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Lasso Led Business Attacks Against Ecuador’s Correa: WikiLeaks – teleSUR English

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WikiLeaks cables included in a new book reveal the extent of the right-wing executive's attempts to discredit President Rafael Correa.

Since current President Rafael Correa assumed office in 2007, right-wing presidential candidate and bank executive Guillermo Lasso has been organizing the business sector against the administration's progressive measures, according to a new book which is based on WikiLeaks cables.

RELATED: Remember Those Responsible for Banking Crisis, Says Correa

Written by Norwegian journalist Eirik Vold, the book titled, "Ecuador In the Sights: The WikiLeaks Revelations and the Conspiracy Against the Government of Rafael Correa," reveals that Lasso as president of Banco de Guayaquil coordinated the attacks of the economic elites against Correa's measures.

As a financial tycoon, Lasso was already known for developing relations with the U.S. business sector during the neoliberal government of Lucio Gutierrez. But his role after Correa's election was overlooked until Vold's book.

Guillermo Lasso, president of the Banco de Guayaquil, on March 12, (2007) briefed the ambassador on a systematic effort he is coordinating to develop a cohesive sector response to Correa's administration policy, said the WikiLeaks cable.

A group that he had formed, Ecuador Libre, has worked with former El Salvadoran President Francisco Flores to analyze the risks that Correa administration might take. He stressed that the analysis was completed before Correa took office, and noted how the threats are now being realized. The four threats that Ecuador Libre identified are: manipulation of democratic institutions, increased state control of the economy, promotion of violence and class hatred, and replication of Venezuela's 'comites familiares' to facilitate control at the local level, added the U.S. embassy.

RELATED: Ecuador's Tax Evader Presidential Hopeful Wants to Gut Tax Code

Flores died in 2004 and was the first president investigated over corruption charges in Salvadoran history.

The cables also added that in the beginning, businessmen felt individually nervous about his proposal, but then agreed to join forces against Correa.

One of the strategies pursued by the Chamber of Commerce of Guayaquil an ally of Lasso's economic interests was to send messages to the media that would incite Correa to respond in an aggressive way, in a bid to take popular support away from him. Lenin Moreno, candidate for the governing party Alianza Pais, refused to participate in the first presidential debate organized by the institution, saying that it was not promoting a healthy conversation among candidates.

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Lasso Led Business Attacks Against Ecuador's Correa: WikiLeaks - teleSUR English

It Looks Like Someone Curated The Wikileaks Emails Before They … – BuzzFeed News

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SAN FRANCISCO Thousands of messages may be missing from the cache of stolen emails that Wikileaks made public last year from senior members of the Democratic Party, according to campaign staffers and journalists who told BuzzFeed News that they noticed their own correspondence missing from the emails made public.

Wikileaks, which has refused to say where it obtained the emails of senior members of the Democratic Party, has repeatedly claimed that they do not curate or modify the content they are given. US intelligence officials have said that Wikileaks obtained the emails through state-sponsored Russian hackers who breached the DNC system and then made the emails public in a campaign to try and influence the 2016 elections in favor of then-Republican nominee Donald Trump.

Wikileaks did not respond to a request for comment from BuzzFeed News, asking whether they selectively released the emails from the DNC, or if they were aware that some of the emails from the January 2015 to May 2016 time frame covered in the Wikileaks DNC email database were missing.

The question of whether the emails were curated in some way, to appear as damaging as possible to the Democratic Party, has long been whispered about among campaign staffers.

There was the fact that they were released in drips and drabs, and then, the fact that entire parts of an email chain were missing, which would have given a bit of context to the discussion, but a lot of us werent about to say, Hey, you missed some emails! said one Democratic Party campaign staffer, who, like others, asked for anonymity to discuss the data breach while investigations continue.

I think it is unknown that these emails were not just dumped, there was curation happening here, said another campaign staffer, who also requested anonymity in exchange for discussing the emails. I would find part of an email chain, but not other parts. At times, the parts missing were the parts that would have given context to the whole discussion.

Still, he said, among the missing emails was nothing explosive, or holy shit a lot of it was mundane stuff or stuff that flushed out and gave context.

Many of the Democratic Party campaign staffers who spoke to BuzzFeed News said it was hard to tell exactly how many messages were missing, since their emails were set to automatically delete every 30 days.

The Russians had our emails but we didnt have them. There was a joke going around at some point, that if you were looking for an old email on something, you could just find it on Wikileaks if it wasnt in your inbox anymore, said the second Democratic Party staffer.

Three journalists who covered the 2016 Democratic campaign told BuzzFeed News that they also noticed emails missing from the cache Wikileaks made public.

At first I was relieved, and then I was confused. I mean, none of it was particularly embarrassing or newsworthy, but some of my emails from a particular week made it and others didnt. It suggested they had only gotten part of the communications or had chosen what to make public and what not to, said one politics reporter, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, has been an outspoken critic of Hillary Clinton, writing in an essay that a vote for Mrs. Clinton to become president amounted to a vote for endless, stupid war. In interviews during the 2016 campaign Assange made it clear that he did not want Clinton to win the presidency.

