Why The Intercept Really Closed the Snowden Archive, Barrett Brown


Please consider this a PSA; a friend had sent it to me, and as the original text was all in italics, I’d told him that I’d need to paste it all into a word document sans italics to see if I could make sense of it all.  And still there are swathes of it that are confusing to me in my  ignorance.  Given that the Ukrainian Presidential elections are on March 31, my mind is in Ukraine on that wild story I’m trying to write up/paste together.  And oh, it’s a very long piece.

From Barrett Brown, medium.com, March 27, 2019:

A tale in five leaked documents

Document One: Timeline written by Laura Poitras

On Wed. March 6, Betsy Reed and Jeremy asked to meet me to: “We want to explain how we’ve assessed our priorities in the course of the budget process, and made some restructuring decisions.” The meeting began with Jeremy asking me to agree to keep the conversation confidential. I say no, I would not agree to that, and requested they speak hypothetically, and not share any names. In this 2 hour tense meeting, it becomes clear they have decided to eliminate the research department. I object to this on the grounds Field of Vision is dependent of research department, and the Snowden archive security protocols are overseen by them.

Friday March 8, I send a one-sentence email saying that the elimination of the research department would jeopardize the security of the archive, and was therefore negligent. This prompts Glenn email and reprimand me for having “substantive discussions” about the archive without cc’ing him.

On Sunday March 10, I send attached email again objecting to eliminating the research department, arguing it is only 1.5% of the total budget of the non-profit. Throughout these conversations and emails exchanges, there was no mention of shutting down the archive. That was not on the table. That decision was made on either Monday March 11 or Tuesday March 12, again without my involvement or consent.

On Tuesday March 12, on a phone call with Glenn and the CFO, I am told that Glenn and Betsy had decided to shut down the archive because it was no longer of value to The Intercept. This is the first time I am heard about the decision. On the call, Glenn says we should not make this decision public because it would look bad for him and The Intercept. I objected to the decision. I am confident the decision to shut the archive was made to pave to fire/eliminate the research team.

On Wed March 13, I send a memo to the board of directors urging them to step in and save the archive. See attached. Hours later, CEO Bloom announces the layoffs in a staff email. I reply to Bloom, expressing my disgust with the layoffs and shutting down the archive. My email was leaked the press, which is why the public knows the archive is shut down.

On Thursday March 14, I call Edward Snowden. He had not been informed by Glenn or Betsy about their decision to shut down the archive. I apologize to him.

On Thursday March 14, The Intercept’s Union invite me to attend a staff meeting. The chilling effect from the layoffs is so bad they have to write down the questions to management, rather than speak them individually. I am barred from attending the meeting by the general counsel of First Look and The Intercept.

Document Two: Poorly-composed corporate email from First Look Media CEO Michael Bloom, 3/13

Team — 
I am writing to let you know about some important changes taking place today, which unfortunately results in our parting ways with some of our talented colleagues, representing 4% of our staff across FLM. We don’t take these decisions lightly, but as an important step to better align ourselves operationally for the future. Still, it impacts members of the First Look Media family, and that is hard. We all know each other, work shoulder to shoulder, and are dedicated to the same ideals. To those leaving, it is even harder. You will be greatly missed and we thank you for all your hard work and many contributions.

As part of this re-organization, we will continue to invest significantly in all key

areas across the company and focus sharply on our world-class journalism, supporting creators, filmmakers, & storytellers, growing our audiences, expanding into new platforms, and producing even more premium programming. Each corner of FLM is well positioned for its next phase of growth with smart investments and strategies.

I’m incredibly proud of what we have accomplished over the last few years, but even more excited about our road ahead. We’ll be having a town hall later this month where we can talk more about our future plans.

As always, I remain grateful for your dedication to our company and our mission.

~ Michael

Document Three: Laura Poitras reply, 3/13

Michael, As I have communicated to you and Betsy, I am sickened by your decision to eliminate the research team, which has been the beating heart of the newsroom since First Look Media was founded, and has overseen the protection of the Snowden archive. 

I am also sickened by your joint decision to shut down the Snowden archive, which I was informed of only yesterday — a decision made without consulting me or the board of directors. Your email’s attempt to paper over these firings is not appropriate when the company is presented with such devastating news.

~ Laura

Document Four: Poitras’ memo to board of directors

Date: March 13, 2019 Regarding: The Intercept’s Decision to Close Snowden Archive To: Board of Directors, First Look Media From: Laura Poitras 
 
 I believe the Board should be consulted about The Intercept’s decision to shut down access to the Snowden archive and eliminate the trusted research team overseeing its security. I was not consulted about this decision, and I was just told that the Board was also not consulted. I learned of this decision yesterday, March 12, 2019, and I have requested that the board be informed. 
 
I strongly object to the decision. The cost to maintain access and the research staff who oversee security and checks and balances, is roughly $400,000, or 1.5% of FLMW’s 2019 budget. Given the ongoing historical value of the archive, and the company’s enormous investment to date, shutting down access without a meaningful review process involving all stakeholders, including the Board and myself, is staggering and violates the core principles upon which the company was founded. 
 
