• Thanks for stopping by. Logging in to a registered account will remove all generic ads. Please reach out with any questions or concerns.

NSA Whistle-blower Ed Snowden

South China Morning Post

Glenn Greenwald on Hong Kong's key role in Snowden's NSA document leak

Hong Kong's "brazen" defiance in the face of US attempts to extradite fugitive whistle-blower Edward Snowden was pivotal in shaping the global reaction to one of the biggest government leaks in modern American history, said a journalist instrumental in breaking the story.

A month before the first anniversary of Snowden's arrival in Hong Kong, Glenn Greenwald - one of the reporters who broke a series of stories based on a cache of classified documents leaked by the former NSA contractor - told the Sunday Morning Post that the Hong Kong government's refusal to honour an extradition request from the United States was one of his "favourite moments" in the past 11 months.

Two hours after Snowden, 30, flew out of the city bound for Moscow on June 23 last year, the Hong Kong government released a statement accusing Washington of failing to provide basic details, such as the whistle-blower's middle name.


"I can almost recite [the statement] by memory because I've read it so many times," Greenwald told the Post.

(...EDITED)
 
Yahoo Finance/Business Insider

Ex-KGB Major: The Russians Tricked Snowden Into Going To Moscow
Business Insider
By Michael B. Kelley

Ex-KGB Major Boris Karpichko told Nigel Nelson of The Mirror that spies from Russia’s SVR intelligence service, posing as ­diplomats in Hong Kong, convinced Snowden to fly to Moscow last June.

“It was a trick and he fell for it," Karpichko, who reached the rank of Major as a member of the KGB's prestigious Second Directorate while specializing in counter-intelligence, told Nelson. " Now the Russians are extracting all the intelligence he possesses.” 

Karpichko fled Moscow in 1998 after spying on his native Latvia for the KGB and the post-Soviet FSB.  The 55-year-old  says he is still in contact with several of his old spy pals.

Snowden flew from Hawaii to Hong Kong on May 20, 2013 and identified himself to the world on June 9. The 30-year-old American became  stranded  in Moscow on June 23 after he landed with a void U.S. passport and an unsigned travel Ecuadorian document obtained by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Karpichko said that the Kremlin leaked Snowden’s planned flight to Moscow to provoke the U.S. into revoking Snowden's passport, which Washington did on June 22.  Assange also advised S nowden  that " he would be physically safest in Russia.

(...EDITED)
 
Well we were warned. An interesting question might be "are similar towers in Canada, or positioned along the Canadian border?":

http://www.popsci.com/article/gadgets/who-running-phony-cell-phone-towers-around-country?dom=PSC&loc=slider&lnk=1&con=who-is-running-phony-cell-phone-towers-around-the-country

Who Is Running Phony Cell Phone Towers Around The United States?
A multitude of opinions
By Andrew Rosenblum Posted 09.15.2014 at 9:00 am 
     
Who Is Running Interceptor Towers? Homeland

On August 29, Popular Science published a map of interceptor towers -- surveillance devices that masquerade as cell phone towers to intercept voice and data transmissions from every cell user in an area. 19 of the interceptors were found in the United States in August, and two more popped up on September 5: one in Garden City, NY, and another in downtown Las Vegas. They were spotted by owners of the CryptoPhone 500 device, a roughly $3,500 ultra-high-end phone that allows ordinary, if well-heeled, citizens to see surveillance invisible to standard phones.

Though the F.B.I. has been using a basic mobile phone interceptor that tracks phone location, known colloquially by the brand name of "Stingray" since at least 2008, federal, state, and local officials have tried to say as little as possible about use of the technology, even in court proceedings. This angers civil libertarians such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), who view the use of interceptors without a warrant as an unlawful search. The government's silence has helped generate an information vacuum filled by conspiracy theory: one fringe news site recently claimed that the interceptors are a source of "smart grid mind control" made possible by "voice to skull technology."

Nathan Wessler, a staff attorney at the ACLU's Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, says that while it's "impossible" for him to definitively determine ownership of any given interceptor, he can offer some informed speculation.