The idea that Wikileaks and Julian Assange is about some kind of high minded transparency is totally completely full of shit, said one former Democratic campaign staffer. What they wanted was to create the maximum amount of political pain.

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It Looks Like Someone Curated The Wikileaks Emails Before They ... - BuzzFeed News

French Presidential elections: WikiLeaks teases thousands of documents relating to leading candidates – The Independent

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A humanoid robot gestures during a demo at a stall in the Indian Machine Tools Expo, IMTEX/Tooltech 2017 held in Bangalore

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A humanoid robot gestures during a demo at a stall in the Indian Machine Tools Expo, IMTEX/Tooltech 2017 held in Bangalore

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A humanoid robot gestures during a demo at a stall in the Indian Machine Tools Expo, IMTEX/Tooltech 2017 held in Bangalore

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Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea

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Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea

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The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie 'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company

Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Images

Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea

Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Images

Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi

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Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session

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A test line of a new energy suspension railway resembling the giant panda is seen in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China

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A test line of a new energy suspension railway, resembling a giant panda, is seen in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China

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A concept car by Trumpchi from GAC Group is shown at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China

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A Mirai fuel cell vehicle by Toyota is displayed at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China

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A visitor tries a Nissan VR experience at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China

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A man looks at an exhibit entitled 'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London

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A new Israeli Da-Vinci unmanned aerial vehicle manufactured by Elbit Systems is displayed during the 4th International conference on Home Land Security and Cyber in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv

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Electrification Guru Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart talks about the electric Jaguar I-PACE concept SUV before it was unveiled before the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S

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The Jaguar I-PACE Concept car is the start of a new era for Jaguar. This is a production preview of the Jaguar I-PACE, which will be revealed next year and on the road in 2018

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Japan's On-Art Corp's CEO Kazuya Kanemaru poses with his company's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot 'TRX03' and other robots during a demonstration in Tokyo, Japan

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Japan's On-Art Corp's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot 'TRX03'

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Japan's On-Art Corp's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot 'TRX03' performs during its unveiling in Tokyo, Japan

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Singulato Motors co-founder and CEO Shen Haiyin poses in his company's concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China

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Singulato Motors' concept car Tigercar P0

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The interior of Singulato Motors' concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China

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A picture shows Singulato Motors' concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China

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Connected company president Shigeki Tomoyama addresses a press briefing as he elaborates on Toyota's "connected strategy" in Tokyo. The Connected company is a part of seven Toyota in-house companies that was created in April 2016

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A Toyota Motors employee demonstrates a smartphone app with the company's pocket plug-in hybrid (PHV) service on the cockpit of the latest Prius hybrid vehicle during Toyota's "connected strategy" press briefing in Tokyo

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An exhibitor charges the battery cells of AnyWalker, an ultra-mobile chasis robot which is able to move in any kind of environment during Singapore International Robo Expo

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A robot with a touch-screen information apps stroll down the pavillon at the Singapore International Robo Expo

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An exhibitor demonstrates the AnyWalker, an ultra-mobile chasis robot which is able to move in any kind of environment during Singapore International Robo Expo

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Robotic fishes swim in a water glass tank displayed at the Korea pavillon during Singapore International Robo Expo

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An employee shows a Samsung Electronics' Gear S3 Classic during Korea Electronics Show 2016 in Seoul, South Korea

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Visitors experience Samsung Electronics' Gear VR during the Korea Electronics Grand Fair at an exhibition hall in Seoul, South Korea

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Amy Rimmer, Research Engineer at Jaguar Land Rover, demonstrates the car manufacturer's Advanced Highway Assist in a Range Rover, which drives the vehicle, overtakes and can detect vehicles in the blind spot, during the first demonstrations of the UK Autodrive Project at HORIBA MIRA Proving Ground in Nuneaton, Warwickshire

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Ford EEBL Emergency Electronic Brake Lights is demonstrated during the first demonstrations of the UK Autodrive Project at HORIBA MIRA Proving Ground in Nuneaton, Warwickshire

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Chris Burbridge, Autonomous Driving Software Engineer for Tata Motors European Technical Centre, demonstrates the car manufacturer's GLOSA V2X functionality, which is connected to the traffic lights and shares information with the driver, during the first demonstrations of the UK Autodrive Project at HORIBA MIRA Proving Ground in Nuneaton, Warwickshire

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Full-scale model of 'Kibo' on display at the Space Dome exhibition hall of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Tsukuba Space Center, in Tsukuba, north-east of Tokyo, Japan

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Miniatures on display at the Space Dome exhibition hall of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Tsukuba Space Center, in Tsukuba, north-east of Tokyo, Japan. In its facilities, JAXA develop satellites and analyse their observation data, train astronauts for utilization in the Japanese Experiment Module 'Kibo' of the International Space Station (ISS) and develop launch vehicles

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The robot developed by Seed Solutions sings and dances to the music during the Japan Robot Week 2016 at Tokyo Big Sight. At this biennial event, the participating companies exhibit their latest service robotic technologies and components

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The robot developed by Seed Solutions sings and dances to music during the Japan Robot Week 2016 at Tokyo Big Sight

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Government and industry are working together on a robot-like autopilot system that could eliminate the need for a second human pilot in the cockpit

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Aurora Flight Sciences' technicians work on an Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automantion System (ALIAS) device in the firm's Centaur aircraft at Manassas Airport in Manassas, Va.

