The campaign to tar Snowden and Greenwald and help the NSA

[smiths]

After a long, slow haul, the film rights to Glenn Greenwald’s book about Edward J. Snowden and his revelations about electronic surveillance by United States security officials have found a home, at Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Sony said on Wednesday that it had acquired rights to Mr. Greenwald’s book, “No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA and the U. S. Surveillance State,” for the producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/15/busin ... .html?_r=0

[bks]

Links in original:

I’m very happy to be working with Amy Pascal, Doug Belgrad and the team at Sony Pictures Entertainment, who have a successful track record of making thoughtful and nuanced true-life stories that audiences want to see,” said Greenwald of the same executives he had previously accused of producing “the ultimate hagiography of the most secretive arm of America’s National Security State” when they made Zero Dark Thirty, but now heartily endorses, because they’re giving him lots of money.

http://www.avclub.com/article/glenn-gre ... ght-204717

Zero Dark Thirty, Jack.

Oh, and Marcy Wheeler has chosen this moment to disassociate herself from First Look.

http://www.emptywheel.net/2014/05/16/announcement/

[JackRiddler]

Marcy Wheeler, we'll see what the story is.

Greenwald's showing hypocrisy. It's also boilerplate praise for the company that has agreed to produce a film based on one's book. Is his compliment transferable to all other Sony products, ever? Did he take back what he said and endorse Zero Dark Thirty?

This harkens back to Sibel Edmonds being mad about how the publisher that rejected her manuscript paid for Greenwald's.

A big-budget movie about Wikileaks was made, and it was a hatchet job. A movie about Snowden was going to be made. Should they have gotten the story rights from a Bill Keller, or someone similarly ignorant, servile to the government, and hostile to the whistleblowers? Should some other writer have made the payday, instead of Greenwald?

Greenwald, after many years as a media critic, plays the media game so well. Is he helping the bad guys in the process?

In the end, won't the impact of the film matter most? You may turn out to be right. (Most likely it will be entertainment product with some vague pro-liberty message and little impact.)

[Hunter]

He as much as said in his Colbert appearance day before yesterday that it's going to be about whom they have been spying on, with a purpose, not just generally, and why -- obviously, implying this will have nothing to do with "terrorism."

Thanks, Jack. Didnt watch that episode. Interesting. I wonder if it is politicians, judges etc they are watching. It is amazing how so many of these elected and appointed officials seem to fall right in to line without a fight, as if being blackmailed.

[JackRiddler]

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/arti ... l-bahamas/

The Intercept has confirmed that as of 2013, the NSA was actively using MYSTIC to gather cell-phone metadata in five countries, and was intercepting voice data in two of them. Documents show that the NSA has been generating intelligence reports from MYSTIC surveillance in the Bahamas, Mexico, Kenya, the Philippines, and one other country, which The Intercept is not naming in response to specific, credible concerns that doing so could lead to increased violence. The more expansive full-take recording capability has been deployed in both the Bahamas and the unnamed country.

SNIP

SOMALGET is part of a broader NSA program called MYSTIC, which The Intercept has learned is being used to secretly monitor the telecommunications systems of the Bahamas and several other countries, including Mexico, the Philippines, and Kenya. But while MYSTIC scrapes mobile networks for so-called “metadata” – information that reveals the time, source, and destination of calls – SOMALGET is a cutting-edge tool that enables the NSA to vacuum up and store the actual content of every conversation in an entire country.

All told, the NSA is using MYSTIC to gather personal data on mobile calls placed in countries with a combined population of more than 250 million people. And according to classified documents, the agency is seeking funding to export the sweeping surveillance capability elsewhere.

I was going to take a guess based on "250 million" but:

Population
Mexico: 120 million
Philippines: 100 million
Kenya: 44 million
Bahamas: 0.35 million

=======================

Total: ~264 million


Oops! So 250 million is a loose synonym for "a lot," a failure of the author's arithmetic, or a dodge.

