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.
It’s telling and somewhat sad how easily stories such as this Sunday Times piece deflect attention and memory away from the real story of the Snowden Affair. The important revelation was not about how or that the US and UK spy on Russia or China but how the 5-Eyes massively spy on their own citizens and citizens of other countries along with economic espionage.
The clear and present danger is from how this massive data horde is digested and how patterns are generated to monitor and even manipulate the public now and in the future. The Spy vs. Spy charade between governments is meaningless compared to this modern high-tech application of the Panopticon.
Just to comment on one of the people above who said that Shamir Chakrabarti of Liberty seemed to go along with the Sunday Times story on the Andrew Marr show. I watched it on iplayer and she said she could not say whether the story was true. Felt she was pressured (as usual these are quick comments) but she did pay tribute to Snowden for his work in exposing mass surveillance by intelligence authorities.
“while on the other hand China is prepared to use its Socialist power”
Since when has concentrating political and economic power in the hand of a few totalitarians been Socialist?
“but his first reaction to Nemtsov’s murder was that Putin did it”
NO IT WASN’T YOU LIAR – It was that he was responsible for it – means something different you illiterate fool.
UK under pressure to respond to latest Edward Snowden claims
Sunday Times says Downing Street believes Russia and China have hacked into American whistleblower’s files, endangering US and British agents
Ewen MacAskill and Patrick Wintour
Sunday 14 June 2015 16.58 BST
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/14/russia-and-china-broke-into-snowden-files-to-identify-british-and-us-spies
This from Straw won’t go down well in Israel.
Iran is too big, too strategically placed to be sidelined:
Straw says Iran should never have been included in Bush’s ‘axis of evil’
A deadline is looming on critical nuclear talks with Iran, and former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has used a lecture at the University of South Wales to make a plea for the establishment of normal relations with the country, the Welshonline said in an article.
June 13, 2015
http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=247340
https://www.google.co.uk/logos/doodles/2015/800th-anniversary-of-the-magna-carta-6274258384715776-hp.gif
🙂
Hammond at Runnymede yesterday. He’s ‘aving a larf.
Foreign Secretary : ‘The Freedoms And Rights Are Critical’
14 June 2015
Play video “Philip Hammond At Runnymede”
A flotilla is making its way down the Thames to celebrate the signing of Magna Carta. Tomorrow it’ll be 800 years since King John was forced to put his name to the famous declaration of rights The Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond spoke to Sky News about its importance.
~~
A very strange statue of the Queen was unveiled there yesterday. Unrecognisable. The leg length is out of proportion and as for the hairstyle and the hands – well!
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/410/media/images/83620000/jpg/_83620685_hi027691918.jpg
That nice Mr Bercow took part in the unveiling. I suppose that means the taxpayers got the bill for it.
The link to Hammond speaking. http://news.sky.com/video/1501891/philip-hammond-at-runnymede
Mary
“Hammond at Runnymede yesterday. He’s ‘aving a larf.”
_________________
I didn’t know that leafy-Surrey people spoke Mockney.
Iain Orr
“I’ll be happy to meet in any London pub that you or others suggest. What about 20, 24, 26 or 30 June?”
_______________________
You’ll be lucky, Iain.
You will see neither Courteney nor any of the other internet warriors – they are all bluster but no action. Perhaps they are afraid you’re being tailed by the security services 🙂
Dave Lawton 15 Jun, 2015 – 3:03 am
Don’t know what you’re doing up at that time. But well said!
The story might use professional terminology inaccurately. But what about pulling agents out of operations? Even if the names of agents and their description are not recorded, their position and the type information leaked could enable target countries to begin to put two and two together, and so endanger them. That would explain their being pulled out.
“NO IT WASN’T YOU LIAR – It was that he was responsible for it – means something different you illiterate fool.”
See how angry Resident Dissident gets when you point out a whole litany of his false accusations! 🙂 If he wasn’t so old he might sucessfully tread the boards as John Osborne’s ‘angry young man’ or one of the other right wing bastards that monopolised British theatre in the fifties/sixties. 🙂
Abe Rene
It’s not just that the story uses professional terminology incorrectly. It is giving direct quoted from a source who uses professional terminology incorrectly, thus casting doubt on the genuineness of the source.
Agents, as opposed to officers, are disposable commodities. They are usually in their own country. They would not get “rescued” to save them. They would only get pulled out if it was judged that they still have more valuable information they would reveal that makes it worth saving them.
You have to understand that most agents are traitors to their own country. Most often they are doing it for money. When push comes to shove, deep down most officers are rather contemptuous of them – understandably, in my book.