"Two in Florida," he says, after taking a look at the 19 interceptors detected around the U.S. in August. "We know that a lot of Florida law enforcement agencies use these devices. A couple of sites right on the U.S.-Mexico border -- we know that U.S. Customs and Immigration uses these devices. A couple of pings in Arizona, California, one location near Seattle -- we know that law enforcement agencies in those areas have these technologies."

Since filing an amicus brief with the EFF on the first case in the country challenging the constitutionality of "Stingray" surveillance in 2012, the ACLU has used press reporting and analysis of government records to establish that 43 different state and local law enforcement agencies in 18 states have the technology. On the federal level, at least 12 agencies have purchased interceptors, including the National Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, and all the branches of the U.S. military. But amidst this thicket of government and police surveillance, security experts cannot rule out the possibility that foreign spies or criminal hackers are also using the cell tower simulators in the United States. The most sophisticated interceptors cost roughly $100,000, though a skilled, determined hacker could cobble together a basic interceptor for less than $2,000.

ESD America CEO Les Goldsmith says that we don't know for sure who's using the interceptors, but he speculates that owners might be the U.S. government, foreign spies, or possibly criminal hackers.

When asked about the interceptor detected on July 30 near the Mayport Naval Air Station, in eastern Florida, near Jacksonville, the Navy declined comment.

"We really don't have anything to say about that," says William Townsend, a spokesperson for the Mayport Naval Air Station.

"I haven't seen evidence that the military is using [interceptors] inside the U.S., but it is more than plausible that they could be using them to protect bases," says Wessler.

A shroud of secrecy surrounds the technology, with the government trying to avoid admitting usage of interceptors, even in criminal trials where cell phone surveillance has provided key pieces of evidence.

In June, an ACLU of Florida public records request in Sarasota, Florida, showed that the police there had a policy to conceal the use of "Stingray" tech used to track suspects -- preventing "the criminal element," as well as judges and defense attorneys, from knowing the source of the surveillance. In March, police officers in Tallahassee admitted to using the technology at least 200 times since 2010 without telling a judge, due to a non-disclosure agreement signed with the technology manufacturer Harris Corporation. The Wall Street Journal reported in 2011 that the FBI has a longstanding policy to expunge any mention of "Stingray" use from official reports.

"The justification [government lawyers] put forward publicly, is if they were to disclose their use of this technology, it would allow criminals to evade detection, and hamper their ability to fight crime," says Wessler. "To think that a savvy criminal won't have figured out that their cell phone might get tracked is kind of silly at this point."

Given the proximity of some of the interceptors to military bases, the portability and sub-$100,000 price tag for sophisticated devices has raised fears of foreign governments using them for espionage. (Here are a range of interceptors offered to government and defense industry clients by a company based in Soghi, India). Many are small enough to be driven in a car or even carried by hand.

"There's nothing preventing some foreign government from rolling these out throughout the United States," says Mathew Rowley, a mobile security expert for Matasano Security. "Who knows? I don't want to say that 'it is the case that it's foreign governments' -- but I can't say 'it's not the case.'"

The Federal Communications Commission has formed a task force to investigate usage of interceptors on American soil by foreign spy services or criminal organizations.

There is also the possibility that a particularly skilled hacker could build a DIY interceptor using off-the-shelf components. A rudimentary cell tower combined with a radio peripheral connected with a PC running open-source base tower software can be built for less than $2,000. Doing so might allow the theft of credit card numbers, or allow tracking of a famous person's subscriber number as she traveled near the interceptor.

"It's possible for someone who has enough free time on their hands" to build a DIY interceptor using off-the-shelf components, says Rowley. "You have to understand how things are configured, how GSM networks work, how to communicate with backend systems legitimately. All the data is encrypted. And to decrypt it is the hard part. That's not to say it's not possible."

So should we worry about interceptors?