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Stefan Schwart and Udo Klingenberg preparing a self-built flight simulator to land at Hong Kong airport, from Rostock, Germany

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An elated customer at the launch of PlayStation VR at the GAME Digital Westfield White City midnight launch.

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French Presidential elections: WikiLeaks teases thousands of documents relating to leading candidates - The Independent

Thousands of dossiers on French presidential contenders available in archives WikiLeaks – RT

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As the French presidential race heats up, WikiLeaks has reminded the world that its archives contain potentially sensitive files on three rivals the Republican Francois Fillon, the right-wing hardliner Marine Le Pen and the liberal Emmanuel Macron.

Most of the files already published by the whistleblowing organization some of which were released as early as 2012 cover specific periods stretching between the mid-2000s and 2011 or 2012.

WikiLeaks tweeted on Wednesday that of the documents, 3,630 relate to center-right presidential hopeful Fillon, who overwhelmingly beat fellow Republican Alain Juppe in last Novembers primaries. His popularity ratings have dropped recently amid the ongoing scandal over Penelopegate a damaging media report alleging that his wife Penelope unfairly received over 900,000 ($970,000) as his parliamentary assistant.

Fillon fiercely denies claims of wrongdoing, telling the TF1 news program that my wife has been working for me forever, ever since I first got elected in 1981. The Republican presidential candidate also expressed his disgust for the allegations and announced that he would quit the race if placed under formal investigation.

PenelopeGate: Petition against wife of French presidential hopeful Fillon gathers 200k names

Later on Wednesday, WikiLeaks said in a separate tweet that there are also some 1,138 dossiers on Marine Le Pen, the hardline leader of the right-wing National Front, whose strong appeal with disenfranchised voters and those who feel threatened by a multicultural society has helped the party secure enormous popular support.

Just like Fillon, Le Pen has found herself in the midst of a money-related scandal. She is accused of having employed Catherine Griset, her chief-of-staff and former sister-in-law, as well as bodyguard Thierry Legier as her assistants at the European Parliament. According to the EUs anti-fraud agency, the people in question might have been paid up to 350,000 ($380,000) from the parliament's funds.

Fillon and Le Pen are currently almost neck and neck in the race, according to the latest surveys. According to a Kantar Sofres poll quoted by Le Figarolast week, 25 percent of respondents said they would vote for Le Pen in the first round of the elections in April. Fillon placed second, with 22 percent of the vote.

The WikiLeaks Global Intelligence Files cited the 2012 polls indicating that Le Pen, an outspoken critic of EU policies and immigration from Muslim-majority countries, was popular at that time, as compared to then-President Nicolas Sarkozy and the former head of the International Monetary Fund, the socialist Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

Unique currency can destroy EU economy, countries must have chance to leave euro Le Pen

Notably, WikiLeaks also provided an insight into Emmanuel Macron, the 39-year-old former economy minister who now leads his own political movement En Marche! (On the move).

His movement has cast itself as a fresh approach to politics, appealing to young, pro-European voters. The Kantar Sofres poll gave him 21 percent of the vote during the first round of elections, and his agenda appears to worry his far more experienced rivals Fillon and Le Pen.

A US State Department document apparently prepared for Hillary Clinton in 2012 described Macron as a banker in mergers and acquisitions at Rothschild in Paris, adding that he previously worked at the general inspection of finances and could also become the top civil servant at the Finance Ministry.

Last year, an avalanche of Clinton campaign files, released by WikiLeaks in regular batches during the US presidential run, damaged the Democrats hopes of victory, exposing her connections to the American financial establishment and corporate media.

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Thousands of dossiers on French presidential contenders available in archives WikiLeaks - RT

McCain says Taliban ‘murdered’ people because of Chelsea Manning and WikiLeaks – PolitiFact

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President Donald Trump tweeted on Jan. 26 that Chelsea Manning is an an ungrateful traitor for calling former President Barack Obama a weak leader. (Inform video)

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., opposes former President Barack Obamas decision to shorten Chelsea Mannings prison sentence  in part, he says, because her decision to release a large cache of government documents to WikiLeaks resulted in unnecessary deaths.

In 2013, a judge sentenced Manning, a private in the U.S. Army, to 35 years in prison, an unprecedentedly long sentence for a leak of government information, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. In January 2017, Obama decided to commute her sentence. She will leave prison in May.

In a Jan. 18, 2017, interview, Fox News Host Bill OReilly asked McCain for his reaction to Obamas decision.

McCain said he felt "sorrow for the families of those individuals who identified in these leaks in Afghanistan that the Taliban went after and murdered. And rage because this president is basically endorsing a proposal that allows someone to go free who is responsible for the needless deaths of those people who are allies."

OReilly pushed back on McCains assertion that individuals identified in the leaks were killed by the Taliban.

