This month, a highly anticipated report is slated to be delivered to the United States Senate on the subject of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) what we used to call Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs). The report is to be made public (although it may have a classified annex) and was requested as part of the Intelligence Authorization Act attached to a COVID-19 relief bill. Itspurpose is to provide lawmakers with the best information available from the Pentagon and the intelligence community about incidents that appear to involve vehicles with amazing flight characteristics far beyond those of our most advanced aircraft.

But, this report should also shed light on and, in theory, resolve a thirty-year old, major UFO puzzle with Nevada origins: did a young physicist named Bob Lazar actually work on captured extraterrestrial spacecraft at a secret government facility called S-4, in Lincoln County near Area 51?

Lazar surfaced publicly in 1989, when he was interviewed by my former colleague George Knapp of KLAS-TV, Las Vegas. At first, Lazar spoke only in silhouette, and used the pseudonym Dennis. Later, he came forward under his own name and with no disguise. Lazars claims were fantastic: that the U.S government had, in its possession, nine crashed or captive spacecraft from another world at least one of them shaped like an actual saucer. Lazar claimed hed been part of a team hired by the government to reverse-engineer the craft, which would unlock for American scientists the propulsion secrets they needed to pave a path to the stars.

Lazar said he was fired from his job at the clandestine military base because he brought some friends into the desert near Area 51 one evening to surreptitiously watch a saucer being test flown. A Lincoln County deputy caught the group leaving the area and the deputy ratted Lazar out to the government.

Lazars story combined the most compelling elements of alien abduction stories and shadow-government conspiracy theories. The tale had a profound influence on popular culture from cartoons like American Dad to movies like Paul & Independence Day.

While publicity surrounding Lazars amazing claims literally put Area 51 on the map, it also shined a spotlight on himself, and it wasnt long before people started picking apart his story. Places where Lazar claimed to have gone to college like CalTech and MIT said theyd never heard of him. About a year after his initial TV interview, Lazar found himself criminally charged for helping operate what prosecutors described as an illegal high-tech whore house. That didnt help his credibility much.

As his case worked through the legal system, Lazar produced one of the few bits of physical evidence that hed worked at a secret base in Nevada. It was a W-2 form, reflecting income of less than one thousand dollars, purportedly paid to him by the Department of Naval Intelligence.

Even that form was questioned over its authenticity. Skeptics pointed out that theres an Office of Naval Intelligence within the Department of the Navy but not a Department of Naval Intelligence.

I covered Lazars criminal case as a reporter for KTNV-TV in 1990. I remember him pleading guilty to pandering and I recall thinking: if his saucer stories were true, and hes typical of the scientists we have working on the most significant scientific project in history then our planet might be in deep doo-do.

Yet, credibility issues aside, and despite a dearth of physical evidence and lack of corroboration from other scientists, Lazars astounding tale has not only survived over three decades but thrived.

His claims received renewed attention in 2018 thanks to a documentary produced by movie maker Jeremy Corbell. The documentary widely viewed on Netflix led to Lazar appearing on the Joe Rogan podcast, possibly the most popular podcast on the planet (this planet, anyway). Corbell, meanwhile, has been interviewed multiple times recently on network news talk shows. He is the source of at least one, recently leaked UAP video that depicts what appear to be triangular shapes moving through the sky.

Corbell in the interviews Ive seen has not claimed the UAP videos show alien intelligence at work. But he did say in his documentary that he believed there was more evidence Bob Lazar was telling the truth than there was that he was lying.

Far be it from me to suggest these aerial objects could not be of extraterrestrial origin. They may very well be. But, I would caution people inclined to rule out earthly explanations not to jump to conclusions. Just because you dont know what something is doesnt mean it is what you wish it was. UK science writer Mick West has provided very plausible terrestrial interpretations of the most recent UAP videos making rounds on TV, including the video of flying triangles.

The request for the Senate UAP study makes no mention of alien intelligence or extraterrestrial space vehicles. But the language of the request calls for such a comprehensive study that the results should either confirm or debunk Lazars claims.

The Director of National Intelligence, working with the Secretary of Defense and other agencies, is directed to provide a report that includes (in part):

A detailed analysis of unidentified aerial phenomena data and intelligence reporting collected or held by the Office of Naval Intelligence, including data and intelligence reporting held by the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force;

A detailed analysis of unidentified phenomena data collected by:

A detailed analysis of data by the FBI, which was derived from intrusions of unidentified aerial phenomena data over restricted United States airspace

Also to be included in the report:

Identification of potential aerospace or other threats posed by the unidentified aerial phenomena to national security, and an assessment of whether this unidentified aerial phenomena activity may be attributed to one or more foreign adversaries;

Identification of any incidents or patterns that indicate a potential adversary may have achieved breakthrough aerospace capabilities that could put United States strategic or conventional forces at risk.

Thus, the upcoming Senate report has the potential to paint Lazar as an unfairly maligned interstellar whistleblower with more impact than Edward Snowden, Karen Silkwood and Daniel Ellsberg combined or suggest hes either a liar or a loon.

Assuming Lazar has been telling the truth can the report avoid conceding that? Wouldnt the Pentagon have to say, at the very least, Well, Senators, were not sure whats causing all these recent UAP sightings, but we can tell you that we have an alien technology in our possession capable of performing the same kind of high-speed, gravity-defying maneuvers were seeing in these videos.

Of course, such news would be the biggest story since Genesis.