The most expensive interceptors are capable of sophisticated attacks that eavesdrop on calls or texts, push spyware to the phone, or even spoof calls or texts. But in court, Wessler has only seen the state introduce evidence from the simpler "Stingray" devices capable solely of geolocation tracking. In other words, the interceptor pairs with the suspect's phone's subscriber number and pings to see where the phone goes, so long as the device remains within the interceptor's range.

As to the dangers to law-abiding citizens posed by police or government geo-location surveillance, Wessler points to the example of the interceptor found in downtown Las Vegas.

"You can imagine quite sensitive information that the location of someone's phone can reveal," says Wessler. "You can tell it was my phone that was at the casino until 2 am, drove out to the brothel at 4 am, and then back to the casino at 6 am. Or someone goes to an abortion clinic. Or an NRA meeting. Or an AA meeting."

"It looks a whole lot like a dragnet search."
Rowley, a security expert who studies the hacking of mobile phones, considers interceptor use more of an anomalous "edge case" than something the average person should fear.

"I don't think this means that this means that our current model of how cell phone communication works is flawed. From what I know about GSM, it's pretty secure, assuming everything is configured properly. I think there [are] edge cases for just about everything in technology. In my opinion, this shouldn't bother the general public."

Wessler also points out that it's impossible to target just one phone -- instead, the interceptor tricks all phones in the vicinity into connecting.

"When police are using it to track the location of a phone, it inherently collects information not just about that phone, but about every phone in the area. It looks a whole lot like a dragnet search," says Wessler. "A second and related problem is they're not just sending signals out through the open air, but in houses, offices, other private spaces. So you end up tracking people to different rooms in the house or apartment building....within a meter or two of where the phone is."

Oliver Day, the president of Securing Change, a privacy-minded non-profit that provides technology services to other non-profits?, objects to indiscriminate surveillance of all citizens -- what Wessler characterizes as a "dragnet search." Day makes a distinction between targeted surveillance of a particular suspect, and mass surveillance, in which the government gathers information about everyone, without a warrant, and then seeks usable intel after the fact.

"My dad was in the Army, I totally understand the need for intelligence. The NSA needs to exist -- the CIA needs to exist. They just need to be controlled and monitored," says Day. "But targeted surveillance is a whole different thing. Everyone is a worthwhile target when you're doing mass surveillance."

The act of locating and publishing the locations of the Interceptor towers is part of a movement known as "Sousveillance" where the public undertakes to monitor the official realm of government and bureaucracy. Locating and publishing the locations of these devices makes it harder to carry out the unwarranted surveillance of ordinary civilians, and if these are being set up and used by criminal or foreign intelligence agencies, then knowing they are there allows them to be either cooped or neutralized.
 
"To Russia with love" oh well.  ;D

Agence-France-Presse

'LOVE IS LOVE' | Snowden's girlfriend joins him in Russia
By: Anne Smolchenko and Jennie Matthew, Agence France-Presse
October 12, 2014 3:11 AM

MOSCOW/NEW YORK - US fugitive Edward Snowden, who was granted asylum by Moscow after revealing the extent of US global surveillance, has been reunited with his girlfriend in Russia, his lawyer said Saturday.

Snowden's longtime partner, American dancer Lindsay Mills, joined him in Moscow in July, it emerged Friday.

lindsay-mills-ballerina.jpg


"Love is love," Snowden's Kremlin-connected lawyer Anatoly Kucherena told AFP. "She lives with him when she comes here. Moral support is very important for Edward."

He said Mills does not live in Russia permanently because of visa constraints but visits frequently.

The couple, who previously lived in Hawaii, have been busy exploring Russia, he added. "They go to theatres and cultural events together."

