Exposing the Dark Forces Behind the Snowden Smears

[Magda Hassan]

Awkward.... but he has no shame.

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Jeffrey Toobin Preaches on Sanctity of Government Secrets Despite Once Stealing Classified Documents

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Jeffrey Toobin

(update below)
On Anderson Cooper's CNN program, Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald and his partner David Miranda appeared to discuss how Miranda had been detained for nearly nine hours at Heathrow Airport by UK authorities on Sunday. The interview was an "exclusive" and, after it aired, CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin and the Government Accountability Project's Jesselyn Radack appeared to discuss Miranda's detention under UK terrorism laws.
Authorities seized all of Miranda's electronics equipment, which included copies of documents given to him by journalist Laura Poitras. This was clearly done to send a message to Greenwald and The Guardian that they needed to stop reporting on information on top secret surveillance programs with information provided to them by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
Toobin, who has aggressively denounced Snowden, said in the interview that Miranda's role had been to serve as a "mule." Toobin insinuated that Miranda thought he could get away with taking anything he wanted through the airport under the guise of journalism. If that was allowed, argued Toobin, then a person could take "nuclear launch codes" or "names of undercover agents" and claim to be protected from being detained because they had journalistic privilege.
Toobin did not think it mattered that The Guardian had payed for Miranda's plane ticket. Because Miranda was on a plane with "extremely classified material, Toobin maintained it was justifiable to detain him under a terrorism law, even though he has no connection to terrorists, because he was carrying material that could be useful to terrorists. Without any evidence, Toobin said he believed Miranda was carrying material on how the government intercepts phone calls or text messages.
Toobin also shared his belief that Miranda was "lucky" because he had not had to spend the night in the airport. He did not miss his flight. He was treated better than JetBlue would have treated him and was not sent to a "gulag." He was "delayed for a while and they took what was believed to be stolen information."
"I think he did pretty well," Toobin added.
Toobin's campaign against Snowden and in defense of the government's right to protect sensitive national security secrets is incredibly hypocritical, given his past history.
In journalist Michael Isikoff's book, Uncovering Clinton: A Reporter's Story, he described how Toobin was caught "having absconded with large loads of classified and grand-jury related documents from the office of Iran-Contra independent counsel Lawrence Walsh" in 1991:

Toobin, it turned out, had been using his tenure in Walsh's office to secretly prepare a tell-all book about the Iran-contra case; the privileged documents, along with a meticulously kept private diary (in which the young Toobin, a sort of proto-Linda Tripp, had been documenting private conversations with his unsuspecting colleagues) were to become his prime bait to snare a book deal. Toobin's conduct enraged his fellow lawyers in Walsh's office, many of whom viewed his actions as an indefensible betrayal of the public trust. Walsh at one point even considered pressing for Toobin's indictment.

Toobin was "petrified" that he would have to face criminal charges for stealing information for a rather dubious book deal. And, according to Isikoff, he either "feared dismissal and disgrace, or simply wanted to move on," and he "resigned from the U.S. Attorney's office in Brooklyn (where he had gone to work after Walsh) and abandoned the practice of law."
Walsh's memoir on the Iran-Contra investigation, Firewall, included more details on Toobin's act:

During our negotiations over the timing of the book's publication, Toobin and his publisher surprised us with a preemptive suit to enjoin me from interfering with the publication or punishing Toobin for having stolen hundreds of documents, some of them classified, and for exposing privileged information and material related to the grand jury proceedings. I could understand a young lawyer wanting to keep copies of his own work, but not copying material from the general files or the personal files of others.

