WikiLeaks Threatens To Reveal Info That Greenwald Says Could Lead To 'Deaths'

[garbon]

So the mash-up we so didn't need or ever want?

http://www.businessinsider.com/wikileaks-says-it-will-reveal-redacted-country-2014-5

"We will reveal the name of the censored country whose population is being mass recorded in 72 hours." – WikiLeaks on Twitter

America's National Security Agency (NSA) can "vacuum up and store the actual content of every conversation" in the Bahamas and an unnamed country, the new publication The Intercept reported Monday, based on documents leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Intercept Editor Glenn Greenwald — who wrote about documents leaked by Snowden when he was a columnist for The Guardian — said the publication didn't reveal the country because it was "very convinced" that doing so would lead to "deaths."

After a heated discussion between WikiLeaks, Greenwald, Intercept Editor-In-Chief John Cook, and American WikiLeaks hacker-turned-Der Spiegal contributor Jacob Appelbaum, WikiLeaks tweeted that it will reveal the name of the second country being spied on by the NSA.

That threat implies that WikiLeaks knows the other country — which would only be possible if the rogue publishing organization has access to the Snowden documents. There is no overt indication that it does.

Consequently, there is no clear indication that WikiLeaks can back up the threat. The most plausible way for this to be possible is if Appelbaum, who led the reporting on several Der Spiegel articles based on NSA documents (which may or may not be from Snowden), shared information with his friend Julian Assange, the editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks. Applebaum tweeted that The Intercept's redaction was "a mistake."

Appelbaum, a friend of Laura Poitras, the other journalist whom Snowden gave a large set of documents, also gave a presentation detailing a classified document listing technology available to the NSA's hacking unit, known as TAO. It is not known how he acquired those documents.

These coincidences do not imply that Appelbaum knows the unnamed country, or that he offered this information to Assange. But they are significant if they lend credibility to WikiLeaks' threat.

The threat's potential for harm is real: Snowden's closest source and the U.S. government believe that revealing the unnamed country "could lead to increased violence."

Scary stuff. Journalist Jeremy Duns, who assumes that Assange is behind the WikiLeaks tweets, summed it up like this:

"If his 72-hour SPECTRE-to-UN-style tweet is true, he a) May cause deaths b) Now has access to Snowden material. What a maniac."

[Razgovory]

Also if he revealed that we are spying on Pakistan he risks people in the West not giving a shit.

[DGuller]

With great power comes great responsibility.  It's obvious that NSA gathered up enormous power, but how reckless did they have to be to let one idiot get the goodies on so much of what they do?  It just boggles the mind how careless Americans can be sometimes. 

I wonder what our allies in less than stable countries are thinking;  by getting their lot in with US, not only are they risking radical change in the mood of the administration when the new president comes in, but they also can get done in by the incompetence of the American intelligence services.  You can bet that KGB would never have a Snowden to deal with, at least not for long.

[garbon]

And our resident Russian appears.

[Razgovory]

With great power comes great responsibility.  It's obvious that NSA gathered up enormous power, but how reckless did they have to be to let one idiot get the goodies on so much of what they do?  It just boggles the mind how careless Americans can be sometimes. 

I wonder what our allies in less than stable countries are thinking;  by getting their lot in with US, not only are they risking radical change in the mood of the administration when the new president comes in, but they also can get done in by the incompetence of the American intelligence services.  You can bet that KGB would never have a Snowden to deal with, at least not for long.

Trim down government, do more with less.  Snowden happens to be less.