(...SNIPPED)
 
Seems like it's all coming up aces for him, how nice... ::)
 
He is asking to stand trial in the US,which may be better than living in Russia. :)
 
tomahawk6 said:
He is asking to stand trial in the US,which may be better than living in Russia. :)

Maybe he's had enough of the girlfriend. ;D
 
And now we know "why" it is so important to mine data on citizens and be able to gain backdoor entry into civilian computers, cell phones and other electronic devices. It is probably a good idea to have a "clean" computer that you use only for certain tasks (like banking), and a totally separate computer (ideally with a different IP address and separate connection to the Internet) for surfing. This goes for cell phones as well: one for work related issues and one for private conversations (reading upthread we se that there are "pirate" cell towers which harvest cell phone data in various places). Disposable phones are a good idea as well:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2014/10/27/sharyl-attkissons-computer-intrusions-worse-than-anything-nixon-ever-did/

Sharyl Attkisson’s computer intrusions: ‘Worse than anything Nixon ever did’
By Erik Wemple October 27 

The intrusions into former CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson’s computers constitute the narrative spine of the reporter’s new book “Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington.” The book starts with not really a word, but a sound: “Reeeeeeeeeee.”

That’s the noise that Attkisson’s Apple computer was making at 3:14 one morning. A Toshiba laptop computer issued by CBS News did the same thing a day earlier, around 4 a.m. All this goes down in October 2012, right in the midst of the Benghazi story. A person who’s identified as “Jeff” warns Attkisson: “I’ve been reading your reports online about Benghazi. It’s pretty incredible. Keep at it. But you’d better watch out.” “Jeff,” like several of the names in “Stonewalled,” is a pseudonym.

Now we know why Attkisson has been so stingy for so long with details of her computer intrusions: She wanted to have some material for her book. The story debuted in May 2013, when Attkisson appeared on a Philadelphia radio show and declared that there may be “some relationship” between her computer troubles and the sort of tracking that descended upon Fox News reporter James Rosen in a much-discussed leak case. On a subsequent appearance on Fox News’s “O’Reilly Factor,” Attkisson said she thought she knew who was responsible for the ruckus.

All of which was just enough to whet the appetite for the treatment in “Stonewalled.” On one level, the book is a reminder of all the ways people can mess with you. It’s not just her computers that showed signs of tampering, says Attkisson, who bolted CBS News earlier this year. “y November 2012,” she writes, “there are so many disruptions on my home phone line, I often can’t use it. I call home from my mobile phone and it rings on my end, but not at the house.” More devices on the fritz at Attkisson Central: “My television is misbehaving. It spontaneously jitters, mutes, and freeze-frames,” she writes, noting that the computers, TVs and phone all use Verizon’s FiOS service. At one point, “Jeff” inspects the back of Attkisson’s house and finds a “stray cable” attached to her FiOS box. That cable, he explains, could be used to download data. (Read more: The bizarre tale of Sharyl Attkisson’s spare wire)

Next big moment: Attkisson gets her computer checked out by someone identified as “Number One,” who’s described as a “confidential source inside the government.” A climactic meeting takes place at a McDonald’s outlet at which Attkisson and “Number One” “look around” for possibly suspicious things. Finding nothing, they talk. “First just let me say again I’m shocked. Flabbergasted. All of us are. This is outrageous. Worse than anything Nixon ever did. I wouldn’t have believed something like this could happen in the United States of America.” That’s all coming from “Number One.”

The breaches on Attkisson’s computer, says this source, are coming from a “sophisticated entity that used commercial, nonattributable spyware that’s proprietary to a government agency: either the CIA, FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency, or the National Security Agency (NSA).” Attkisson learns from “Number One” that one intrusion was launched from the WiFi at a Ritz Carlton Hotel and the “intruders discovered my Skype account handle, stole the password, activated the audio, and made heavy use of it, presumably as a listening tool.”

To round out the revelations of “Number One,” he informs Attkisson that he’d found three classified documents deep inside her operating system, such that she’d never know they were even there. “Why? To frame me?” Attkisson asks in the book.

So CBS News hires an independent computer analyst whom Attkisson identifies as “Jerry Patel,” also a pseudonym. He finds a massive amount of suspicious activity in the computer, including the removal of all kinds of log messages. The author describes the scene as “Patel” does his work: “Now he’s breathing heavily. It alarms me because it alarms him and he’s not easily alarmed. His voice becomes more formal and he launches into what sounds like a speech for posterity. ‘In my professional opinion, someone has accessed this box … I see evidence that shows a deliberate and skilled attempt to clean the log files of activity.’” Intrusions of this caliber, concludes “Patel,” are “far beyond the the abilities of even the best nongovernment hackers.”

