Australian whistleblower to be tried in SECRET under national security powers

This is, as the article says, explosive. I would not expect either the ABC or Newscorp to come clean on this one.

Defence whistleblower fears secret trial that will gag him

the New Daily,

6 June, 2019

David McBride, the Defence whistleblower whose claims are at the heart of Wednesday’s police raid on the ABC, is facing a secret trial after the Attorney-General invoked national security powers.

Mr McBride faces years in jail if convicted of crimes involving leaking documents used in the ABC’s 2017 Afghan Files series.

Mr McBride, a 55-year old former army lawyer, says he was informed on April 29 that the National Security Information Act would be invoked by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions. He has pleaded not guilty but admits handing over the documents and will defend his actions on public interest grounds.

“The Attorney-General has come in and invoked special national security legislation passed after [the September 11 terror attacks],” Mr McBride told The New Daily.

The former military lawyer served two tours of Afghanistan. Photo: Supplied

“The trial is going to be secret, and anyone who speaks about it outside the courthouse can be arrested.”

The laws allow for closed hearings and require high-level security clearances for legal representatives – one of the reasons Mr McBride has chosen to represent himself.

To invoke the laws, the Attorney General Christian Porter gives notice in writing to all parties involved in the proceeding, and their legal representatives.

The Law Council of Australia has previously raised concerns about the broad application of the laws. It argues that greater protection is required for whistleblowers – and that courts should decide what matters are heard, to ensure a fair trial.

David McBride says the government is misusing national security laws. Photo: ABC

“It’s extremely dangerous. It’s certainly a misuse of national security laws. I am obviously not talking about any secret capabilities we have, which is what the legislation is about,” Mr McBride said.

“I am saying the government is corrupt basically and they are using that national security legislation to cover up. It’s a bit like China, you know when they call journalists spies and they put them in prison.

“They are classifying us in the same way you might a spy which, of course, is very dangerous. The language they use is ‘national security’ information and they are allowed to decide that unilaterally.

“It’s very scary. You could be talking about corruption and bribery in some industry and they could say ‘that’s national security’.”

Mr McBride said it was important he spoke out now because he will not be able to comment once the trial is underway.

“That’s why I am keen to talk today. I am not sure if they are going to come knocking on the door and say we are going to arrest you now or if you talk to anyone else you’re going to go to jail,” he said.

“The government leaks like a sieve when they want information out there that they think helps them.”

Mr McBride said he wanted to know why the Defence Department had not demanded an investigation into the leak of the Crompvoets report into special forces.

The case has similarities with the case of the spy-turned-whistleblower who revealed Australia had bugged Timor-Leste’s cabinet rooms that is also currently being heard in the ACT magistrates court.

The employee of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service known only as Witness K has lost his bid for the trial to be held in open court hearings after legal argument.

Canberra sociologist Dr Samantha Crompvoets’ explosive confidential report – commissioned by Defence and leaked to the media in 2018 – contains allegations that Australia’s elite special forces might have used “unsanctioned and illegal application of violence on operations”.

Stuart McCarthy, a 30-year army veteran and friend of Mr McBride worked closely with him at the Headquarters of Combined Team Uruzgan, in Tarin Kowt in 2011.

“Dave’s expertise in operations law, including targeting, rules of engagement and other complex legal issues was absolutely crucial to what we were trying to achieve with the Afghan government, the Taliban and local security forces,” he told The New Daily.

“The environment we were working in was complex, demanding and dangerous, during a crucial period when the International Security Assistance Force was beginning to transition security responsibilities to the Afghan government and military forces,” he said.

“I have no doubt that the concerns Dave later raised through the chain of command, then via the media, were serious, deserving independent and transparent investigation. Defence has obviously handled this matter poorly, once again highlighting the need for better whistleblower protections.”

The New Daily has contacted Mr Porter for comment.

NSA behind the DNC links, not Russia

I was alerted to this by a You Tube video from Israeli News Live.

