Glenn Greenwald has called out National Public Radio in a recent interview for a story by Dina Temple-Raston for a story that it aired on how a study had found “tangible evidence” that leaks by Edward Snowden had harmed security by showing terrorists that they have to develop more sophisticated encryption programs. However, that study was the work of a firm named “Recorded Future,” which Greenwald claims has been funded by the CIA to the tune of millions of dollars. Greenwald chastises Temple-Raston and NPR for not informing listeners that the source is a CIA funded outfit. He accuses NPR of essentially airing CIA talking points.
The company released a report called “How Al-Qaeda Uses Encryption Post-Snowden” in two parts in May and August on how “Snowden leaks influencing Al-Qaeda’s crypto product innovation.”
Temple-Raston responded to the release with a story entitled Big Data Firm Says It Can Link Snowden Data To Changed Terrorist Behavior. She interviewed Recorded Future’s CEO and co-founder Christopher Ahlberg who said that they began to delve more deeply into the issue when “We saw at least three major product releases coming out with different organizations with al-Qaida and associated organizations fairly quickly after the Snowden disclosures.” She reported:
As it turns out, Recorded Future and Reversing Labs discovered that al-Qaida didn’t just tinker at the edges of its seven-year-old encryption software; it overhauled it. The new programs no longer use much of what’s known as “homebrew,” or homemade algorithms. Instead, al-Qaida has started incorporating more sophisticated open-source code to help disguise its communications.
Greenwald calls the failure to inform listeners of the CIA connection “a pure and indisputable case of journalistic malpractice and deceit.” He also notes that stories running back to 2001 detail how al-Qaeda was fully aware of the need to develop more advanced forms of encryption. I cannot find any response from NPR to the allegations.
The cause and effect relationship of the report can clearly be challenged given the continual reports of U.S. intelligence interceptions before and after the Snowden disclosures. That makes the connection and possible funding of the CIA more problematic if true. I do believe that, if Greenwald is correct and this firm receives such a high level of funding from the CIA, it should have been disclosed.
Recorded Future takes on an ominous sound if it is, as Greenwald claims, a company that has received millions from the CIA. He alleges that “the investment arm of the CIA, In-Q-Tel, sits on the board of this company, and the researcher on whom they rely himself is the head of a company in a strategic partnership with the CIA.” The company’s motto is “creating an insightful world.”
http://billmoyers.com/2014/08/13/not-just-ferguson-11-eye-opening-facts-about-americas-militarized-police-forces/ “In June, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) brought more attention to police militarization when it issued a comprehensive, nearly 100-page report titled, War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing. Based on public records requests to more than 260 law enforcement agencies in 26 states, the ACLU concluded that this police militarization “unfairly impacts people of color and undermines individual liberties, and it has been allowed to happen in the absence of any meaningful public discussion.” “
SWM – rioting is an interesting response. The Watts Riots burned down the business section of Watts ruining it for years.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/12/20/local-cops-ready-for-war-with-homeland-security-funded-military-weapons.html “Like Fargo, thousands of other local police departments nationwide have been amassing stockpiles of military-style equipment in the name of homeland security, aided by more than $34 billion in federal grants since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a Daily Beast investigation conducted by the Center for Investigative Reporting has found.”
Greenwald’s article is profound.
Was it Grants Pass, Oregon where taxpayers defunded the sheriff’s department, shutting it down?
Taxpayers need to get outraged, start defunding police agencies all across this country.
” Still, no excuse for a bunch of thugs to loot and riot. ” Squeeky. It looks like it is the police that have had the thuggish response.
With Fox News clearly shilling for the Republican party and its donors, the three main networks owned by large corporations, and MSNBC in a permanent identity crisis, the last bastion was NPR. When Bush appointed Kenneth Tomlinson to head up the CPB it was an attempt to do in the last real broadcasting news source in America. We all know that facts have a liberal bias, and with NPR compromised we needn’t worry so much about people paying attention. NPR has a long road back to gain the public trust, especially with some of these Bush appointees dug in, and President Obama still trying to make friends by reappointing Bush shills. Sad, really, NPR used to be great.
@BarkinDog Just curious, who is the political historian that you reference in your post? Thanks in advance.
It sounds to me like this was a bad shooting. Still, no excuse for a bunch of thugs to loot and riot.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
SWM and Anonymous,
It’s a war on Americans, by Americans. Deeply disturbing. Worth getting out into the streets to protest.
http://www.businessinsider.com/police-militarization-ferguson-2014-8 “While serving as a U.S. Marine on patrol in Afghanistan, we wore desert camouflage to blend in with our surroundings, carried rifles to shoot back when under enemy attack, and drove around in armored vehicles to ward off roadside bombs.
We looked intimidating, but all of our vehicles and equipment had a clear purpose for combat against enemy forces. So why is this same gear being used on our city streets?