Im not getting vibes that a world-shattering revelation of that scale is about to be made. For example, former President Barack Obama, who was this nations commander-in-chief and presumably should know whats going on, was asked point-blank about UFOs in a recent interview with CBS-TVs James Corden.

While Obama said he was aware of real incidents involving unknown objects in the sky making incredible, unexplained maneuvers he also addressed the issue of aliens and captive alien spacecraft, saying:

When I came into office, I asked (about aliens), right? I was like, alright, is there the lab somewhere where were keeping the alien specimens and spaceship? They did a little bit of research and the answer was no.

So, if the upcoming Senate report does not vindicate Lazar, what will it say about him? Will he even be mentioned? Or mentioned as a mere minor player who made extraordinary claims but was an ordinary employee at Area 51 who never got near a saucer because there werent any?

My suspicion is the report will contain new details about many incidents already reported, and new reports of other sightings that have been previously secret. There will likely be some events that seem to defy conventional explanation.

But, I think people who are expecting the military to finally provide evidence validating Lazars resume as a saucer mechanic will be disappointed.

One thing you can say about Lazar after all these years: he was unequivocal. Lazar did not drop vague, tantalizing hints (as some have recently done in the media) that American scientists have possible exotic materials that need further testing to determine whether theyre of alien origin. Lazar flat out said our scientists have nine captive alien craft (nine!), that theyve been studying these craft for more than thirty years, and that he personally wrenched on the machines.

Based on Obamas comments, though, I dont think well see evidence of that in the upcoming report. And if Lazars case remains unconfirmed, I fear true believers may decry the Senate report as just another whitewash, a 21st century redux of Project Bluebook which looked at more than 12,000 UFO sightings between 1952 and 1969 and concluded there was no evidence any of them involved extraterrestrial vehicles.

At the very least, the request for the report indicates the government and military are finally taking a serious and urgent look at whats causing these phenomena and whether they pose a threat to our security. Thats progress, and thats good.

But, if the report comes up short for those expecting proof-positive of alien contact, all I can say is this: the truth is out there. And watch the skies. Keep watching the skies.

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NEVADA UFOs, the Pentagon, and the enigma of Bob Lazar NEVADA CURRENT - Nevada Current

The Mysterious Disappearance of Aidan S. (as told to his brother) by David Levithan; Knopf Books for Young Readers, 224 pages ($16.99) Ages 8 to 12.

Best-selling author David Levithan ("Someday," "Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist," with Rachel Cohn) offers a fascinating twist on a familiar genre in this compelling novel, of a portal to a fantasy world, a boy who goes missing and his parents' and friends' hostile reaction to his account of his whereabouts.

12-year-old Aidan has been missing for six days, with the whole town searching for him, when his 11-year-old brother Lucas hears a noise in the attic and finds Aidan there with a bright blue leaf in his hair and an unbelievable tale of his sojourn in another world called Aveinieu, a place reached through an old dresser in the attic, a place where he wanted to stay.

Lucas narrates the tale, revealing only small glimpses of Aidan's experience of this other world and putting the focus on the reaction to his reappearance, the police questioning, the media spotlight, the bullying at school, the family tensions, even the treachery of a friend.

Lucas has been fooled so many times by Aidan's storytelling that he isn't prepared to believe him this time, but as Aidan grieves for the world he has lost and faces the frustration and disbelief of his parents (who insist he see a psychiatrist), and the hostility of the community at large, Lucas moves toward empathetic, loving support of his brother, even trying to concoct a more plausible explanation of Aidan's disappearance just to shut everyone up.

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Books in Brief: The Mysterious Disappearance of Aidan S.; Permanent Record, The Power of Yet - Buffalo News

PERMANENT Record, Edward Snowdens 2019 memoir, full of the seamy details of state corruption that can get a whistleblower in trouble, has just been released in a young readersedition.

Its squarely aimed at a young readership and has all the stuff they love in a book adventure, fighting tyrants, young love, righteous parental moral homilies, unspeakable mum and dad divorce, ideals turned dystopic along with with a fascistic capitalism portrayed as a nearly indestructible cyborg.

The book follows Snowdens childhood years through to September 11 terror attacks wake-up and how he became a whistleblower.

Growing up, he loved Bulfinchs Mythology, Aesops Fables and, of course, the tales of King Arthurs court.

Of particular interest was the story of the tyrannical Welsh king Rhitta Gawr, who refused to accept that the age of his reign had passed and that in the future the world would be ruled by human kings, he writes.

When King Arthur puts an end to Gawrs tyranny on Mount Snaw Dun, the young Snowden is delighted: I remember the feeling of encountering my last name in this context it was thrilling and the archaic spelling gave me my first sense that the world was older than I was, even older than my parents were.

Snowden describes how at at school, he skirted the rules to do minimal work in history class, only to be scolded by the teacher and told he must mind that such cleverness could become part of his permanent record.

This heralds the main theme of the book, that we all,unwittingly, have permanent records that the government and its partners Google, Amazon, Facebook keep on us, and are willing to lie about.

Arbitrarily, the government could one day use the information gathered against anyone in the future, perhaps even retroactively.

This brings to mind the warning of Congressman Frank Church in 1975, way before the internets arrival, thatthe technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back.

All agencies that possess this technology [must] operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross over that abyss from which there is no return.

Some say we have already crossed the abyss but Snowden seems to have a modicum of hope left for the next generation to reverse this negativity.