While it is true the archive can no longer be reported on as “news,” it remains the most significant historical archive documenting the rise of the surveillance state in the twenty first century. How a news organization would take such care to secure this archive, and then walk away from that knowledge and its investment without a proper review involving the board and all stakeholders, defies my understanding. I have advocated for years that we transition our approach to long-form books and historical research, formats that would maximize the historical impact of the archive not driven by the news cycle. Sadly, discussions like that are not happening because we didn’t even bother to talk about the possibilities before a few stakeholders decided they want to shut it down and eliminate the key staff who have vigilantly protected it. 
 
This decision and the way it was handled would be a disservice to our source, the risks we’ve all taken, and most importantly, to the public for whom Edward Snowden blew the whistle. 
 I request that the Board intervene and stop any action until a proper review with all stakeholders is convened.

Document Five: My email to First Look and Intercept staff and execs (Barrett Brown’s)

Team-

Michael Bloom here! Excelsior!

I’m writing to let you know about some exciting and dynamic but also perhaps sad-in-a-way restructuring measures that we’ve settled on after a great deal of thought and paint huffing. Due to various mysterious circumstances that may or may not bear any degree of scrutiny, we’ll be:

– laying off 75 percent of our staff, or “family”, as I like to think of some of you

– closing down the Snowden archive in a manner so irregular that even the Daily Beast will notice – putting Greenwald in charge of explaining this to the public, preferably over Twitter

– bringing John Cook back on as editor so that we can win a bet with Satan

Just kidding! It’s only me, Barrett Brown; I used to write that column for Intercept about comical prison stuff, and then later I got mad and quit, as is my custom.

I’ve been told about some of the things that have gone down up there in recent days, and it just so happens that I have a great deal invested in both the underlying and specific issues involved. Here’s a fun example:

  1. I explicitly warned about the contracting firm Archimedes in 2011, in an article on the Romas/COIN capability for The Guardian and a more extensive report on Echelon2.org, the website on which my org Project PM compiled our research. The longer report can be found at http://wiki.project-pm.org/wiki/Romas/COIN and the HBGary emails from which this largely derives may be found at Emma Best’s site, or Wikileaks if you’re feeling nostalgic, but at any rate key portions are quoted or summarized there. Romas was a data mining, surveillance, and propaganda apparatus of rather impressive complexity, operated for an unknown U.S. government client by Northrop.
  2. Between February of 2011, when a hack by some of my old acquaintances revealed Glenn had been among those targeted by the rather baroque Team Themis consortium (Palantir, HBGary, Endgame Systems, Berico), and June 2012, I occasionally discussed with Glenn other firms and technologies that had been discovered in the HBGary emails stolen by Anonymous and supplemented by tax filings, patents, recorded phone calls I made to execs at TASC, Booz Allen Hamilton, Palantir, etc. In April of 2012, I sent him a Guardian piece I’d written that provided an update of relevance to him (the Palantir employee the firm blamed as solely responsible for the firm’s role in targeting Glenn and others, Matthew Steckman, and thereafter put “on leave” or “suspension” pending an “investigation”, had been rehired; later, in prison, I would learn that he had since been promoted; a few weeks ago I learned he was now at another firm, Anduril, made up largely of ex-Palantir employees and involved mostly in building AI for drones that catch immigrants). The article also made one more pass at trying to get people interested in “persona management”, which had been discovered by a Daily Kos user on Feb 16, picked up via our various Anonymous IRC networks and Twitter accounts immediately thereafter, fleshed out a bit by Raw Story on Feb 17 (which made clear that this was a crowd-sourced discovery, along with much of what had been determined about the program thus far, and then, uh, discovered again by The Guardian on March 17 (“Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media”). The two reporters at Guardian made no mention of the Daily Kos fellow, or Raw Story, or any of the individuals who had been putting out material on this since, in public, with the intent of bringing it to widespread attention, and who were indeed already under investigation by FBI and various European agencies (me, Jake Davis/Topiary, and a Norwegian 16-year-old called Whitekidney). They did discover (I think) that the firm that won this contract for CENTCOM — which involves deploying fake online people with highly developed backgrounds, software that allows a single person to easily control ten such avatars (usually called personas back then) — was Ntrepid, but the two writers couldn’t figure out They couldn’t figure it out because they were two writers, and somewhat shabby ones. They weren’t a crowd-sourced research network, as Project PM now was; no single journalist is. Two journalists aren’t, either, even with an editor thrown in. I know that many in the press believe this is adequate. This would not even be true were the press a meritocracy.

I ended my last email reply to Greenwald thus:

“Glad to hear it. If you have any questions about any of these things, which I’ve been looking into with some journalists and other assorted contacts via my little group Project PM since last year, don’t hesitate to ask. You can also see the wiki we’ve set up to disseminate some of what’s been learned…

Please look into persona management in particular. It’s something that needs  to be brought to general attention at some point, and I’m going to have a difficult time haranguing people about the issue from prison.”

