Exclusive interview with Wikileaks spokesperson
Wikileaks spokesperson on @CCTV_America said that "two or more" countries were targeted by US government.

By: CCTV News

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Exclusive interview with Wikileaks spokesperson - Video

When The Intercept unveiled an alleged National Security Agency program that has been recording every cell phone call in two countries, it focused its reporting on the Bahamas and omitted the name of the other country over fears of increased violence. On Friday, WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange decided to reveal the identity of the unnamed country: Afghanistan.

"Although, for reasons of source protection we cannot disclose how, WikiLeaks has confirmed that the identity of victim state is Afghanistan," Assange wrote in a blog post Friday. He justified the decision by saying censorship denies a country's population to "seek an effective remedy, whether in international courts, or elsewhere." In addition, he noted that contrary to the Obama administration's insistence that the release of WikiLeakss diplomatic cables could endanger lives, "[t]o this day we are not aware of any evidence provided by any government agency that any of our eight million publications have resulted in harm to life."

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WikiLeaks: The NSA Has Been Recording Phone Calls In Afghanistan

(Photo: Victorgrigas / Wikimedia Creative Commons)Wikileaks stated Friday that, in addition to the Bahamas, the United States is tracking and recording all mobile phone calls within the country Afghanistan. In making the announcement, the publication claimed to be shedding light on information redacted by journalists at The Intercept who reported earlier this week on the existence of far-reaching NSA surveillance in a series of countries.

Characterizing The Intercept's decision to withhold the identity of what came to be called 'country x' as a form of media censorship, Wikileaks released a statement on Friday which argued:

Such censorship strips a nation of its right to self-determination on a matter which affects its whole population. An ongoing crime of mass espionage is being committed against the victim state and its population. By denying an entire population the knowledge of its own victimisation, this act of censorship denies each individual in that country the opportunity to seek an effective remedy, whether in international courts, or elsewhere. Pre-notification to the perpetrating authorities also permits the erasure of evidence which could be used in a successful criminal prosecution, civil claim, or other investigations. [...]

For those reasons, the group continued, "[we] cannot be complicit in the censorship of victim state X. The country in question is Afghanistan."

Jualian Assange, editor-in-chief of the media outlet which focuses on exposing government and corporate secrets, stated: "Although, for reasons of source protection we cannot disclose how, WikiLeaks has confirmed that the identity of victim state is Afghanistan. This can also be independently verified through forensic scrutiny of imperfectly applied censorship on related documents released to date and correlations with other NSA programs (see http://freesnowden.is)."

On Monday, journalists Ryan Devereaux, Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras revealed that the United States is intercepting nearly every mobile phone call in the Bahamas and an additional country, which they declined to name, citing "credible concerns that doing so could lead to increased violence." Based on documents revealed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, the story also disclosed that the United States is spying on telecommunications networks in Mexico, Kenya, and The Philippines, using previously disclosed program MYSTIC.

Wikileaks immediately condemned the redaction of 'country x'compared it to previous "censorship" it perceived in reporting by the Washington Postand vowed to reveal the nation's identity within 72 hours.

In a March article, the Washington Post reported on a similar NSA program capable of recording 100 percent of phone calls in a foreign nation. Yet, the article refused to name a single nation targeted, citing "the request of U.S. officials."

Controversy over The Intercept's redaction sparked an internal debate between advocates of independent journalism and civil liberties, including this exchange between Wikileaks and Glenn Greenwald:

In his statement released Friday, Assange declared, "While one might seriously question the moral exceptionalism which would deny another nation and its people the right to react to a mass rights infringement in a manner of its own choosing, such claims of risk by the US government have in any event consistently fallen short."

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Wikileaks Reveals Identity of 'Country X': Afghanistan

Anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks has claimed that the US National Security Agency has been actively recording almost every phone call in Afghanistan.

According to The Verge, the recordings are being made as part of the same program that was reported earlier this week to be capturing nearly every call in the Bahamas, as well as phone records from Mexico, Kenya, and the Philippines.

The Intercept, a media organization, with direct access to leaked documents by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, had refrained from listing the name of Afghanistan saying that it decided to withhold it in response to specific, credible concerns that doing so could incite further violence in the region.

Meanwhile, WikiLeaks disclosed the name of the country saying that an ongoing crime of mass espionage was being committed.

WikiLeaks slammed the US government's claim that disclosure may lead to increase in violence and said that similar reasoning was given by the government in the past, adding that never has such ill effects been witnessed in the aftermath of a disclosure.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange wrote that WikiLeaks has years of experience with such false or overstated claims made by US officials in their attempts to delay or deny publication.

He added that to this day WikiLeaks was not aware of any evidence provided by any government agency that any of its eight million publications have resulted in harm to life.

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US security agency tabbing every phone call in Afghanistan: WikiLeaks

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Earlier this week, the Intercept revealed another bombshell from Edward Snowden's cache of government secrets: The NSA soaks up all the mobile phone calls from the Bahamas and another country. When they didn't name that country, Wikileaks did. The question now is: why the secrecy?

The initial report from Intercept reporters Ryan Deveraux, Glenn Greenwald, and Laura Poitras offered details about a U.S. electronic spying program known as SOMALGET, which is capable of capturing and "storing an entire nation's phone traffic for 30 days." The program was currently being used on two nations, and the Intercept was up front about one of thosethe Bahamaswhere calls, including those of Americans, were being captured en masse without the nation's knowledge.

That surveillance was part of MYSTIC, a larger, previously reported-on program that yanks metadata from calls in the Bahamas and four other countries. But Greenwald and his coauthors, whose work is not exactly known for its government-friendly restraint, noted that the NSA used its all-calls recording capability on another country along with the Bahamasbut declined to identify that nation:

Documents show that the NSA has been generating intelligence reports from MYSTIC surveillance in the Bahamas, Mexico, Kenya, the Philippines, and one other country, which The Intercept is not naming in response to specific, credible concerns that doing so could lead to increased violence. The more expansive full-take recording capability has been deployed in both the Bahamas and the unnamed country.

Wikileaks took umbrage at that omission and early this morning identified the so-called "Country X" in a post and a tweet:

Wikileaks' argument, essentially, was that the U.S. could use its phone-record data to deliver drone strikes against Afghans, and the people of Afghanistan deserved to know that:

Both the Washington Post and The Intercept stated that they had censored the name of the victim country at the request of the US government. Such censorship strips a nation of its right to self-determination on a matter which affects its whole population. An ongoing crime of mass espionage is being committed against the victim state and its population. By denying an entire population the knowledge of its own victimisation, this act of censorship denies each individual in that country the opportunity to seek an effective remedy, whether in international courts, or elsewhere.

This raises a host of questions, both about the Intercept's choice to omit the Afghanistan identification and Wikileaks' choice to expose it.

Is it really surprising that the U.S. uses its tapping capabilities to soak up phone communications in Afghanistan, a country where American troops are fighting a war? Despite overwhelming public opinion against the warand public criticism of NSA spyingthat sort of intelligence-gathering might actually be reassuring to many Americans, particularly those with loved ones working there.

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Why Did Wikileaks Name "Country X" When Glenn Greenwald Wouldn't?