from theguardian.com: The Independent this morning published an article – which it repeatedly claims comes from “documents obtained from the NSA
by Edward Snowden” – disclosing that “Britain runs a secret
internet-monitoring station in the Middle East to intercept and process
vast quantities of emails, telephone calls and web traffic on behalf of
Western intelligence agencies.” This is the first time the Independent
has published any revelations purportedly from the NSA documents, and
it’s the type of disclosure which journalists working directly with NSA
whistleblower Edward Snowden have thus far avoided.

That leads to
the obvious question: who is the source for this disclosure? Snowden
this morning said he wants it to be clear that he was not the source for
the Independent, stating:

I have never
spoken with, worked with, or provided any journalistic materials to the
Independent. The journalists I have worked with have, at my request,
been judicious and careful in ensuring that the only things disclosed
are what the public should know but that does not place any person in
danger. People at all levels of society up to and including the
President of the United States have recognized the contribution of these
careful disclosures to a necessary public debate, and we are proud of
this record.
“It appears that the UK government is now seeking to
create an appearance that the Guardian and Washington Post’s disclosures
are harmful, and they are doing so by intentionally leaking harmful
information to The Independent and attributing it to others. The UK
government should explain the reasoning behind this decision to disclose
information that, were it released by a private citizen, they would
argue is a criminal act.”

In other words: right as there is a major scandal over the UK’s abusive and lawless exploitation of its Terrorism Act – with public opinion against the use of the Terrorism law to detain David Miranda
– and right as the UK government is trying to tell a court that there
are serious dangers to the public safety from these documents, there
suddenly appears exactly the type of disclosure the UK government wants
but that has never happened before. That is why Snowden is making clear:
despite the Independent’s attempt to make it appears that it is so, he
is not their source for that disclosure. 
Who, then, is? 

The US government itself has constantly used this tactic:
aggressively targeting those who disclose embarrassing or incriminating
information about the government in the name of protecting the sanctity
of classified information, while simultaneously leaking classified
information prolifically when doing so advances their political
interests. 

One other matter about the Independent article: it strongly suggests
that there is some agreement in place to restrict the Guardian’s ongoing
reporting about the NSA documents. Speaking for myself, let me make one
thing clear: I’m not aware of, nor subject to, any agreement that
imposes any limitations of any kind on the reporting that I am doing on
these documents. I would never agree to any such limitations. As I’ve
made repeatedly clear, bullying tactics of the kind we saw this week
will not deter my reporting or the reporting of those I’m working with
in any way. I’m working hard on numerous new and significant NSA stories
and intend to publish them the moment they are ready.

Related question

For
those in the media and elsewhere arguing that the possession and
transport of classified information is a crime: does that mean you
believe that not only Daniel Ellsberg committed a felony, but also the
New York Times reporters and editors did when they received, possessed,
copied, transported and published the thousands of pages of top-secret
documents known as the Pentagon Papers? 

Do you also believe the
Washington Post committed felonies when receiving and then publishing
top secret information that the Bush administration was maintaining a
network for CIA black sites around the world, or when the New York Times
revealed in 2005 the top secret program whereby the NSA had created a
warrantlesss eavesdropping program aimed at US citizens?

Or is
this some newly created standard of criminality that applies only to our
NSA reporting? Do media figures who are advocating that possessing or
transmitting classified information is a crime really not comprehend the
precedent they are setting for investigative journalism?

UPDATE

The Independent’s Oliver Wright just tweeted the following:

“For the record: The Independent was not leaked or ‘duped’ into publishing today’s front page story by the Government.”

Leaving
aside the fact that the Independent article quotes an anonymous “senior
Whitehall source”, nobody said they were “duped” into publishing
anything. The question is: who provided them this document or the
information in it? It clearly did not come from Snowden or any of the
journalists with whom he has directly worked. The Independent provided
no source information whatsoever for their rather significant disclosure
of top secret information. Did they see any such documents, and if so,
who, generally, provided it to them? I don’t mean, obviously, that they
should identify their specific source, but at least some information
about their basis for these claims, given how significant they are,
would be warranted. One would think that they would not have published
something like this without either seeing the documents or getting
confirmation from someone who has: the class of people who qualify is
very small, and includes, most prominently and obviously, the UK
government itself.