A month prior, I’d been raided by the FBI. The search warrant was published by Michael Hastings on Buzzfeed around that time, noting what was listed as subjects of interest: the Themis firms HBGary and Endgame Systems; Project PM, the Echelon2.org website; Anonymous.

Glenn never replied.

Thereafter I discovered through yet another public email leak that HBGary had hired a woman named Jennifer Emick to find something to “get [me] picked up on” due to my role in at a time when she was also serving as a compensated informant for the FBI, and that the HBGary exec she was dealing with, Jim Butterworth, had had his ex-military buddy post pictures of my house, and my address, to the attention of the Zeta cartel at a time when outlets across North America were speculating as to whether they might successfully kill me over an Anonymous Iberoamerica operation that John Cook and Adrian Chen would routinely accuse me of somehow making up, despite knowing full well where the story was coming from (and despite Chen admitting, in the days after my raid, that he didn’t actually believe it, which I recorded and made public, apparently to no purpose:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDwzlQ_EySc)

  1. I was charged in late 2011 with “Aggravated Identify Theft”, and thus faced a 22 year minimum mandatory sentence for linking to documents that had been hacked from Stratfor — hacked with the full knowledge and encouragement of FBI, who had turned Anonymous hacker Hector “Sabu” Monsegur a few months prior and gave him a monitored laptop. There was a widespread outcry, given the implications for other journalists, and indeed anyone else who deals with data. Among those who stayed silent was John Cook. Two years later, when the linking charges were dropped, and the DOJ had me plea instead to accessory after the fact for calling Stratfor’s CEO and offering to redact any sensitive info in the emails stolen by Anonymous and its silent partner the FBI, John remained silent. Wired’s Quinn Norton actually testified at my defense that she had linked to the same document I had without being prosecuted for any of it — and was threatened with prosecution right then and there at the bench conference. Still John kept quiet about that time Gawker offered Sabu money and a Gawkernet filesharing account in exchange for hacked emails stolen from another news outlet.

The incident was documented by the FBI itself through Sabu’s bureau-issued laptop and included in Jeremy Hammond’s case discovery, and made public in late 2014 via this article:

https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/adrian-chen-gawker-fbi-sabu-news-of-the-world-nato-emails/

“I know nothing of this,” Cook replied upon being asked about the transcripts, which show Adrian Chen making the offer and confirming he had approval from editors. It’s certainly possible that Cook really wasn’t aware that the guy he routinely worked with on stories about Anonymous, Sabu, and the other celebrity hackers involved in this affair had been negotiating with those same people to buy emails stolen from Rupert Murdoch and News of the World, a cache that would have obviously yielded extraordinary stories had it actually existed, rather than being a ploy by which to fuck with Chen. Even if we pretend he didn’t know back then, he certainly knew after the reporters sent him the transcripts and asked him for a comment in late 2014, two months before the sentencing hearing where a judge handed down to me additional prison time and $800,000 in restitution, and which was of course covered by The Intercept, a publication Cook now edited. This was not even the worst of Cook’s sins of which I am aware; that would be allowing Chen to run the 2013 article in which he mocks a legal fundraiser for myself and Jeremy Hammond, repeats the claim that I concocted some sort of false flag drug war in Mexico to promote a book I supposedly had coming out, and attacks Project PM’s research as “inscrutable”.

Three years remained before the 2016 election, decided by small majorities in a few states, and undermined in Trump’s favor by Cambridge Analytica, Palantir, and Archimedes using the same data mining/output methods Archimedes employed in Romas/COIN, which one could read about solely on Project PM’s website, the chief subject of the March 2012 FBI raid. I’d mentioned some of these same firms in another Guardian article I’d written from prison shortly after the Snowden revelations; the DOJ sought and obtained a gag order on the grounds that the article had been “critical of the government”, and also because I’d been speaking by phone to various journalists, all of whom they listed in the gag order hearing. Among them was my old friend Michael Hastings, who died not long afterwards.

  1. I’ll get to the incident in which Rodger Hodge and Betsy Reed decided that Romas/COIN couldn’t be discussed in the last column I wrote for The Intercept before my release from prison in another, more public venue, where it will make more sense to publish the entirety of the astonishing correspondence in which they explain to me that we can’t risk being sued by Booz Allen Hamilton, Apple, or Google “based on the unsubstantiated claims in the emails”. They hadn’t yet seen the emails, but then they were editors, and made all things their province: “These guys are obviously bragging and trying to hustle business.” This was less obvious to me, since the emails in question did not consist of the contractors claiming to potential business partners that they were meeting with Apple and Google and were thus fine, up-and-coming fellows who ought to be hired; rather they consisted of correspondence with Apple’s Andy Kemp and Google’s Mike Geldner, as well as meeting schedules with both. In a more perfect world, it would have been adequate for me to point this out, as I did, and to arrange for the emails in question to be sent to Hodge, as I also did. In an even more perfect world, this shit would have been addressed by Glenn in 2011, when I sent him all of this information. In this world, it makes more sense to just publish those emails in another, more public venue, attach the entirety of the contents to this message, and CC a couple of the contractors who attended those meetings, as nothing else seems to have worked.