Toobin has slammed Snowden for being a "grandiose narcissist." He has chided Snowden for committing "a crime," one that any government employee or contractor would have known not to commit because they are "warned repeatedly that the unauthorized disclosure of classified information is a crime."
As Isikoff and Walsh's accounts on Toobin show, Toobin is the last person who should be preaching about the sanctity of United States government secrets. He is the last one who should be climbing up on a high horse to share how government has a right to seize "stolen information" because he, himself, stole information.
The documents Toobin stole were not released to a news outlet to be reported on because he felt it was in the public interest. They were taken because he wanted to write a book that would help him make a name for himself and personally benefit him.
Yet, despite his history, CNN has allowed him to go on television and bombastically make declarations like one cannot run around the world with "extremely classified information" and be used as a "mule."
They have given him air time to speak such ridiculous phrases as "magical immunity sauce" when describing how journalists should not be allowed to be above the law. But, clearly, Toobin believed he was above the law back in 1991 when he made the decision to take documents so he could hopefully jumpstart his journalistic career.
Update
In 1991, the New York Times published this editorial by John P. MacKenzie on Toobin's book on the criminal investigation into Iran-Contra. It lambasted Toobin and the concluding paragraph was the following:

Lawyers often write self-praising books, but they don't usually betray clients and bosses or spill secrets that aren't theirs to sell. Mr. Toobin is no First Amendment hero but an opportunistic practitioner who searched for contract loopholes while his colleagues focused on Iran-contra. One wonders whether Mr. Toobin, as a junior Federal prosecutor now or in practice later, will need an ironclad no-publish contract to win the trust of his witnesses, clients or superiors.

Here's the segment with Jeffrey Toobin and Jesselyn Radack on "Anderson Cooper":
*Hat-tip to Russ Hicks for calling attention to the above material.
Creative Commons-licensed Photo by Larry D. Moore

http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2013/08...documents/

[Kenneth Kapel]

Toobin is just your typical MSM ass****. A schill for Big Brother.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Lawyer & former Lord Chancellor Charlie Falconer was Tony Blair's pointman.

So, it's surprising that he's come out so strongly against the detention of Miranda.

David Miranda's detention had no basis in law, says former lord chancellor

Lord Falconer, who helped introduce Terrorism Act 2000, criticises home secretary's backing of police action at Heathrow

Nicholas Watt, chief political correspondent
theguardian.com, Wednesday 21 August 2013 00.30 BST

David Miranda, left, and Glenn Greenwald at Rio international airport following Miranda's nine-hour detention at Heathrow. Photograph: Corbis/Joao Laet

The Metropolitan police had no legal basis to detain David Miranda under the Terrorism Act 2000, Tony Blair's former lord chancellor has claimed.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton, who helped introduce the bill in the House of Lords, said that the act makes clear that police can only detain someone to assess whether they are involved in the commission, preparation or instigation of terrorism.

Falconer told the Guardian: "I am very clear that this does not apply, either on its terms or in its spirit, to Mr Miranda."

The peer, who served as solicitor general from 1997-98 and as lord chancellor from 2003-07, was highly critical of the home secretary, Theresa May, who praised the police action at Heathrow on the grounds that the partner of the Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald possessed sensitive documents which could help terrorists and "lead to a loss of lives". May also said that police had acted within the law.

Falconer said that the home secretary's statement "is putting it too widely".

Falconer cited in detail the Terrorism Act 2000, which was passed as the government moved to crack down on dissident Irish republican terrorists in the wake of the 1998 Good Friday agreement, to show that there was no legal basis for the detention of Miranda. He said that schedule 7 of the act allows police to detain someone even when they have no grounds for suspicion. But he added that police can only stop an individual to determine whether they are involved in commission, preparation or instigation of terrorism.

Falconer said: "What schedule 7 allows an examining officer to do is to question somebody in order to determine whether he is somebody who is preparing, instigating or commissioning terrorism. Plainly Mr Miranda is not such a person."

The second paragraph of schedule 7 of the act says: "An examining officer may question a person to whom this paragraph applies for the purpose of determining whether he appears to be a person falling within section 40(1)(b)." This refers to paragraph 40 earlier in the act which defines a terrorist at (b) as a person who "is or has been concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism".

Falconer said that the provision in schedule 7, which allows the police to stop an individual even if there are no grounds for suspicion, is not designed for the likes of Miranda. He said: "What that provision is intended to allow is random searches where you've got a group of people, maybe everybody who is coming in from Northern Ireland on that ferry, where what you are going to do is search people. But there the examining officer, although he does not have grounds for suspecting any individual, has a perfectly good basis for doing random searches. Or he might think it is sensible to examine every third person because it is relevant or this is a way of getting to the truth.