He contends that the US government let the US people down before and after September 11 before, by ignoring warnings about an imminent threat and after, by taking the gloves off and creating a colossal surveillance state that threatens to eviscerate human privacy and with it consciousness and the ability to free think.

And he reveals the existence of homo contractus, a term used to describe government employees with top-secret clearance being poached by private companies to do the same espionage work for the same organisations the CIA and NSA subsidised by more taxpayers money and with no public scrutiny.

The mainstream media, Snowden argues, is in cahoots with the government, hiding what they are up to. Nine years before his whistleblowing revelations, the NYT quashed Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist James Risens article just before the 2004 presidential election that would have shown the Bush administrations order to vacuum up US cyber data without a court order.

The programme was known as Stellar Wind and when Snowden learned of it and others such as Xkeyscore and Prism, he was inspired to reveal what he knew about the secret and unconstitutional malfeasance of his government.

Snowdens concluding message to the heroes-in-waiting the future class of democracy-lovers and whistleblowers is explicit: If we dont reclaim our data now, future generations might not be able to do so We cant let the godlike surveillance were under be used to predictour criminal activity.

An excellent book, for children and parents alike.

Published by Pan, 9.99. This is an edited review of an article that first appeared in Counterpunch, counterpunch.org.

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Permanent Record: How One Man Exposed the Truth about Government Spying and Digital Security - Morning Star Online

One of the most consequential journalists of our time is calling it a career.

Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron may be best known to the public through the actor who played him in the Oscar-winning film Spotlight" about The Boston Globe's investigation into clergy sex abuse in the Catholic Church. The Globe went on to write many more stories and win a Pulitzer Prize, one of 17 Baron has contributed to.

After a journalism career spanning 45 years, Baron says nows the right time to retire. The Post is in a good place, he says, adding retirement will finally give him a much-needed break after almost five decades in the newsroom.

In a note to The Post staff, Baron listed some of the biggest stories of his career. He was top editor at the Miami Herald when the Bush v. Gore Supreme Court ruling was underway in Florida. Under his leadership, The Post revealed the National Security Agencys sweeping surveillance program through documents leaked by Edward Snowden in 2013.

But a lesser-known story 5-year-old Elin Gonzlezs return to Cuba in 2000 stuck with him, Baron says. As a young boy, Gonzlez was picked up at sea after his mother, who drowned attempting to flee Cuba, tried to escape the country and join relatives in Miami.

The boys father wanted him back, promoting an international custody battle that pulled at the heartstrings of many Cuban Americans living in Florida. Ultimately, Gonzlez was returned to his father.

Baron says looking back, covering the story taught him lessons hed carry through his career. At the time, he and others at the Miami Herald could have listened more closely to the Cuban American community as the story was unfolding.

They felt as if this boy had somehow gotten over the equivalent of the wall in Berlin and had made it to freedom and that it made no sense and it was unjust to return him to Cuba, he says. Agree or disagree, it was our obligation as journalists to listen and listen closely to what they were saying and why they were saying that. We did that. I still think that we might have done better.

In the coming decade, the journalism industry, specifically local newsrooms, will have to wrestle with a glut of challenges, he says. Maintaining strong local journalism is vital if we intend to have strong communities at both the state and local level, he says.

The most consequential hurdle journalism faces today is society's refusal to agree on a common set of facts, he says. He argues Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihans famous 1983 quote Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts no longer exists.

These days, people believe that they are entitled to their own facts, Baron says. Those so-called facts may be disconnected from reality. They may not be supported by evidence, but people continue to hold onto them because they reinforce their preexisting points of view.

A society that denies facts presents obstacles to both the press an imperfect arbiter of fact and American democracy itself, he argues.

How do we have a functioning democracy if we cannot agree on a common set of facts? And how do we have journalism if people will not accept our role as an arbiter of facts? he says. ... That is a huge challenge for journalism today and a huge challenge for democracy.

On the tense relationship between the press and politicians

There's always going to be tension between politicians and the media. I think certainly during the Trump administration, it was at a very low point. I hope we don't go lower than that. Look, he described us as enemies of the people, as traitors, as garbage scum. The administration, in many instances, treated us that way. And then its followers, whether they were politicians or ordinary citizens, started to treat the press that way. I hope that we're beyond that. I think that there will always be tensions between the press and government officials, but it needs to be respectful. And I think we're going to get back to that. There will be tensions with the Biden administration. There's no question about that.

There's an assumption with people who lean to the right ideologically that we had a warm, cozy relationship with the Obama administration at The Washington Post we did not. We were consistently denied interviews with President Obama in the final two years of his presidency, despite continually asking for one. And they said no repeatedly because they didn't see us as a place where they would go unchallenged. And that's OK, because they should be challenged regardless of whether they are in the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, regardless of who they are.

On enforcing journalistic notions of objectivity on social media platforms

Well, first of all, I don't tweet anymore because I've grown to dislike Twitter as a forum for a sophisticated discussion of the issues of the day. But we allow people to participate in social media. Of course, that's fine. They can have a social media presence, but we try to take great care with what we publish. And we have layers of editors who review what we intend to publish to ensure that they meet the standards and principles and core values of The Post. We want to hear the voices of people who come from different life experiences, people of different identities, people who see the world differently. We want them to share those perspectives internally. We want to see it manifested in the journalism that we practice. But we need to make sure that when people are on social media that they are meeting the standards that we try to enforce in our journalism and in other forums as well.

