The Sunday Times has a story claiming that Snowden’s revelations have caused danger to MI6 and disrupted their operations. Here are five reasons it is a lie.
1) The alleged Downing Street source is quoted directly in italics. Yet the schoolboy mistake is made of confusing officers and agents. MI6 is staffed by officers. Their informants are agents. In real life, James Bond would not be a secret agent. He would be an MI6 officer. Those whose knowledge comes from fiction frequently confuse the two. Nobody really working with the intelligence services would do so, as the Sunday Times source does. The story is a lie.
2) The argument that MI6 officers are at danger of being killed by the Russians or Chinese is a nonsense. No MI6 officer has been killed by the Russians or Chinese for 50 years. The worst that could happen is they would be sent home. Agents’ – generally local people, as opposed to MI6 officers – identities would not be revealed in the Snowden documents. Rule No.1 in both the CIA and MI6 is that agents’ identities are never, ever written down, neither their names nor a description that would allow them to be identified. I once got very, very severely carpeted for adding an agents’ name to my copy of an intelligence report in handwriting, suggesting he was a useless gossip and MI6 should not be wasting their money on bribing him. And that was in post communist Poland, not a high risk situation.
3) MI6 officers work under diplomatic cover 99% of the time. Their alias is as members of the British Embassy, or other diplomatic status mission. A portion are declared to the host country. The truth is that Embassies of different powers very quickly identify who are the spies in other missions. MI6 have huge dossiers on the members of the Russian security services – I have seen and handled them. The Russians have the same. In past mass expulsions, the British government has expelled 20 or 30 spies from the Russian Embassy in London. The Russians retaliated by expelling the same number of British diplomats from Moscow, all of whom were not spies! As a third of our “diplomats” in Russia are spies, this was not coincidence. This was deliberate to send the message that they knew precisely who the spies were, and they did not fear them.
4) This anti Snowden non-story – even the Sunday Times admits there is no evidence anybody has been harmed – is timed precisely to coincide with the government’s new Snooper’s Charter act, enabling the security services to access all our internet activity. Remember that GCHQ already has an archive of 800,000 perfectly innocent British people engaged in sex chats online.
5) The paper publishing the story is owned by Rupert Murdoch. It is sourced to the people who brought you the dossier on Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction, every single “fact” in which proved to be a fabrication. Why would you believe the liars now?
There you have five reasons the story is a lie.
Doug at 2:17pm. Yeah, it’s me.
Over a number of years, I’ve never had a straight answer to this very simple question, you see. The answer, surely, either, ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Obviously, to a large extent it is a rhetorical question. Here it is:
‘Does the UK state, either directly or through other agencies, assassinate people within and outside the national borders of the UK?’
Much of the tempered mendacity which underpins ‘respectable’ current affairs coverage particularly in the UK rests on the tact agreement to propagate the assumption that the answer to my question is, ‘no’. Once the answer is widely and openly understood to be, ‘yes’, then the nature of the relationship between the people and the state changes fundamentally and irrevocably. It also is somewhat more interesting than the colour of the carpets and the brand of toilet paper (though those nuggets too would be most fascinating).
@Iain Orr
“I suggest that Russia and China are both considerably more totalitarian than the UK or USA, which gives their secret intelligence services considerable advantages. They are more able to force people to work for them.”
Iain I completely disagree with “ They are more able to force people to work for them.”
I knew of a number of people who have been forced to work for the US and UK intelligence services. So I would like to bet there are a damn few more people than I knew of who were forced to work them.
Craig, if you’re still tuning in, during your dealings with the security services, on a scale of 1 to 10, how useful are they to the UK?
Tim Shipman who co authored the S Times piece used to work on the Mail.
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/jan/17/sunday-times-political-editor-daily-mail-tim-shipman
British spies betrayed to Russians and Chinese
Tom Harper, Richard Kerbaj and Tim Shipman
14 June 2015
Comment (111)
Edward Snowden, inset right, has been in Moscow under Vladimir Putin’s protection since 2013
RUSSIA and China have cracked the top-secret cache of files stolen by the fugitive US whistleblower Edward Snowden, forcing MI6 to pull agents out of live operations in hostile countries, according to senior officials in Downing Street, the Home Office and the security services.