"But that section plainly doesn't apply here. What is happening is they are targeting Miranda because they believe that he may have information that has been obtained from [the US whistleblower Edward] Snowden. The reason that doesn't fall within schedule 7 is because: even assuming that they think there is material which has been obtained in breach of the Officials Secrets Act, the action of Miranda or anybody he is acting with could not be described as somebody concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism. You could not reasonably believe, if you were the state, that Miranda is commissioning or assisting somebody to commission terrorism, to prepare terrorism or to instigate terrorism."

Falconer conceded that the word "instigation" in the act could be open to interpretation. But, he said: "You could argue that publishing this material could drive the world into such a frenzy that terrorism takes place. But that is much too wide a definition of instigation. What the act has in mind is people who are encouraging others, specifically and directly, to commit acts of terrorism, which neither Miranda nor Greenwald are engaged in. So my view and I am very clear about this is that schedule 7 does not cover what happened subject to one thing: if the government has got reason to believe that Greenwald or Miranda were engaged in something I know nothing about then obviously it might cover it but from what has been said the basis of the stopping was a connection with the Snowden activities."

Falconer was critical of May who, along with David Cameron, was given advance notice of the police decision to detain Miranda. The home secretary, who said that police had made their own decisions about Miranda independently of ministers, praised them on the grounds that they suspected Miranda had information useful to terrorists.

The former lord chancellor said: "That [Theresa May's statement] is putting it too widely. The reason that the examining officer may question the person is to determine whether he is a person who is, or has been, concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism. What they are doing is winkling it much too wide. They are forcing into the wording of 40(1)(b), which is referred to in schedule seven paragraph 2, much too wide words."

Miranda was stopped at Heathrow en route to Rio de Janeiro, where he lives with Greenwald, who has written a series of stories for the Guardian revealing mass surveillance programmes by the NSA. He was returning to their home from Berlin when he was stopped, allowing officials to take away his mobile phone, laptop, camera, memory sticks, DVDs and games consoles.

During his trip to Berlin, Miranda met Laura Poitras, the US film-maker who has been working with Greenwald and the Guardian. The Guardian paid for Miranda's flights. Miranda is not a Guardian employee but often assists Greenwald in his work.

[Peter Lemkin]

When the State Attacks Journalism

By Peter Hart

On August 15, Progressive magazine editor Matt Rothschild was arrested at the Wisconsin state capitol building in Wisconsin for the act of reporting on the arrest of a protestor. As he told Democracy Now! (8/19/13):

I get out my iPhone and take pictures. I was doing that, and then they were moving Bonnie Block out down a hallway toward an elevatorthis is in the Capitol, a public spaceand I was following them down there, and I was taking pictures. And they said, "You can't come here." And I said: "Well, you know, I'm a reporter. I'm with the Progressive magazine." They said, "No, you can't come here." I said: "I'm with the press. I have a right to be here." And with that, I didn't get another word out, because they grabbed my hands, put them behind my back and handcuffed me right then and there.

On August 18 David Miranda, the partner of Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald, was held at Heathrow Airport for nine hours under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act of 2000. As Greenwald wrote (8/18/13):

The stated purpose of this law, as the name suggests, is to question people about terrorism. The detention power, claims the UK government, is used "to determine whether that person is or has been involved in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism."
But they obviously had zero suspicion that David was associated with a terrorist organization or involved in any terrorist plot. Instead, they spent their time interrogating him about the NSA reporting which Laura Poitras, the Guardian and I are doing, as well [as] the content of the electronic products he was carrying. They completely abused their own terrorism law for reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism: a potent reminder of how often governments lie when they claim that they need powers to stop "the terrorists," and how dangerous it is to vest unchecked power with political officials in its name.
Worse, they kept David detained right up until the last minute: for the full nine hours, something they very rarely do. Only at the last minute did they finally release him. We spent all dayas every hour passedworried that he would be arrested and charged under a terrorism statute. This was obviously designed to send a message of intimidation to those of us working journalistically on reporting on the NSA and its British counterpart, the GCHQ.
Before letting him go, they seized numerous possessions of his, including his laptop, his cellphone, various video game consoles, DVDs, USB sticks and other materials. They did not say when they would return any of it, or if they would.