On defining objectivity in journalism

We need to understand what objectivity is and what the origin of that term was. The origin really dates back 100 years to Walter Lippmann when he wrote about it. And I think people have routinely mischaracterized what objectivity is. It's not neutrality. It's not both sides-ism. It's not so-called balance. It is that a recognition, in fact, that all of us have preconceptions and that when we go about our reporting that we need to approach stories in an open-minded, fair, honest way and do our reporting and do it really thoroughly and do our research and the most rigorous possible way. And when we've done that, the notion of objectivity is that we will then report what we find in a direct, forthright, unflinching way.

The idea of objectivity was to counter the propaganda of the era during the Woodrow Wilson administration. So I think it's a good concept, and I don't think the alternatives are terribly good. And the alternative is that in a newsroom that every individual should be able to say whatever he or she wants, however he or she wants to. And I don't think that really works terribly well. And it has the effect of undermining the reputation of the institution. And I think it's important to point out that we are an institution. We are not just a collection of individuals. We as an institution stand for the practice of journalism in a certain way. In fact, our principles were set down in 1935. They are on the wall as you walk into our newsroom. They've served us well all these years, and I think they continue to serve us well.

Jill Ryanproduced and edited this interview for broadcast withTinku Ray.Serena McMahonadapted it for the web.

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Washington Post Executive Editor Marty Baron On Retiring, Objectivity And The State Of Journalism - Here And Now

Philip Quade has simple advice for cybersecurity teams across the world: Move fast to avoid breaking things.

Quade, former special assistant for cyber to the director of the National Security Agency, believes most security teams undervalue speed as part of their day-to-day operations and could benefit by adopting the NSA's "pedal to the metal" approach.

Now the chief information security officer at the security firm Fortinet, Quade is aiming to impart his strategy on private sector players. He discussed the guiding principals behind his approach as well as common cybersecurity pitfalls during an online panel hosted by AT&T cybersecurity director Theresa Lanowitz on Wednesday.

"NSA put the pedal to the metal, meaning it did things strategically," Quade told Lanowitz. "It was all fundamentally built around the philosophy of doing things very, very quickly."

Quade's three decades of experience at NSA gives him a unique perspective: As the agency's top-ranking cybersecurity official during the Obama administration, Quade oversaw both defensive and offensive operations, gaining insight into both sides of cyberwarfare.

The NSA's adherence to moving quickly powered its intelligence-gathering operations during those years, Quade said. Most people became familiar with the details of those operations in 2013 when Edward Snowden, an NSA subcontractor, leaked documents showing that the agency was collecting millions of Americans' mobile phone call records in search of terrorists. A subsequent federal law discontinued the practice.

"Everything that NSA did was completely authorized by the President, the courts and the Congress ... and ultimately when some of those things became more widely known, it scared the public a little bit and in the courts and Congress and the White House kind of recalibrated to be consistent with public interests," Quade said Wednesday. "But one of the fundamental strategies of NSA was being able to do things at speed and scale."

Three problems have proven particularly hard to solve for most cybersecurity teams: authenticating people's identities online, training their organizations' staff on cybersecurity basics, and patching vulnerabilities. Prioritizing speed in all three areas can be a useful framework for improving defenses, Quade said.

"If we could have solved what has solved the authentication problem from the beginning, we wouldn't be in business today. And what I mean is that lack of trustworthy authentication is the root cause of nearly all cybersecurity problems," Quade said.

Fortinet CISO and former special assistant for cyber to the director of the NSA Phil Quade Fortinet

One way to build speedier authentication defenses is to protect against "known unknowns" by adopting tools that detect unusual behavior on their networks like an employee attempting to log in at an unusual time or unfamiliar location and automatically shutting down the attempt.

Quade added that organizations should update software as often as possible to throw off attackers, noting that software patches posed an obstacle to the NSA's offensive operations when he worked there.

"As a person who was authorized by our overseers to do offensive operations against others, it was relatively easy to find vulnerabilities and develop exploits," he said. "But what made it really, really hard was when the systems were patched or when the systems changed."

Quade and Lanowitz both predict that security teams will increasingly adopt a "zero trust" model that assumes any device or account on its networks could be compromised at any times and builds in security checks accordingly. Fortinet announced a new suite of zero trust capabilities for its cybersecurity software on Thursday.

"Your network would be perfect if it wasn't for these carbon-based lifeforms that have to live on top of it," Lanowitz said.

Companies are more likely to need to prioritize zero trust in their security systems now in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Lanowitz added. Employees are working from their home networks, which often lack the protections of corporate systems.

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Former NSA official explains how the agency ran offensive operations - Business Insider

This column was originally published in Not Shutting Up, a newsletter about the issues facing journalism and democracy. Sign up for it here.

On Jan. 7, The New York Times published an obituary for Neil Sheehan, the veteran foreign correspondent who broke the story of the Pentagon Papers, the U.S. Department of Defenses deeply critical secret history of Americas involvement in Vietnam. The obituary was accompanied by an article, which Sheehan insisted be published only after his death, that purported to reveal for the first time Sheehans account of the greatest journalistic catch of a generation: how Sheehan had obtained the top secret documents from Daniel Ellsberg, a Rand Corporation analyst who had turned against the war.

Contrary to what is generally believed, the story reported, Mr. Ellsberg never gave the papers to The Times, Mr. Sheehan emphatically said. Mr. Ellsberg told Mr. Sheehan that he could read them but not make copies. So Mr. Sheehan smuggled the papers out of the apartment in Cambridge, Mass., where Mr. Ellsberg had stashed them; then he copied them illicitly, just as Mr. Ellsberg had done, and took them to The Times.

