while sending others to fight and die. It made him look like a coward.”
>>
>> Many reporters uncritically rushed the government’s account into print.
>> For
>> Lake, though, it fit a career pattern of credulously planting dubious
>> stories
>> from sources with strong political agendas.[*]
>>
>> [*] I should disclose that Lake and I aren’t on friendly terms. We were
>> until
>> a few years ago, when I received a tip that led to a 2011 story showing
>> that
>> Lake, who regularly praised the government of the former Soviet republic
>> of
>> Georgia, was a close friend of one of the country’s Washington lobbyists,
>> and
>> that the lobbyist sometimes picked up his bar and restaurant tabs. After
>> the
>> story was published, Lake and his friends, some of whom had flown to
>> Georgia
>> on junkets paid for by the same lobbyist, took to Twitter to denounce me.
>>
>> Which brings us to the news story that Lake and Josh Rogin broke for the
>> Daily Beast last week, in which they reported that the “crucial intercept
>> that prompted the U.S. government to close embassies in 22 countries was a
>> conference call between al Qaeda’s senior leaders and representatives of
>> several of the group’s affiliates throughout the region.” The story said
>> that
>> among the “more than 20 operatives” on the call was Ayman al-Zawahiri, who
>> the piece claimed was managing a global organization with affiliates in
>> Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Other Al Qaeda participants involved in
>> the call reportedly represented affiliates operating in Iraq, the Islamic
>> Maghreb, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Sinai Peninsula, and Uzbekistan.
>>
>> The sources for the story were three U.S. officials “familiar with the
>> intelligence.” “This was like a meeting of the Legion of Doom,” one told
>> Lake
>> and Rogin. “All you need to do is look at that list of places we shut
>> down to
>> get a sense of who was on the phone call.”
>>
>> The piece also cited Republican senator John McCain, who drew a
>> predictably
>> grim conclusion from the news. “This may punch a sizable hole in the
>> theory
>> that Al Qaeda is on the run,” he said. “There was a gross underestimation
>> by
>> this administration of Al Qaeda’s overall ability to replenish itself.”
>> The
>> story was picked up widely, especially on the right. On his show, Rush
>> Limbaugh charged that the Obama “regime” had leaked the story for
>> political
>> gain. “They leak it,” he explained, “so as to make Obama look big and
>> competent and tough and make this administration look like nobody’s gonna
>> get
>> anything past them.”
>>
>> Then a number of respected national-security journalists began to question
>> the motives of the leakers, and to cast doubt on the story generally. Ken
>> Dilanian of the Los Angeles Times suggested that the piece was intended to
>> glorify the NSA’s signals-intelligence capabilities. Barton Gellman of the
>> Washington Post said there was something “very wrong” with the whole
>> thing.
>> New York magazine got

Re: [liberationtech] Dubious sources feed national-security reporter Eli Lake a fraudulent story for political purposes — once again

2013-08-21 Thread Andrés Leopoldo Pacheco Sanfuentes

Wells, what elasticidad would you expectativas from "The Washington Times?"
On Aug 21, 2013 4:40 AM, "Eugen Leitl"  wrote:

