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EFF Reports GHCQ and NSA Keeping Tabs On Wikileaks Visitors and Reporters

Posted by samzenpus on from the lets-have-a-look dept.

sandbagger writes in with a story about U.S. and British government interest and involvement with journalists visiting the Wikileaks website. "The Intercept recently published an article and supporting documents indicating that the NSA and its British counterpart GCHQ surveilled and even sought to have other countries prosecute the investigative journalism website WikiLeaks. GCHQ also surveilled the millions of people who merely read the WikiLeaks website. The article clarifies the lengths that these two spy organizations go to track their targets and confirms, once again, that they do not confine themselves to spying on to those accused of terrorism. One document contains a summary of an internal discussion in which officials from two NSA offices discuss whether to categorize WikiLeaks as a "malicious foreign actor" for surveillance targeting purposes. This would be an important categorization because agents have significantly more authority to engage in surveillance of malicious foreign actors."

3 of 82 comments (clear)

  1. Organisational mandates by Richard_at_work · · Score: 4, Informative

    This part of the summary made me pause:

    and confirms, once again, that they do not confine themselves to spying on to those accused of terrorism.

    Nowhere can I find any indication that the mandates of the NSA, GCHQ, MI5, MI5, the CIA, the FBI (or any other of the organisations usually linked in these stories) are limited to anti-terrorism duties alone - it may form a large part of their activities, but its not their sole purpose.

    Putting everything else aside, that part of the article is ridiculous.

    1. Re:Organisational mandates by Dunbal · · Score: 3, Informative

      it may form a large part of their activities,

      No, it forms a large part of the political excuse to create and fund these entities.

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    2. Re:Organisational mandates by FriendlyLurker · · Score: 4, Informative

      Not mentioned in the summary, but ThePirateBay users are also included in that spying. Why do we give billions of taxpayers money to the NSA, GCHQ, MI5, MI5, CIA and the FBI again? Industrial Espionage for a few elite industry groups and to help corrupt politicians maintain power it would seem...