14 DAY TRIAL // WikiLeaks doesn’t really seem to care about The Intercept’s desire to keep people safe or about Edward Snowden’s requirements made clear when he handed over the NSA documents, namely for no one to get hurt.
The most recent report coming from The Intercept and based on the leaked NSA files indicates that the spy agency has been collecting all phone calls going in, out and inside the Bahamas. The program deployed in the country is called SOMALGET and it’s part of a wider program named MYSTIC which mainly handles metadata collection.
MYSTIC affects several countries, including Mexico, the Philippines, and Kenya, as well as one unnamed country. Full conversations are only recorded in the Bahamas and the unnamed nation however.
The Intercept has explained that it won’t give this last name because it could lead to increased violence, which is not something they want to cause with the NSA leaks. Glenn Greenwald, one of the authors of the article, said he was convinced that revealing the name would lead to deaths.
WikiLeaks doesn’t seem to care too much about these tactics and it is threatening to go public with the country’s name within 72 hours. A heated discussion erupted on Twitter between WikiLeaks, Greenwald, John Cook (Intercept editor in chief), and Jacob Appelbaum, Der Spiegel contributor and ex-WikiLeaks hacker.
@GGreenwald @johnjcook We will reveal the name of the censored country whose population is being mass recorded in 72 hours.
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) May 19, 2014
The threat obviously implies that WikiLeaks knows who the NSA has set its eyes on, which means that the organization somehow got its hands on Snowden files, has the information from other sources or is simply speculating.
It could also be a method to pressure The Intercept into revealing the country’s name, although the strategy is quite bad since the publication clearly does not want to assume responsibility for whatever happens if the name goes public.
Some believe that perhaps Appelbaum is somehow related to WikiLeaks’ threat considering that he’s had access to Snowden files while reporting for Der Spiegel alongside Laura Poitras, another author of the article published by the Intercept.
Since he’s had connections to WikiLeaks in the past, people suspect that he may have passed some information over to the organization, even though there’s no proof to back this up so far. However, WikiLeaks’ threat does gain more weight because of their connection.
When Edward Snowden stepped forward with the documents he took from the NSA, he specifically picked reporters he knew would make sure to only report on information that is of public interest and in such a manner that no lives would be put in danger. This, it seems, is one of those instances.