And now for some total speculation!

I checked out some guesses online, and the one that struck me as obvious is Afghanistan. I'll bet on it: Thirteen years into a post-9/11 occupation, the entire network there by now would have been built from the ground up by the U.S. military itself and/or its contractors (anyone remember Nick Berg?), and they would have thought of allowing total surveillance from the beginning. True, with a population of 25 million compared to the Bahamas' 350,000 it's a much bigger storage capacity required to record and render searcheable all voice calls by cell. But the call volume per capita is surely lower and you would expect the priority and budget devoted to it as an object of a major war operation to be high. One expects the Afghans already think all calls are monitored -- how could they not? -- but a revelation that spells it out undeniably may cause an initial spasm of violence targeting phone companies and network technicians. Don't want to sound heartless but this will be one pretext among many in a never-ending civil war still being stoked by the U.S., and the annual violence will work out roughly the same. I don't agree with a decision to suppress the info, if Afghanistan is the country. However it's certain that the national-security authoritarians & co. will blame all violence that happens there for any reason for the next half-year on Snowden and Greenwald, who in turn will get no defense from the faction of Ames/Thiel, et al.

.

[JackRiddler]

^^Agreed.

Every passing leak makes it look more and more like the NSA is just the control room for the global drug trade.

Nice, that would be what links the Bahamas to Afghanistan, no?

But let's wait to hear that it is Afghanistan.

[Hunter]

Afghanistan is a good guess, but my first guess was Iran or Pakistan. That would definitely stir the shit in Iran and cause violence.

Also why Bahamas? My guess, its where the rich and famous play, lots of good blackmail material?


Israel could also be the country but I doubt that would cause any violence, so I am going with Iran or Pakistan, maybe Afghanistan could be Iraq too for that matter.

[Spiro C. Thiery]

Afghanistan is a good guess, but my first guess was Iran or Pakistan. That would definitely stir the shit in Iran and cause violence.

Also why Bahamas? My guess, its where the rich and famous play, lots of good blackmail material?


Israel could also be the country but I doubt that would cause any violence, so I am going with Iran or Pakistan, maybe Afghanistan could be Iraq too for that matter.

Not that I by into the bad whistleblowing kills narrative (or that this revelation will) given the Saudi/Israeli nexus facilitation of "nine-eleven", I'd say the Israelis might not be someone you'd want to piss off.

The prospective leaking of leaks has a nice wrinkle to it, though.

[Hunter]

Afghanistan is a good guess, but my first guess was Iran or Pakistan. That would definitely stir the shit in Iran and cause violence.

Also why Bahamas? My guess, its where the rich and famous play, lots of good blackmail material?


Israel could also be the country but I doubt that would cause any violence, so I am going with Iran or Pakistan, maybe Afghanistan could be Iraq too for that matter.

Not that I by into the bad whistleblowing kills narrative (or that this revelation will) given the Saudi/Israeli nexus facilitation of "nine-eleven", I'd say the Israelis might not be someone you'd want to piss off.

The prospective leaking of leaks has a nice wrinkle to it, though.

I agree. It would certainly be interesting if that redacted country is Israel. I was thinking more in terms of a country whose people will take to the streets, maybe take over a US embassy, kill American tourists etc, if they found this out and I dont see that happening in Israel. On the other hand the suggestion that it will cause immediate violence and death could just be a bluff to try and hide the fact that it is Israel, which the NSA for sure does not want anyone to know about as it would definitely piss the Israelis off to no end.

If it IS Afghanistan, that sort of seems ho hum, kind of a given and not a real shocker, I am thinking its gonna be more of a shocker, something nobody saw coming and that would certainly fit with Israel, Pakistan or Iran.

[Spiro C. Thiery]

Afghanistan is a good guess, but my first guess was Iran or Pakistan. That would definitely stir the shit in Iran and cause violence.

