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The founders of the online news publication that will help in the defense of a Fort Gordon contractor accused of leaking a classified document were among the first to report on the National Security Agency surveillance of citizens in other countries and at home in 2013, using thousands of documents leaked by a former NSA contractor, Edward Snowden.

While the document published by The Intercept which the government says came from NSA contract employee Reality Leigh Winner of Augusta is still considered classified by prosecutors, it allegedly concerns the NSA analysis of Russias efforts to infiltrate a voting software company and infect computers used by state election officials. The Intercept published a story based on the analysis, and Winner was arrested June 3.

According to The Intercepts site, journalists Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and Jeremy Scahill founded the online publication dedicated to fearless, adversarial journalism. EBays founder Pierre Omidyar provided the funding in 2013 for First Look Media in 2013, a non-profit, which launched The Intercept.

The Intercept has an average of 5 million visitors a month, said Vivian Siu, director of communications for First Look.

The online publication has a lot of readers in and outside of the U. S., said Rick Edmonds, media business analysis with the Poynter Institute, a nonprofit school for journalism. The Intercept began as a site for leaked documents but has expanded into other areas, Edmonds said. Non-profit, online publications are definitely a growing part of journalism and investigative reporting, he said.

The non-profit, online publication ProPublica has been publishing significant investigative work, Edmonds noted. There is also the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists that won a Pulitzer Prize for the Panama Papers investigation into the finances of Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, which led to his resignation Friday. The new form of journalism has a significant presence, Edmonds said.

I believe that great journalism boils down to a few key principles, Scahill wrote in an article asking for readers support for investigative journalism. Hold those in power accountable, regardless of their political or corporate affiliations; give voice to the voiceless; provide people with information they can use to make informed decisions; be transparent with your readers about how you know what you know; (and) make sure your facts are straight.

Scahill won a George Polk Award for his reporting in war zones and for his 2008 report about Blackwater, the private armed security force. Greenwald is a journalist and attorney who wrote four New York Times best-sellers on politics and law. He also wrote No Place to Hide about the U.S. surveillance and his experience in reporting on the Snowden documents. In 2013 he was awarded a George Polk award and several others for his reporting on the Snowden documents.

Poitras was also awarded a George Polk award and shared the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for public service with The New York Times. Poitras left The Intercept for Field of Vision, which is also part of First Look Media. She was awarded an Academy Award for best documentary in 2015.

The Intercept has won a number of national journalism awards. It focuses on national security, politics, civil liberties, the environment, international affairs, technology, criminal justice, the media and more, according to its website. And it seeks whistleblowers, providing an email site and online drop box.

In Winners case, the Press Freedom Defense Fund of the First Look Media is giving $50,000 in matching funds to Stand with Reality, a fundraising campaign. First Looks attorney Baruch Weiss, a former U.S. attorney with experience in NSA investigations, will support Winners local defense team.

Winner is in custody without bond. She has pleaded not guilty to one count of willful retention and transmission of national defense information.

Reach Sandy Hodson at sandy.hodson@augustachronicle.com or (706) 823-3226

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Online site backing defense of accused NSA leaker founded to promote fearless journalism - The Augusta Chronicle

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Mid Range | Firewalls | SonicWall

Always lawful and subject to strict oversight. Those are the NSA's defenses any time someone leaks something about its surveillance programs or obtains documents indicating abuse of snooping powers. It gets a little old when it's document after document showing the astonishing breadth of the NSA's surveillance programs or the continual abuse and misuse of these powers.

The Hill has dug through some recently-released documents and memos from the NSA which show long-term abuse of surveillance programs. The NSA recently ditched part of its Section 702 collection because it just couldn't stop hoovering up Americans' communications. This was "incidental," according to the NSA, and supposedly impossible to stop. But the incidents detailed in these documents suggest a lot of over-collection happened because no one noticed and, if anyone did, no one cared.

