« First...102030...1,8071,8081,8091,8101,811...1,8201,8301,840...Last »

WikiLeaks Articles – Breitbart

Posted on by

In the most recent installment of WikiLeaks CIA Vault 7 series, the whistleblowing group has published details on a server virus codenamed Pandemic.

by Lucas Nolan2 Jun 2017, 12:39 PM PDT0

Wednesday on CNNs Newsroom, Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-TX) said he was open to the possibility that the intrusion into the Democratic National Committees servers that resulted in thousands of emails being released through Wikileaks last year prior to the start

by Jeff Poor24 May 2017, 1:40 PM PDT0

Tuesday on Fox News Channels Hannity, host Sean Hannity said he was no longer discussing the matter of now-deceased Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich and the suggestion that he was behind DNC emails being leaked to Wikileaks. Hannity alluded

by Jeff Poor23 May 2017, 9:46 PM PDT0

Internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom has released a statement claiming knowledge of connections between murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich and WikiLeaks.

by Colin Madine23 May 2017, 12:09 PM PDT0

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange appeared on the Ecuadorian embassy balcony Friday afternoon after Sweden announced they were dropping the investigation into alleged rapes. Calling todays development an important victory, Mr Assange, 45, who has been claiming political asylum in the

by Oliver JJ Lane19 May 2017, 9:27 AM PDT0

Reports that Democratic National Committee (DNC) staffer Seth Rich was a source for WikiLeaks before his murder leaves us with even more unanswered questions surrounding the case.

by Charlie Nash16 May 2017, 1:04 PM PDT0

Fox News writes that murdered Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich leaked thousands of internal [DNC] emails to WikiLeaks and that the FBI is in possession of their correspondence.

by Breitbart News16 May 2017, 5:15 AM PDT0

Monday during the 10 p.m. ET news broadcast of Foxs Washington, D.C. affiliate WTTG, correspondent Marina Marraco revealed an investigation by former D.C. homicide detective Rod Wheeler found now-deceased Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich had been emailing with WikiLeaks.

by Jeff Poor15 May 2017, 8:32 PM PDT0

Chelsea Manning, the former U.S. soldier who leaked thousands of classified military documents to WikiLeaks, will receive free health care and remain on active duty after being released from prison.

by Ben Kew15 May 2017, 5:56 PM PDT0

WikiLeaks released a new set of CIA Vault 7 leaks, publishing information on two CIA malware frameworks known as AfterMidnight and Assassin. WikiLeaks published documentson malware titled AfterMidnight and Assassin which according to WikiLeaks are designed to operate within the

by Lucas Nolan12 May 2017, 11:06 AM PDT0

WikiLeaks published a hacking tool known as Archimedes in another installment of their CIA Vault 7 leak series today.

by Lucas Nolan5 May 2017, 9:53 AM PDT0

Writing at the Washington Post, WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange argues the CIA is declaring war on free speech by targeting WikiLeaks in retaliation for the exposure of embarrassing information included in the organizations Vault 7 data dump on the CIA.

by Breitbart Tech26 Apr 2017, 8:50 AM PDT0

U.S. authorities are preparing to seek the arrest of WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange, according to reports.

by Lucas Nolan21 Apr 2017, 11:45 AM PDT0

CIA Director Mike Pompeo had harsh words for WikiLeaks while speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies today, implying that the whistleblowing group was a hostile intelligence service.

by Lucas Nolan14 Apr 2017, 8:47 AM PDT0

(Reuters) Past cyber attacks on scores of organizations around the world were conducted with top-secret hacking tools that were exposed recently by the Web publisher Wikileaks, the security researcher Symantec Corp said on Monday.

by Breitbart Tech10 Apr 2017, 7:50 AM PDT0

A hacking group known as TheShadowBrokers recently released the password to NSA hacking tools from 2013 in protest of President Trumps missile strike on a Syrian airbase.

by Lucas Nolan8 Apr 2017, 8:34 PM PDT0

Following the election of ruling party candidate Lenn Moreno in Ecuador, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will likely be allowed to continue living at the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

by Lucas Nolan3 Apr 2017, 12:32 PM PDT0

WikiLeaks latest release from the Vault 7 leaks, titled Marble, claims that the CIA can use string obfuscating algorithms to attribute cyber attacks to other countries.

by Lucas Nolan31 Mar 2017, 8:24 AM PDT0

(Reuters) When WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange disclosed earlier this month that his anti-secrecy group had obtained CIA tools for hacking into technology products made by U.S. companies, security engineers at Cisco Systems swung into action.

by Breitbart Tech30 Mar 2017, 7:02 AM PDT0

Apple claims that the security exploits for their devices revealed in the WikiLeaks CIA Vault 7 release dubbed Dark Matter have already been patched.

by Lucas Nolan24 Mar 2017, 2:47 PM PDT0

The documents in the WikiLeaks Vault 7 data dump may have accidentally been confirmed as authentic CIA documents due to a statement by the US government.

by Lucas Nolan23 Mar 2017, 4:36 PM PDT0

WikiLeaks has released the second volume of their CIA Vault 7 leaks today, publishing information on a hacking project focusing on Apple devices referred to as Project Dark Matter.

by Lucas Nolan23 Mar 2017, 8:24 AM PDT0

WikiLeaks has reached out to tech companies including Apple, Google, and Microsoft to assist them in patching the zero-day exploits revealed in the CIA Vault 7 leaks, but are insisting that their demands are met before they provide further information.

by Lucas Nolan20 Mar 2017, 1:36 PM PDT0

Twitter refuses to verify the official account of WikiLeaks founder and editor Julian Assange, despite his accumulation of over 100,000 followers.