A few hours later when I came to check the video had already been removed from You Tube.

There is a lot more material that is being “disappeared” from Facebook or You Tube so we are going to have to have to think up more effective methods to get round the censorship.

I shall start by transferring Judge Napolitano onto audio.

The Killary Clinton team will be trying to kill this story as quickly and effectively as they can, so keep it moving!

NSA Whistleblower: US Intelligence Worker Likely Behind DNC Leaks, Not Russia

Anti-media,

21 October, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) During the third and last presidential debate between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton, debate moderator Chris Wallace pulled a quote from a speech Clinton had given to Brazilian bankers, noting the information had been made available to the public via WikiLeaks.

Listen to "Napolitano: Why would the NSA hack the DNC?" on Spreaker.

Instead of answering the question, Clinton blamed the Russian government for the leaks, alleging “[t]he Russian government has engaged in espionage against Americans,” hacking “American websites, American accounts of private people, of institutions … in an effort, as 17 of our intelligence agencies have confirmed, to influence our election.”

Following the claim, Clinton criticized Trump for saying “[Clinton] has no idea whether it’s Russia, China, or anybody else,” repeating her assertion that 17 U.S. intelligence agencies had determined the Russian government had been behind the Democratic National Committee (DNC) hack.

Despite her claim, reality couldn’t be more different.

Instead of 17 agencies, only the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have offered the public any input on this matter, claiming the DNC attacks “are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts.”

Without offering any evidence, these two — not 17 — agencies hinted that the Kremlin could be behind the cyber attack. But saying they believe the hacks come from the Russians is far short of saying they know the Russians were behind them.

During an interview on Aaron Klein’s Sunday radio program, former high-ranking NSA intelligence official-turned-whistleblower, William Binney, discussed the alleged Russian involvement in our elections, suggesting the cyber attack against the DNC may not have originated from the Russian government. Instead, Binney says, a “disgruntled U.S. intelligence worker” is likely behind the breach.

Speaking as an analyst, Binney added that a testimony by the former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Robert S. Mueller from March 2011 shows the FBI has access to a series of databases that helps them “to track down known and suspected terrorists.”

According to Binney, what Mueller meant is that the FBI has access to the NSA database and that it’s accessed without any oversight, meaning the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), as well as the FBI, have open access to anything the NSA has access to. “So if the FBI really wanted [Clinton’s and the DNC emails] they can go into that database and get them right now,” Binney told Klein.

Asked if he believed the NSA had copies of all Clinton’s emails, “including the deleted correspondence,” Binney said:

“Yes. That would be my point. They have them all and the FBI can get them right there.”

While Binney seems to be the only intelligence insider who has come forward with this type of analysis, a young man from Russia whose servers were implicated in the recent hacking of the DNC sites says he has information that will lead to the hacker — yet the FBI won’t knock on his door.

In a conversation with the New York Times, Vladimir M. Fomenko said his server rental company, King Servers, is oftentimes used by hackers. Fomenko added that the hackers behind the attack against computerized election systems in Arizona and Illinois — which, like the DNC hack, were also linked to the Russian government by the FBI — had used his servers.

According to the 26-year-old entrepreneur, “[w]e have the information. … If the F.B.I. asks, we are ready to supply the I.P. addresses, the logs, … but nobody contacted us.”

“It’s like nobody wants to sort this out,” he added.

After learning that two renters using the nicknames Robin Good and Dick Robin had used his servers to hack the Arizona and Illinois voting systems, Fomenko released a statement saying he learned about the problem through the news and shut down the two users down shortly after.

While he told the New York Times he doesn’t know who the hackers are, he used his statement to report that the hackers are not Russian security agents.

“The analysis of the internal data allows King Servers to confidently refute any conclusions about the involvement of the Russian special services in this attack,” he said on September 15, the New York Times reported.

According to Fomenko, he found a trail left by the hackers through their contact with King Servers’ billing page, which leads to the next step in the chain “to bring investigators in the United States closer to the hackers.”