They detail specific violations that the NSA or FBI disclosed to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court or the Justice Department's national security division during President Obamas tenure between 2009 and 2016. The intelligence community isn't due to report on compliance issues for 2017, the first year under the Trump administration, until next spring.

The NSA says that the missteps amount to a small number less than 1 percent when compared to the hundreds of thousands of specific phone numbers and email addresses the agencies intercepted through the so-called Section 702 warrantless spying program created by Congress in late 2008.

This is about the only place where any American can become part of the "one percent:" as the unwitting subject of NSA surveillance. NSA spokesman Michael Halbig says evidence of misuse is a sign the oversight is working. But oversight is also supposed to aid in prevention, not just detection of past misuse. And the NSA's internal oversight isn't nearly as "robust" as Halbig attempts to portray it.

The Hill reviewed the new ACLU documents as well as compliance memos released by the NSA inspector general and identified more than 90 incidents where violations specifically cited an impact on Americans. Many incidents involved multiple persons, multiple violations or extended periods of time.

For instance, the government admitted improperly searching the NSAs foreign intercept data on multiple occasions, including one instance in which an analyst ran the same search query about an American every work day for a period between 2013 and 2014.

The NSA also passed on intel to the FBI and CIA without properly minimizing it and made other dissemination errors. The documents show the NSA was also slow to inform other agencies of its minimization failures. Notification is supposed to made within five days of discovery, but in some cases it took the NSA more than three months to inform intel recipients of the error.

This information has been released at a critical time for the NSA. Section 702 powers are sunsetting this year and could be subject to additional modifications prior to their renewal. The FBI --perhaps even more than the NSA -- is looking for a clean reauthorization of Section 702 programs. This administration favors a clean re-auth, which means complaints about a 1% violation rate aren't likely to change anyone's mind. But 1% of several hundred million yearly searches is still a very large number of violations. If Google or Microsoft suffered a breach affecting the privacy of 1% of its users, it would be a huge problem even if the number of affected accounts amounted to a rounding error.

Former House Intelligence Committee Chair Pete Hoekstra -- a former surveillance state cheerleader -- now worries the NSA's collection powers have increased far past the point of reason. As he points, 1% simply isn't an acceptable failure rate.

One percent or less sounds great, but the truth is 1 percent of my credit card charges dont come back wrong every month. And in my mind one percent is pretty sloppy when it can impact Americans privacy.

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Released Documents Show More Section 702 Violations By The NSA - Techdirt

BEIJING: National security advisor Ajit Doval's meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping did not yield any breakthrough that could end the current standoff in Doklam. Analysts, however, said the cool off in the recent weeks may give leaders enough time to find a solution.

Doval met Chinese President Xi Jinping and other senior officials on Friday at the summit of Brics national security advisers (NSAs) in the Chinese capital.

There has only been a slight improvement of the situation that prevailed after Chinese leaders insisted for weeks that there could be no meaningful dialogue until Indian troops withdraw from their positions at the disputed site in Doklam.

There is little possibility of Xi going back on the demand that Indian troops must withdraw ahead of the celebrations of the 90th anniversary of the People's Liberation Army on August 1, a Chinese analyst said.

"At best, the high level of belligerence can be allowed to taper off, giving leaders enough time to find a solution. But even this is not easy because there are hawkish voices on both sides," a Chinese analyst said, requesting anonymity.

The Chinese leadership got away by imposing an air flight control zone over islands disputed with Japan and creating artificial islands in the disputed South China Sea despite US resistance. This is why it is very is difficult for the government to explain India's refusal to budge an inch in Doklam, he explained.

Doklam row becoming internal crisis for China The Doklam issue is fast becoming a domestic political problem for China's leaders who need to deal with a section of hawkish Communist Party members demanding action to "push back" Indian troops, sources said. This is happening ahead of a crucial party congress that will elect leaders to top positions later this year.