by Charlie Nash16 Mar 2017, 11:16 AM PDT0

Michael Hayden, the former director of the CIA, has claimed that millennials are more likely to leak information due to cultural differences.

by Lucas Nolan13 Mar 2017, 1:25 PM PDT0

A video of a woman asking her Amazon home assistant device if it worked for the CIA went viral following the Wikileaks data dump on the CIA, so we decided to test it for ourselves.

by Lucas Nolan10 Mar 2017, 12:11 PM PDT0

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) spoke with Breitbart News Daily SiriusXM host Raheem Kassam regarding the CIA and recent Wikileaks revelations and the current state of Americas spy state combined with a growing government bureaucracy.

by Dan Riehl10 Mar 2017, 8:20 AM PDT0

WikiLeaks stated yesterday that so far only one percent of the CIA material leaked to the organization has been published so far.

by Lucas Nolan9 Mar 2017, 10:58 AM PDT0

Former Michigan Congressman Pete Hoekstra, onetime chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, discussed the CIA WikiLeaks Vault 7 documents with SiriusXM host Raheem Kassam on Thursdays Breitbart News Daily.

by John Hayward9 Mar 2017, 9:43 AM PDT0

CIA documents published by WikiLeaks show that the CIA kept a database of Japanese style faces to utilize in online forums.

by Lucas Nolan8 Mar 2017, 7:00 PM PDT0

Read the original post:
WikiLeaks Articles - Breitbart

WikiLeaks: CIA ‘Pandemic’ Malware Infected Servers to Spread … – Breitbart News

Posted on by

SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER

In thelatest leak, published on Thursday, WikiLeaks outlines the use of the CIAs Pandemic project. This leak is a virus that targets Windows computers, sharing files with remote users in a local network. WikiLeaks described the program on their website writing,

Today, June 1st 2017, WikiLeaks publishes documents from the Pandemic project of the CIA, a persistent implant for Microsoft Windows machines that share files (programs) with remote users in a local network. Pandemic targets remote users by replacing application code on-the-fly with a trojaned version if the program is retrieved from the infected machine. To obfuscate its activity, the original file on the file server remains unchanged; it is only modified/replaced while in transit from the pandemic file server before being executed on the computer of the remote user. The implant allows the replacement of up to 20 programs with a maximum size of 800 MB for a selected list of remote users (targets).

As the name suggests, a single computer on a local network with shared drives that is infected with the Pandemic implant will act like a Patient Zero in the spread of a disease. It will infect remote computers if the user executes programs stored on the pandemic file server. Although not explicitly stated in the documents, it seems technically feasible that remote computers that provide file shares themselves become new pandemic file servers on the local network to reach new targets.

Documentation published by WikiLeaks states that the virus is installed via aminifilter device driver.Jake Williams, a malware expert at Rendition InfoSec, spoke to Ars Technica about the virus stating,This code looks like it was developed with a very specific use in mind. Many larger organizations dont use Windows file servers to serve files. They use special built storage devices (network attached storage). My guess here would be that this was designed to target a relatively small organization.

Williams worked at theNational Security Agencys elite Tailored Access Operation until 2013 and believes that WikiLeaks may be withholding some documentation relating to Pandemic. If you handed me this tool, I dont have enough information to make it go, he said. Theres more documentation than this. Its anyones guess as to why it wasnt released.

See the article here:
WikiLeaks: CIA 'Pandemic' Malware Infected Servers to Spread ... - Breitbart News

WikiLeaks Dumps CIA Patient Zero Windows Implant | Threatpost … – Threatpost

Posted on by

WikiLeaks on Thursday made public a CIA implant that is used to turn a Windows file server into a malware distribution point on the local network.

The documents describing the tool, Pandemic, explain how remote machines on the local network trying to download and-or execute documents from the file server over SMB are infected with replacement documents on the fly. The implant swaps out the document with a Trojanized version while its in transit, never touching the original document on the file server.

The documentation that was leaked yesterday spans from January 2014 to April 2014 and is for versions 1.0 and 1.1.

The leaks are just the latest CIA tools to be dumped on the internet by the polarizing whistleblower outfit, which has for every Friday since Marchsave last weekput CIA documents and attacks online for public consumption.

In between are the ShadowBrokers pouring more gasoline on this information-based firestorm promising monthly leaks of not only NSA-built exploits targeting browsers, handsets and Windows 10 computers, but also stolen data allegedly from China, Iran, Russia and North Koreas nuclear and missile programs.

The ShadowBrokers have already leaked their share of Windows-based exploits and vulnerabilities, the most worrisome being an April disclosure of SMB flaws and attacks that had been patched by Microsoft in March after it was allegedly tipped off by the NSA. One of those SMB exploits, EternalBlue, was of course used to launch and spread the WannaCry ransomware attacks three weeks ago today.

The ShadowBrokers also had their turn in the spotlight this week announcing a pricing structure and delivery schedule for its so-called Monthly Dump Service.

The Pandemic leak does not explain what the CIAs initial infection vector is, but does describe it as a persistent implant.

As the name suggests, a single computer on a local network with shared drives that is infected with the Pandemic implant will act like a Patient Zero in the spread of a disease,WikiLeaks said in its summary description. Pandemic targets remote users by replacing application code on-the-fly with a Trojaned version if the program is retrieved from the infected machine.

The key to evading detection is its ability to modify or replace requested files in transit, hiding its activity by never touching the original file. The new attack then executes only on the machine requesting the file.

Version 1.1 of Pandemic, according to the CIAs documentation, can target and replace up to 20 different files with a maximum size of 800MB for a single replacement file.