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The story was mostly lost in the frenzy following the assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, but it seemed like a perfect subject for this column. I planned to explore questions about journalistic ethics and whether the ends of getting a scoop that might change history and save lives can ever justify lying to a source.

I set out on the journey that every ProPublica reporter undertakes on every story, the work of verifying the basic facts. And thats when the column I had already written in my head began to fall apart.

I reached a former Times colleague who knew the Pentagon Papers story. He told me that Sheehans account was both old news and disputed. He said that Ellsberg, who is still alive, had replied to the Times story online. A quick search brought me to Ellsbergs website, where on Jan. 12 he had posted passages from his 2002 book Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers.

In the book, Ellsberg recounted how he stashed a copy of the top secret documents in a Cambridge, Mass. apartment and gave Sheehan a key in March 1971. He said he told Sheehan he could take notes but not make his own copy of the papers unless and until someone high up there had decided the newspaper was ready to publish, and to publish large quantities of them.

Soon after, Ellsberg wrote, Sheehan and his wife Susan, a New Yorker writer, came to Cambridge on a weekend when he knew Ellsberg would be out of town, removed the full set of papers from the apartment, and took them to a copy shop in Medford.

A 1980 book by Harrison Salisbury, a former Times editor, draws from what the author describes as repeated interviews with Ellsberg and Sheehan to tell much the same story, noting that a couple identifying themselves as Mr. and Mrs. Thompson" (Neil and Susan Sheehan) checked in to the Treadway Motor Inn in Cambridge on March 19, 1971, entered the apartment, stuffed 60 pounds of classified documents into shopping bags, and headed to a copy shop.

The notion of centering my column on new revelations about the origins of the Pentagon Papers seemed to be collapsing. I reached out to Janny Scott, who conducted the posthumously published 2015 interview with Sheehan and wrote his obituary and the accompanying piece for the Times, to ask how to square the historical record with her framing of the story. She acknowledged that many parts of the story had already been told, but argued that Sheehans own account of his cloak and dagger pursuit of the papers was new and fascinating. [He] had been interviewed at length hundreds of times over the years, she wrote in an email, and went to some lengths to keep the details of his actions obscure.

As I often tell reporters at ProPublica, one door closes, another opens. Sheehans revelations might not have been as fresh as I first thought, but that didnt prevent me from exploring the ethics and history of the Pentagon Papers as we near the 50th anniversary of their publication in June. I found contact information for Ellsberg and we agreed to meet by Zoom.

The Ellsberg of 2021 bears a strong resemblance to the brilliant, dashing character at the center of one of the most pivotal moments in legal and journalistic history. The shock of black hair that jumps out of 1970s photos is thinning and white he is now nearly 90 but Ellsberg retains the precise, detailed recall of events, memos and history that made him a top analyst at the Rand Corporation.

I asked him about how he felt all these years later about Sheehans duplicity. His answer was surprisingly equanimous. Then and now, who better understands that there are very strong procedural, moral and ethical rules that have to be re-examined and in some circumstances violated?" he told me.

Sheehan, he said, was a good guy and it all came out all right in the end."

The high-stakes dealings between source and reporter are frequently complicated. People who turn over secret documents are taking enormous risks, and they often want assurances that the revelations will have the largest possible impact. Ellsberg said he understood that Sheehan and his editors couldnt make binding promises, but he wanted to push the Times to make the Pentagon Papers more than a one-day story. The papers were a 47-volume history that documented how a succession of presidential administrations from the 1940s to 1968 had misled and lied to the American people about the war. Ellsberg hoped that the release of the documents in their proper context would lead to Congressional hearings in which the key players would be grilled on national television, creating pressure for President Richard Nixon to end the war.

In his posthumously released interview with the Times, Sheehan asserted that he had to do what he did because Ellsberg was behaving recklessly and sharing the papers with a widening circle of other people. It was just luck that he didnt get the whistle blown on the whole thing, he told Scott.

Ellsberg vigorously disputed that point, saying it was Sheehans lies to him that made him begin to look for other possible ways to make the material public. According to Ellsberg, in the weeks after Sheehan smuggled out the papers, he falsely told Ellsberg that the Times was moving slowly, that he was being given other assignments, and that he could only work on the blockbuster story on nights and weekends. (In fact, the Times had rented rooms at a Hilton near its 229 W. 43rd St. newsroom and put dozens of reporters and editors on producing what was planned as a multi-day series.)

Ellsberg said he ultimately gave Sheehan a copy of the papers he had in a New York apartment in April. (The Salisbury book based on late 1970s interviews with the two protagonists says Sheehan obtained that set of the papers open and above board in May, a date Ellsberg acknowledged might be correct.) Sheehan continued to provide misleading cues on the Times slow progress on the story, prompting Ellsberg to step up efforts to find a member of Congress who would make the material public.

Ellsberg contacted multiple legislators, but none would play ball. On June 12, 1971, Ellsberg received a panicked call from a Times editor to whom he had given a portion of the papers for a book the editor was writing on the Gulf of Tonkin incident that had precipitated Americas deeper involvement in the war. The editor was correctly worried that his book, which was not slated to come out for weeks, would be overshadowed by the imminent publication of a massive series of stories on the papers, including their revelations about the Gulf of Tonkin incident. He told Ellsberg the Times was on high alert, expecting the FBI to raid the building at any moment.