In summing up, Attkisson writes, “Everything Patel has found serves to confirm my January source and analysis. Patel tells me that only a few entities possess these skills. One of them is the U.S. government. I already know this from Number One. But now CBS knows it, too. And it will all be in his final report.”

More drama arises in September 2013. As White House officials pressure CBS News executives over Attkisson’s Benghazi reporting, something goes haywire with her computer. “That very night, with [White House spokesman Eric] Schultz, [White House Press Secretary Jay] Carney and company freshly steaming over my Benghazi reporting, I’m home doing final research and crafting questions for the next day’s interview with [Thomas] Pickering. Suddenly data in my computer file begins wiping at hyperspeed before my very eyes. Deleted line by line in a split second: it’s gone, gone, gone.” Attkisson grabbed her iPhone to record the madness.

Don Allison, a security specialist at Kore Logic, takes a close look at Attkisson’s iMac. The results turn up scandalous, as Attkisson writes: “While a great deal of data has been expertly wiped in an attempt to cover-up the deed, Don is able to find remnants of what was once there. There’s key evidence of a government computer connection to my computer. A sort of backdoor link that leads to an ISP address for a government computer that can’t be accessed by the general public on the Web. It’s an undeniable link to the U.S. government.”

The expert explains to Attkisson: “This ISP address is better evidence of the government being in your computer than the government had when it accused China of hacking into computers in the U.S.”

The Erik Wemple Blog has reached out to Allison; we’ll update as soon as we hear from him and will write an astounding number of posts related to “Stonewalled.”

Update: We heard back from his security firm, whose president says they can’t talk because of a confidentiality agreement


Erik Wemple writes the Erik Wemple blog, where he reports and opines on media organizations of all sorts.
 
I say he just hasn't been there long enough, but then again, the defectors that Hayden used for reference were already drunken bastards anyway.

A sober Snowden deems life in Russia ‘great’

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/01/09/a-sober-snowden-deems-life-in-russia-great/?hpid=z4

MOSCOW — Edward Snowden would like everyone – especially his critics – to know that he is happy with life in Russia. Happy, and also sober.

“They talk about Russia like it’s the worst place on earth. Russia's great,” the former NSA contractor told journalist James Bamford during an interview in Moscow for the PBS program "NOVA," which released a transcript of the conversation Thursday.

During the interview, Snowden focused on a speech that former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden had given in which he predicted that Snowden would be depressed and drunk.

“It was funny because he was talking about how I was – everybody in Russia is miserable. Russia is a terrible place,” Snowden recalled, hat-tipping Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman’s coverage of the September 2013 speech. “And I’m going to end up miserable and I’m going to be a drunk and I’m never going to do anything.”

Hayden’s exact prediction during that speech was that Snowden would “end up like most of the rest of the defectors who went to the old Soviet Union: isolated, bored, lonely, depressed – and most of them ended up alcoholics.”

But even after two Russian winters, vodka’s siren song apparently has no sway over Snowden.

“I don’t drink. I’ve never been drunk in my life,” Snowden said.

Snowden has been living in Moscow for more than a year, ever since the Russian government gave him asylum after the U.S. government revoked his passport, leaving him stranded at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport.

Snowden became the subject of an international manhunt after he revealed himself as the source of highly publicized leaks detailing previously unknown U.S. surveillance programs that led to articles in The Washington Post and the British newspaper the Guardian. He is wanted in the United States on theft and espionage charges.

Snowden, who is about six months into his three-year asylum term, has apparently been settling into life in Russia rather well. His exact whereabouts haven’t been publicized, but his girlfriend moved to Russia to be with him in July, according to the recent documentary “Citizenfour."

And Snowden clearly wanted to tell a U.S. audience how much he is enjoying life in Russia, because he was not specifically asked about it during the PBS interview.

Snowden’s opinions about his new home only came up because toward the end of the interview, the producer offered him a cup of coffee.