On August 19, Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger revealed that the British intelligence agency GCHQ destroyed computers at the newspaper's office in a completely futile attempt to impede their reporting on the National Security Agency:

The mood toughened just over a month ago, when I received a phone call from the center of government telling me: "You've had your fun. Now we want the stuff back." There followed further meetings with shadowy Whitehall figures. The demand was the same: Hand the Snowden material back or destroy it. I explained that we could not research and report on this subject if we complied with this request. The man from Whitehall looked mystified. "You've had your debate. There's no need to write any more."
During one of these meetings, I asked directly whether the government would move to close down the Guardian's reporting through a legal routeby going to court to force the surrender of the material on which we were working. The official confirmed that, in the absence of handover or destruction, this was indeed the government's intention. Prior restraint, near impossible in the U.S., was now explicitly and imminently on the table in the UK. But my experience over WikiLeaksthe thumb drive and the First Amendment-had already prepared me for this moment. I explained to the man from Whitehall about the nature of international collaborations and the way in which, these days, media organizations could take advantage of the most permissive legal environments. Bluntly, we did not have to do our reporting from London. Already most of the NSA stories were being reported and edited out of New York. And had it occurred to him that Greenwald lived in Brazil?
The man was unmoved. And so one of the more bizarre moments in the Guardian's long history occurredwith two GCHQ security experts overseeing the destruction of hard drives in the Guardian's basement just to make sure there was nothing in the mangled bits of metal which could possibly be of any interest to passing Chinese agents. "We can call off the black helicopters," joked one as we swept up the remains of a MacBook Pro.

None of these tactics would appear to discourage the journalists who are being targeted. But the stories, taken together, represent a direct attack on news gathering. This should outrage every single journalist, and anyone who believes in freedom of expression.

[Magda Hassan]

Glenn Greenwald - Not British
David Miranda - Not British
Edward Snowden - Not British
Laura Poitras - Not British
NSA - Not British
NYT - Not British
Why does Britain think it any of their damn business what is in David Miranda's computer? Yet alone using the Terrorism Act for such a thing. Some thing its creator admits it was never intended for. They used the same ridiculous law against Iceland in their banking crisis too.

Greenwald denies Miranda had any password. And the UK have not admitted to decrypting any thing yet. If they had the password they'd have it all by now. What ever that means. And they have nothing of nothing. So the David Barret's article in the Telegraph is fed to him.

UK Asked New York Times To Destroy Edward Snowden Documents; NY Times Ignored Request

from the good-for-them dept

There's been some back and forth concerning the David Miranda legal fight today and it's getting fairly ridiculous. The UK government is making some extraordinary claims about Miranda and the encrypted information he was carrying. They claim that some of the information was potentially incredibly damaging to UK national security interests (the same rhetoric we always hear, but is rarely shown to be true) and they also claim that they found a piece of paper on Miranda that allowed them to "decrypt one file on his seized hard drive." Furthermore, they claim that Miranda (and Greenwald and Poitras) "demonstrated very poor judgment in their security arrangements with respect to the material," in order to suggest that it might easily fall into dangerous hands.

Of course, there are many reasons to suggest that this is all hogwash. The choice of wording from the UK government is pretty precise. Note that they don't actually claim they've unencrypted any of the Snowden files. They make two separate claims in succession: one is that there were 58,000 documents that Miranda had and then, separately, that he had a password that allowed them to get into a file on his drives, and then they use that to insist that there was poor security. But they don't reveal what that one file was, nor do they admit to having figured out what was actually on the drives. Glenn Greenwald says that it's a flat out lie that Miranda had a password on him that would allow anyone to decrypt the documents (suggesting any password he might have had on him was totally unrelated). Greenwald also mocks the idea that Poitras's security was "sloppy," since it appears that the UK hasn't yet been able to figure out what was actually on the hard drives.