It will infect remote computers if the user executes programs stored on the pandemic file server, WikiLeaks said. Although not explicitly stated in the documents, it seems technically feasible that remote computers that provide file shares themselves become new pandemic file servers on the local network to reach new targets.

The CIA describes Pandemic as a tool that runs as kernel shellcode that installs a file system filter driver. The driver is used to replace a file with a payload when a user on the local network accesses the file over SMB.

The goal of Pandemic is to be installed on a machine where the remote users use SMB to download/execute PE (portable executable) files, the documentation says. Users that are targeted by Pandemic, and use SMB to download the targeted file, will receive the replacement file.

Continued here:
WikiLeaks Dumps CIA Patient Zero Windows Implant | Threatpost ... - Threatpost

WikiLeaks says CIA’s Pandemic turns servers into infectious … – Ars Technica

Posted on by

Enlarge / One of the pages published Thursday in WikiLeaks' latest Vault 7 release.

WikiLeaks

WikiLeaks just published details of a purported CIA operation that turns Windows file servers into covert attack machines that surreptitiously infect computers of interest inside a targeted network.

"Pandemic," as the implant is codenamed, turns file servers into a secret carrier of whatever malware CIA operatives want to install, according to documents published Thursday by WikiLeaks. When targeted computers attempt to access a file on the compromised server, Pandemic uses a clever bait-and-switch tactic to surreptitiously deliver malicious version of the requested file. The Trojan is then executed by the targeted computers. A user manual said Pandemic takes only 15 seconds to be installed. The documents didn't describe precisely how Pandemic would get installed on a file server.

In a note accompanying Thursday's release, WikiLeaks officials wrote:

Today, June 1st 2017, WikiLeaks publishes documents from the "Pandemic" project of the CIA, a persistent implant for Microsoft Windows machines that share files (programs) with remote users in a local network. "Pandemic" targets remote users by replacing application code on-the-fly with a Trojaned version if the program is retrieved from the infected machine. To obfuscate its activity, the original file on the file server remains unchanged; it is only modified/replaced while in transit from the pandemic file server before being executed on the computer of the remote user. The implant allows the replacement of up to 20 programs with a maximum size of 800 MB for a selected list of remote users (targets).

As the name suggests, a single computer on a local network with shared drives that is infected with the "Pandemic" implant will act like a "Patient Zero" in the spread of a disease. It will infect remote computers if the user executes programs stored on the pandemic file server. Although not explicitly stated in the documents, it seems technically feasible that remote computers that provide file shares themselves become new pandemic file servers on the local network to reach new targets.

Documentation that accompanied Thursday's release said that Pandemic is installed as a minifilter device driver. Jake Williams, a malware expert at Rendition InfoSec, told Ars that this means Pandemic would have to be signed by a valid digital certificate that was either bought or stolen by the operative, or it means the implant would have to be installed using an exploit that circumvented code-signing requirements. The driver-signing restriction and other technical details, he said, give the impression the tool isn't in widespread use.

"This code looks like it was developed with a very specific use in mind," he said. "Many larger organizations don't use Windows file servers to serve files. They use special built storage devices (network attached storage). My guess here would be that this was designed to target a relatively small organization."

Williams, who worked in the National Security Agency's elite Tailored Access Operations hacking group until 2013, said Thursday's release appeared to omit some of the documents operatives would need to use the Pandemic implant.

"If you handed me this tool, I don't have enough information to make it go," he said. "There's more documentation than this. It's anyone's guess as to why it wasn't released."

Like previous Vault 7 releases, today's leak is a critical blow to US intelligence interests. But it's nowhere near as grave as the Shadow Brokers leaks.

View post:
WikiLeaks says CIA's Pandemic turns servers into infectious ... - Ars Technica

‘WikiLeaks’ Vault 7 cache shows US not Russia hacked past French elections’ – RT

Posted on by

Any establishment-anointed political candidate wants to say they are under attack by the Russians because it gives them credibility, former MI5 intelligence officer Annie Machon told RT. Political analyst Adam Garrie joins the discussion.

Guillaume Poupard, the head of the National Cybersecurity Agency of France (ANSSI), said on Thursday there's no trace of a Russian hacking group being behind the attack on Emmanuel Macron's presidential election campaign.

According to him, the hack was so generic and simple that it could have been practically anyone.

RT: Where does this statement by France's cybersecurity chief leave the claims of Macron's team on Russian hacking?

Annie Machon: It leaves rather a lot of egg on their faces. It appears that this attack was of such of low technical level it could have been done by a script kiddie from their moms basement. So rather than this hysteria about: The Russians must have done it, the Russians must have done it, which reminds me to a certain extent of the Monty Python script that you must always expect a Spanish Inquisition. It is beyond parody. We have a situation now where he was trying to make political hay. It seems to me that any establishment-anointed political candidate now wants to immediately say they are under attack by the Russians because it gives them credibility. It is just crazy.

Now, the one thing we do know from this is that the one country that actually has hacked the French election was the USA, and that was back in the presidential election of 2012 where they were not only intercepting the electronic communications, they were actually running human agents in the political parties. We know this because of disclosures through the Vault 7 cache that WikiLeaks put out a month or two ago. For everyone to go around blaming the Russians, when in fact the Americans have been doing this for years, is rather rich?

RT: Why were members of Macron's team so sure about Russia's involvement? Do they know something France's cybersecurity chief doesn't?

AM: Obviously not. I think there were just jumping on the bandwagon because it was the sort of cool thing to do. After the fake buildup of the Russians hacked the American elections, which started by the way with a leak from the DNC [Democratic National Committee] that was given to WikiLeaks, and somehow it moved into Russians hacked the American election.