Western intelligence agencies say they have been forced into the rescue operations after Moscow gained access to more than 1m classified files held by the former American security contractor, who fled to seek protection from Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, after mounting one of the largest leaks in US history.
Senior government sources confirmed that China had also cracked the encrypted documents, which contain details of secret intelligence techniques and information that could allow British and American spies to be identified.
One senior Home Office official accused Snowden of having “blood on his hands”, although Downing Street said there was “no evidence of anyone being harmed…..paywall
/..
http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/National/article1568673.ece
Looks like another cover up in the making.
The Chilcot report has taken six years and cost £10m but is “unlikely to be published for another year at least”, according to sources close to the inquiry.
The Independent on Sunday understands the inquiry is still asking the Cabinet Office to declassify documents, suggesting that the report into the Iraq war is still being written.
David Cameron is now under pressure to scrap the inquiry.
Lord Morris of Aberavon, a Labour former Attorney General, has asked the Prime Minister to assess “the case for discharging the Chairman and members of the Chilcot inquiry, and inviting the Cabinet Secretary to set out a mechanism for an interim report to be produced on the basis of the evidence gathered.
So @thesundaytimes has just quietly deleted one of the key lies in its story – just deleted it – with no note
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/610116225436360706
Does any agency have more power than this one, info is all available;but rarely discussed ot tied to together, read:
http://www.presidentialpuppetry.com/
Interviewed here after Visas for Jihadis book author.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrLcbBTsYCo
J. Michael Springmann:Visas for Al Qaeda / Andrew Kreig : Presidential Puppetry
on puppetry website, read first comment:
By Robert David STEELE Vivas HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWER on November 14, 2013
This story brings up an important point: the clandestine services have had more than enough time to protect sources and revise methods. It’s time Greenwald or Poitras announced, “Three months from now we disclose it all.” Greenwald can still act as impresario, as he knows the content best, while a mass dive into deniable government crime would invigorate the story. The cablegate disclosures are still yielding probative evidence of coercive US interference and other crimes, as researchers comb it for their individual purposes. Every person on the planet has a right to all that information.
Dave Lawton
“I knew of a number of people who have been forced to work for the US and UK intelligence services.”
The other day I wrote that I had only ever (knowingly) met one SiS officer (not agent as I said then and now see was wrong). This was when the SiS officer and one special branch turned up out of the blue to interview a friend of mine. He had to talk to them because of his immigration status. I suspect he probably had to give them something or else face serious trouble. He faced death if deported. This was not an isolated incident. It was a cat and mouse game.
So I it does not seem fanciful to say he was “forced to work” for the fuckers.
Dave Lawton @ 4.51 pm. Your comment does not address the point I was making. I have no doubt that when they have the opportunity to force people to work for them, all intelligence services do so. My point, which I do not regard as being particularly controversial, is that Russian and Chinese agencies find that easier to do than their Western counterparts. One reason is that they are able to keep under close surveillance many more aspects of the lives of many of their own citizens and foreign residents and visitors.
I do not dispute the accuracy of your evidence that UK agencies can and do put the screws on people to work for them even when they do not wish to and are under no legal obligation to do so; nor do I dispute that this is sometimes done without the required legal authority having been secured. I’m simply suggesting that to be caught in compromising sexual or financial activities is far riskier in Russia or China than it is in the UK and US. Of course that is a risk in the UK: but the risk is (still) – absent a UK snoopers’ charter and much more besides – far greater in Russia and China than in the UK or USA.
Agee
“It’s time Greenwald or Poitras announced, “Three months from now we disclose it all.””
Never going to happen. I suggest you misunderstand Greenwald. He is a faux leftie libertarian deeply embracing the establishment.
It is more likely Greenwald will continued to be lauded with awards and the surveillance state will continue unabated. That’s what has happened so far. No sign of anything else. It’s possible to see this whole Snowden affair as merely a PR campaign which is normalising the idea of all pervasive surveillance.
I highly rcommend the archives of NYC blogger Tarzie for this perspective. Dig deep, enjoy the revelations:
https://ohtarzie.wordpress.com/2015/06/05/with-or-without-section-215-mass-surveillance-of-cell-phones-is-pervasive/
https://ohtarzie.wordpress.com/?s=snowden
US cops raiding a drug store then eating pot laced food,cops getting high,watch the video.