In conclusion, neither Greenwald nor Reed are competent to decide anything at all about how these documents should be handled, or how The Intercept should be allocating its increasingly publicly-funded resources. This would have been harder to write down and send to 50 of their colleagues previously, before I learned about the specific impulses that lead to this decision, or had I not won the outlet their first National Magazine Award from a fucking segregation cell during a prison term that stemmed from my attempts to stop firms like Palantir from going after people like Glenn, or had Glenn not waited until public perception had turned back in my favor before writing a single word about what I was doing in prison to begin with, or did I not have obligations to the other activists who are still dealing with the consequences of our efforts back then, or had Aaron Swartz not spent a portion of his last months alive helping us to research and publicize the persona management capability that I would meanwhile ask Glenn to bring to wider attention lest it be forgotten in my inevitable prison term — which of course it was, to such an extent that it has now been discovered again by NYT and New Yorker in the form of Psy-Group, now reported to have used its “avatars” to influence the 2016 election for Trump, even after the campaign declined to pay for the service. It will be discovered again by some other name in four or five years. Or perhaps not.

The worst part is that I haven’t even gotten to the worst part, and won’t for a while. Perhaps this will suffice for now.

Anyone else who is inclined to talk about the circumstances surrounding the closure of the Snowden archive may send me an email at this address, or on Wire at @BarrettBrown33. If you just want to send something anonymously via means of your choice, to be relayed to someone I believe many of you have reason to trust and respect, that can also be arranged.

Good luck to the majority of you who are trying to do the correct thing in ambiguous circumstances.

wd here: As to Laura Poitras's statement here: 'While it is true the archive can no longer be reported on as “news,”...etc., there sure may be a hella lot of newsworthy docs still in the archive that haven't seen the light of day.

Two hours before he'd released the docs, he'd Tweeted this:

Even earlier Tweets:
‏@BarrettBrown ‘Trying to decide between publishing documents showing @ggreenwald & Co lied about why @Snowden archive closed and playing Dark Souls on my Switch.’

And this even earlier seriously weird thread? (click for stand-alone)

(cross-posted from Café Babylon)

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Anja Geitz's picture

Very troubling. As are journalists behind the scenes trying to alert the public about this and being jailed for it.

Thanks for the info Wendy.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

dervish's picture

Will keep an eye on this.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

I cannot say that I tried to follow every word, especially because much of what Brown wrote assumes some prior knowledge.

Sadly to me, as a (former?) admirer of Greenwald, it all seems to boil down to

Power Money tends to corrupt, and absolute power money corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.

(Sincerest apologies owed the late George Acton for corrupting his incorruptible proclamation about corruption. On the other hand, Lord Acton seems to have equated "great" with "powerful," so flog him, too.)

While the betrayal of Snowden and Assange, two men who still seem to me to be great, made me wince with pain, this may, for me, "say it all:"

On the call, Glenn says we should not make this decision public because it would look bad for him and The Intercept.

Lately, everything seems to have so jumped so incredibly high over the shark that I can barely formulate a thought without engaging in the No True Scotsman fallacy, as I do here, 1.5 times: What true journalist asks his or her fellow journalists to keep an actual action secret on the ground it would make those who took the action look bad, especially when the alleged journalist making the request seeks thereby to protect his or her own image and that of his or her source of income?

Also from the 1st Baron Acton:

Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity.

Letter (23 January 1861), published in Lord Acton and his Circle (1906) by Abbot Gasquet, Letter 74

I never developed the same kind, or degree, of admiration for Greenwald as I did for Snowden or Assange, inasmuch as Greenwald never took the kind, or degree, of risk that Snowden or Assange took nor made the kind, or degree, of sacrifice that Snowden or Assange had to make, just not to be hauled before some kangaroo court bent on jailing him. However, Greenwald did seem at least bold and principled enough to speak truth that portrayed the establishment in a way other than the establishment wished; and that ain't nothing among "journalists" or even "commentators" anymore. And here he's asking journalists to keep silent in order to protect his image and that of his cash cow:

Truth is, I've always been selling out. The difference is that in the past, I looked like I had integrity because there were no buyers.

Tomlin, Lily, Modern Scream (1975)

Meanwhile, I've been fooled again! More of Tomlin's crackin' "wisedom:"

No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up.

[video:https://youtu.be/rY0WxgSXdEE?t=2]

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Anja Geitz's picture

@HenryAWallace

I'm still a little hazy. The ramifications of "persona management" I understand. I also understand why people in charge of that would want the info suppressed. I also understand why the story about the people who suppressed that would want to that story to be suppressed. What I'm not getting is what, if anything, that has to do with the closing of the archives?