Suddenly it has become established fact in the mainstream media in the West that the Russians are going to hack every Western democratic election. That is patently not the case in France, and it is also patently not the case in Germany, where there has also been a similar panic about Russia trying to hack the forthcoming chancellors elections in the autumn this year. In fact, the BND [Federal Intelligence Service] and BfV [Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution,] the two major intelligence agencies in Germany, put out a report in February saying there was absolutely no evidence whatsoever the Russians were trying to do this. Merkel didnt like that result. She told her intelligence agencies to go away and to find more evidence and to find a case to say that they were indeed trying to interfere in the German elections. It is collective hysteria.

Adam Garrie, political analyst

RT: Why were members of the Macron team so sure about Russia's involvement in hacking the campaign? Do they know something France's cybersecurity chief doesn't?

AG: I strongly doubt that. They barely seem to know how to beat Marine Le Pen. But with a little help from their friends in the mainstream media, France and elsewhere they managed to just about accomplish that. It is simply the restating of a tired, old narrative; they have very little else to say. Macron as a man, if you can even really call him that in terms of his personality, is more of a viceroy, more of a governor general than he is a president. Putin, at the press conference he had at Versailles with Macron, questioned whether France is able to even independently conduct its foreign policy in Syria, independent of NATO and the US-led coalition. So these people that really dont have much to offer their own country, let alone their political masters, are just churning out the narrative again and again. Youve seen it with Hillary Clinton in America, and her supporters, and you see something similar in France. And likewise, the allegations are based Donald Trump, probably accurately, said it could have been a 400-pound man in his bedroom somewhere. As the French authorities said today, it was probably the work of a lone hacker, and the hack itself wasnt at the level of sophistication that would have even required state operators to be behind it.

RT: Do you think all these Russian hacking allegations during the presidential race had much impact on the final choice of the new president?

AG: I agree with President Putin on this. All of these hacks and allegations of hacks have very little impact on the actual electoral results. People are going to look first and foremost in all countries at domestic issues. Unless youre in the war-zone thats what the priorities are going to be for voters. They are going to look at tax; they are going to look at healthcare. They are going to look at living standards, wages, employment, etc. these sorts of things. This idea that somehow magically Russia is pulling the political strings of various candidates in different Western countries is simply absurd. And I personally give the average voter - whether in France or America - more credit than the mainstream media is willing to give him.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

Read the original here:
'WikiLeaks' Vault 7 cache shows US not Russia hacked past French elections' - RT

Chelsea Manning – – Biography.com

Posted on by

Quick Facts Name Chelsea Manning Birth Date December 17, 1987 (age 29) Place of Birth Crescent, Oklahoma Zodiac Sign Sagittarius

U.S. Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning delivered hundreds of thousands of classified documents that he found troubling to WikiLeaks, and in 2013 was sentenced to 35 years in prison for espionage and theft. In 2014, Manning, who is transgender, was granted the right to be legally recognized as Chelsea Elizabeth Manning. President Barack Obama commuted her sentence and she was released from prison in 2017.

1 of 5

quotes

I want people to see the truth regardless of who they are, because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public. I feel, for some bizarre reason, it might actually change something. Or maybe I'm just young, naive and stupid.

I listened and lip-synced to Lady Gaga's 'Telephone' while exfiltrating possibly the largest data spillage in American history. Pretty simple and unglamorous. No one suspected a thing.

I just wanted to be nice, and live a normal life.

If you had unprecedented access to classified networks 14 hours a day, seven days a week for eight-plus months, what would you do?

As I transition into this next phase of my life, I want everyone to know the real me. I am Chelsea Manning. I am a female.

Chelsea Manning

Bradley Manning was born on December 17, 1987. Years later, the Crescent, Oklahoma native, who is transgender,was granted the right to be legally recognized as Chelsea Elizabeth Manning.After joining the Army and enduring harsh bullying, Manning was sent to Iraq in 2009. There she had access to classified information that she described as profoundly troubling. Manning gave much of this information to WikiLeaks and was later arrested after her actions were reported to the U.S. government by a hacker confidant.

On July 30, 2013, Manning was found guilty of espionage and theft, but not guilty of aiding the enemy. In August 2013, she was sentenced to 35 years in prison. Serving time in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, Manning was able to receive hormone treatments, although she has faced other restrictions around gender expression. On January 17, 2017, President Barack Obama commuted Manning's remaining sentence, and she was released from prison on May 17, 2017.

Bradley Manning was born in Crescent, Oklahoma on December 17, 1987. Years later, Manning announced that she is transgender and hence would be legally recognized as Chelsea Elizabeth Manning.

As a child, Manning was highly intelligent and showed an affinity for computers. Though presenting as a boy during her youth, Manning dressed as a girl at times in private, feeling profoundly alienated and fearful about her secret. She was bullied at school and her mother also attempted suicide at one point. (Her father would later paint a more stable picture of the household.)

After her parents split, Manning lived during her teens with her motherin Wales, where she was also bullied by peers. She eventually moved back to the United States to live with her stepmother and father, who was a former soldier. There the family had major clashes after Manning lost a tech job, and at one point Manning's stepmother called the police after a particularly volatile confrontation. The young Manning was then homeless, living in a pickup truck for a time and eventually moving in with her paternal aunt.

Manning joined the Army in 2007 at the behest of her father, girded by thoughts of serving her country and believing that a military environment might mitigate her desire to exist openly as a woman. She was initially the target of severe bullying there as well, and the besieged, emotionally suffering Manning lashed out at superior officers. But her posting at Fort Drum in New York had some happy moments. She began dating Tyler Watkins, a Brandeis University student who introduced Manning to Boston's hacker community.