Ellsberg had heard nothing from Sheehan and frantically called him. Theyre expecting the FBI any moment and Neil hasnt mentioned that to me; he hasnt given me any warning over the last week or the last month or, for Christs sake, this morning! Ellsberg wrote in his book. According to Salisburys account, Sheehan did not attempt to return the call until the next day, and only after 100,000 copies of the paper had been printed.

The publication of the papers had enormous consequences, but hardly any of the ones intended by those involved. They did not prompt Congressional hearings; Ellsberg speculates that the Democrats who controlled Congress quickly realized that the bulk of the lies documented in the study had been told by Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and John F. Kennedy.

A federal judge halted the papers multi-part series after the Nixon administration alleged that further disclosures posed a grave threat to national security. The Washington Post and 17 other newspapers obtained their own set of the papers from Ellsberg and continued to publish as federal prosecutors dashed from city to city in a futile effort to obtain injunctions that would stop the presses.

Amazingly, Ellsberg and his wife evaded the FBI for 11 days, spreading copies of the Pentagon Papers across the country through a network of activists. He eventually turned himself in and faced federal charges that could have brought a sentence of more than 100 years in prison. Ellsberg was acquitted only after the Nixon administration was forced to reveal its extensive misconduct, including a burglary of Ellsbergs psychiatrists office by the same group of 'plumbers' who were later caught breaking into the Watergate Hotel.

As for the papers themselves, the Supreme Court ruled that the judges could not impose prior restraint on news organizations without extraordinary justification, a decision that made possible countless subsequent investigations into government misconduct under the cloak of secrecy, from Seymour Hershs famed exposes of the CIA to Edward Snowdens leaks of National Security Agency documents to reporters writing for The Guardian and Washington Post.

The questions about the ethics of Sheehans dealings with Ellsberg linger. Every major news organization, including ProPublica, has a written ethics policy that lays out broad rules. Dont lie to readers or pose as someone else to sources. Dont pay for interviews or accept money from people or industries you cover. Dont advocate for political candidates or parties. Give everyone a chance to respond to stories about them.

In that regard, Ellsberg has a new bone to pick with the Times. The piece on Sheehan concludes with an anecdote told by Sheehan in which he described bumping into Ellsberg on the streets of Manhattan and discussing what had happened.

So you stole it, like I did," he recalled Mr. Ellsberg saying.

No, Dan, I didnt steal it," Mr. Sheehan said he had answered. And neither did you. Those papers are the property of the people of the United States. They paid for them with their national treasure and the blood of their sons, and they have a right to it."

Once again, Ellsberg lamented not receiving a phone call from the Times before the Sheehan story was published. Had he been asked, he would have said the story was untrue and that he would never have said Sheehan stole the papers. His view then and now is that it wasnt theft; Sheehan simply copied them. Why didnt they call me?" he wondered.

Scott said she wrote the story with the understanding that it would be confidential until Sheehans death. For that reason, she did not feel she could interview Ellsberg or anyone else about Sheehans statements. The decision to post the story without further comment, she said, was one for editors."

Speaking only for myself," Scott said. I think that in retrospect I should have asked that the piece be held."

Dealing with sources is not as rigidly defined as some aspects of journalism ethics, but it remains a crucial aspect of our business. Fifty years later, it seems easy, and a bit unfair, to render judgments on Sheehan, a superlative but tormented reporter who had come to passionately oppose a war he knew was fueled by government lies.

For me, I find it very hard if not impossible to imagine ever allowing a ProPublica reporter to copy documents in defiance of a confidential sources wishes.

Of course, investigative reporting involves ambiguities. If a government official places a juicy document on her desk and says shell be out of the office for the next hour but feel free to stay as long as you need, can you put the document in your backpack and walk out? (I would say yes; she clearly wants you to take it.) If an official glances down at a document and you have learned the art of reading upside down, is it fair to look? (I would say yes again, although of course anything you see is just a tip that needs to be checked out and verified.)

Lying is lying. If an official or legislator is an off the record source for our story, should we quote that person on the record as having said no comment? No. In fact, hell no.

To say otherwise when the stakes are high is to adopt the least morally defensible excuse of the people and institutions we investigate: The ends justify the means. At a time when one survey found 56% of Americans agree with the statement "journalists and reporters are purposely trying to mislead people by saying things they know are false or gross exaggerations, it is imperative that we think through our ethics and be prepared to offer a cogent explanation for our decisions when they become known.

Can the ends justify the means? Not for me.

Here is the original post:
Seeing the Pentagon Papers in a New Light - ProPublica

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency notes that insider threats can be expressed in several different ways. Source: CISA

For example, it might be a user in accounting who suddenly goes for the first time ever into the file directory that has top-secret information onan agencys high-value assets, according to Kovar. Or, perhaps the information is not top-secret but is something that has nothing to do with the users normal work.

If there is a user who normallydoesinteract with high-value assets and information, an unusual aspect or behavior might be that the IT security team has detected the user has downloaded the information to the desktop and put it on a USB drive for the first time.

This behavioral monitoring requires the agency to map out the baseline of normal behavior for users, Kovar notes.

We can condense through peer group analysis, and say, Hey, this person does this thing every single day. Why are they accessing these folders or this email directory for the first time ever? Kovar says.

Insiders are much more likely to use physical exfiltration, such a printing out documents, copying information on local hard drives and accessing data via USB drives and ZIP disks, Kovar says.