Am I missing something here?

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

Mark from Queens's picture

The article also made one more pass at trying to get people interested in “persona management”, which had been discovered by a Daily Kos user on Feb 16, picked up via our various Anonymous IRC networks and Twitter accounts immediately thereafter, fleshed out a bit by Raw Story on Feb 17 (which made clear that this was a crowd-sourced discovery, along with much of what had been determined about the program thus far, and then, uh, discovered again by The Guardian on March 17 (“Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media”). The two reporters at Guardian made no mention of the Daily Kos fellow, or Raw Story, or any of the individuals who had been putting out material on this since, in public, with the intent of bringing it to widespread attention, and who were indeed already under investigation by FBI and various European agencies (me, Jake Davis/Topiary, and a Norwegian 16-year-old called Whitekidney). They did discover (I think) that the firm that won this contract for CENTCOM — which involves deploying fake online people with highly developed backgrounds, software that allows a single person to easily control ten such avatars (usually called personas back then) — was Ntrepid, but the two writers couldn’t figure out They couldn’t figure it out because they were two writers, and somewhat shabby ones.

Don't have free time now to ruminate on all of this but thought I'd put it here.

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"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

Anja Geitz's picture

@Mark from Queens

Any speculation about who???

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

@Anja Geitz

Here's the link:

Persona Management, Misinformation Artists, And Propaganda in 2013

Ray Pensador
Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)
Daily Kos
Saturday December 14, 2013 · 11:57 PM EST

On the piece highlighted by the author of this C99P post, I'm still wondering when we'll learn the actual "reasons" "Why The Intercept Really Closed the Snowden Archive." Don't get me wrong; this is a great story. But, we still do not know the reasons, "Why The Intercept Really Closed the Snowden Archive."

Now, it appears that Barrett Brown (who IS one of my heroes, as far as journalism's concerned) is withholding information, per a couple of comments in this post's content. But, now I'm hooked on the story. Just awaiting the proverbial hook, however (assuming there is one). Because this is all very inconclusive, the way things stand, in terms of what we actually know, as of this writing.

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"Freedom is something that dies unless it's used." --Hunter S. Thompson

dance you monster's picture

@bobswern

My guess is it's this one:

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2011/2/16/945768/-

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@dance you monster

Very much appreciated! Reading it just reminds me of how far down the rabbit hole DKOS as gone over the past 8-10 years!

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"Freedom is something that dies unless it's used." --Hunter S. Thompson

@bobswern in my diary Confessions of an Internet Warrior.

I called it the Davy Crockett technique. It sees widespread use on DailyKos.

Exposing it there got me bojo'd at least twice.

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@Battle of Blair Mountain

I just didn't know that these methodologies were formalized into some sort of naming convention. Although I was quite aware (for many decades, I might add) that our government gets into the act on a covert basis. I've studied this at length for most of my adult life. And, have also been on the receiving end of it due to starting/owning a daily publication at a college that's well-known for being a breeding ground for the U.S. State Dept., and our nation's intelligence services.

[One day I'll write about a breaking news story I published at college concerning a press-embargoed campus visit by none other than Imelda Marcos. She was awarding a $1,000,000 gift to one of my university's graduate schools, and there was a press blackout of her visit, up until the night prior to the event. We were publishing a front-page news story about it, the night before (essentially breaking the press embargo, which the Associated Press also did around the same time as us). And, all of the sudden, my phone started ringing...virtually immediately...as the article was still in its layout phase in the office...and I'll leave it at that...for now; other than to say: 1.) Those phone calls taught me more about "U.S. politics," that evening, than I learned in any poli-sci class I ever had. Meanwhile...2.) the national tv news shows were covered with news about the event the next evening, complete with video of college protestors pelting rocks at her limousine...3.) A year (or two, or three years) later, while in the middle of doing media for a political campaign, I was casually introduced to John Rendon...]

The stuff that happened over at DKos, etc., etc., is typical of hardcore, government-pwned political blogs, with or without them being originated in a country that spends more than $5 billion per year of its massive, annual defense/intelligence budgets on "media and communications." I wrote about highly-documented FBI/NSA surveillance of blogs (including Daily Kos), in the course of my blogging there, many times!

It was to the point at DKos (back in 2013-2014, when the Snowden story was breaking), where I recall one of the people in the community brought in a brother-in-law (or some close relative), to actually participate in a blog, or two, about what the FBI was doing online!

But, I never read the illuminating content that you're (linking to) referencing, until tonight. That being said, I have copied it down, and will include it in my blogging reference files.

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"Freedom is something that dies unless it's used." --Hunter S. Thompson

@dance you monster

...that covered stories like this, such as former Kossacks: Ray Pensador, Happy Rockefeller and many others (yours truly and many others here, included) were, ultimately, bojo'ed.