However, the strongest response to all of this comes from The Guardian itself, who reveals that after the Prime Minister's office ordered them to destroy hard drives, the Guardian told the UK government that the NY Times and Pro Publica also had copies of all of the documents related to the UK spying by GCHQ... and the UK government didn't seem particularly concerned:

"The government wanted the judge to believe that they have at all times behaved with the utmost urgency because of a grave threat to national security represented by newspapers working responsibly on the Snowden documents and their implications for society," he said. "But for most of the time since early June little has happened. On July 22 the Guardian directed the government towards the New York Times and ProPublica, both of whom had secret material from GCHQ. It was more than three weeks before anyone contacted the NYT. No one has contacted Pro Publica, and there has been two weeks of further silence towards the NYT from the government. This five weeks in which nothing has happened tells a different story from the alarmist claims before the court. The government's behaviour does not match their rhetoric in trying to justify and exploit this dismaying blurring of terror and journalism."

This leads to an even more mystifying situation, in which (as noted above), weeks later, UK officials asked the NY Times to destroy the documents, and the NY Times basically ignored the request entirely:

The British government has asked the New York Times to destroy copies of documents leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden related to the operations of the U.S. spy agency and its British partner, Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), people familiar with the matter said.

The British request, made to Times executive editor Jill Abramson by a senior official at the British Embassy in Washington D.C., was greeted by Abramson with silence, according to the sources. British officials indicated they intended to follow up on their request later with the Times, but never did, one of the sources said.

Ah, freedom of the press. Either way, this suggests that the UK's arguments against Miranda are just misleading FUD designed to paper over the thuggish behavior of detaining Miranda in the first place.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/2013083...um=twitter R Miranda v Home Secretary Oliver Robbinss (PDF)
R Miranda v Home Secretary Oliver Robbinss (Text)

[Magda Hassan]

No intimidation here. Nothing to see. Very strange behaviour for something that involved no British people.

MPs set to investigate Guardian's involvement in Snowden leaks

Keith Vaz says home affairs committee to look at newspaper's activities as part of inquiry into counter-terrorism

• Rowena Mason and Patrick Wintour
  
  
• theguardian.com, Thursday 17 October 2013 05.31 AEST
  
• Jump to comments (396)
  

Keith Vaz, head of the Commons home affairs committee. Photograph: Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images

A powerful group of MPs will investigate the Guardian's publication of stories about mass surveillance based on leaks by US whistleblowerEdward Snowden, as part of a wider inquiry into counter-terrorism.
Keith Vaz, the Labour head of the Commons home affairs committee, said he would look into "elements of the Guardian's involvement in, and publication of, the Snowden leaks" hours after the prime minister suggested a select committee might look at the issue.
It had emerged the matter would be considered by Vaz's parliamentary committee after former Tory cabinet minister Liam Fox asked him to investigate what damage the Guardian may have caused to national security.
"I have received a letter from Liam Fox requesting that the home affairs select committee consider elements of the Guardian's involvement in, and publication of, the Snowden leaks," Vaz said.
"I will be writing to assure Dr Fox that the committee is currently conducting an inquiry into counter-terrorism and we will be looking at this matter as part of it."
A spokesman for Vaz could not confirm whether Alan Rusbridger, the Guardian editor-in-chief, would be called to give evidence, saying this would be a matter for all committee members to decide.





Link to video: Snowden leaks: David Cameron says MPs could investigate the GuardianEarlier in the day, Fox asked David Cameron for a "full and transparent assessment about the Guardian involvement in the Snowden affair" at prime minister's question time in the House of Commons.
The Conservative former defence secretary had argued that the Guardian had been guilty of double standards for exposing the scandal of phone hacking by newspapers and yet had gone on to publish secrets from the US National Security Agency taken by Snowden.
In response, Cameron encouraged investigation of the issues through parliamentary select committees. "The plain fact is that what has happened has damaged national security and in many ways the Guardian themselves admitted that when they agreed, when asked politely by my national security adviser and cabinet secretary to destroy the files they had, they went ahead and destroyed those files," he told MPs.
"So they know that what they're dealing with is dangerous for national security. I think it's up to select committees in this house if they want to examine this issue and make further recommendations."
The prime minister's spokesman refused to elaborate on what Cameron meant by the issue of the Guardian disclosures being examined by a select committee.
There are as many as four committees that might take up David Cameron's suggestion, including the culture select committee, the home affairs select committee, the defence select committee and the intelligence and security select committee.
The ISC largely meets in private but is due soon to meet the leaders of the spy agencies in public and it is certain that the issues raised by the Guardian, including the impact on national security, will be discussed.
Cameron did not directly respond to calls for the police to prosecute by the backbench Tory MP Julian Smith, who has secured a debate on the issue in Westminster Hall on Tuesday next week.
Julian Huppert, a Liberal Democrat MP and Tom Watson, a Labour MP who campaigned against phone hacking, are also planning to request a debate in the House of Commons on greater regulatory oversight of the security services.
A Guardian spokesman said: "The prime minister is wrong to say the Guardian destroyed computer files because we agreed our reporting was damaging. We destroyed the computers because the government said it would use the full force of the law to prevent a newspaper from publishing anything about the NSA or GCHQ.