Other behavioral indicators of insider threats that CISA notes include observable resentment with plans of retribution; excessive or unexplained use of data copy equipment (scanner, copy machine, cameras); bringing personal equipment into high security areas; disgruntlement toward peers due to perceived injustice; and excessive volunteering that elevates access to sensitive systems, networks, facilities, people or data.

Technical indicators of insider threats noted by CISA include email messages with abnormally large attachments or amounts of data, Domain Name System queries associated with dark web activities, the use of activity masking tools such as VPNs, connecting an unauthorized device to the network, downloading or installing prohibited software, unexpected activity outside of normal working hours and attempts to bypass or disable malware protection tools or security controls.

READ MORE:Learn why agencies should take a new approach to data security in 2021.

CISA lays out the ground rules for creating an effective insider threat mitigation program. They include the ability to identify and focus on those critical assets, data, and services that the organization defines as valuable.

The program must also monitor user behavior to detect and identify trusted insiders who breach the organizations trust. Another key element is that the program assesses threats to determine the individual level of risk of identified persons of concern.

An effective program must also manage the entire range of insider threats, including implementing strategies focused on the person of concern, potential victims, and/or parts of the organization vulnerable to or targeted by an insider threat.

Solid programs, CISA states, must also engage individual insiders who are potentially on the path to a hostile, negligent, or damaging act to deter, detect, and mitigate.

Link:
Types of Insider Threats: What Are They and How to Guard Against Them - FedTech Magazine

Esther Perel, a psychotherapist, award-winning podcast host, and bestselling author will speak virtually at CUBoulder on Feb.18. Perel is being hosted by the Distinguished Speakers Board, a CU Boulder student-led organization.

If you go

Who: Limited to 3,000 attendeesWhat: An Evening with Esther PerelWhen: Thursday, Feb. 18, 7 p.m.Where: Zoom

Register Now

The free event will take place on Zoom at 7 p.m. (MST) and is open to CU Boulder students (undergraduate and graduate), faculty, staffand residents of Colorado.Virtual attendees are asked to pre-register. Attendance is limited to 3,000 attendees, and preference is given to CU Boulder students, facultyor staff. Audience members are encouraged to submit questions for Perel via #EstherCU on Twitter or Facebook, which will be posed during a moderated Q&A following the speech.

Esther Perel is a highly distinguished speaker and psychotherapist, who has captured audiences with her enticing podcasts and books, said CU Boulder student Ally Roberts, chair of the Distinguished Speakers Board. Esthers insight in relationships and psychosocial health will challenge us to think critically about our own lives, especially in such an unprecedented landscape. DSB is bringing Esther to engage the CU community in a conversation, and give an opportunity to reflect on our own relationships.

Perel has hada therapy practice in New York City for more than 35 years. ANew York Times best-selling author of The State of Affairs and Mating in Captivity,Perel is recognized as one of todays most insightful and original voices on modern relationships.

Fluent in nine languages, Perel's celebrated TED Talks have garnered more than 30 million views and her best-selling books have been translated into nearly 30 languages. Perel is an executive producer and host of the award-winning podcast Where Should We Begin? She serves as an organizational consultant for Fortune 500 companies around the world.

Learn more on Perel's website.

The Distinguished Speakers Board is a student-run cost center of CU Student Government. The board strives to bring diverse speakers to campus that will intellectually challenge the student body, as well as spark meaningful dialogue surrounding relevant issues. Past speakers the board has hosted include Anderson Cooper, Trevor Noah, Bren Brown, Laverne Cox, Edward Snowden (via videoconference), Viola Davis, Scott Kellyand many more.

See the rest here:
Modern relationship expert Esther Perel to give virtual CU talk Feb. 18 - CU Boulder Today

Yesterday, Marty Baron announced that hes retiring as editor of the Washington Post, effective at the end of February. Baron arrived at the Post eight years ago after spells as executive editor at the Miami Herald and the Boston Globe (the latter immortalized by Liev Schreiber in Spotlight). In that time, the Post won ten Pulitzer prizes, was bought out by the billionaire Jeff Bezos, roughly doubled the size of its newsroom (which is still expanding), and adapted to the demands of the internet; the paper now has around three million digital subscribers, more than triple its 2016 total. Its long been rumored in media circles that Baron planned to step down sometime after the 2020 election. Yesterday, he told Paul Farhi, a media reporter at the Post, that his job is exhausting, and that hes ready to move on. With the internet being so big a part of it, its twenty-four/seven, three-sixty-five, Baron said. It means you never really get to disconnect.

In the hours after his announcement, tributes to Barons leadership poured in. Barton Gellman, a former national-security reporter at the Post (who is now at The Atlantic), praised Barons handling, in 2013, of the secrets that Edward Snowden leaked about the National Security Agency and shared with Gellman and others. I remember thinking he might throw me out of his office when I laid out my outlandish conditionsa windowless room, a heavy safe, encrypted email and so onfor bringing the Snowden documents to the Post, Gellman told Farhi, but every choice he made came from a place of courage and common sense and journalistic integrity. (That wouldnt be the last big national-security story that Baron would shepherd: in 2019, the Post published the Afghanistan Papers, a huge project revealing the deceptions behind Americas longest war. Thanks to the Trump news cycle, it did not get the sustained attention it deserved.) Jason Rezaian, a Post reporter who spent more than five-hundred days in jail in Iran, hailed Baron, who worked to secure his release, as a tireless advocate in public and behind closed doors. Dean Baquet, the executive editor of the New York Times, who had a friendly rivalry with Baron, said he made every institution he touched better. Margaret Sullivan, a media critic at the Post, called Baron a truly outstanding editor and said that American citizens owe him a standing ovation. Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at NYU, argued that during the Trump era, Baron made the Post a more essential read than the Times. I agree.