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"Freedom is something that dies unless it's used." --Hunter S. Thompson

snoopydawg's picture

@dance you monster

actually it has been ramped up big time since Trump won and I doubt many people have caught on to it. Someone here did last year when they asked why they were seeing new names on DK only to see that they have been long time members.

‬lock those accounts down and link these accounts to a selected‭ ‬#‭ ‬of previously created social media accounts,‭ ‬automatically pre-aging the real accounts.

I don't know about you, but this concerns me greatly. It goes far beyond the mere ability for a government stooge, corporation or PR firm to hire people to post on sites like this one. They are talking about creating the illusion of consensus. And consensus is a powerful persuader. What has more effect, one guy saying BP is not at fault? Or 20 people saying it? For the weak minded, the number can make all the difference.

I joined DK in 2005 and even after joining this site I still read DK daily and I noticed after all the Correct the Record trolls joined the site there were new names popping up only to have complete mojo and had been members of the site for years. But looking into their comment histories there wasn't much there there. Not many of the new names had written diaries there before. Not unusual unless you look at it as a group. Obviously Markos has to be in on the scam. Not long after Obama became president Kos joined with Hillary's Pac America something.... then a few years later we got the ides of March and the rest is history.

I hope people are understanding what I am saying here. I'm not very coherent in the am's.

Thanks DYM for linking that post.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

wendy davis's picture

@bobswern

in to brown's piece at medium (linked). i'm 99% sure i've copy/pasted it all except the (at the time) one comment that included an image of a tarot card burning tower.

but yes: he said above:

"The worst part is that I haven’t even gotten to the worst part, and won’t for a while. Perhaps this will suffice for now.

Anyone else who is inclined to talk about the circumstances surrounding the closure of the Snowden archive may send me an email at this address, or on Wire at @BarrettBrown33. If you just want to send something anonymously via means of your choice, to be relayed to someone I believe many of you have reason to trust and respect, that can also be arranged."

any of you can contact him, i expect, or even watch the video of his speech at niagra U in which he says he explains 'how these people failed you'.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

@wendy davis

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
wendy davis's picture

@Pluto's Republic

but of course i'd forgotten to bring the youtube. and iirc, i'd suggested watching barrett's twit account for more, but i've found these fwiw:

on edit: i'm losing it; the video was available in the tweet in the OP. but ask me anything about the ukrainian elections. on sunday. NO, not that one! and our new neighbors all have dirt bike fever, 2 adults, 2 chirren. how to turn those sounds Vroom vroom farting sounds into...what, babbling brooks? (transmute poison into medicine...)

@TimothyS Mar 23 ‘About to drop a long and deep investigative story about everybody's favorite Silicon Valley billionaire. Probably Monday. #FollowTheMoney
(tim shorrock) gotta be Pierre, no?)

rick sterling said he'll interview brown soon, but i cannae find it again.

[video:https://youtu.be/ASuxis-Wdwc]

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Pluto's Republic's picture

@wendy davis

...in a statement from Barret Brown:

Three years remained before the 2016 election, decided by small majorities in a few states, and undermined in Trump’s favor by Cambridge Analytica, Palantir, and Archimedes using the same data mining/output methods Archimedes employed in Romas/COIN, which one could read about solely on Project PM’s website, the chief subject of the March 2012 FBI raid.

I am much relieved for the confirmation that Cambridge Analytica won the election for Trump. For several months during the 2016 election, I joined a project where I read and parsed Trump's rally speeches. I saw something very curious. People who heard the speeches came away with exactly what they wanted to hear and they did not hear what they didn't want to hear. For example, some heard that Trump was going to support national health care, which to them was a very desirable thing. Others heard he was going to get rid of Obamacare and get the government out of health care. Also positive. Some heard that he was going to end expensive foreign wars, make other nations like Israel pay for US participation, up front, and make friends with our former enemies. Others only heard that he was going to end ISIS, first thing and make the military strong again. Many heard Trump say he was going to bring foreign-located factories back to the US and bloc all imports from them until they returned. And Make America Great Again was tagged to everyone's pet peeves, from NATO to the UN.

Rural America with their AM radio monopolies was captured. Rural Democrats found a possible path forward in Trump. Rural Republicans had not heard the same promises, but they heard aggression and dogwhistles and other code that electrified them. If the Democrats had heard that, they ignored it. They were already angry at the betrayal of the Democratic Party and Hillary became the target.

There was something in the way he used certain words and the way he pulled in current events, the way he could push one message, then build the opposite message on top of it. Cambridge Analytica was data-mining facebook and using AI algorithms to write Trump's speeches. Notice that neither party is going after Fusion GPS or Cambridge Analytics in their rage over the Manufactured Distraction: Russia. The propaganda-spawned, evidence-free American delusion. The propaganda was pushed so hard that Russia-phobia will last another 50 years and will continue to polarize the nation with no further effort required. The Deep State has made chumps out of everyone, but especially politicians. The MIC is in the driver's seat for the rest of our lives. Federal elections are a distraction. People fantasize they are part of a political process. It's relatively harmless.