“I actually only drink water,” Snowden said, before launching into an explanation of how Hayden wrongly predicted that he would end up drunk, sad and alone, and that nobody expected how much he would like Russia.
 
China fires back against what Snowden said about its espionage and hacking efforts:

Reuters

China calls Snowden's stealth jet hack accusations 'groundless'

BEIJING (Reuters) - China dismissed accusations it stole F-35 stealth fighter plans as groundless on Monday, after documents leaked by former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden on a cyber attack were published by a German magazine.

The Pentagon has previously acknowledged that hackers had targeted sensitive data for defense programs such as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, but stopped short of publicly blaming China for the F-35 breach.

Defense experts say that China's home-grown stealth jets had design elements resembling the F-35.


The Pentagon and the jet's builder, Lockheed Martin Corp, had said no classified information was taken during the cyber intrusion.

(...SNIPPED)
 
Not exactly the best role model to be the centrepiece of a "world affairs conference" for high school students...

CTV

NSA leaker Edward Snowden to address Toronto school from Russia

U.S. fugitive Edward Snowden is set to address hundreds of high school students at a world affairs conference being held Monday night at a Toronto private school.

The former NSA contractor is the keynote speaker at the annual World Affairs Conference, which was organized by students from Upper Canada College and Branksome Hall in Toronto.

The moderated discussion is called “Privacy vs. Security: A Discussion of Personal Privacy in the Digital Age.”

(...SNIPPED)
 
Aww...poor old Snowden is homesick...  ::)

Reuters

Fugitive ex-U.S. spy Snowden in talks on returning home: lawyer

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian lawyer for Edward Snowden said on Tuesday the fugitive former U.S. spy agency contractor who leaked details of the government's mass surveillance programs was working with American and German lawyers to return home.

Anatoly Kucherena, who has links to the Kremlin, was speaking at a news conference to present a book he has written about his client. Moscow granted Snowden asylum in 2013, straining already tense ties with Washington.

"I won't keep it secret that he... wants to return back home. And we are doing everything possible now to solve this issue. There is a group of U.S. lawyers, there is also a group of German lawyers and I'm dealing with it on the Russian side."

(...SNIPPED)
 
US response should be easy enough as they could probably read it off a monopoly card.

Go to Jail,
Go directly to Jail,
Do not pass Go,
Do not collect $200
 
Do you guys think him reporting to the US public that their government was illegally spying on them and collecting information was a good thing or a bad thing?
 
S.M.A. said:
Aww...poor old Snowden is homesick...  ::)

Reuters

I think he's had enough of the girlfriend again, tried running to Putinland to get away from her, and now he's willing to go to jail to get away from her. >:D
 
Jarnhamar said:
Do you guys think him reporting to the US public that their government was illegally spying on them and collecting information was a good thing or a bad thing?

Regardless of what I think, there was ways and mechanisms in place to actually be a whistle blower without releasing the exact methods and means to the world without due care and attention to the information being released or it's impact on intelligence gathering on foreign targets.
 
Jarnhamar said:
Do you guys think him reporting to the US public that their government was illegally spying on them and collecting information was a good thing or a bad thing?

Apparently one US Citizen and his lawyer do. This is so batcrap crazy, you really can't make this up.

Everything About the Edward Snowden / 'Citizenfour' Lawsuit Is Batshit Crazy

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/everything-about-the-edward-snowden--citizenfour-lawsuit-is-batshit-crazy

A very misguided man in Kansas is suing Edward Snowden, ​Laura Poitras, and the ​official promoters of Citizenfour in one of the most annoyingly insane lawsuits in recent memory.

​The lawsuit, filed in December on behalf of the entire population of the United States, has been ​pretty well covered elsewhere, but some new developments, not least of which is Citizenfour's Oscar win, ​have made it noteworthy again. The general premise of the suit is that the film contains classified information, so it should be removed from release and re-edited in order to preserve national security.

Also, Poitras and Snowden should have to pay the government "billions of dollars to achieve restitution" for the damages done by Snowden's leaks.