"I just wanted to know if it was specific leaks that came to you as a Senator which showed what WikiLeaks did with Manning's help killed people that were helping the U.S.A.," OReilly said.

McCain replied: "Let me be specific. The information I received when I was there was that the Taliban went after these people. I assume, killed them."

The interview left us still wondering if people were killed because their names appeared in the documents that Manning leaked, so we decided to put McCains claim on the Truth-O-Meter.

McCain spokeswoman Julie Tarallo said the Taliban has a history of retaliating against people who cooperate with United States forces. She pointed to a 2010 interview by British television station Channel 4 with a Taliban spokesman, who said the group would "punish" Afghan nationals working for the United States named in the WikiLeaks logs.

"If they are U.S. spies, then we know how to punish them," said the spokesman,Zabihullah Mujahid.

But we could find no evidence the Taliban acted on these threats. We scoured court documents, congressional hearing transcripts and media reports, and we found that the government has not named a single individual who was killed because he or she was named in the leaked files.

Not in public record

In 2010, Manning then known as Bradley Manning was an Army analyst in Iraq. She downloaded about 700,000 government files and gave many of them to WikiLeaks, who made the files public. The records included diplomatic cables, reports about the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and notably a video of a 2007 American helicopter attack in Baghdad that killed civilians.

The government was concerned that the Taliban or other adversaries might retaliate against foreign nationals named in the documents because the individuals cooperated with the United States. However, officials have never pointed to an example of someone actually getting killed because of the leaks.

The closest call came in August 2013, during the sentencing phase of Mannings trial, when the government tried to make the case that Mannings leaks caused harm. Robert Carr, a retired U.S. Army brigadier general who led an investigation into the leak, testified that he knew of "one individual that was killed" by the Taliban as a result of the leaks.

However, Carr conceded that the person killed hadnt actually been named in the documents Manning gave to WikiLeaks. As a result, the judge decided to strike that testimony from the record. Heres the relevant exchange (from an unofficial transcript provided by the Freedom of the Press Foundation):

Carr: "As a result of the Afghan logs, I only know of one individual that was killed. The individual was an Afghan national. The Afghan national had a relationship with the United States government and the Taliban came out publicly and said that they killed him as a result of him being associated with the information in these logs."

Defense attorney Major Thomas Hurley: "Ma'am, we may object again as to relevance. General Carr is going to going to talk about how this person wasn't listed in the WikiLeaks disclosures. This individual's name wasn't listed among those names, among the hundreds of names he talked about."

Judge Denise Lind: "Is this, what you're testifying to, tied to the information in the disclosures in any way?"

Carr: "The Taliban killed him and tied him to the disclosures. We went back and searched for this individual's name in all of the disclosures. The name was not there. It was a terrorist act on behalf of the Taliban threatening all of the others out there. But the name of the individual that was killed was not in the disclosures."

So the Taliban said they killed an individual because of the WikiLeaks logs, but the logs didnt actually mention this individual. Carr said that he only knew of that example.

In his closing argument at Mannings sentencing trial, lead attorney for the government Ashden Fein only said the leaks put hundreds of people "at risk of injury, incarceration or death as a result of the release of their names." He didnt argue that anyone actually died.

We should note that part of Mannings trial took place in a closed hearing in order to discuss classified information. So its possible that deaths caused directly by Mannings leaks could have happened, and we cant know unless that information was declassified.

David Coombs, Mannings lawyer, attended the classified hearings. He told us that the government didnt present any evidence that showed individuals were killed as a direct result of the leaks.

"That information was never brought out because it doesnt exist," Coombs said, calling McCains claim "completely false."

Fein, the lead attorney for the government on the case,declined to talk to us on the record.

If not deaths, what damage did Mannings leaks do to national security? The government has repeatedly said the main impact is a "chilling effect" meaning foreign officials and citizens are less likely to speak and cooperate with American soldiers and diplomats.

But Obama administration officials have indicated the leaks didnt actually cause a lot of harm.

"Ive heard the impact of these releases on our foreign policy described as a meltdown, as a game-changer, and so on. I think those descriptions are fairly significantly overwrought," said former Defense Secretary Robert Gates in 2010, adding later, "Is this embarrassing? Yes. Is it awkward? Yes. Consequences for U.S. foreign policy? I think fairly modest.

In a December 2010 interview on NBC, former Vice President Joe Biden said about WikiLeaks, "I don't think there's any substantive damage, no. Look, some of the cables that are coming out here and around the world are embarrassing."

Our ruling

McCain said, "The Taliban went after and murdered" people identified in the Chelsea Manning leaks.

In the several years since WikiLeaks released hundreds of thousands of government documents leaked by Manning, the government has not publicly identified a single example of the Taliban killing someone because that person was named in the leaks. If someone had died as a result, it seems logical that the incident would have become public knowledge, either through Manning's trial or in media reports.

At Mannings sentencing trial, one Army witness said he knew the Taliban killed one person and blamed it on the WikiLeaks revelations. However, that persons name doesnt appear in the files, and the military has provided no additional information.

We rate McCains claim Mostly False.

Update: This article has been updated to include more information from McCain's staff.

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McCain says Taliban 'murdered' people because of Chelsea Manning and WikiLeaks - PolitiFact

Chelsea Manning Is Exactly the Kind of Advocate We Need in 2017 … – Broadly

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As someone who risked her life and freedom to inform and empower the public, Manning's advocacy for transparency is a counter to the opaque practices of President Donald Trump.

In the years since her arrest, Chelsea Manning has been called a hero, the biggest whistleblower in US history, and, recently, an "ungrateful TRAITOR." In a few months, for the first time, she will be able to call herself a free woman.

The former military intelligence analyst was arrested in 2010 for leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents, exposing the true, human cost of the United States' overseas operations. She has been incarcerated for six years now, and subjected to "cruel and inhuman" conditions during this time, according to a United Nations investigation.

On January 17, President Obama granted Manning clemency, conceding that she has "served a tough prison sentence." Thanks to Obama's action, which occurred during his last week in office, Manning will be released from prison on May 17, 2017seven years from the day she was first taken into custody, and just three months from now. According to her lawyer Chase Strangio, Obama saved her life.

The state of Manning's mental health first began deteriorating during her service in the armed forcesbefore her arrestand her feelings of gender dysphoria were ignored by the army. She could have been given transgender medical care then, or early on in state custody. Instead, the ACLU had to sue in order for Manning to even receive hormone replacement therapy, which was finally administered in 2015. However, other treatment, like gender confirmation surgery, remained out of reach, and Manning's hair was still forcibly cut every two weeks. In 2016, Manning attempted suicide twice.

Despite the fact that Donald Trump recently criticized Manning on Twitter, writing that President Obama was wrong to commute her sentence, Strangio says there is no legal way for him to undo Obama's actions; the pardon power of the presidency is expansive and binding. Nonetheless, the Trump administration is unpredictable and brazen, and less than two weeks into his presidency, Trump has already been accused of creating a constitutional crisis. The ACLU will remain vigilant, monitoring Manning's conditions behind bars and working to ensure her safe passage from state custody to freedom.

Clearly, Americans are living in the shadow of a new political authority. Donald Trump has thrown the country into chaos and upset sensitive international relationships, subsequently causing millions to storm the streets day after day to reject his actions and attempt to reclaim America. Manning's release is one of Obama's last acts of reason and justice as president. While he may well have saved her life, he has also set free one of our generation's most important advocates for government transparency and public empowerment, and that is precisely the sort of activist that we need working with us today.

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OPINION: Chelsea Manning is no hero – Out & About Nashville

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Chelsea Manning voluntarily took an oath, broke it and endangered lives as a result. There is no excuse for that.

Im sorry, but I am an Army brat who takes a rather dim view of traitors, no matter their background or intentions.

Ms. Manning was an enlisted soldier serving as a low-level intelligence analyst for the United States Army in a combat zone when she downloaded tens of thousands of classified documents and forwarded them to the international whistleblowing group, Wikileaks. She was caught, court-martialed, and sentenced to 35 years in prison for her actions.

What Ms. Manning did was dead wrong. She put lives in danger worldwide by her actions and got put into a steel cage as a result. At best, she was misguided in her reasoning. At the very least, she did something dumb enough to warrant long spell in Fort Leavenworth. Either way this young lady has a lot of atoning to do outside of a military prison.

Her recent pardon by President Obama and scheduled release by late spring was likely an act of compassion for her current mental state. It was the correct decision to make, but it does not excuse her crimes. I am well familiar with the majority of Ms. Mannings personal problems related to being transgender. Been there, done most of that...bought the ugly t-shirt. She has real health problems, and I do feel sympathy for her backstory, but she gets short shrift from me for knowingly endangering lives.

Gender dysphoria and its horrible effects on your daily life is no excuse for criminally negligent manslaughter if someone was killed as a result of your actions. If you willingly endanger the life of someone who is defending your freedom to be yourself someday, I'm going to have a problem with you no matter who you are or what noble feat you claim to have been trying to accomplish.

I have problems with the current secrecy culture, tooand military culture in general. The latter cost me a childhood spent in military school as a direct result of perceived homosexual inclinations and a lot of young adult pain. But I never ever thought about doing something to potentially endanger someones life just because I was upset with the system or how it treated LGBTQI people.

Her crimes are comparable to others who needlessly endangered American citizens in the name of sacred causes. I am a loud and proud Jewish trans woman, but there is no excuse for what Jonathan Pollard or the Rosenbergs did either. If you leak critical government secrets because you think your agenda is more important, I am not going to cut you a break just because you are a fellow member of either tribe.

We keep most secrets secret for a good reason. In the wrong hands, a military-grade secret can kill people very quickly. Secrecy is not always about covering up and screwing people over. That does happen and is to our nations shame. But military secrets especially are more often used as a tool to help keep people alive, especially those who defend our freedom. The enforcement of many of them kept my own dad safe while working in hostile lands to defend my right to be a open trans woman in a free country. The X-Files was great television...that's all.

Ms. Mannings actions have needlessly called into question the loyalty and stability of transgender people, at the very least, to serve in this nations armed forces in any capacity. Her damage to our full communitys hard won reputation for reliable service in employment requiring access to classified knowledge will take a long time to repair and give ammo to bigots.

I very much hope she gets the help she needs and finds her peace as a fellow transgender woman in this sometimes unforgiving heterosexual world. But she is not a hero. Her disloyalty to those whom she served with and helped protect her freedom to be Chelsea Manning will take forever and a day for her to apologize for.

Julie Chase

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OPINION: Chelsea Manning is no hero - Out & About Nashville

Edward Snowden: Spy or Useful Idiot Savant? | The Weekly Standard – The Weekly Standard

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In June 2013, Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old National Security Agency contract employee, surfaced in Hong Kong with the sensational announcement that he was the source of top-secret American intelligence documents already being published in the Guardian and the Washington Post. The information he was bringing to light, he claimed, reflected systematic violation of individual privacy by the omniscient surveillance machinery of the U.S. government: "Even if you're not doing anything wrong, you're being watched and recorded," Snowden warned in a recorded video in which he explained his decision to steal the documents and go public.

In many quarters, Snowden was hailed as a courageous whistleblower, a man willing to risk his entire future to bring wrongdoing to light. Inside the intelligence community, a different set of views prevailed: Snowden was regarded as a defector, possibly under the control or direction of a foreign power. Whatever his motives, one thing was clear to insiders as they began to assess what Snowden had taken and what he had exposed: A huge volume of precious secrets had been lost, intelligence methods had been compromised, and valuable sources of intelligence had been shut down around the world.

Today, Snowden remains in Moscow, where he sought asylum after departing from Hong Kong and from where he occasionally chimes into America's debates by way of tweets and streamed video appearances. The controversy over his role continues unabated, breaking along more or less predictable left/right lines. In Oliver Stone's Snowden he is presented as a hero who discovers that "there's something going on in the government that's really wrong, and I can't ignore it. I just want to get this data to the world." In the intelligence communityand not only therehe continues to be regarded as a traitor, responsible for the greatest loss of intelligence secrets in our history.

What's striking about the affair, now almost four years on, is how many unanswered questions remain: What, exactly, were Snowden's motives? What did he steal? How did he do it? Did he act alone or with accomplices? With this book, we begin to get some answersand when answers are not ascertainable, well-informed speculation clearly and responsibly labeled as such. Edward Jay Epstein is a veteran of this territory, having written a number of notable books illuminating the inner workings of secret agencies, including Deception: The Invisible War Between the KGB and the CIA (1989) and Legend: The Secret World of Lee Harvey Oswald (1978). In this searching inquiry, based upon careful study of documents and interviews with many of the key players, including in Hong Kong and Moscow, Epstein has produced not a whodunit but an important and compelling "howdunit."

One of the most enduring mysteries is also one of the most important and basic: Why, exactly, did Snowden end up in Moscow? Snowden and his supporters have consistently maintained that Snowden was essentially trapped there by the U.S. government when it revoked his passport while he was in transit. Epstein successfully demolishes this confabulation. He produces a timeline of Snowden's comings and goings in Hong Kong, including his visits to the Russian consulate and an 11-day period in which Snowden simply vanished from public view after a warrant had been issued for him, his whereabouts unknown to the FBI and the Hong Kong police. Snowden evidently relied upon Julian Assange, proprietor of WikiLeaks, for guidance on how to escape from Hong Kong to a safe haven.

In a phone call Snowden placed to Assangethen as now, holed up in the Ecuadoran embassy in LondonSnowden was advised to go to Russia, despite what Assange called the "negative PR consequences." WikiLeaks then used its resources to help Snowden do exactly that. Russian "special services," evidently operating under the instructions of no less a figure than Vladimir Putin himself, enabled Snowden to board an Aeroflot flight to Moscow, despite his lack (at this juncture) of a valid passport.

Does the Russian connection make Snowden more of a spy than a whistleblower? Part of the case for his being a spy rests not only on Snowden's choice of Moscow as a place of refuge, but on the nature of the material he lifted. Only a small portion of the material provided by Snowden and published by journalists was devoted to the domestic surveillance that Snowden was denouncing. A larger portion concerned the overseas locations of NSA bases, along with NSA sources and methods, including (among other things) what Epstein describes as "ingenious technology ... for tapping into computers abroad that had been 'air-gapped,' or intentionally isolated from any network to protect highly sensitive information, such as missile telemetry, nuclear bomb development, and cyber-warfare capabilities."

This is not the kind of material a whistleblower would ever disclose. It is exactly the kind of material that a spy would steal.

Yet in the end, Epstein does not settle on a characterization of Snowden as a spy. In one of the most intriguing portions of this book, he examines the possibility that Snowden is something of a hybrid, someone who blurs the distinction between traditional spy and whistleblower. In this analysis, Snowden is an idealist who possibly "became entangled in the plots of others," presumably Russian intelligence. It is not a criticism of Epstein to observe that How America Lost Its Secrets does not provide a definitive answer; indeed, it is a virtue that his book is careful not to step beyond what the evidence allows.

Even as he navigates in the confines of uncertainty, however, Epstein performs the important public service of toppling the myths that Edward Snowden and his acolytes have spun to justify conduct that, as this book persuasively documents, had devastating consequences for American security.

Gabriel Schoenfeld is the author, most recently, of Necessary Secrets: National Security, the Media, and the Rule of Law.

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Edward Snowden weighs in on objectivity – University of Pittsburgh The Pitt News

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As his face appeared on the projectors huge screen, overlooking a cheering room of Pitt students, Edward Snowden smiled sheepishly.

Its good to be home, he said, to a big laugh from the fully packed William Pitt Union Assembly Room.

Facing federal charges for espionage and theft, Snowden couldnt speak in person. The whistleblower and transparency advocate has not visited the United States in four years.

Instead, Pitt Program Council hosted Snowden through Google Hangouts Wednesday night. From an undisclosed location in Russia, he answered pre-selected questions from the audience and praised activism as a virtue to meet the challenge of our generation battling against attacks on privacy from government surveillance.

Andrew Lotz, a senior political science lecturer at Pitt known for his class on the politics of Game of Thrones, introduced Snowden by referencing his controversial position in modern American politics.

The University is the place to ask hard questions of the complex people who shape the world, Lotz said.

Students questioned Snowdens commitment to his transparent ideals considering his asylum in Russia and why privacy rights deserve respect in an age of terrorism and cyber crimes. Snowden replied with his support for personal liberty and government accountability.

Despite the media storm surrounding hacking in the 2016 election, and President Donald Trumps proclaimed emphasis on cyber security, Snowden stuck mainly to his own history Wednesday. The former National Security Agency contractor became famous in 2013 when he stole 1.7 million classified U.S. documents, then leaked them to the press.

The documents revealed the NSAs massive effort to gather Americans personal information a violation of the 4th Amendment. They also sparked new debates over government surveillance in the United States, as well as new legislation limiting the NSAs ability to collect information on private individuals phone calls.

That constitutional controversy is the main reason why senior finance major Brian Miller attended the event Wednesday.

When I vote, a big part of my voting choice is my 4th Amendment rights, Miller said. He voted for Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson in the 2016 election.

Snowden left the United States for the last time in May 2013 to travel to Hong Kong with two journalists, where he then began to release some of his files. Snowden then traveled to Russia in June 2013 looking for asylum, where he has stayed to this day.

One question asked Snowden why he chose to stay in Russia as a privacy activist, a nation whose surveillance laws he criticized in his presentation and has a poor civil rights record overall.

His current residence has more to do with necessity, Snowden said. He applied for asylum in 21 countries, all of whom rejected his plea.

People seem to think I showed up [in Russia] and said Hey, Im good here, he said, to the audiences amusement.

Snowdens faith in the government was near ironclad when he started doing intelligence work with the Central Intelligence Agency in 2006. He had family members strewn throughout the government, in the military, intelligence agencies and courts.

Snowden shows the audience a heatmap displaying levels of NSA surveillance worldwide. He noted that the United States is under more surveillance than Russia. John Hamilton | Visual Editor

But as Snowden moved into the NSA as a contractor, and evidence of the governments misuse and abuse of its surveillance apparatus grew, his early faith in government was destroyed.

The government lies, Snowden said. That was something that was very difficult for me to accept.

His disillusionment continued after the election of former-President Barack Obama in 2008, who promised throughout his campaign to cut down on NSA surveillance and instead expanded the NSAs capabilities.

Snowden also expressed concern about the governments ability to withhold information to control citizens opinion of the government. He also criticized terms like national security, which he said government officials use to hide the danger of their increasing power.

To fight misinformation, he praised journalists for their dedication to publishing the truth and educating the public.

If we only knew what the government wanted us to know, we wouldnt know much at all, Snowden said.

Snowden said constitutional rights cannot be preserved by one person, and urged the public to resist passivity and continue to fight to create influence in society.

While some critics worry the release of sensitive documents might endanger American lives and interests, Snowden said the U.S. government has never proven that a leak caused any death or destruction.

Alessandra Roberto, a senior psychology, communication and linguistics major, said Snowdens revelations matter far more than any security concerns.

Even if you dont agree with his beliefs and actions you have to admire the battle hes fighting and the actions hes still taking today, Roberto said.

His final question addressed the transparency activists feelings on Trump.

In response, Snowden referenced a document he found particularly troubling: a report describing the United States and other nations intelligence agencies sharing methods to discredit and break up protest movements.

Noting that nobodys gonna save us, the whistleblower ended his speech with encouragement for the street activism hes seen in response to the election, and a call to not give up the fight.

Lets not complain about the times we live in, Snowden said. Lets get ready.

Zoe Pawliczek contributed reporting.

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All about SSL Cryptography | DigiCert.com

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Background

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is a standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a server and a clienttypically a web server (website) and a browser; or a mail server and a mail client (e.g., Outlook). It allows sensitive information such as credit card numbers, social security numbers, and login credentials to be transmitted securely. To establish this secure connection, the browser and the server need an SSL Certificate.

But how is this accomplished? How is data encrypted so that no oneincluding the worlds biggest super computerscan crack it?

This article explains the technology at work behind the scenes of SSL encryption. It covers asymmetric and symmetric keys and how they work together to create an SSL-encrypted connection. It also covers different types of algorithms that are used to create these keysincluding the mathematical equations that make them virtually impossible to crack.

Not sure you understand the basics of SSL Certificates and technology? Learn about SSL Certificates >>

Asymmetric encryption (or public-key cryptography) uses a separate key for encryption and decryption. Anyone can use the encryption key (public key) to encrypt a message. However, decryption keys (private keys) are secret. This way only the intended receiver can decrypt the message. The most common asymmetric encryption algorithm is RSA; however, we will discuss algorithms later in this article.

Asymmetric keys are typically 1024 or 2048 bits. However, keys smaller than 2048 bits are no longer considered safe to use. 2048-bit keys have enough unique encryption codes that we wont write out the number here (its 617 digits). Though larger keys can be created, the increased computational burden is so significant that keys larger than 2048 bits are rarely used. To put it into perspective, it would take an average computer more than 14 billion years to crack a 2048-bit certificate. Learn more >>

Symmetric encryption (or pre-shared key encryption) uses a single key to both encrypt and decrypt data. Both the sender and the receiver need the same key to communicate.

Symmetric key sizes are typically 128 or 256 bitsthe larger the key size, the harder the key is to crack. For example, a 128-bit key has 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 encryption code possibilities. As you can imagine, a brute force attack (in which an attacker tries every possible key until they find the right one) would take quite a bit of time to break a 128-bit key.

Whether a 128-bit or 256-bit key is used depends on the encryption capabilities of both the server and the client software. SSL Certificates do not dictate what key size is used.

Since asymmetric keys are bigger than symmetric keys, data that is encrypted asymmetrically is tougher to crack than data that is symmetrically encrypted. However, this does not mean that asymmetric keys are better. Rather than being compared by their size, these keys should compared by the following properties: computational burden and ease of distribution.

Symmetric keys are smaller than asymmetric, so they require less computational burden. However, symmetric keys also have a major disadvantageespecially if you use them for securing data transfers. Because the same key is used for symmetric encryption and decryption, both you and the recipient need the key. If you can walk over and tell your recipient the key, this isnt a huge deal. However, if you have to send the key to a user halfway around the world (a more likely scenario) you need to worry about data security.

Asymmetric encryption doesnt have this problem. As long as you keep your private key secret, no one can decrypt your messages. You can distribute the corresponding public key without worrying who gets it. Anyone who has the public key can encrypt data, but only the person with the private key can decrypt it.

Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) is the set of hardware, software, people, policies, and procedures that are needed to create, manage, distribute, use, store, and revoke digital certificates. PKI is also what binds keys with user identities by means of a Certificate Authority (CA). PKI uses a hybrid cryptosystem and benefits from using both types of encryption. For example, in SSL communications, the servers SSL Certificate contains an asymmetric public and private key pair. The session key that the server and the browser create during the SSL Handshake is symmetric. This is explained further in the diagram below.

Public-key cryptography (asymmetric) uses encryption algorithms like RSA and Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) to create the public and private keys. These algorithms are based on the intractability* of certain mathematical problems.

With asymmetric encryption it is computationally easy to generate public and private keys, encrypt messages with the public key, and decrypt messages with the private key. However, it is extremely difficult (or impossible) for anyone to derive the private key based only on the public key.

RSA is based on the presumed difficulty of factoring large integers (integer factorization). Full decryption of an RSA ciphertext is thought to be infeasible on the assumption that no efficient algorithm exists for integer factorization.

A user of RSA creates and then publishes the product of two large prime numbers, along with an auxiliary value, as their public key. The prime factors must be kept secret. Anyone can use the public key to encrypt a message, but only someone with knowledge of the prime factors can feasibly decode the message.

RSA stands for Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman the men who first publicly described the algorithm in 1977.

Elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) relies on the algebraic structure of elliptic curves over finite fields. It is assumed that discovering the discrete logarithm of a random elliptic curve element in connection to a publicly known base point is impractical.

The use of elliptic curves in cryptography was suggested by both Neal Koblitz and Victor S. Miller independently in 1985; ECC algorithms entered common use in 2004.

The advantage of the ECC algorithm over RSA is that the key can be smaller, resulting in improved speed and security. The disadvantage lies in the fact that not all services and applications are interoperable with ECC-based SSL Certificates.

Pre-shared key encryption (symmetric) uses algorithms like Twofish, AES, or Blowfish, to create keysAES currently being the most popular. All of these encryption algorithms fall into two types: stream ciphers and block ciphers. Stream ciphers apply a cryptographic key and algorithm to each binary digit in a data stream, one bit at a time. Block ciphers apply a cryptographic key and algorithm to a block of data (for example, 64 sequential bits) as a group. Block ciphers are currently the most common symmetric encryption algorithm.

*Note: Problems that can be solved in theory (e.g., given infinite time), but which in practice take too long for their solutions to be useful are known as intractable problems.

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All about SSL Cryptography | DigiCert.com


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