Following up on that spy thing
by digby
Despite the ongoing belief in the gosh-darned patriotic honesty of anonymous government sources by the drearily predictable Snowden antagonists this latest BS story really is too much. Here’s Ryan Gallagher with a rundown of a truly pathetic interview with the alleged journalist who took dictation from MI6 over the week-end:
The lead reporter on the Sunday Times article, Tom Harper, has given an interview with CNN that has to be seen to be believed. In it, Harper is quizzed by host George Howell about the piece — and his answers highlight the many problems with the story’s central allegations and how they were sourced. Here’s a transcript of the important bits; I’ll dissect some key points below.
Howell: How do senior officials at 10 Downing Street know that these files were breached?
Harper: Well, uhh, I don’t know the answer to that George. All we know is that this is effectively the official position of the British government … we picked up on it a while ago and we’ve been working on it and trying to stand it up through multiple sources, and when we approached the government late last week with our evidence, they confirmed effectively what you read today in the Sunday Times, so it’s obviously allegations at the moment from our point of view and it’s really for the British government to defend it.
How do they know what was in them [the files], if they were encrypted? Has the British government also gotten into these files?
Well, the files came from America and the UK, so they may already have known for some time what Snowden took — uhh, again, that’s not something we’re clear on … we don’t go into that level of detail in the story we just publish what we believe to be the position of the British government at the moment.
Your article asserts that it is not clear if the files were hacked or if he just gave these files over when he was in Hong Kong or Russia, so which is it?
Well again sorry to just repeat myself george but we don’t know so we haven’t written that in the paper. It could be either, it could be another scenario … when you’re dealing with the world of intelligence there are so many unknowns and possibilities it’s difficult to state anything with and so we’ve been very careful to just stick to what we are able to substantiate.
The article mentions these MI6 agents … were they directly under threat as a result of the information leaked or was this a precautionary measure?
Uhh, again, I’m afraid to disappoint you, we don’t know … there was a suggestion some of them may have been under threat but the statement from senior Downing Street sources suggests that no one has come to any harm, which is obviously a positive thing from the point of view of the West.
So essentially you are reporting what the government is saying, but as far as the evidence to substantiate it, you’re not really able to comment or explain that at this point?
No. We picked up on the story a while back from an extremely well placed source in the Home Office. and picked up on trying to substantiate through various sources in various agencies throughout Britain, and finally presented the story to the government, and they effectively confirmed what you read in today’s Sunday Times. But obviously when you’re dealing with intelligence it’s the toughest nut to crack and unless you have leaked documents like Snowden had, it’s difficult to say anything with certainty.So, in summary: How were the files breached? “I don’t know.” Were the files hacked or did Snowden hand them over? “We don’t know.” Were MI6 agents directly under threat? “We don’t know.” How did the government know what was in the files? “That’s not something we’re clear on.” Can you substantiate the claims? “No.”
The interview is quite extraordinary because it makes absolutely clear that not only was this entire dubious story based solely on claims made anonymously by government officials, the reporters who regurgitated the claims did not even seek to question the veracity of the information. They just credulously accepted the allegations and then printed them unquestioningly. That really is the definition of stenography journalism — it’s shameful.
It’s also worth noting that in Harper’s interview he admits he has no idea how the Chinese and Russian governments supposedly obtained the files, yet the whole story was based on a bombshell claim that the trove of files was somehow “cracked” by Chinese and Russian government operatives (i.e. that the encryption on them was broken). As I noted above in point #9, if Snowden just handed over the files, why would these governments then need to “crack” them, unless the claim is that he handed over a set of encrypted documents? Either way, Harper says he has no idea how the files were obtained, so how does he know they were “cracked”? This central allegation seems to have been invented completely out of thin air, at worst a fabrication by technologically inept reporters who don’t understand what terminology like “cracked” means, at best derived from evidence-free conjecture from spineless government officials too afraid to put their names to the claims.
It is also very telling to note that Harper cites “an extremely well placed source in the Home Office” as the initial person who tipped him off about the story. That’s presumably the same “senior Home Office source” quoted in the story insinuating that Snowden chose to go to Russia and hand over documents in return for asylum. That absurd allegation, as I noted in point #6 above, contradicts the fact that Snowden only ended up in Moscow because the US government foolishly revoked his passport and stranded him there while he was passing through on route to Latin America; moreover, Snowden has said repeatedly that he didn’t take any documents to Russia. Any reporter familiar with the story knows this. An assertion from an official claiming Snowden went there to hand over documents should surely have set off alarm bells about the credibility of his claims, and should have at least have prompted a demand for evidence to back them up, given their magnitude.
You can go here for a full refutation of the allegations in the article including the erroneous “fact” that Snowden had the documents in Russia because David Miranda visited him in Moscow and was found carrying some of them when he was stopped in the UK. Miranda had visited laura Poitras in Berlin, which is where he got the documents. Snowden had always said he gave them to the journalists. The Sunday Times quietly changed that in their article without acknowledging the mistake.
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