The plaintiff, Horace Edwards, is a regular guy (as in, not a federal attorney) who identifies himself as a former naval officer. His and his attorney's actions since filing the suit, however, have only gotten more desperate and weird as it becomes ever apparent that the lawsuit is backfiring.

Reading the court case from start to finish is like taking a master's course in the Streisand effect and is a dictionary-perfect definition of frivolous litigation. Here is a rough timeline of events, which get increasingly odd as we move along in the proceedings.

October 10, 2014: Citizenfour is screened at the New York Film Festival.

October 17, 2014: Citizenfour is screened at the BFI London Film Festival.

December 12, 2014: Citizenfour is in 105 theaters in the United States.

December 19, 2014: Edwards and his attorney, Jean Lamfers, file their initial "billions" complaint, asking the judge to prevent the release of the film.

January 13, 2015: Lamfers files an "amended" complaint to include "United States of America" as a plaintiff. Yes, Lamfers attempts to sue on behalf of the US government.

January 15, 2015: Citizenfour is nominated for the Oscar for Best Documentary.

January 23ish, 2015: Lamfers requests that Citizenfour not be allowed to be entered as evidence. Instead, it should be screened to the judge and to the judge only, she argues.

January 24ish: Poitras and her attorney deliver a copy of the film to the Lamfers. She does not take it well.

"I said I did not want to take possession of it. This was because of my understanding the film contains classified information based on my having seen the film. I received no response to [my] request from defendants' counsel [to bar the film from being entered as evidence in court]," Lamfers wrote in an email sent to the judge presiding over the suit. "To the contrary defendant's counsel delivered a copy of the DVD to my office (which remains unopened and under lock and key)."

February 10, 2015: Poitras and her legal team are allowed by the judge to enter the film into evidence. Two DVD copies and a transcript of the film are submitted to the court

February 12, 2015: Edwards and Lamfers become concerned that the film has been entered into evidence. They file a motion to seal the DVDs, lest someone actually see the film.

Note that this injunction would only seal those two specific copies of the DVD. Citizenfour is still being screened in many theatres worldwide, and, in fact, was slated to premiere in seven new cities on the 13th.

February 13, 2015: Motion denied: "Given the inherently public nature of this film, the Court can discern absolutely no interest that could justify sealing this exhibit. Moreover, even if this DVD contained some sort of confidential information for which Plaintiff had an interest in preventing public disclosure, it has already been publicly filed," the judge wrote.

February 14, 2015: Cryptome, a site that posts hacker documents and that sort of thing, incorrectly assumes that, because the film was entered as evidence, it has entered the public domain and is free for anyone to use. Cryptome posts two copies of the full film for download on its website.

Defense provided 2 DVDs of Citizenfour as exhibit in Edwards suit. So film in public domain as unsealed record. On HBO 2/23/15. Leaking $.— Cryptome (@Cryptomeorg) February 14, 2015

"I personally doubt this use of the film would avoid copyright infringement of uses of the film that were not otherwise fair, eg, comment on legal issues pertaining to the film," Jerome Reichman, a professor at Duke University's Center for the Study of the Public Domain, told me.

In other words, you can probably download and watch the film to comment on whether or not this lawsuit has any merit. Edwards and Lamfers, therefore, have, by filing this lawsuit, perhaps indirectly exposed classified information to more people. In any case, there are now easy-to-access, direct download links to the film.

February 14, 2015: Lamfers is required to remove the United States government as a plaintiff in the case.

February 17, 2015: Lamfers calls the court on an "emergency basis" in an attempt to temporarily seal the DVDs pending appeal.

February 18, 2015: Court emails Lamfers back, urging the lawyer to not make random emergency calls to the court.

February 19, 2015: Lamfers emails the judge, at 12:46 AM local time (according to the court record), chastising the court for endangering national security and for not immediately responding to her call.

"This situation has placed the plaintiff in an untenable position regarding avoiding  irreparable harm and obtaining appropriate relief sought on a serious issue in a timely manner," she wrote. "The denial of a sealing motion has furthered the irreparable harm and relief necessary to address such harm, among other things, by the continuing injury through repetition of classified, stolen information that reaches a broader constituency of extremists with each showing."