I recalled that Obama, during his 2008 campaign, also had people hearing two opposing messages. He had the knack of leaving conclusions unspoken so people filled them in with their own conclusions and attributed them to Obama. Trump had that same gift. Partial sentences, the strange segue, the unfinished thought.

Anyway, Cambridge Analytica won that election for Trump. And another happy happenstance: In the final months of the 2016, Hillary Clinton refused to leave her home, except for the scheduled debates and a handful of Big-Donor fundraisers. By September, insider panic had set in, and Trump became the predicted winner in several circles. There was no collusion between Russia and Trump — yet Democrats will continue their hunt for evidence they never find. And America will continue to rampage across the world committing war crimes — the one impeachable crime that Trump is guilty of.

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The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
wendy davis's picture

@Pluto's Republic

understanding the implications, as well as grokking all the tech data mining firms. and i do remember your having said how many Trump speeches you'd watched (i've never watched one, iirc), and telling us what you've seen. the part/s about kinda layering his messages with opposites is especially fascinating...so that different peeps would hear what they wanted (needed?) to take away with them.

and no, i hadn't noticed this: "Notice that neither party is going after Fusion GPS or Cambridge Analytics in their rage over the Manufactured Distraction: Russia." although anon dumped round 7 of Integrity Initiative docs the other day, and i'd peeked into craig murray's site...but he's pretty busy w/ outrage over the chagos island and crazy brexit stories.

i couldn't agree more with you that federal elections are a distraction (pretense of democracy), and that as far as obomba speeches...people heard what they wanted to hear.

as far as DT and impeachable war crimes, yes, perhaps, but what modern president didn't commit the same? i've been reading a bit about 20 year-anniversary of clinton's bombing of yugoslavia, and i've been blown away about what i'd never known. and that milosevic was cleared of war crimes...after he died in prison.

i hope it's okay to stick all this here in my reply to you, but i really need to get back to ukraine soon (and home chores), and i dunno if these elements are part of b. brown's thesis or tangential, but given this part of one poitras email (and assuming that it's genuine:

"On Tuesday March 12, on a phone call with Glenn and the CFO, I am told that Glenn and Betsy had decided to shut down the archive because it was no longer of value to The Intercept"

...i went back to the mid-march coverage of ‘shutting down the archive’, the daily beast:

“But in an email to staff Wednesday evening, First Look CEO Michael Bloom said that as other major news outlets had “ceased reporting on it years ago,” The Intercept had decided to “focus on other editorial priorities” after expending five years combing through the archive.

He added: “It is our hope that Glenn and Laura are able to find a new partner—such as an academic institution or research facility—that will continue to report on and publish the documents in the archive consistent with the public interest.”

(w/ the long list of caveats)

from RT:
“First Look Media, the parent company of the Intercept, announced it will shut access to the archive of documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden to cut costs as it plans to layoff 4 percent of staff.”

fie, the charles davis tweet won't embed, but he'd written that just glen's salary was $400 grand.

but myownself, brown having LOLed this non-disclosure agreement is gold, and it even looks like an easy pdf to read, and of course the first page can schmooze one into believing the intercept cared about publishing 'military truth', and of course everything had to be vetted w/ the military, cia, etc. in the nsa disclosures at the intercept.

but protecting the innocents of the us military bombers and 'other innocents' were the huge reasons they hated wikileaks as assange finally named 'afghanistan' and drone virtual pilots. and as i remember it, they weren't so happy w/ the publications of the two CIA vaults, either.

that chelsea manning is still in prison for her failure to testify to the GJ is bringing speculation that the non-collusion results of the mueller investigation aren't what they're seeking from her, but something else. unless, of course, they're just enjoying having her in solitary again. i'd thought i'd ind it at wsws again, but this is from yesterday, and may not contain that theory, but goddam them all.

excerpts from after the cover page showing: ‘Read the Non-Disclosure Agreement used to protect the Snowden Archive' above, emma best

1. Collaboration and Publication.
You agree to collaborate on reporting news stories on concerning national security and
government surveillance, based in part on documents provided to Glenn Greenwald and
Laura Poitras by Edward Snowden. Each party will prepare and publish, disseminate,
broadcast, or air (“publish”) its own Stories based on the reporting collaboration. Each
party will (a) provide a copy of each Story to the other party in advance of publication and (b) coordinate the publication schedule for each such Story. First Look shall have final approval over what Confidential Information may be published, used, disclosed, divulged,
transmitted, conveyed, transferred or otherwise communicated in Your reporting.
You
agree to disclose to First Look the subject of the Story or Stories you propose to report
based on the Confidential Information and You agree not to publish such Story without
First Look’s permission.