Attorney Matthew Pappas, who edited and produced the clips before providing them to Voice of OC, says the video shows officers eating food laced with marijuana, known in pot lingo as “edibles,” and seized during the raid.
Officers also played darts inside the pot shop while apparently completing an inventory of the shop’s contents. Pappas represents the shuttered Sky High Holistic dispensary where the video was recorded.
http://voiceofoc.org/2015/06/santa-ana-to-investigate-police-conduct-in-pot-shop-raid/
Phil,
“It is more likely Greenwald will continued to be lauded with awards and the surveillance state will continue unabated. That’s what has happened so far. No sign of anything else. It’s possible to see this whole Snowden affair as merely a PR campaign which is normalising the idea of all pervasive surveillance.”
Indeed.
@Craig
These psychic “mixed results” ranged from “project cancelled as soon as an adult saw it” to “wasted a bloody fortune on stupid ideas about non-existent supernatural hocus-pocus”. Psychic powers do not exist.
“I’m simply suggesting that to be caught in compromising sexual or financial activities is far riskier in Russia or China than it is in the UK and US.”
This doesn’t make much sense.
If you’re caught/compromised in any of these jurisdictions, you’re caught.
If you’re potentially useful you’ll be used.
And anyway, if they’ve been looking at you specifically, such that you are caught, then it’s likely you’ll be someone deemed of use.
Don’t quite see the Russian advantage here.
‘Oh what a tangled web we weave. When first we practice to deceive.’
Sir Walter Scott (Marmion, 1808)
Isn’t it largely moot, largely hand wringing, to claim one secret service is better at forcing people to work for them? Who the fuck cares. We don’t know the answer. But we do know that they all do this.
It’s probably more productive to spend time diminishing our own secret service, as little and however we possibly can, rather than say “but they’re worse”.
Sure. They all work the same way.
The idea that the Russian outfits are worse is simply propaganda. Anyone who knows what went on in NI knows that, and we certainly don’t have to go to NI to see what filth they are, but it’s the best covered in mainstream and peeps are more accepting as to just how dark the whole thing was.
I’m interested therefore to see whether Iain has anything substantive to say wrt his claimed Russian advantage or is he simply relying on the propaganda effect.
“The idea that the Russian outfits are worse is simply propaganda. Anyone who knows what went on in NI knows that,”
Anyone who knows what went on in the Gulag knows that is complete and utter bollocks!
There’s a wealth of material from both European and US Empire which is every bit as bad and worse than the gulag.
But, let’s try and get back up to date.
Iain has argued that Russia has an advantage currently.
What is that advantage exactly, over spying agencies in the US and Europe?
Thanks.
This sight like it very much copy solar sis, buy now carpets toilet rolls paper smooth bag from sis, ta, heavy breath very good making bad rabbits and kings, cabbages!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8R_FrF_Bk0
It just goes to show what a grip the parasitic elite have over nearly everybody’s imagination that nobody has asked whether it is such a bad thing if the Sunday Times story were true – and I’m not saying it is; virtually nothing in the corporate media is.
The real question should be, why does the UK government need to spy on other countries and people? Is it legal? If the government was run in the interests of the people (and yes, I’m aware that such a government has never existed), then there would be no need to interfere in the way other countries are run. I suspect most people, including commenters on this blog, have been brought up on a diet of James Bond films and the like which begin from the position that the British and US Americans are always the good guys and the Russians and Chinese are not to be trusted. With the current push for war with Russia being ramped up by NATO and their business partners, any setback to Western spying operations has to be a good thing.
Massive bot attack on this site right now = proof in pudding: Vauxhall. Truth will out.
Agreed, Phil. The hype over First Look came to a sudden halt when the Blog of Blogs turned into just another story-mill with all the trappings of same.
False. Russian or Chinese secret organs will now be able to figure out where potential leaks may exist within their own organizations. As in who is informing MI6. This means many assets/agents whatever you want to call them are now exposed or under threat. Of course our own officers are safe, no one ever doubted that. It in fact you who seems to have shown a limited imagination in who might be impacted by this.