>
> How  very  surprising.
>
> http://harpers.org/blog/2013/08/anatomy-of-an-al-qaeda-conference-call/
>
> Anatomy of an Al Qaeda “Conference Call”
>
> Dubious sources feed national-security reporter Eli Lake a fraudulent story
> for political purposes — once again
>
> By Ken Silverstein
>
> Share Single Page
>
> Cartoon by C. Clyde Squires (September 1907)
>
> Two years ago, following the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan,
> a
> number of journalists wrote dramatic accounts of the Al Qaeda leader’s last
> moments. One such story, co-authored by Eli Lake in the Washington Times,
> cited Obama administration officials and an unnamed military source,
> described how bin Laden had “reached for a weapon to try to defend himself”
> during the intense firefight at his compound, and then “was shot by Navy
> SEALs after trying to use a woman reputed to be his wife as a human
> shield.”
>
> It was exciting stuff, but it turned out to have been fictitious propaganda
> concocted by U.S. authorities to destroy bin Laden’s image in the eyes of
> his
> followers. Based on what we know now, the SEALs met virtually no resistance
> at the compound, there was no firefight, bin Laden didn’t use a woman as a
> human shield, and he was unarmed.
>
> The White House blamed the misleading early reports on the “fog of war,”
> but
> as Will Saletan pointed out in Slate, “A fog of war creates confusion, not
> a
> consistent story like the one about the human shield. The reason U.S.
> officials bought and sold this story is that it fit their larger indictment
> of Bin Laden. It reinforced the shameful picture of him hiding in a mansion
> while sending others to fight and die. It made him look like a coward.”
>
> Many reporters uncritically rushed the government’s account into print. For
> Lake, though, it fit a career pattern of credulously planting dubious
> stories
> from sources with strong political agendas.[*]
>
> [*] I should disclose that Lake and I aren’t on friendly terms. We were
> until
> a few years ago, when I received a tip that led to a 2011 story showing
> that
> Lake, who regularly praised the government of the former Soviet republic of
> Georgia, was a close friend of one of the country’s Washington lobbyists,
> and
> that the lobbyist sometimes picked up his bar and restaurant tabs. After
> the
> story was published, Lake and his friends, some of whom had flown to
> Georgia
> on junkets paid for by the same lobbyist, took to Twitter to denounce me.
>
> Which brings us to the news story that Lake and Josh Rogin broke for the
> Daily Beast last week, in which they reported that the “crucial intercept
> that prompted the U.S. government to close embassies in 22 countries was a
> conference call between al Qaeda’s senior leaders and representatives of
> several of the group’s affiliates throughout the region.” The story said
> that
> among the “more than 20 operatives” on the call was Ayman al-Zawahiri, who
> the piece claimed was managing a global organization with affiliates in
> Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Other Al Qaeda participants involved in
> the call reportedly represented affiliates operating in Iraq, the Islamic
> Maghreb, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Sinai Peninsula, and Uzbekistan.
>
> The sources for the story were three U.S. officials “familiar with the
> intelligence.” “This was like a meeting of the Legion of Doom,” one told
> Lake
> and Rogin. “All you need to do is look at that list of places we shut down
> to
> get a sense of who was on the phone call.”
>
> The piece also cited Republican senator John McCain, who drew a predictably
> grim conclusion from the news. “This may punch a sizable hole in the theory
> that Al Qaeda is on the run,” he said. “There was a gross underestimation
> by
> this administration of Al Qaeda’s overall ability to replenish itself.” The
> story was picked up widely, especially on the right. On his show, Rush
> Limbaugh charged that the Obama “regime” had leaked the story for political
> gain. “They leak it,” he explained, “so as to make Obama look big and
> competent and tough and make this administration look like nobody’s gonna
> get
> anything past them.”
>
> Then a number of respected national-security journalists began to question
> the motives of the leakers, and to cast doubt on the story generally. Ken
> Dilanian of the Los Angeles Times suggested that the piece was intended to
> glorify the NSA’s signals-intelligence capabilities. Barton Gellman of the
> Washington Post said there was something “very wrong” with the whole thing.
> New York magazine got in on the act by parodying the notion of an Al Qaeda
> conference call.
>
> Despite this tide of doubt and ridicule, the Daily Beast didn’t correct the
> story, though Lake and Rogin made statements that seemed designed to alter
> its meaning. “We used ‘conference call’ because it

[liberationtech] CAMRI Seminar (Sep 25): Vincent Mosco on the Political Economy of Cloud Computing and Big Data

2013-08-21 Thread Christian Fuchs


To the Cloud: Big Data in a Turbulent World
September 25, 2013
02:00pm-04:00pm
Room A7.03, Harrow Campus, University of Westminster, Communication and 
Media Research Institute (CAMRI), London: Northwick Park tube station 
(Metropolitan Line)

Full information:
http://www.westminster.ac.uk/research/a-z/camri/seminars/camri-seminar-calendar/2013/to-the-cloud-big-data-in-a-turbulent-world

Opening talk of this autumn’s CAMRI Research Seminar Series 
(announcement of further dates/events will follow)


Participation
Participation is free and everyone is welcome. Please register at latest 
until 22 September by sending an email to Christian Fuchs: 
christian.fu...@uti.at.