A U.S. Army photo of Bradley Manning. (Photo: By United States Army [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)

In 2009, Manning was stationed at Forward Operating Base Hammer in Iraq, an isolated site near the Iranian border. Her duties as an intelligence analyst there gave her access to a great deal of classified information. Some of this informationincluding videos that showed unarmed civilians being shot at and killedhorrified Manning.

Manning reportedly made her first contact with Julian Assange's WikiLeaks in November 2009 after having made attempts to contact The New York Times and TheWashington Post. While at work in Iraq, she proceeded to amass information that included war logs about the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, private cables from the State Department and assessments of Guantnamo prisoners. In February 2010, while on leave in Rockville, Maryland, she passed this informationwhich amounted to hundreds of thousands of documents, many of them classifiedto WikiLeaks. In April, the organization released a video that showed a helicopter crew shooting at civilians after having confused a telephoto lens for weaponry. Releases of other information continued throughout the year.

Upon her return to Iraq, Manning had behavioral issues that included attacking an officer. She was demoted and told she would be discharged. Manning subsequently reached out to a stranger online, hacker Adrian Lamo. Using the screen name "bradass87," Manning confided in Lamo about the leaks. Lamo contacted the Defense Department about what he had learned, which led to Manning's arrest in May 2010.

Manning was first imprisoned in Kuwait, where she became suicidal. After returning to the United States, she was moved to a Marine base in Virginia. Manning was kept in solitary confinement for most of her time there, and was unable to leave her small, windowless cell for 23 hours each day. Deemed a suicide risk, she was watched over constantly, sometimes kept naked in her cell and not permitted to have a pillow or sheets.

Even when a psychiatrist said that Manning was no longer a danger to herself, the conditions of her imprisonment did not improve. When word of these conditions spread, there was an international outcry. Manning was transferred to Fort Leavenworth in Kansas in 2011, where she was allowed to have personal effects in a windowed cell. In January 2013, the judge in Manning's case ruled that her imprisonment had been unduly harsh and gave her a sentencing credit.

In June 2010,Manning was charged with leaking classified information. In March 2011, additional charges were added. These included the accusation of aiding the enemy, as the information Manning had leaked had been accessible to Al-Qaeda.

In February 2013, Manning pleaded guilty to storing and leaking military information. She explained that her actions had been intended to encourage debate, not harm the United States. She continued to plead not guilty to several other charges while her court martial proceeded. On July 30, Manning was found guilty of 20 counts, including espionage, theft and computer fraud. However, the judge ruled she was not guilty of aiding the enemy, the most serious charge Manning had faced.

On August 21, 2013, Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison.Manning was dishonorably discharged, reduced in rank and forced to forfeit all pay.

The Obama administrationmaintained that military and diplomatic sources were endangered by Manning's leaks. Even with Manning's conviction, the debate continues as to whether she shared dangerous intelligence or if she was a whistleblower who received too harsh of a punishment.

On the day after her sentencing, Manning announced via a statement on the morning talk showTodaythat she is transgender. "As I transition into this next phase of my life, I want everyone to know the real me. I am Chelsea Manning. I am a female. Given the way that I feel, and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible," Manning said.

How Chelsea Manning sees herself. By Alicia Neal, in cooperation with Chelsea herself, commissioned by the Chelsea Manning Support Network, April 23. 2014. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

After filing a court petition, Manning was granted the right in late April of 2014 to be legally recognized as Chelsea Elizabeth Manning. The army made hormone therapy available to the former intelligence analyst, who continued to be held at Fort Leavenworth, though other restrictions were imposed, including measures on hair length. During the summer of 2015, Manning was reportedly threatened with solitary confinement for prison rule violations that her attorneys asserted were veiled forms of harassment by authorities.

In May 2016, Manning's attorneys filed an appeal of her conviction and 35-year sentence stating that No whistleblower in American history has been sentenced this harshly, and describing the sentence as "perhaps the most unjust sentence in the history of the military justice system.

On July 5, 2016, Manning was hospitalized aftera suicide attempt. She faced a disciplinary hearing related to her suicide attempt and was sentenced to solitary confinement. OnOctober 4, 2016, while spendingthe first night in solitary confinement, she attempted suicide again.

Support for her release continued to grow and in the waning days of President Barack Obama's presidency, 117,000 people signed a petition asking him to commute her sentence. On January 17, 2017, Obama did just that, cutting shortManning's remaining prison sentence, which allowed her to be freed on May 17, 2017. (An administration official said she was not immediately released in order to allow for time to handle items like procuring housing.) Manning served seven years of the 35-year sentence, with some Republicans, including Speaker of the HousePaul Ryan, critiquing the act of clemency.

Manning has shared her perspectives on gender identity, imprisonment and political affairs via a series of columns written for The Guardian.

(Photo above left: Courtesy U.S. Army)

We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us!

Chelsea Manning Biography.com

Biography.com Editors

The Biography.com website

June 3, 2017

A&E Television Networks

May 17, 2017

n/a

The rest is here:
Chelsea Manning - - Biography.com

Edward Snowden – Computer Programmer – Biography.com

Posted on by

Computer Programmer(1983)

Edward Snowden is a former National Security Agency subcontractor who made headlines in 2013 when he leaked top secret information about NSA surveillance activities.

1 of 8

quotes

I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things ... I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under.

I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions, [but] I will be satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant.

I'm willing to sacrifice [my former life] because I can't in good conscience allow the U.S. government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building.

I had been looking for leaders, but I realized that leadership is about being the first to act.

I realized that I was part of something that was doing far more harm than good.

I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong.