China also faces a risky situation on its border with North Korea and has hugely increased its military presence fearing some dangerous moves from Pyongyang.

In appearances before the media, both Doval and the Chinese leaders stuck to the agenda of the security dialogue of Brics countries that brought together top security officials from the member countries.

Doval also joined other security officials in calling on Xi, who said that Brics should play a bigger role in international affairs.

It was clear that both India and China want to keep the discussion on the Doklam stand-off restricted to the bilateral area instead of making it an issue requiring the attention of Brics. In his speech, Doval said the Brics countries should show "leadership in countering terrorism".

The grouping should also play a key role on "strategic issues of regional and global importance" while focusing on "areas where we have consensus", he said.

The Chinese president said the five countries in Brics were faced with a "complex international political and economic security situation". They should communicate more on financial cooperation, cultural exchanges and security issues.

Originally posted here:
NSA Ajit Doval and Xi Jinping meet but fail to break Doklam logjam - Economic Times

Reality Winners supporters said they delivered petitions with more than 16,000 signatures to the U.S. Justice Departments headquarters in Washington Thursday, asking the agency to drop its charges against the accused National Security Agency leaker.

Among those delivering the petitions on Whistleblower Appreciation Day were representatives from several groups, including CodePink, Defending Rights & Dissent, RootsAction.org, Whistleblower and Source Protection Program and Stand with Reality, a nonprofit campaign that is supporting Winners case through advocacy and fundraising.

"We should not be charging whistleblowers acting in the public interest, disclosing information responsibly to journalists, as if they were traitors to our country. Anyone who cares about a free press should be concerned about her case, Rainey Reitman, co-founder of Stand with Reality, said in a prepared statement.

The Justice Department declined to comment.

Federal prosecutors have accused Winner of leaking to The Intercept online news outlet a top-secret NSA report about Russias meddling in the 2016 presidential election. The Intercept published the report, which says Russian military intelligence officials tried to hack into the U.S. voting system just before last Novembers election.

A federal grand jury has indicted Winner, 25, on a single count of "willful retention and transmission of national defense information. She faces up to 10 years in prison and $250,000 in fines. Winner, who is being held in the Lincoln County Jail, has pleaded not guilty to the charge.

Meanwhile, federal prosecutors are defending their proposed rules for safeguarding top-secret information during her trial, now set for Oct. 23 in Augusta. Winners defense attorneys have argued those rules could block her from getting a fair hearing. Specifically, they have said the governments proposed protective order could prevent Winner from reviewing evidence in the case, including classified information. That, they said, would amount to a violation of the former Air Force linguists Sixth Amendment right to confer with her attorneys.

RELATED:Accused NSA leakers attorneys push back against proposed secrecy rules for trial

But in a court papers filed this week, the prosecutors said she will be given access to the records she is entitled to see under the Classified Information Procedures Act and as required by due process. But her attorneys must ask the court for her to see such documents, the prosecutors said.

The scope of classified discovery in this case has not yet been determined. It may include, for example, classified information to which the defendant has not previously had access, the government said in its court filing. Given the charge against the defendant, disclosing that information to her could further jeopardize national security. If defense counsel believe that they must disclose specific information provided in discovery to the defendant, that should be the subject of a subsequent motion.

Winners attorneys are also seeking permission to quote from records already in the public domain, including newspaper articles. Prosecutors have pointed to case law that says disseminating classified information that has already been made public could harm government intelligence sources and operations. Further, Winners defense team is objecting to proposed requirements that they identify expert witnesses they ask to review classified evidence, saying that would amount to an unfair advantage for prosecutors.

The government has a legitimate interest in knowing who is accessing classified information, the prosecutors said. The defense has not identified any prejudice that would result from disclosing experts identities to the government. Accordingly, the government should receive advance notice of all personnel for whom the defense seeks access to classified discovery and an opportunity to submit objections to the court if necessary.

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Accused NSA leaker's supporters call on feds to drop charges against her - MyAJC