"That is called 'prior restraint' and it is unthinkable in the US, where the New York Times and Washington Post have been widely applauded - along with the Guardian - for reporting on the Snowden files. That reporting has so far led to a Presidential review and three proposed bills before Congress."

[David Guyatt]

The name Keith Vaz has its origin in the word "Toady" I believe?

Suspension from House of Commons[edit]

In 2002, Vaz was suspended from the House of Commons for one month after a Committee on Standards and Privileges inquiry found that he had made false allegations against Eileen Eggington, a former policewoman. The committee concluded that "Mr Vaz recklessly made a damaging allegation against Miss Eggington to the Commissioner, which was not true, and which could have intimidated Miss Eggington or undermined her credibility".[SUP][19][/SUP]
Eileen Eggington, a retired police officer who had served 34 years in the Metropolitan Police, including a period as deputy head of Special Branch, wanted to help a friend, Mary Grestny, who had worked as personal assistant to Vaz's wife. After leaving the job in May 2000, Grestny dictated a seven-page statement about Mrs Vaz to Eggington in March 2001, who sent it to Elizabeth Filkin. Grestny's statement included allegations that Mr and Mrs Vaz had employed an illegal immigrant as their nanny and that they had been receiving gifts from Asian businessmen such as Hinduja brothers. The allegations were denied by Mr Vaz and the Committee found no evidence to support them.[SUP][19][/SUP]
In late 2001, Vaz complained to Leicestershire police that his mother had been upset by a telephone call from "a woman named Mrs Egginton", who claimed to be a police officer. The accusations led to Ms. Eggington being questioned by police.[SUP][20][/SUP] Vaz also wrote a letter of complaint to Elizabeth Filkin, but when she tried to make inquiries Vaz accused her of interfering with a police inquiry and threatened to report her to the Speaker of the House of Commons. Eggington denied that she had ever telephoned Vaz's mother and offered her home and mobile telephone records as evidence. The Commons committee decided that she was telling the truth. They added: "Mr Vaz recklessly made a damaging allegation against Miss Eggington, which was not true and which could have intimidated Miss Eggington and undermined her credibility."
A letter to Elizabeth Filkin from Detective Superintendent Nick Gargan made it plain that the police did not believe Vaz's mother ever received the phone call and the person who came closest to being prosecuted was not Eggington but Vaz. Gargan said that the police had considered a range of possible offences, including wasteful employment of the police, and an attempt to pervert the course of justice. Leicestershire police eventually decided not to prosecute. "We cannot rule out a tactical motivation for Mr Vaz's contact with Leicestershire Constabulary but the evidence does not support further investigation of any attempt to pervert the course of justice."[SUP][19][/SUP]
The complaints the committee upheld against Mr Vaz were:[SUP][21][/SUP]

• That he had given misleading information to the Standards and Privileges Committee and Elizabeth Filkin about his financial relationship to the Hinduja brothers.
  
• That he had failed to register his paid employment at the Leicester Law Centre when he first entered Parliament in 1987.
  
• That he had failed to register a donation from the Caparo group in 1993.
  