I don't see myself as a hero, because what I'm doing is self-interested. I don't want to live in a world where there's no privacy and therefore no room for intellectual exploration and creativity.

I do not expect to see home again, though that is what I want.

Edward Snowden

Born in North Carolina in 1983, Edward Snowden later worked for the National Security Agency through subcontractor Booz Allen in the organization's Oahu office. During his time there, Snowden collected top-secret documents regarding NSA domestic surveillance practices that he found disturbing. After Snowden fled to Hong Kong, China and met withjournalists from The Guardian and filmmakerLaura Poitras, newspapers began printing the documents that he had leaked, many of them detailing the monitoring of American citizens. The U.S. has charged Snowden with violations of the Espionage Act while many groups call him a hero. Snowden has found asylum in Russia and continues to speak about his work.Citzenfour, adocumentary by Poitras about his story, won an Oscar in 2015. He is also the subject ofSnowden, a 2016 biopic directed by Oliver Stone andstarringJoseph Gordon-Levitt.

Edward Snowden was born inElizabeth City,North Carolina, on June 21, 1983. His mother works for the federal court in Baltimore (the family moved to Maryland during Snowden's youth) as chief deputy clerk for administration and information technology. Snowden's father, a former Coast Guard officer, later relocated to Pennsylvania and remarried.

Snowden dropped out of high school and studied computers at Anne Arundel Community College in Arnold, Maryland (from 1999 to 2001, and again from 2004 to 2005). Between his stints at community college, Snowden spent four months from May to September 2004in special-forces trainingin the Army Reserves, but he did not complete his training. Snowden told The Guardian that he was discharged from the Army after he broke both his legs in a training accident. However, an unclassified report published on September 15, 2016 by the House Intelligence Committee refuted his claim, stating: He claimed to have left Army basic training because of broken legs when in fact he washed out because of shin splints.

Snowden eventually landed a job as a security guard at the University of Maryland's Center for Advanced Study of Language. The institution had ties to the National Security Agency, and, by 2006, Snowden had taken an information-technology job at the Central Intelligence Agency. In 2009, after being suspected of trying to break into classified files, he left to work for private contractors, among them Dell and Booz Allen Hamilton, a tech consulting firm. While at Dell, he worked as a subcontractor in an NSA office in Japanbefore being transferred to an office in Hawaii. After a short time, he moved from Dell to Booz Allen, another NSA subcontractor, and remained with the company for only three months.

During his years of IT work, Snowden had noticed the far reach of theNSA's everyday surveillance. While working for Booz Allen, Snowden began copying top-secret NSA documents, building a dossier on practices that he found invasive and disturbing. The documents contained vast information on the NSA's domestic surveillance practices.

After he had compiled a large store of documents, Snowden told his NSA supervisor that he needed a leave of absence for medical reasons, stating he had been diagnosed with epilepsy. On May 20, 2013, Snowden took a flight to Hong Kong, China, where he remained as he orchestrated a clandestine meeting with journalists from the U.K. publication The Guardian as well as filmmaker Laura Poitras. On June 5,TheGuardianreleased secret documents obtained from Snowden. In these documents, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court implemented an order that required Verizon to release information to the NSA on an "ongoing, daily basis" culled from its American customers' phone activities.

The following day, TheGuardian and TheWashington Postreleased Snowden's leaked information on PRISM, an NSA program that allows real-time information collection electronically. A flood of information followed, and both domestic and international debate ensued.

"I'm willing to sacrifice [my former life] because I can't in good conscience allow the U.S. government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building," Snowden said in interviews given from his Hong Kong hotel room. One of the people he left behind was his girlfriend Lindsay Mills. The pair had been living together in Hawaii, and she reportedly had no idea that he was about to disclose classified information to the public.

The U.S. government soon responded to Snowden's disclosures legally. On June 14, 2013, federal prosecutors charged Snowden with "theft of government Property," "unauthorized communication of national defense information" and "willful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an unauthorized person." The last two charges fall under the Espionage Act. (BeforePresident Barack Obamatook office, the act had only been used for prosecutorial purposes three times since 1917. Since President Obama took office, the act had been invoked seven times as of June 2013.)

Snowden remained in hiding for slightly more than a month. He initially planned to relocate to Ecuador for asylum, but, upon making a stopover, he became stranded in a Russian airport for a month when his passport was annulled by the American government. The Russian government denied U.S. requests to extradite Snowden. While some decried him as a traitor, others supported his cause, and more than 100,000 people signed an online petition asking President Obama to pardon Snowden by late June.

The following month, Snowden made headlines again when it was announced that he had been offered asylum in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia. Snowden soon made up his mind,expressing an interest in staying in Russia. One of his lawyers, Anatoly Kucherena, stated that Snowden would seek temporary asylum in Russia and possibly apply for citizenship later. Snowden thanked Russia for giving him asylum and said that "in the end the law is winning."

That October, Snowden stated that he no longer possessed any of the NSA files that he leaked to press. He gave the materials to the journalists he met with in Hong Kong, but he didn't keep copies for himself. Snowden explained that "it wouldn't serve the public interest" for him to have brought the files to Russia, according to The New York Times. Around this time, Snowden's father, Lon, visited his son in Moscow and continued to publicly express support.

In November 2013, Snowden'srequest to the U.S. government for clemency was rejected. The fallout from his disclosures continued to unfold over the next few months, including a legal battle over the collection of phone data by the NSA. President Obamasought to calm fears over government spying in January 2014, ordering U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to review the country's surveillance programs.

Still in exile, Snowden remained a polarizing figure. He made an appearance at the popular South by Southwest festival via teleconference in March 2014. Around this time, the U.S. military revealed that the information Snowden leaked may have caused billions of dollars in damage to its security structures.