The clients used about 60 I.P. addresses to contact Fomenko, including addresses belonging to server companies in Finland, France, Italy, Norway, Britain, and Sweden. With these addresses in hand, authorities could track the hackers down.

But while this information is somewhat recent, few news organizations found it necessary to report on the King Servers link. In the past, however, at least one major news network mentioned Binney.

In August 2016, Judge Andrew Napolitano commented on the DNC hack.

On “Judge Napolitano Chambers,” the Judge said that while the DNC, government officials, and the Clinton campaign all accuse the Russians of hacking into the DNC servers, “the Russians had nothing to do with it.”

Napolitano then mentioned Binney, arguing the NSA veteran and whistleblower who “developed the software that the NSA now uses, which allows it to capture not just metadata but content of every telephone call, text message, email in the United States of every person in [the country]” knew the NSA had hacked the DNC — not the Russians.

If Judge Napolitano and Binney are right and the NSA did hack the DNC, what was the motive?

According to the Judge, “members of the intelligence community simply do not want [Clinton] to be president of the United States.”

“She doesn’t know how to handle state secrets,” Napolitano continued. And since “some of the state secrets that she revealed used the proper true names of American intelligence agents operating undercover in the Middle East,” some of these agents were allegedly captured and killed, prompting NSA agents to feel compelled to act.

Whether NSA agents hacked the DNC or not, one thing is clear: there’s no real evidence linking the DNC and Arizona and Illinois voting system hacks to the Russian government.

The surveillance state

US officials: New leaker compromised national security documents after Snowden

The United States government has concluded that a new leaker has been supplying members of the media with classified documents, CNN reported on Tuesday.

RT,

6 August, 2014

Earlier that day, The Intercept published a new article based off of disclosures provided to them by an unnamed source pertaining to the US government’s use of watchlists to monitor known and suspected terrorists.

Previously, The Intercept has worked closely with top-secret National Security Agency documents admittedly provided to journalists by Edward Snowden, a former contractor for the NSA. Tuesday’s leak, however, is of a document dated August 2013 — weeks after Snowden chose to identify himself as the source of the NSA leak and had already arrived in Moscow where he later received asylum and remains today.

“An August 2013 slide from the National Counterterrorism Center called ‘TIDE By The Numbers’ lays out the scope of the Obama administration’s watchlisting system, and those it is targeting,” Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Devereaux wrote for The Intercept. “The documents, obtained from a source in the intelligence community, also reveal that the Obama administration has presided over an unprecedented expansion of the terrorist screening system.”

Reuters / Vincent Kessler

Tuesday’s Intercept article came one day after the agency reported on previously unpublished NSA documents, but also barely two weeks after Scahill and Devereaux wrote of another NCC document provided to them by “a source within the intelligence community.”

In the 14 months since Snowden’s documents first began to surface online, the US intelligence community has time and time again condemned the leaking of classified information, charging the ex-contractor with espionage and reportedly going to great lengths to prevent another major breach on par with the NSA disclosures, or the release of documents a few years earlier by WikiLeaks source Chelsea Manning. In less than three weeks’ time, however, The Intercept has managed to obtain government documents without authorization from most presumably another source.

Sources asides, the latest documents prepared by the NCC and leaked to The Intercept cast a rare light on the US government’s use of ever-expanding federal watchlists by making public the information about the Uncle Sam-sanctioned rosters of suspected terrorists that have previously not been disclosed to wide audiences.

On their part, Scahill and Devereaux wrote that the leak provides “the most complete numerical picture of the watchlisting system to date.

According to the journalists’ report, more than 40 percent of the 680,000 individuals listed in the US Terrorist Screening Database shared with local police agencies, contractors and governments around the globe — or around 280,000 people — have “no recognized terrorist group affiliation.”

Additionally, the documents reveal that the number of people barred from flying in the US — entrees on the infamous “no-fly list” — has increased by 10-times since President Barack Obama entered the White House in 2009 to a total of around 47,000.