Abstract
This presentation offers an account of the political, economic, social 
and cultural issues emerging from the growth of cloud computing. It 
starts by situating cloud computing as a major force in the 
globalisation of informational capitalism and in the advance of a 
particular way of knowing, what I call digital positivism. It proceeds 
to examine the origins of cloud computing in the movements that arose in 
the pre-internet era to create an information utility.
The presentation then defines cloud computing, describes its major 
characteristics, and identifies the leading corporate, and government 
cloud players. In doing so, it describes the battles for market power 
among a handful of companies such as Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, 
Facebook, and Rackspace, the rapid and, for some, worrisome, expansion 
of the government cloud, the internationalisation of cloud computing, 
and the emergence of bottom-up community cloud projects.
Next, it considers how the cloud is being marketed and mythologised 
through advertising, social media, corporate and government research, 
industry lobbying, and marketing events. Massive promotion is essential 
because dark clouds are gathering over the industry including the 
environmental problems created by data centres; concerns over privacy, 
security, and surveillance; and labour issues, particularly the impact 
on IT departments, and more generally on knowledge workers whose jobs 
are threatened by the cloud. The presentation concludes by offering a 
technical and a cultural critique of big data, digital positivism, and 
the cloud’s “way of knowing.”


Biography
Dr Vincent Mosco is Professor Emeritus, Queen's University, Canada. He 
is formerly Canada Research Chair in Communication and Society and 
Professor of Sociology. He is author of many works, including The 
Political Economy of Communication, second edition (Sage, 2009), The 
Laboring of Communication: Will Knowledge Workers of the World Unite 
(co-authored with Catherine McKercher, Lexington Books, 2008), and The 
Digital Sublime: Myth, Power, and Cyberspace (MIT Press, 2004).



--
Christian Fuchs
Professor of Social Media
University of Westminster,
Communication and Media Research Institute
http://fuchs.uti.at, http://www.triple-c.at
@fuchschristian
+44 (0) 20 7911 5000 ext 67380

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Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: 
https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, 
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Re: [liberationtech] Dubious sources feed national-security reporter Eli Lake a fraudulent story for political purposes — once again

2013-08-21 Thread Shava Nerad

Blogged
On Aug 21, 2013 5:40 AM, "Eugen Leitl"  wrote:

>
> How  very  surprising.
>
> http://harpers.org/blog/2013/08/anatomy-of-an-al-qaeda-conference-call/
>
> Anatomy of an Al Qaeda “Conference Call”
>
> Dubious sources feed national-security reporter Eli Lake a fraudulent story
> for political purposes — once again
>
> By Ken Silverstein
>
> Share Single Page
>
> Cartoon by C. Clyde Squires (September 1907)
>
> Two years ago, following the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan,
> a
> number of journalists wrote dramatic accounts of the Al Qaeda leader’s last
> moments. One such story, co-authored by Eli Lake in the Washington Times,
> cited Obama administration officials and an unnamed military source,
> described how bin Laden had “reached for a weapon to try to defend himself”
> during the intense firefight at his compound, and then “was shot by Navy
> SEALs after trying to use a woman reputed to be his wife as a human
> shield.”
>
> It was exciting stuff, but it turned out to have been fictitious propaganda
> concocted by U.S. authorities to destroy bin Laden’s image in the eyes of
> his
> followers. Based on what we know now, the SEALs met virtually no resistance
> at the compound, there was no firefight, bin Laden didn’t use a woman as a
> human shield, and he was unarmed.
>
> The White House blamed the misleading early reports on the “fog of war,”
> but
> as Will Saletan pointed out in Slate, “A fog of war creates confusion, not
> a
> consistent story like the one about the human shield. The reason U.S.
> officials bought and sold this story is that it fit their larger indictment
> of Bin Laden. It reinforced the shameful picture of him hiding in a mansion
> while sending others to fight and die. It made him look like a coward.”
>
> Many reporters uncritically rushed the government’s account into print. For
> Lake, though, it fit a career pattern of credulously planting dubious
> stories
> from sources with strong political agendas.[*]
>
> [*] I should disclose that Lake and I aren’t on friendly terms. We were
> until
> a few years ago, when I received a tip that led to a 2011 story showing
> that
> Lake, who regularly praised the government of the former Soviet republic of
> Georgia, was a close friend of one of the country’s Washington lobbyists,
> and
> that the lobbyist sometimes picked up his bar and restaurant tabs. After
> the
> story was published, Lake and his friends, some of whom had flown to
> Georgia
> on junkets paid for by the same lobbyist, took to Twitter to denounce me.
>
> Which brings us to the news story that Lake and Josh Rogin broke for the
> Daily Beast last week, in which they reported that the “crucial intercept
> that prompted the U.S. government to close embassies in 22 countries was a
> conference call between al Qaeda’s senior leaders and representatives of
> several of the group’s affiliates throughout the region.” The story said
> that
> among the “more than 20 operatives” on the call was Ayman al-Zawahiri, who
> the piece claimed was managing a global organization with affiliates in
> Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Other Al Qaeda participants involved in
> the call reportedly represented affiliates operating in Iraq, the Islamic
> Maghreb, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Sinai Peninsula, and Uzbekistan.
>
> The sources for the story were three U.S. officials “familiar with the
> intelligence.” “This was like a meeting of the Legion of Doom,” one told
> Lake
> and Rogin. “All you need to do is look at that list of places we shut down
> to
> get a sense of who was on the phone call.”
>
> The piece also cited Republican senator John McCain, who drew a predictably
> grim conclusion from the news. “This may punch a sizable hole in the theory
> that Al Qaeda is on the run,” he said. “There was a gross underestimation
> by
> this administration of Al Qaeda’s overall ability to replenish itself.” The
> story was picked up widely, especially on the right. On his show, Rush
> Limbaugh charged that the Obama “regime” had leaked the story for political
> gain. “They leak it,” he explained, “so as to make Obama look big and
> competent and tough and make this administration look like nobody’s gonna
> get
> anything past them.”
>
> Then a number of respected national-security journalists began to question
> the motives of the leakers, and to cast doubt on the story generally. Ken
> Dilanian of the Los Angeles Times suggested that the piece was intended to
> glorify the NSA’s signals-intelligence capabilities. Barton Gellman of the
> Washington Post said there was something “very wrong” with the whole thing.
> New York magazine got in on the act by parodying the notion of an Al Qaeda
> conference call.
>
> Despite this tide of doubt and ridicule, the Daily Beast didn’t correct the
> story, though Lake and Rogin made statements that seemed designed to alter
> its meaning. “We used ‘conference call’ because it was generic enough,”
> Lake
> tweeted. “But it was not a telephone b

[liberationtech] Dubious sources feed national-security reporter Eli Lake a fraudulent story for political purposes — once again

2013-08-21 Thread Eugen Leitl


How  very  surprising.

http://harpers.org/blog/2013/08/anatomy-of-an-al-qaeda-conference-call/

Anatomy of an Al Qaeda “Conference Call”

Dubious sources feed national-security reporter Eli Lake a fraudulent story
for political purposes — once again

By Ken Silverstein

Share Single Page

Cartoon by C. Clyde Squires (September 1907)

Two years ago, following the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, a
number of journalists wrote dramatic accounts of the Al Qaeda leader’s last
moments. One such story, co-authored by Eli Lake in the Washington Times,
cited Obama administration officials and an unnamed military source,
described how bin Laden had “reached for a weapon to try to defend himself”
during the intense firefight at his compound, and then “was shot by Navy
SEALs after trying to use a woman reputed to be his wife as a human shield.”

It was exciting stuff, but it turned out to have been fictitious propaganda
concocted by U.S. authorities to destroy bin Laden’s image in the eyes of his
followers. Based on what we know now, the SEALs met virtually no resistance
at the compound, there was no firefight, bin Laden didn’t use a woman as a
human shield, and he was unarmed.