It’s not the officers who will be in danger, other than being exposed and potentially losing valuable contacts and know how in field operations. It is the informants we’d been relying on to provide us with valuable information who have now been exposed. You don’t even need to know their names, to know who might have been the source of information for a highly secretive piece of information do you?
This has just been put up on Sky News!!
In full as the Sky archive is poor.
Spy Leaks Have Put More Than Lives At Risk
A spy can be replaced but damage caused to their contacts and intelligence networks could take years to repair.
18:35, UK,
Sunday 14 June 2015
The headquarters of MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service photo
Mark White
Home Affairs Correspondent
Britain and the US have long warned about the potential dangers associated with Edward Snowden’s actions in leaking more than 1.7 million secret documents.
Two years on, the fallout from the Snowden leaks has gone way beyond simple diplomatic embarrassment.
We are now being told that human intelligence, whether in the form of spies or their confidential sources, has been compromised – so much so that some of those intelligence assets are being withdrawn from a number of countries.
When Edward Snowden fled the US, he claimed the vast bulk of the highly sensitive data he downloaded was encrypted and, therefore, safe from prying foreign intelligence agencies.
However, the revelation that Russia and China have managed to decipher many of the documents presents Britain and America with an enormous headache – lives, we are told, are potentially at risk and it is not just intelligence sources in Russia and China who may have been compromised.
Play video “Spies Withdrawn”
In many countries around the world where the Chinese and Russians have competing interests with the West, there is a real danger that the operation of US and British spies may be hampered.
In Syria for instance, intelligence sources are working in a highly dangerous environment, where Russia and the West have taken a different approach to the crisis – Russia backs President Assad, the West has been working to undermine his regime.
In eastern Europe, there are also significant potential problems facing Anglo/American intelligence gathering as Russia reasserts its influence over many countries in the region.
Play video “UK Spies Story Officials ‘Cowards'”
The damage is also likely to be long-lasting and may take Britain and the US some time to repair.
A spy can be withdrawn and replaced, but it is likely to take years to rebuild the contacts and intelligence sources those agents have built up.
Play video “2013: Spy Chiefs Give Evidence”
An undated aerial handout photo shows the National Security Agency (NSA) headquarters building in Fort Meade, Maryland
Gallery: Edward Snowden profile
http://news.sky.com/story/1501852/spy-leaks-have-put-more-than-lives-at-risk
“The real question should be, why does the UK government need to spy on other countries and people?”
Child.
“any setback to Western spying operations has to be a good thing.”
See where you’re coming from.
4) This anti Snowden non-story – even the Sunday Times admits there is no evidence anybody has been harmed – is timed precisely to coincide with the government’s new Snooper’s Charter act, enabling the security services to access all our internet activity. Remember that GCHQ already has an archive of 800,000 perfectly innocent British people engaged in sex chats online
I’m probably missing something, but how can Snowden’s actions be held to justify tightening public cyber-security, in any case? What he did (theft, and a bookful of military charges) was against already existing legislation. It could well have been done without any communications -e- or otherwise – being involved, and appears to have been a lone act. He obtained the information from within the NSA security blanket, not by emailing his mates in the wider, unsecured, world: under increased surveillance, he might not have wanted to book his HK hotel online, but would have made a less visible trip. If NSA can’t look after its files, hell mend them, but increasing surveillance of the web at large is wholly irrelevant to the Snowden case..
Perhaps this view needs to be propagated?
“There’s a wealth of material from both European and US Empire which is every bit as bad and worse than the gulag.”
More bollocks.
“Anyone who knows what went on in the Gulag knows that is complete and utter bollocks!”
You’re the one talking utter bollocks again Resident Dissident. First of all, like Northern Ireland, the Gulags are history. But you, and even Craig, seem to think that Russia today is the same as Stalinist Russia, or even the Russia of Khrushchev. It is modern, capitalist and in some respects at the leading edge of technology. Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, who was in the Gulags, recognised the change, preferred it to the USA you love so much and returned to his native Russia in 1994 where he remained until his death in 2008 at the age of 89.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Solzhenitsyn
You in your tiny mind will accuse Putin of having poisoned him, along with Litvinenko, who poisoned himself with polonium working as a mule for Berezovsky, and Kara-Murza (whose life Russian doctors have recently saved) having come to the conclusion that he has been taking incompatible medications).