“You might as well have a blue wand and just pretend there’s magic in it, because that’s what we’re doing with this—pretending that it works,” former FBI agent Michael German, now a fellow at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, told The Intercept. “These agencies see terrorism as a winning card for them. They get more resources. They know that they can wave that card around and the American public will be very afraid and Congress and the courts will allow them to get away with whatever they’re doing under the national security umbrella.”

Tuesday’s Intercept story contains a trove of previously unreported details concerning the administering of federal watchlists and its massive expansion under the Obama administration. As of 2013, the website reported, the main terrorism database operated by the US contains more than 860,000 biometric files on 144,000 people, who are but a sliver of the 680,000 individuals on the lists.

“When US officials refer to ‘the watchlist,’ they typically mean the TSDB [Terrorist Screening Database], an unclassified pool of information shared across the intelligence community and the military, as well as local law enforcement, foreign governments and private contractors,” The Intercept reported. Furthermore, watchlisting guidelines published by The Intercept last month revealed that officials don’t need ‘concrete facts’ or ‘irrefutable evidence’ to place someone on the list, but rather “only a vague and elastic standard of ‘reasonable suspicion.’”

Assange stakeout has cost nearly $12 million

RT,

6 August, 2014

As WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange marks his 777th day in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, the Metropolitan Police has spent over $11.8 million on guarding the embassy.

WikiLeaks        ✔ @wikileaks

Follow

This Day in #WikiLeaks: Cost of UK surveillance of #Assange reaches £7m; Collected cables on #Israel/#Gaza/#Palestine http://www.thisdayinwikileaks.org/2014/08/5-august-2014.html …

12:08 PM - 6 Aug 2014

84 RETWEETS 29 FAVORITES

Assange has been detained without charge for 1,337 days – and 777 of those days have been spent in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, according to the latest WikiLeaks statement.

Meanwhile, the price tag for guarding Assange hit over seven million British pounds (US$11.8 million) early on Wednesday, according to govwaste.co.uk counter.

Officers have been staking out the embassy around the clock since June 2012, with the cost to the London taxpayers surpassing $15,000 per day.

At any time of the day or night, there are three officers stationed outside the embassy, ready to arrest Assange if he tries to leave.

The bill is likely to keep climbing; Ecuadorian authorities have said Assange is welcome to stay in the embassy for as long as required.

The UK has refused to provide Assange safe passage to Ecuador ever since the Australian sought refuge inside the embassy.

Police stand guard in front of supporters of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange wo are standing with banners outside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London on June 19, 2014 (AFP Photo / Andrew Cowie)

Many have criticized the cost of the UK’s obsession with guarding Assange, including London Mayor Boris Johnson. “It’s absolutely ridiculous, that money should be spent on frontline policing. It’s completely wasted,” the mayor said.

Deputy chair of the Police & Crime Committee at the London Assembly Baroness Jenny Jones said: “It’s absolute madness...either somebody else has to pay – that is, the Swedish authorities – or we just have to back off and stop guarding the embassy. It is ludicrous.”

The 42-year-old WikiLeaks founder is wanted for questioning in Sweden for allegedly sexually assaulting two women in Stockholm in 2010.

Assange denies the charges but will not travel to Sweden to be questioned because he says the charges are politically motivated for his work with WikiLeaks and he will be extradited to the US. WikiLeaks enraged Washington by publishing thousands of leaked diplomatic cables in 2010.

A Swedish court upheld an arrest warrant for Assange in July, following a legal challenge from his lawyers in June. The challenge was spurred by a change to the right to information in criminal procedures, which is in line with an EU directive.

Swedish Judge Lena Egelin was quick to dismiss the legal challenge to Assange’s arrest warrant, but noted that the decision could still be appealed.

Assange’s defense team had argued that the European arrest warrant should be lifted on the grounds that the prosecution had failed to act in a timely manner by not interviewing their client at the embassy. They also said that detaining a suspect for the duration of the investigation was an excessive use of force that was not in the public interest.

