{"id":108162,"date":"2014-02-18T17:58:18","date_gmt":"2014-02-18T17:58:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=108162"},"modified":"2014-02-18T17:58:18","modified_gmt":"2014-02-18T17:58:18","slug":"snowden-files-reveal-agencies-spied-whistle-blowing-site","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/snowden-files-reveal-agencies-spied-whistle-blowing-site\/","title":{"rendered":"Snowden Files Reveal How Agencies Spied on Whistle Blowing Site"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alex Kane\u00a0<\/strong>
\nRINF Alternative News\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The whistleblowing website WikiLeaks has long been in the crosshairs of the U.S. government. \u00a0Now, more details\u00a0exposed by The Intercept\u00a0<\/a>reveal that the National Security Agency (NSA)\u2019s British counterpart, GCHQ, monitored Internet users who visited the WikiLeaks website and that the Obama administration urged allies to file charges against WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, the site\u2019s founder.<\/p>\n

The article was written by Glenn Greenwald and Ryan Gallagher<\/a>, and is the latest piece on The Intercept based off documents Edward Snowden leaked to Greenwald and other journalists.<\/p>\n

WikiLeaks is a target of a U.S. grand jury case,\u00a0though the Washington Post reported\u00a0<\/a>last November that the Justice Department has indicated no charges would be filed since they couldn\u2019t prosecute without targeting other media organizations and journalists. \u00a0But the grand jury is not the only way the U.S. set its sight on WikiLeaks, which rose to prominence after they published hundreds of thousands of secret documents exposing the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and U.S. diplomatic dealings.<\/p>\n

Greenwald and Gallagher report on three documents that show the extent of U.S. and British targeting of WikiLeaks. \u00a0They contradict the U.S. government\u2019s insistence that they only target \u201cterrorists\u201d for surveillance.<\/p>\n

One document shows that the GCHQ used its surveillance system to sweep up the IP addresses of those visiting the WikiLeaks website and the search terms people used to reach the site. \u00a0These included Americans. \u00a0\u201cHow could targeting an entire website\u2019s user base be necessary or proportionate?\u201d asked Gus Hosein, the head of Privacy International, in an interview with The Intercept. \u00a0\u201cThese are innocent people who are turned into suspects based on their reading habits. Surely becoming a target of a state\u2019s intelligence and security apparatus should require more than a mere click on a link.\u201d<\/p>\n

A separate file reveals how the Obama administration wanted allies like Australia and Germany to file charges against WikiLeaks for publishing the Afghan war logs, which detailed civilian deaths caused by soldiers and other aspects of the war.<\/p>\n

A third document shows that the NSA considered designating WikiLeaks a \u201cmalicious foreign actor.\u201d \u00a0According to The Intercept, such a designation would \u201chave significantly expanded the agency\u2019s ability to subject the group\u2019s officials and supporters to extensive surveillance.<\/p>\n

Such a designation would allow WikiLeaks to be targeted with surveillance without the use of \u2018defeats\u2019 \u2014 an agency term for technical mechanisms to shield the communications of U.S. persons from getting caught in the dragnet.\u201d \u00a0There is no confirmation that the NSA did decide to use the designation, though.<\/p>\n

Alex Kane is AlterNet’s New York-based World editor, and an assistant editor for\u00a0Mondoweiss<\/a>. Follow him onTwitter @alexbkane.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alex Kane\u00a0 RINF Alternative News\u00a0 The whistleblowing website WikiLeaks has long been in the crosshairs of the U.S. government. \u00a0Now, more details\u00a0exposed by The Intercept\u00a0reveal that the National Security Agency (NSA)\u2019s British counterpart, GCHQ, monitored Internet users who visited the WikiLeaks website and that the Obama administration urged allies to file charges against WikiLeaks and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":108163,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-108162","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}