ICYMI: Vladimir Putin, Alexei Navalny, and journalisms power to drive protest

Not that everything has gone smoothly for Baronin recent months, in particular, the Post has had to reckon with newsroom tensions around issues of race, representation, and the treatment of its staff. A year ago this week, Baron suspended Felicia Sonmez, a politics reporter at the paper, and upbraided her for a real lack of judgment after she tweeted (innocuously) about a past rape allegation against the basketball star Kobe Bryant in the hours after Bryant was killed in a helicopter crash. Hundreds of Sonmezs colleagues signed a letter supporting her, accusing Post management of seeking repeatedly to control Sonmezs speech on sexual violence, and of failing to protect her after her Bryant tweet triggered a wave of threats and abuse against her. A few days later, Sonmez was reinstated; Baron pledged a review of the Posts social-media policies, but did not apologize. This was not an isolated incident: around the same time, the Daily Beasts Maxwell Tani reported that Baron had also censured Wesley Lowery, a Pulitzer prize-winning Post journalist, over his tweets about media coverage of race. At the time, Lowery did not directly address the story, but did tweet asking, Whats the point of bringing diverse experiences and voices into a room only to muzzle them? He has since left the Post for CBS, and been a leading voice in the industry-wide debate about the meaning of objectivity. (Yesterday, Lowery tweeted a smiley face twenty minutes after Barons retirement was confirmed.)

Last April, the findings of a report about the Posts social-media policies circulated internally; it concluded, based on interviews with staff, that management may be quicker to forgive the indiscretions of white men and newsroom stars than those of women, minorities, and less high-profile reporters. Such inequities havent been limited to social media. In 2019, the Posts union conducted a pay study and found that women and people of color in the newsroom earned less than white men; last summer, a number of Black journalists who had left the Post spoke out, online and in interviews with Ben Smith, the media columnist at the Times, about what they perceived to be barriers to their professional advancement at the paper. This place just seems to run off its best people, Soraya Nadia McDonald, who left the Post for The Undefeated, a site owned by ESPN, told Smith. (In the same, mammoth story on tensions at the paper, Smith reported that Baron killed a story that Bob Woodward wanted to run outing the then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh as a liar, and was left infuriated by an article the Post ran about people getting high before watching the movie Cats, which he felt glorified recreational drug use.) The Post has since filled new editorial roles focused on raceincluding the post of managing editor for diversity and inclusion that was filled by Krissah Thompson, a veteran of the paperbut, as Business Insiders Steven Perlberg reported recently, numerous Post staffers feel that the internal reckoning is incomplete. In his exit note, Baron acknowledged that, despite progress, the Post still needs a wider diversity of life experiences and backgrounds represented in our newsroom and reflected in our coverage.

Barons departure doesnt just come at a natural inflection point in the national political news cycle, but at a moment of philosophical introspection for the news business. The calls for a new approach by Lowery and others have often been caricatured, by traditionalists, as a capitulation of rigor and fairness to subjectivity and opinion, but in reality, rigor is central to the reformers visionrecognizing the flawed assumptions of the old model of objectivity isnt inimical to hard-hitting journalism, but should bolster it. The Post isnt the only outlet to have initiated a changing of the guard since this broader conversation started, but it is the most powerful to be seeking a new top editor, and the paper now has an opportunity to prove that righting the errors of Barons approach will only strengthen his legacy as an editorial powerhouse. As Smith noted last year, Barons tenure has been defined by a steadfast adherence to the longstanding rules of newspaper journalism and the defense of the institution. I wrote at the time that assessing the merit and continued relevance of those rules requires seeing them as separate from the institution. That will soon be someone elses job.

Below, more media jobs news:

Other notable stories:

ICYMI: How much do we need to know about domestic terrorists?

More here:
Marty Baron and a turning point for the Washington Post - Columbia Journalism Review

Pray for the best

Although I have not watched the inauguration of President Joe Biden, I do have some concerns that I hope his administration will address.

Trump pardoned some despicable people and didnt pardon those deserving of pardons. Will President Biden pardon Julian Assange who is dying in Belmarsh prison in London? Or Edward Snowden in Russia? All they did is reveal things the U.S. government did not want the public to know war crimes and spying on U.S. citizens.

After four years of Russiagate allegations, will Biden restore vital diplomatic relations with Russia and restore vital nuclear arms treaties? These treaties make the world safer as to prevent an accidental nuclear conflagration. Will he renounce first use of nuclear weapons and stop the trillion dollar program to create new and better nukes?

Will Biden address the question of Israeli human rights violations and restore funding to the Palestinian refugee organization, UNRWA, which was defunded under Trump? Or will he continue to satisfy Israels wildest dreams as Trump did?

Will Biden address any of the vast problems that led to Trump being elected in the first place or will he continue to ignore them as the Democratic Party has done for so long? Pray he will not continue endless wars and sanctions on countries that have not attacked us. Will he restore the Iran peace deal, the JCPOA? Can only pray for the best.

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Letter: Pray for the best | Opinion | news-journal.com - Longview News-Journal