Also why Bahamas? My guess, its where the rich and famous play, lots of good blackmail material?


Israel could also be the country but I doubt that would cause any violence, so I am going with Iran or Pakistan, maybe Afghanistan could be Iraq too for that matter.

Not that I by into the bad whistleblowing kills narrative (or that this revelation will) given the Saudi/Israeli nexus facilitation of "nine-eleven", I'd say the Israelis might not be someone you'd want to piss off.

The prospective leaking of leaks has a nice wrinkle to it, though.

I agree. It would certainly be interesting if that redacted country is Israel. I was thinking more in terms of a country whose people will take to the streets, maybe take over a US embassy, kill American tourists etc, if they found this out and I dont see that happening in Israel. On the other hand the suggestion that it will cause immediate violence and death could just be a bluff to try and hide the fact that it is Israel, which the NSA for sure does not want anyone to know about as it would definitely piss the Israelis off to no end.

If it IS Afghanistan, that sort of seems ho hum, kind of a given and not a real shocker, I am thinking its gonna be more of a shocker, something nobody saw coming and that would certainly fit with Israel, Pakistan or Iran.

It's not a bluff, it's a lie, and a big one. No leaks cause violence. The behavior contained therein might. That's where the responsibility for death, destruction, and violence lies: with those constantly threatening others of it.

[Hunter]

Afghanistan is a good guess, but my first guess was Iran or Pakistan. That would definitely stir the shit in Iran and cause violence.

Also why Bahamas? My guess, its where the rich and famous play, lots of good blackmail material?


Israel could also be the country but I doubt that would cause any violence, so I am going with Iran or Pakistan, maybe Afghanistan could be Iraq too for that matter.

Not that I by into the bad whistleblowing kills narrative (or that this revelation will) given the Saudi/Israeli nexus facilitation of "nine-eleven", I'd say the Israelis might not be someone you'd want to piss off.

The prospective leaking of leaks has a nice wrinkle to it, though.

I agree. It would certainly be interesting if that redacted country is Israel. I was thinking more in terms of a country whose people will take to the streets, maybe take over a US embassy, kill American tourists etc, if they found this out and I dont see that happening in Israel. On the other hand the suggestion that it will cause immediate violence and death could just be a bluff to try and hide the fact that it is Israel, which the NSA for sure does not want anyone to know about as it would definitely piss the Israelis off to no end.

If it IS Afghanistan, that sort of seems ho hum, kind of a given and not a real shocker, I am thinking its gonna be more of a shocker, something nobody saw coming and that would certainly fit with Israel, Pakistan or Iran.

It's not a bluff, it's a lie, and a big one. No leaks cause violence. The behavior contained therein might. That's where the responsibility for death, destruction, and violence lies: with those constantly threatening others of it.

Yeap, I see what you mean now, they are trying to blame the leak when it is the behavior they want to hide that is the problem.

[Hunter]

When Greenwald defended his decision to publish the names of four countries where telephony metadata is collected by the NSA but withhold a fifth where content is recorded as well, WikiLeaks said it could be interpreted as meaning that the unknown country doesn’t deserve to know they’re being surveilled, but Greenwald said The Intercept was "very convinced" it could lead to deaths. Later, WikiLeaks equated this as an act of racism.

Saw the above in an article, who convinced GG of that I wonder?

I wonder if its another hot bed country in Africa, Nigeria maybe? Hence the racism accusation. But the racism could apply to any non anglo country I guess.

[Hunter]

Afghanistan, good call Jack and others. Seems kind of a given to me since we are at war there, like duh! I expected something more shocking.

[Luther Blissett]

http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comm ... the_other/

[Hunter]

http://cryptome.org/2014/05/nsa-mystic-identity.pdf

According to that there is yet ANOTHER country that was not released. Afghanistan is the fifth country, according to WaPo there is SIX countries involved in this particular program. I would guess the sixth and the one they really want to hide, is Iran.