International, Media

Greenwald Accuses NPR Of “Laundering CIA Talking Points” In Story Involving Firm With Undisclosed Agency Ties

220px-Glenn_greenwald_portraitCIAGlenn 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.”

NPRLogoRecorded_FutureTemple-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.”

177 thoughts on “Greenwald Accuses NPR Of “Laundering CIA Talking Points” In Story Involving Firm With Undisclosed Agency Ties”

  1. I’m so glad this story is receiving coverage. National Pentagon Radio is aimed at propagandizing the well educated, often well-heeled set who thinks they are informed. So many liberals, especially, trust them to give them the inside story. What they are really getting is the insider approved story for dissemination.

    USGinc. has propaganda for everyone!

  2. The protest and civil unrest in Ferguson being certainly important, we really should await the official investigation into the incident before we judge the actions of the officer, justified or not justified.

    As for the concept in general about an unarmed person not being a threat, there are many situations where others have been murdered at unarmed hands. There also have been many incidents of police brutality. That is why it is incumbent to have a proper investigation(s) and oversight of these investigations to better determine what actually happened.

    Everyone has a right to an impartial investigation. Yielding to crowd or mob demands is just as akin to vigilante justice whether the individual be a citizen or a police officer.

  3. As I understand it, the kid in MO was jaywalking. When I was growing up, many people jaywalked.

  6. In March, 1915, the J.P. Morgan interests, the steel, shipbuilding, and powder interest, and their subsidiary organizations, got together 12 men high up in the newspaper world and employed them to select the most influential newspapers in the United States and sufficient number of them to control generally the policy of the daily press….They found it was only necessary to purchase the control of 25 of the greatest papers.

    “An agreement was reached; the policy of the papers was bought, to be paid for by the month; an editor was furnished for each paper to properly supervise and edit information regarding the questions of preparedness, militarism, financial policies, and other things of national and international nature considered vital to the interests of the purchasers.”

    U.S. Congressman Oscar Callaway, 1917

  7. Police have been receiving surplus night vision, rifles, and other equipment from military surplus for decades. It was rare that an APC was acquired but an MRAP? that’s a little overkill in my book. As for the grenade launcher mentioned I suspect it would be possibly 37MM rifle mounts which have dual purpose with several other utilities such as tear gas. If other than perhaps defining a tear gas or smoke canister as a grenade, I have never heard of a traditional frag grenade used by police in the past fifty years.

    1. Darren – Sheriff Joe has a tank. The barrel is now a battering ram, but he still has one. The government is not just buying surplus, but they are buying military-grade new.

  8. We are grateful to The Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But, the work is now much more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries.”

    David Rockefeller, founder of the Trilateral Commission, in an address to a meeting of The Trilateral Commission, in June, 1991.

  10. samantha
    It’s worse…
    Massachusetts one of fifteen states sharing drivers’ images with controversial CIA “terrorism” database
    http://privacysos.org/node/1481

    Those fifteen states (including DC) are:

    Arizona, Texas, New York, Maryland, Delaware, Washington DC, Florida, California, Virginia, Oregon, Massachusetts, Nevada, Georgia, Colorado, Washington, and Rhode Island.
    (continued)

    Directorate of Terrorist Identities (DTI) Strategic Accomplishments 2013
    https://firstlook.org/theintercept/document/2014/08/05/directorate-terrorist-identities-dti-strategic-accomplishments-2013/

  11. Paul C
    “If the percentage of felons is higher in the black community, this would lower the potential number of applicants.”
    = = =
    Substantiate that claim as it applies to Ferguson’s Police recruiting.

  12. A Ferguson Prayer

    Oh Lord, pleeeaaase let that cop in Ferguson have made a bad mistake when he shot that black kid! For things have been pretty quiet since Trayvon and all us race -baiters and Freedom Rider wannabees are just dying for something to play into our favorite myth that racism is the biggest problem faced by blacks.

    Plus, oh Lord, we are just itching to put on our robes of moral superiority and lord it over everybody. Oh and if a fee black kids could get shot while looting, I mean protesting, that would be good, too.

    Amen.

    (I thought I would maybe give a voice to a perceived undercurrent.)

    Squeeky Fromm
    Girl Reporter

    1. Max, no worries. I know very little about Twitter so I am in the dark for most of what goes on there.

  15. NPR has been carrying water for the Democrats and Obama for a long time. I am sure they are on the list to get talking points when the WH sends them out.

  16. Max, it went to moderation because it had more than two hyperlinks. I looked at it in the editor and for some reason it appears only as one. I suspect you posted it as one link and when it called the twitter system, twitter returned more than two links which wordpress then shunted into moderation.

  20. “For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:”

    If this blog has one underlying theme, it’s that it brings to light the lengths people will go to infringe the natural rights of other people. Unfortunately, that point quickly gets buried beneath a pile of ideological garbage. Bush did this, Obama did that, Republicans, Democrats, racists, misogynists, homophobes, corporatists, etc. People have become so accustomed to their defense of singular issues that the bigger picture gets missed.

    We are repeating history and all one needs to do is review the grievances in the Declaration. This is what happens when you ask for more government; ultimately, you get less of the only thing they were chartered to do; secure unalienable rights.

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