Some of the latest WikiLeaks releases have been cables about Israel and Gaza, including leaks on the bombing of UN schools in Gaza, cables on 'Israel's NSA,' and over 8,300 documents on Gilad Shalit – an Israeli soldier captured by Hamas in 2006.

WikiLeaks        ✔ @wikileaks

Follow

8,328 #WikiLeaks documents on Gilad Shalit (Israeli soldier captured by #Hamas in 2006): https://search.wikileaks.org/?q=%22Gilad+Shalit%22&sort=0 … #Gaza #Palestine #Israel

4:51 AM - 3 Aug 2014

127 RETWEETS 35 FAVORITES

Meanwhile, Assange is releasing a new book titled 'When Google Met WikiLeaks,' which will be published in September by OR Books. In the book, the WikiLeaks founder describes his vision of the future of the internet and recounts a meeting with Google chairman Eric Schmidt in 2011.

Would your trust them?

NSA considers amnesty for Snowden if he stops leaks

Senior National Security Agency officials in the United States say they’ve considered making a deal with former contractor Edward Snowden that would give amnesty to the leaker charged with espionage if he stops disclosing secret documents.

RT,

13 December, 2013

Both the director of the NSA and the government official in charge of the agency’s Snowden task force tell CBS News that they’ve considered the possibility of cutting a deal with the 30-year-old former contractor, who fled the US for Hong Kong earlier this year with a trove of top-secret documents.

Snowden, who is reportedly now working in Russia after being granted temporary asylum there in August, might be able to return to the US and avoid prosecution if the American government agrees to an amnesty deal that would likely put an embargo on the stolen cache of files.

Asked by CBS News’ John Miller on Thursday, the NSA official tasked with leading a specialized group in charge of the Snowden case said “it's worth having a conversation about” a possible amnesty pact with the subject of his probe.

“I would need assurances that the remainder of the data could be secured, and my bar for those assurances would be very high. It would be more than just an assertion on his part,” Rick Leggett of the Snowden task force told Miller.

“It’s not unanimous,” Leggett added, however, and NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander admits that he isn’t exactly in favor of suspending charges against Snowden, who is accused of theft and espionage.

Alexander admitted to Miller that the entire situation is quite a dilemma, but said that in his opinion, “I think people have to be held accountable for their actions.”

Should Snowden be granted amnesty, Alexander suggested, other government employees or contractors with access to sensitive information could consider it a go-ahead from the federal government to leak documents on their own accord and know a life-time imprisonment isn’t the only possible outcome.

“[W]hat we don't want is the next person to do the same thing, race off to Hong Kong and to Moscow with another set of data, knowing they can strike the same deal,” Alexander told Miler.

The opinion with regards to Mr. Snowden’s actions has been largely split among other government officials as well, but a Department of Justice complaint was unsealed in June charging the former Booz Allen Hamilton employee with theft, “unauthorized communication of national defense information” and “willful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an unauthorized person.”

While working as an intelligence contractor, Snowden took a trove of classified documents that have been shared with certain members of the media and reported on consistently since June through a steady trickling of leaks that have embarrassed the US and outraged America’s allies.

Glenn Greenwald, the American journalist who met with Snowden in Hong Kong and has reported on the pilfered files in the months since, previously said his source passed him upwards of 20,000 classified documents, according to a Reuters report in August. Gen. Alexander said during an event in Baltimore last month that the total number of stolen files could include as many as 200,000 NSA documents, and CBS News reports this week that Snowden “is believed to still have access to 1.5 million classified documents he has not leaked.”

The first major news report based off of the Snowden files was published by The Washington Post and Britain’s the Guardian in early June and revealed evidence of the US government’s top-secret practice of compelling telecommunication companies for the phone records of everyone in America on a regular basis. Leaked documents have been continuously provided to members of the media in the six months since.