14 DAY TRIAL // A few days ago, the Intercept revealed a new report based on Edward Snowden’s leaked NSA files in which the spy agency was accused of recording every phone call going in, out and within the Bahamas. The same program was also active in another country, but the publication refused to reveal its name, being convinced that this would lead to violence and even deaths.
WikiLeaks immediately threatened that it would reveal the name of that second country where the United States collected all phone calls and now, it has done it.
“Both the Washington Post and The Intercept stated that they had censored the name of the victim country at the request of the US government. Such censorship strips a nation of its right to self-determination on a matter which affects its whole population. An ongoing crime of mass espionage is being committed against the victim state and its population,” WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange writes.
The publication believes that by denying an entire population the knowledge of its own victimization, the act of censorship denies individuals of that country the opportunity to seek an effective remedy, be it in international courts, or elsewhere.
WikiLeaks has not revealed just how it has found out the name of this second nation and the Washington Post and The Intercept have not confirmed or denied the truth of the organization’s statement and likely never will.
The report published on Monday presented a program called MYSTIC that was used to collect metadata from a number of countries, including Mexico, the Philippines, and Kenya. SOMALGET is a subprogram that allows the NSA to record the content of all conversations going on in a country via telephone. The program is deployed in the Bahamas and in the second nation whose name was withheld.
In the Bahamas alone, the program is responsible for collecting about 100 million call events each day. The data is stored for 30 days before being deleted.
Editor’s Note: We, at Softpedia, have decided not to share the name of the second country, even though it’s fairly easy to find out. While we don’t agree with government censorship in any way or form, Glenn Greenwald, one of the authors of the original report, isn’t known for giving in to the US government’s requests for no reason. Therefore, the threat that the report mentions must have some truth to it. We suppose it's a matter of which sources you trust.
Edward Snowden had very few requests for the journalists he shared the NSA materials with. Firstly, he wanted the files that were used in reports to be of public interest. Secondly, he asked that no one get hurt. The situation with WikiLeaks is a clear example of why the whistleblower did not choose to follow in the footsteps of Chelsea Manning and trust the trove of documents with the organization.