On Saturday, a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown, an unarmed black man. In the days that have followed, the town with a population of about 21,000 has seen massive protests in response to the shooting, as some witnesses said Brown had his hands up when he was killed.
Putting aside what started the protests for a moment, it’s worth discussing the police response to the outrage. In photos taken Monday, we are shown a heavily armed SWAT team.
They have short-barreled 5.56-mm rifles based on the military M4 carbine, with scopes that can accurately hit a target out to 500 meters. On their side they carry pistols. On their front, over their body armor, they carry at least four to six extra magazines, loaded with 30 rounds each.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/police-militarization-ferguson-2014-8#ixzz3ANWIgKn1
Thanks for the Vox link, swarthmore mom.
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/499919889428385792
“Confrontations between protestors and heavily armed police over the past several days in Ferguson, Missouri have left many observers wondering how suburban police departments come to have so much military-style equipment in the first place. The answer, roughly, is that in the 1990s, when federal, state and local governments were scrambling to win the “war on drugs” and fight high crime rates, the federal government started helping local police officers get military equipment.
“As Afghanistan and Iraq wind down, the military has a lot of excess weaponry”
That’s still going on — and with the winding down of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars under the Obama administration, the Department of Defense finds itself with a lot of excess military equipment on its hands.
Put these two trends together, and you get a lot of local police departments and sheriff’s offices asking for, and getting, armored personnel carriers, grenade launchers, and M-16s.
A story in the New York Times looks into where this equipment ends up — and how locals feel about equipment that was developed for use in Iraq and Afghanistan ending up on their streets.
“It just seems like ramping up a police department for a problem we don’t have,” said Shay Korittnig, a father of two who spoke against getting the armored truck at a recent public meeting in Neenah(, WI). “This is not what I was looking for when I moved here, that my children would view their local police officer as an M-16-toting, SWAT-apparel-wearing officer.”
The New York Times article reports that the Pentagon has sent local police departments “tens of thousands of machine guns; nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines; thousands of pieces of camouflage and night-vision equipment; and hundreds of silencers, armored cars and aircraft” over the past several years. But that’s actually just scratching the surface of the military equipment that local police departments can get “.http://www.vox.com/2014/6/9/5793204/why-the-feds-are-putting-grenade-launchers-in-the-hands-of-local-cops
What bothers me about this story are the words, “if”, “claims”, “alleges”. In another context that would be the reporting of essentially gossip.
This story will prove to be true…. Just like life used to write about all of the threats of the evil communist…. Seems like we have no problem with the money that comes from china…..
“I have gotten the clear impression that NPR will slant the story to suit either its biases to work to protect its friends.” -Steve Fleischer
And it’s not unrelated to the situation that’s unfolding in Ferguson, MS. Americans can choose to keep turning a blind-eye or face it squarely. If not reversed, Americans deserve the future that many can already see.
Glenn, today:
The Militarization of U.S. Police: Finally Dragged Into the Light by the Horrors of Ferguson
By Glenn Greenwald 14 Aug 2014, 8:40 AM EDT
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/08/14/militarization-u-s-police-dragged-light-horrors-ferguson/
“As part of America’s posture of Endless War, Americans have been trained to believe that everything is justified on the “battlefield” (now defined to mean “the whole world”): imprisonment without charges, kidnapping, torture, even assassination of U.S. citizens without trials. It is not hard to predict the results of importing this battlefield mentality onto American soil, aimed at American citizens: “From Warfighter to Crimefighter.” The results have been clear for those who have looked – or those who have been subject to this – for years. The events in Ferguson are, finally, forcing all Americans to watch the outcome of this process.”
In listening to the NPR stories where I have had deeper insights into the facts, I have gotten the clear impression that NPR will slant the story to suit either its biases to work to protect its friends.
NPR has seemed to lean increasingly to the right over time. Perhaps, years ago it was too advanced for most of the public to grasp and had to be dumbed down to reach the level of Washington politicians who vote on its funding.
The corporate media is a tool for the CIA. NPR should be a step outside of the corporate media box. But, it is right in there with Fox News and all the news that is fit to print. I highly recommend Greenwald’s book: No Place To Hide. Some of the rocks and slanders thrown at Greenwald when he came out with the book are outlined in there. These schmucks from CNN and NBC were as bad as it gets. By denigrating Greenwald these media slugs who are owned by the CIA, want you folks to believe that all is well, that Clapper is not a liar, that Clappers pants are not on fire, that your emails are safe from scrutiny. About 40 years ago one of the good political historians outlined a theory which he called “convergence”. He stated that as time goes on the Soviet Union and Red China would become more like us in terms of capitalism and that we would become more like them in terms of fascism. Radio Moscow has come home to roost in Washington DC and NYC.
The statement that Snowden hurt national security is the first clue the NSA was behind it. Just like somebody griping about Oxley -Sarbanes is a dead giveaway of a Wall Street shill.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter