As the masterful drip-drip-drip strategy employed by Edward Snowden drops bomb after bomb on the National Security Agency’s formerly secret Panopticon, we are getting closer to the central purpose of what the world’s most famous whistleblower dubbed "the architecture of oppression."
The latest revelations, reported by Glenn Greenwald and Ryan Gallagher, show that "the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom targeted WikiLeaks and other activist groups with tactics ranging from covert surveillance to prosecution." We knew they were after WikiLeaks, although the specifics were cloudy, but what catches my eye is the part about "other activist groups." Further on we discover that this refers in part to the "hacktivist" group known as Anonymous and the Pirate Bay website, but the new documents also refer to targeting "the human network that supports WikiLeaks" – a description that certainly fits Antiwar.com After all, when the authorities launched their witch-hunt and tried to take down Assange’s site, we put up a "WikiLeaks Finder" – it’s still up there – as well as publishing a constant stream of material calling for an end to the government’s illegal campaign.
More significantly, when we discovered the FBI had launched a "preliminary investigation" into myself and our webmaster, Eric Garris, it was noted that the initial memo authorizing the probe was based on FISA-related materials – that is, so-called signals intelligence supposedly linking us to "terrorism." Their conclusion: a strong possibility that we are "agents of a foreign power." This granted them a blank check to authorize comprehensive surveillance of emails and other communications, including telephony – and we are still trying to find out how they took advantage of that.
In the WikiLeaks case, Greenwald and Gallagher note the US government apparently designated the whistleblowing site "’a ‘malicious foreign actor’ for the purpose of targeting.’ Such a designation would have allowed the group to be targeted with extensive electronic surveillance – without the need to exclude U.S. persons from the surveillance searches." We can assume the same applies to Antiwar.com – which means not only that the Antiwar.com staff and associated persons could have been "legally" targeted for deep surveillance, but also quite possibly visitors to our site, i.e. you. Working with their allies in the British GCHQ, the NSA spied on WikiLeaks’ readers, collecting their IP addresses and god knows what else.
A sinister note is added to the proceeding with a new NSA document entitled "Manhunting Timeline," which describes an international effort to prosecute not only WikiLeaks but potentially anyone who spoke out in Assange’s defense.