In May 2014, Snowden gave a revealing interview with NBC News. He told Brian Williams that he was a trained spy who worked undercover as an operative for the CIA and NSA, an assertion denied by National Security Adviser Susan Ricein a CNN interview. Snowden explained that he viewed himself as a patriot, believing his actions had beneficial results. He stated that his leaking of information led to "a robust public debate" and "new protections in the United States and abroad for our rights to make sure they're no longer violated." He also expressed an interest in returning home to America.

That same year, Snowden was featured in Poitras's highly acclaimed documentary Citizenfour.The director had recorded her meetings with Snowden andGuardian journalist Glenn Greenwald. The film went on to win an Academy Award in 2015. Poitras and the winning team was joined onstage by Snowden's girlfriend Mills, with the documentarian saying during her acceptance speech, "When the decisions that rule us are taken in secret, we lose the power to control and govern ourselves."

Since its release, Snowden has remained outspoken about government surveillance. He appeared with Poitras and Greenwald via video-conference in February 2015. Earlier that month, Snowden spoke with students at Upper Canada College via video-conference. He told them that "the problem with mass surveillance is when you collect everything, you understand nothing." He also stated that government spying "fundamentally changes the balance of power between the citizen and the state."

On September 29, 2015, Snowden joined the social media platform Twitter, tweeting "Can you hear me now?" He had almost two million followers in a little over 24 hours.

Just a few days later, Snowden spoke to the New Hampshire Liberty Forum via Skype and stated he would be willing to return to the U.S. if the government could guarantee a fair trial.

On September 13, 2016, Snowden said in an interview with The Guardian that he would seek a pardon from President Obama. Yes, there are laws on the books that say one thing, but that is perhaps why the pardon power exists for the exceptions, for the things that may seem unlawful in letters on a page but when we look at them morally, when we look at them ethically, when we look at the results, it seems these were necessary things, these were vital things, he said in the interview.

The next day various human rights groups including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Human Rights Watch and Amnesty Internationallaunched a campaign requesting thatObama pardon Snowden. Appearing via a telepresence robot, Snowden expressed gratitude for the support. "I love my country. I love my family," he said. "I don't know where we're going from here. I don't know what tomorrow looks like. But I'm glad for the decisions I've made. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined, three years ago, such an outpouring of solidarity."

He also emphasized that his case resonates beyond him. "This really isnt about me," he said. "Its about us. Its about our right to dissent. Its about the kind of country we want to have."

A day later on September 15, the House Intelligence Committee released a three-page unclassified summaryof a report about its two-year investigation into Snowdens case. In the summary, Snowden was characterized as a disgruntled employee who had frequent conflicts with his managers, a serial exaggerator and fabricator and not a whistle-blower.

Snowden caused tremendous damage to national security, and the vast majority of the documents he stole have nothing to do with programs impacting individual privacy interests they instead pertain to military, defense and intelligence programs of great interest to Americas adversaries, the summary of the report stated.

Members of the committee also unanimously signed a letter to President Obama asking him not to pardon Snowden. We urge you not to pardon Edward Snowden, who perpetrated the largest and most damaging public disclosure of classified information in our nations history, the letter stated. If Mr. Snowden returns from Russia, where he fled in 2013, the U.S. government must hold him accountable for his actions.

Snowden responded on Twitter saying: "Their report is so artlessly distorted that it would be amusing if it weren't such a serious act of bad faith." He followed with a series of tweets refuting the committee's claims and said: "I could go on. Bottom line: after 'two years of investigation,' the American people deserve better. This report diminishes the committee."

Snowden also tweeted that the release of the committee's summary was an effort to discourage people from watching Snowden, a biopic directed by Oliver Stone with Snowden's cooperation and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the lead role. The film was released in the United States on September 16.

We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us!

Edward Snowden Biography.com

Biography.com Editors

The Biography.com website

June 5, 2017

A&E Television Networks

November 22, 2016

n/a

Read more:
Edward Snowden - Computer Programmer - Biography.com

Putin says Edward Snowden was wrong to leak US secrets – The Independent

Posted on by

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he believes former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden was wrong to leak U.S. spy secrets, but is no traitor.

Snowden, 33, was given asylum in Russia in 2013 after leaking classified information about U.S. spy operations. His lawyer said in January Snowden had the right to remain in Russia until 2020 and to apply for Russian citizenship next year.

Putin, a former KGB officer and ex-head of Russia's FSB security service, made his comments about Snowden in an interview with U.S. film director Oliver Stone, excerpts of which were released ahead of its broadcast by U.S. TV network Showtime from June 12.

"Snowden is not a traitor," said Putin. "He did not betray the interests of his country, nor did he transfer any information to any other country that would damage his own people," said Putin.

However, the Russian leader said Snowden should have resigned from his job in the same way he once resigned from the KGB rather than leak secrets if he didn't like what he was doing.

"He shouldn't have done it (leaked secrets). My view is that what he did was wrong," Putin told Stone.

Snowden had the right to act in the way he did however, said Putin, who said he agreed that U.S. surveillance had become too intrusive, while praising his own country's intelligence services for operating within the law.

Putin also criticised U.S. eavesdropping on its own allies like Germany, saying such activity inevitably backfired.

"Trying to spy on your allies, if you really consider them allies and not vassals, is just indecent," said Putin. "It undermines trust, and in the end damages your own national security."

Snowden has used social media to criticise the Russian authorities over a law obliging communications companies to store phone calls and Internet activity for six months. The Russian authorities have not commented on those remarks.