It was concluded that Vaz had "committed serious breaches of the Code of Conduct and showed contempt for the House" and it was recommended that he be suspended from the House of Commons for one month.[SUP][22][/SUP]
Vaz was represented by his solicitor Sir Geoffrey Bindman.[SUP][23]

From Wiki[/SUP]

[Magda Hassan]

Journalist Joshua Foust Outed As Government Contractor

seanbrady



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August 22, 2013 03:48 PM




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[TD="width: 100%"]Read More: government contractor, sam knight, conflict of interest, outing, defense contractor, joshua foust,accusation, federal government, united states department of defense
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If the ethics of journalists are to be examined as much as possible, it is only through self-policing. The long-running issue of conflict of interest, especially when writing about topics where one has prior work experience, is usually settled by disclosing the work you have done, and hoping that, through that acknowledgement, one's credibility will remain intact. However, as is evidenced today by Twitter's outing of national security journalist Joshua Foust as a contractor for the federal government, things can get pretty nasty when someone accuses another of being unethical.
The story begins with Sam Knight of Truthout and the Washington Monthly accusing Joshua Foust, who currently edits web publication Medium's State of Play blog, of conflict of interest stemming from his work as a Defense Department contractor.

Amazing how "journalist" @joshuafoust feels above ethics norms by consistently failing to disclose ties (past, for sure) to DOD contractors.
Sam Knight (@samknight1) August 22, 2013

While it is acceptable for Foust to work in the field or the DoD, industry practice (and federal law) dictates that any ties to an industry a journalist is reporting on must be disclosed to the public as an aside to any article written. Knight's tweet was then retweeted by influential journalist Glenn Greenwald, who has been in the news for other reasons partially related to this.
Before Foust got into it, Charles Johnson of popular blog Little Green Footballs immediately responded to the accusation by pointing to Foust's bio, which has a section explaining his government background:

@samknight1 @joshuafoust @mathewi Here you go. Try reading:http://t.co/CtQIFQuqZT
Charles Johnson (@Green_Footballs) August 22, 2013

Foust denied the accusations, as well as the accusation that he took money from the government, accusing Knight of libel in the process. However, Kade of Privacy SOS then responded with a more blatant accusation: That Foust was still active as a government contractor through consulting services. Proof? Foust's LinkedIn page showed he was available to work with "government entities:"

@joshuafoust @samknight1 but you say that you consult for the government on your LinkedIn page. pic.twitter.com/xwqTBSsllH
kade (@onekade) August 22, 2013

A firestorm erupted between Knight and Johnson, consequently, while Foust surreptitiously removed the "government entities" reference from the LinkedIn page, and stepped out of the conversation. However, a cached version of the page from August 5 proves that he plied his services to the federal government as a freelance consultant since the beginning of 2013. This does not necessarily mean he has actually worked with the federal government. However, both Knight and Kade have pushed Foust to explain what work he has done with the federal government, if any, and the latter has been unresponsive.
If Foust indeed accepted work from the federal government in recent months, that would be a serious breach of ethics, and a severe loss to his credibility, since he has refused to disclose his work previously. Foust could settle the matter by clarifying his recent freelance work, but whether he chooses to do so remains to be seen. We have reached out to Evan Williams, chief of Medium, for comment, and have yet to receive a response as of press time.
(Media sources: Google+: Sam Knight, Flickr: Joi Ito)


Carbonated.TV
http://www.carbonated.tv/news/journalist...contractor

[Carsten Wiethoff]

From http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/2...WQ20131028

Oct 28 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Monday his government was likely to act to stop newspapers publishing what he called damaging leaks from former U.S. intelligence operative Edward Snowden unless they began to behave more responsibly. "If they (newspapers) don't demonstrate some social responsibility it will be very difficult for government to stand back and not to act," Cameron told parliament, saying Britain's Guardian newspaper had "gone on" to print damaging material after initially agreeing to destroy other sensitive data.

Social responsibility? What does Cameron think the social responsibility of the media is, if not publishing information pointing to criminal and unconstitutional behaviour? Damaging material? That is certainly depending upon on which side of the law and constitution you stand...

[David Guyatt]

He's read his George Orwell, Carsten.

So he's using "double-speak".
He and his neighbour at No. 11 are both upper class Bullingdon Boy twat's, who've spent too much time sniffing their own waste products. ::cokesniff::

But outside of the little cloistered village of parliament and the intelligence services, no one's listening to him anyway. Thankfully.