The White House blamed the misleading early reports on the “fog of war,” but
as Will Saletan pointed out in Slate, “A fog of war creates confusion, not a
consistent story like the one about the human shield. The reason U.S.
officials bought and sold this story is that it fit their larger indictment
of Bin Laden. It reinforced the shameful picture of him hiding in a mansion
while sending others to fight and die. It made him look like a coward.”

Many reporters uncritically rushed the government’s account into print. For
Lake, though, it fit a career pattern of credulously planting dubious stories
from sources with strong political agendas.[*]

[*] I should disclose that Lake and I aren’t on friendly terms. We were until
a few years ago, when I received a tip that led to a 2011 story showing that
Lake, who regularly praised the government of the former Soviet republic of
Georgia, was a close friend of one of the country’s Washington lobbyists, and
that the lobbyist sometimes picked up his bar and restaurant tabs. After the
story was published, Lake and his friends, some of whom had flown to Georgia
on junkets paid for by the same lobbyist, took to Twitter to denounce me.

Which brings us to the news story that Lake and Josh Rogin broke for the
Daily Beast last week, in which they reported that the “crucial intercept
that prompted the U.S. government to close embassies in 22 countries was a
conference call between al Qaeda’s senior leaders and representatives of
several of the group’s affiliates throughout the region.” The story said that
among the “more than 20 operatives” on the call was Ayman al-Zawahiri, who
the piece claimed was managing a global organization with affiliates in
Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Other Al Qaeda participants involved in
the call reportedly represented affiliates operating in Iraq, the Islamic
Maghreb, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Sinai Peninsula, and Uzbekistan.

The sources for the story were three U.S. officials “familiar with the
intelligence.” “This was like a meeting of the Legion of Doom,” one told Lake
and Rogin. “All you need to do is look at that list of places we shut down to
get a sense of who was on the phone call.”

The piece also cited Republican senator John McCain, who drew a predictably
grim conclusion from the news. “This may punch a sizable hole in the theory
that Al Qaeda is on the run,” he said. “There was a gross underestimation by
this administration of Al Qaeda’s overall ability to replenish itself.” The
story was picked up widely, especially on the right. On his show, Rush
Limbaugh charged that the Obama “regime” had leaked the story for political
gain. “They leak it,” he explained, “so as to make Obama look big and
competent and tough and make this administration look like nobody’s gonna get
anything past them.”

Then a number of respected national-security journalists began to question
the motives of the leakers, and to cast doubt on the story generally. Ken
Dilanian of the Los Angeles Times suggested that the piece was intended to
glorify the NSA’s signals-intelligence capabilities. Barton Gellman of the
Washington Post said there was something “very wrong” with the whole thing.
New York magazine got in on the act by parodying the notion of an Al Qaeda
conference call.

Despite this tide of doubt and ridicule, the Daily Beast didn’t correct the
story, though Lake and Rogin made statements that seemed designed to alter
its meaning. “We used ‘conference call’ because it was generic enough,” Lake
tweeted. “But it was not a telephone based communications.” In another tweet
he informed Ben Wedeman of CNN, “This may be a generational issue, but you
can conduct conference calls without a telephone.” (Actually, you can’t, at
least according to the dictionary. Moreover, the “Legion

Re: [liberationtech] liberationtech Digest, Vol 169, Issue 1

That would require common sense, which is obviously lacking in this
individual.

On Wednesday, August 21, 2013, Shelley wrote:

> So, of course the obvious solution is to make a snotty drama comment and
> quote an entire digest-- instead of, you know, unsubscibing yourself
> with the link included in every email.
>
> On Wed, Aug 21, 2013, at 12:29 AM, William Koplitz wrote:
> > Whole lot of navel-gazing. Unsubscibe.
> --
> Liberationtech is a public list whose archives are searchable on Google.
> Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated:
> https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech.
> Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at
> compa...@stanford.edu .
>
-- 
Liberationtech is a public list whose archives are searchable on Google. 
Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: 
https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, 
change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at 
compa...@stanford.edu.

Re: [liberationtech] liberationtech Digest, Vol 169, Issue 1