-Reuters

See more here:
Putin says Edward Snowden was wrong to leak US secrets - The Independent

‘He who is fated to be hanged won’t drown’: Vladimir Putin appears to confirm attempts to assassinate him – Telegraph.co.uk

Posted on by

Vladimir Putin has appearedto confirmduring an interview that he has survived multiple assassination attempts.

The Russian president made the comments in excerpts from a series of interviews with JFK director OliverStone,that will be aired later this month.

In previews of the interviews, released on Thursday evening, Mr Putin and Mr Stone discuss attitudes to death. Asked by Mr Stone about five alleged assassination attempts, Mr Putin said his security team look after him and that "up to now they haven't done badly."

"I trust them," he added when asked if he feared assassins could infiltrate his security detail.

"You know what our people say: he who is fated to be hanged won't drown," he adds to Stone, who does not have an immediate answer.

Asked what his own fate would be, he said: "Only God knows our fate."

In anothersegment, Mr Putin defended Edward Snowden, saying he waswas wrong to leak details US intelligence eavesdropping programs but is not a traitor to the United States.

Read the original post:
'He who is fated to be hanged won't drown': Vladimir Putin appears to confirm attempts to assassinate him - Telegraph.co.uk

A Big Change in NSA Spying Marks a Win for American …

Posted on by

Slide: 1 / of 1. Caption: Caption: The headquarters of the National Security Agency (NSA) in Fort Meade, Maryland.Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/Redux

The charter of the National Security Agency limits its powerful surveillance to the rest of the world, not US citizens. But one controversial carve-out in NSA rules has for years allowed it to vacuum up communications that arent to or from a foreign target, but merely about oneno matter who sends or receives it. Now the NSA says it will end that practice. And in doing so, it concedes a significant win to the privacy advocates who have fought it for years.

The loophole the NSA is closing, as first reported by the New York Times, falls under the 702 provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The NSAs interpretation of FISA allowed it to search the vast firehose of internet data that passed through its wiretaps of fiberoptic cables for certain selectors, or search terms, and collect that data if any part of the communication passed outside the USeven if one or both people communicating were in fact Americans.

NSA will no longer collect certain internet communications that merely mention a foreign intelligence target, reads a statement from the agency. Instead, NSA will limit such collection to internet communications that are sent directly to or from a foreign target.

Exactly why the NSA decided to end those about searches still isnt entirely clear. But privacy advocates are cautiously declaring a victory.

The problem of this kind of about searching is that it meant actually scanning the contents of every email to see if the messages contain the target selector, says Robyn Greene, policy counsel at the Open Technology Institute. That implicates foreign affairs, human rights activism abroad, international businesspeople, lawyers who work internationally and researchersStopping about collection is a huge boon to privacy for both Americans and individuals abroad.

For at least a decade, the NSA has interpreted FISA to allow it to collect so-called upstream data based on search terms that go beyond merely who send or received it. It also takes into account strings of information that might be included in the communications, like an email address, phone number, IP address, or the signature that identifies a certain piece of malware. In 2008, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which serves as the judicial watchdog for the NSAs potential privacy violations, approved that legal interpretation in a classified ruling.

The practice has remained contentious. Privacy advocates argue that its unconstitutionally indiscriminate, violating Fourth Amendment protections from warrantless searches of US citizens. Any American communicating about a certain selector could have their communications caught in the NSAs dragnet if their communications simply pass through a foreign server, something they have little or no control over. This could just be two people talking something, or a reporter writing a certain email address. It really broadens the aperture for the collection of communications without a warrant, says Andrew Crocker, an attorney with digital rights group EFF. In our view, its been unconstitutional all along.

It also happens frequently. In 2011, for instance, the FISC revealed an estimate that about .2 percent were between Americans, amounting to tens of thousands of individual communications. The same year, it blocked the NSA from doing any upstream data collection for close to six months, though it never revealed why. In 2014, a report by the White Houses Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board raised the issue of the broad, indiscriminate targeting of about searches once again.

That board also pointed to the problem exacerbated by so-called Multi-Communication Transactions: Due to the complexities of how data is packaged and moves around the internet, the NSAs filter pulled in entire bundles of digital communications despite many of the messages containing nothing to do with the target selector. You would have one message that met the conditions to trigger collection, and then whoops, they got everything else in the same package including totally domestic emails, says Julian Sanchez, a privacy-focused research fellow with the Cato Institute.

To deal with those inherent problems, the NSA at some point agreed to store the domestic communications it collected with special protections, and only grant access to analysts under certain, secret conditions. In its public statement, though, the NSA conceded to inadvertent compliance lapses, indicating that those special procedures failed. After reporting the violations to Congress and the FISC, the NSA decided to cease its about collection altogether, and even to delete older data collected under the practice.

Even though the Agency was legally allowed to retain such about information previously collected under Section 702, the NSA will delete the vast majority of its upstream internet data to further protect the privacy of US person communications, the NSA statement reads.

But while privacy advocates applaud that move, they also argue its not enough. Instead of leaving the decision to the NSAs discretion or secret court rulings, Congress should encode the rollback in law when it renews the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act later this year, says OTIs Robyn Greene. We need to codify an end to about collection in the law, says Green, This decision doesnt reduce that need for legislative reform, it highlights the need. In response to the NSAs statement, Senate Intelligence Committee member Ron Wyden said he intended to introduce that very legislation.

Privacy advocates now hope that the NSAs decision to stop the about searches might reduce the chance that Congress will seek to authorize the practice. This takes off the table one of the most controversial elements in the reauthorization debate, the EFFs Crocker says. Straightforwardly, thats a good thing.

Visit link:
A Big Change in NSA Spying Marks a Win for American ...


« First...102030...1,8071,8081,8091,8101,811...1,8201,8301,840...Last »