February 19, 2015: In a "supplemental memorandum pursuant to emergency contact with court via email," Lamfers suggests that "better safe than sorry" is not merely a turn of phrase, but that, literally, the DVD should have been put into a safe where it could never, ever be seen.

February 22, 2015: The court formally asks Lamfers to stop calling:

February 22, 2015: Citizenfour wins an Oscar.

February 23, 2015: Citizenfour is screened on HBO.

The case is still underway.
 
Ooops ... this just in and reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from BBC News:

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33125068
resizedimage129150-BBC-logo-nr.jpg

UK agents 'moved over Snowden files'
UK intelligence agents have been moved because Russia and China can read files stolen by a US whistleblower, a senior government source has told the BBC.

The Sunday Times is reporting that Russia and China have cracked the encryption of the computer files.

The government source told the BBC the countries "have information" that led to agents being moved but added there was "no evidence" any had been harmed.

Edward Snowden, now in Russia, leaked intelligence data two years ago.

The former CIA contractor left the US in 2013 after leaking details of extensive internet and phone surveillance by American intelligence to the media.

His information made international headlines in June 2013 when the Guardian newspaper reported that the US National Security Agency was collecting the telephone records of tens of millions of Americans.

Mr Snowden is believed to have downloaded 1.7 million secret documents before he left the US.

'Hostile countries'

The government source said the information obtained by Russia and China meant that "knowledge of how we operate" had stopped the UK getting "vital information".

Intelligence officials have long warned of what they see as the dangers of the information leaked by Mr Snowden and its potential impact on keeping people in the UK safe - a concern Prime Minister David Cameron has said he shares.

According to the Sunday Times, Western intelligence agencies have been forced to pull agents out of "hostile countries" after "Moscow gained access to more than one million classified files" held by Mr Snowden.

"Senior government sources confirmed that China had also cracked the encrypted documents, which contain details of secret intelligence techniques and information that could allow British and American spies to be identified," the newspaper added.

'Huge setback'

Tim Shipman, who co-wrote the Sunday Times story, told the BBC: "Snowden said 'nobody bad has got hold of my information'.

"Well, we are told authoritatively by people in Downing Street, in the Home Office, in the intelligence services that the Russians and the Chinese have all this information and as a result of that our spies are having to pull people out of the field because their lives are in danger.

"People in government are deeply frustrated that this guy has been able to put all this information out there."

The newspaper quoted Sir David Omand, former director of UK intelligence agency GCHQ, saying the fact Russia and China had the information was a "huge strategic setback" that was "harming" to Britain, the US and their Nato allies.


Mr Snowden has now learned that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and all that.
 
::) Surely the whole audience will be full of govt. conspiracy nuts with their tinfoil hats just waiting for the Q&A portion.

Vancity Buzz

Edward Snowden to speak to Vancouverites at Queen Elizabeth Theatre
By
Lauren Sundstrom
3:16 PM PST, Wed February 17, 2016

Controversial public figure Edward Snowden will speak at a Vancouver event via web-link on the power and perils of big data, according to Simon Fraser University.

The event will be hosted by SFU’s Public Square and will highlight the ways big data practices are evolving in regards to governments and corporations.

“Snowden is a transformative figure in the field of big data,” said Catherine Murray, Professor, Communication at Simon Fraser University in a release.

“No other leak was of this scale, this importance to global and national security, and this revealing of the degree of challenges to privacy that big data may pose.”

Snowden is a former CIA employee who leaked classified information from the United States National Security Agency back in 2013, revealing numerous global surveillance programs. Snowden was granted asylum by the Russian government and he currently resides in Moscow

(...SNIPPED)

When: Tuesday, April 5; doors open at 6 p.m.
Where: Queen Elizabeth Theatre – 650 Hamilton Street, Vancouver
Tickets: $10 to $20. They’ll be available soon.
 
Back
Top