(c) You acknowledge that all documents or other records containing or referring to
Confidential Information that are prepared by You or provided to You by First Look, or that otherwise come into Your possession in connection with this Agreement are and shall remain the property of First Look. You agree that You will safeguard with the highest standard of care any such Confidential Information while it is in Your custody or control. Upon the request of First Look at any time, You shall immediately deliver to First Look any devices, records, data, notes, reports, correspondence, or materials of any kind containing or referring to Confidential Information'

who owns First Look Media? some billionaire or other whose financial dealings and investments the fearless investigative reporter GG had never inquired about?

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The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@Pluto's Republic

The MIC is in the driver's seat for the rest of our lives.

WE CANNOT, CANNOT, CANNOT ACCEPT THAT.

We NEED Nuremberg 2: Electric (Chair) Boogaloo.

There is already an emergent global impetus for it, too - and with the world's DOCTORS at the heart of it, it isn't exactly lacking in strength, constitution, intelligence, or charisma:

https://newmatilda.com/2018/04/19/sick-dying-part-1-health-community-fai...

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In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

wendy davis's picture

one-track mind (just now in ukraine); i'll try to respond later if i can.

in it's any help at all, i did go and dig up the guardian piece barret's referenced earlier (or i hope so): ‘Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media; Military's 'sock puppet' software creates fake online identities to spread pro-American propaganda
Jeff Jarvis: Washington shows the morals of a clumsy spammer

myself, i've long known GG as a serial liar/obfuscator/misdirectionist. as far as brown and assange, i do have a vague memory of his bad blood/trashing of assange on something i'd written up. wish i could remember more. but you might look for more on BB's twit account; i looked at GG's, all about the Intercept's new series on animal rights and pet shelters, save for this *very good info* retweet from jen robinson:

by the by, iirc, it was elizabeth vos who'd featured the weird rendition jets going into and out of heathrow creepy stuff. so good to know he's still in the embassy for now.

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wendy davis's picture

@wendy davis

i remember now...brilliant of me, no? ‘Anonymous’ Barrett Brown Responds to the Julian Assange Situation; The work WikiLeaks does is important to the world, and needless to say, we hope it continues. However, it will take some time for them to build back the trust of a large portion of their following, who will now be watching Assange’s actions intently.

it’s the robert mackey hit piece on assange that others have debunked: the wikileaks account is run by the team, and iirc, caitlin johnstone said assange was even incommunicado at the time.

but it leads to ‘Julian Assange’s Hatred of Hillary Clinton Was No Secret. His Advice to Donald Trump Was.’, nov. 15, 2017, the intercept

GG’s tweet is fooking illuminating as well. he loathes assange, as do most fearless journalists at the intercept according to their exposés of him (one is n. klein and GG, really).

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Pluto's Republic's picture

@wendy davis

That's my limit.

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The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
wendy davis's picture

@Pluto's Republic

legal defense after burning her!/s gawd's blood, wasn't she sentenced to five years in prison? one of the named reasons for throwing WikiLeaks out of the freedom of the press foundation (which org accepted and anonymized contributions) was they were sooooo busy creating 'secure drop' (wasn't it based on aaron schwartz's (RIPower) work?). did winner use that 'vehicle' to pass them her whistleblower document?

good limit, although mine came much earlier because: assange and 'time to do other things than the snowden docs'. but if it's true (via poitras) that snowden hadn't been consulted, whoa, nellie; another burn.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

@wendy davis

The Reality Winner firestorm and her arrest has spawned a "war" of the "Words".

Now famous leaker Julian Assange is going after whoever it was that got ahold of some classified documents that started the whole mess.

He thinks the "journalsit" involved is a screaming menace !!

What's this all about ? Something smells of psyops. But who's psyops is it ?

.

WikiLeaks Declares War on The Intercept

The FBI says a reporter led them to an NSA leaker. Julian Assange says that person, whom he suspects is an Intercept reporter, is a "menace" to sources, journalists, and democracy.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told The Daily Beast he holds reporters—not just the Trump administration—responsible for the arrest of a U.S. intelligence contractor charged with leaking classified information.

On Monday, the Justice Department said Reality Winner, a 25-year-old National Security Agency contractor, sent top secret information to a news outlet. The announcement came shortly after The Intercept published a series of NSA documents claiming that Russian hackers targeted a voting-software supplier and local election officials just prior to Election Day.

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread1174112/pg1

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
wendy davis's picture

@Pluto's Republic

if that mess. i even dutifully followed all (iirc) the internal links of the daily beast's et found nothing directly tied to assanage himself. they just quoted him, and did show the wikileaks tweet offering a reward, etc., which had a boatload of subtweeets, one indicting micah lee for his 'failure to protect'. but then the same micah lee had done a horrendous hit on assange himself.

but was that a concocted psyop document about 'russian interference'? baffling stuff, pluto.

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The Liberal Moonbat's picture

Can someone give me the "TL;DR" version (much as I normally abhor that term)?

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In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

wendy davis's picture

@The Liberal Moonbat

that as i'd hoped, some of the commentariat is doing that, but if there's a cliffs notes version, i'd hope barrett puts it up. all the players, all the IT privacy firms, too much i had no idea about.

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