The Sunday Times may be owned by Murdoch, but this phony story was echoed throughout the media-sphere yesterday, with the BBC radio news leading on it. I didn’t hear anyone who reiterated its retro-nonsense throwing in any caveats or subjecting it to critical assessment. They all fell into line. It was like waking up at the height of the Cold War – same stone-faced lies, same greasy propaganda, same aggressive posturing. It was reported as fact, and for 99 per cent of the credulous public, that is how it will be seen.
Thanks for that sad news John Goss, what Majid must have felt when he saw the ISI officers/ not agents, walking up to take him off the plane.
What dirty game is being played here, destabilising and usurping Baluchistan to get at Iran?
I agree with Briar, where are the critical voices to the sunday Times eyewash yesterday. Is the BBC just going to carry on with this amplification of lies?
Don’t you just love it when you are able to watch a load of bullsh@t intercepted in mid-flight? Many thanks to Craig.
Iain
“Maybe we should meet – with others? – to come up with actions rather than words. I’ll be happy to meet in any London pub that you or others suggest. What about 20, 24, 26 or 30 June?”
A man after my own heart. Count me in.
It should be 20th June Iain. There is going to be a mass demonstration against austerity and if people can’t meet in a pub everybody needs to be there.
http://www.thepeoplesassembly.org.uk/end_austerity_now_national_demonstration_saturday_20th_june
It promises to be big and the first grass-roots movement against the two Tory parties.
Phil
I am not surprised that you should be up for it because you are more than just bluster (you told us some time ago what you do in practice). But you are likely to be the only one or at best one of the very, very few.
Remember that others are not even capable of doing what they urged others to do (eg, hissing peacefully outside synagogues – you’ll probably remember who advocated that and then….didn’t 🙂 )
@ Craig “most agents are traitors to their own country.. most officers are rather contemptuous of them” This may well have been true of John Walker and Aldrich Ames. However I don’t think Oleg Penkovsky was despised by Greville Wynne. “Lifted” from operations might not mean moved to other countries as major defectors like Gordievsky (I wonder what you make of him?). It might mean simply ceasing to gather intelligence and go back to “ordinary” life.
Courtenay Barnett would have a long journey from the Turks and Caicos Islands, would he not?
John Goss. I hope it is untrue about Majid Ali.
It must be untrue because Anon1 said so on the previous thread.
‘Anon1
13 Jun, 2015 – 10:28 pm
Mary pours forth:
‘”On Monday Her Maj will be down at Runnymede with the assembled notables to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the signing of Magna Carta upon which our laws, including habeas corpus, are based.
It is ironic that just a week ago, this government sent a young man back to his country to await either death or torture. Shame on the hypocrites.”
_________________________
Crucial to note that the man won’t be put to death or tortured. Good opportunity for Mary to sound off though.’
~~~
Have you noticed that the comment is made using the same layout as Habbabkuk’s? Also the use of ‘pours forth’. H uses words like ‘trumpets’.
Media Lens Message Board
Priceless question from BBC’s Justin Webb to Glenn Greenwald
June 15, 2015
BBC’s Justin Webb question to Glenn Greenwald:
“I mean you are not suggesting that President Putin’s government is on a par in its support of democracy and human rights with the United States or Britain, or are you?”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02trg49
+ 4 Responses
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1434359719.html
The much-maligned Grauniad’s on the case, anyway –
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/14/snowden-files-read-by-russia-and-china-five-questions-for-uk-government
Asks the question:
3. Why have these claims emerged now?
Most the allegations have been made before in some form, only to fall apart when scrutinised. These include that Snowden was a Chinese spy and, when he ended up in Moscow, that he was a Russian spy or was at least cooperating with them. The US claimed 56 plots had been disrupted as a result of surveillance, but under pressure acknowledged this was untrue.
The claim about agents being moved was first made in the UK 18 months ago, along with allegations that Snowden had helped terrorists evade surveillance and, as a result, had blood on his hands. Both the US and UK have since acknowledged no one has been harmed.
So why now? One explanation is that it is partly in response to Thursday’s publication of David Anderson’s 373-page report on surveillance. David Cameron asked the QC to conduct an independent review and there is much in it for the government and intelligence services to like, primarily about retaining bulk data.
Anderson is scathing, however, about the existing legal framework for surveillance, describing it as intolerable and undemocratic, and he has proposed that the authority to approve surveillance warrants be transferred from the foreign and home secretaries to the judiciary.
Page 2, anyway. O/T country:
http://www.snp.org/media-centre/news/2015/jun/snp-demand-chilcot-statement
So far rather absent from our informative media, except the Daily Record. Looks like Chilcot has finally rotted away in the long grass. Cue collective Establishment sigh of relief.
(Mr Blair, accused by some of telling lies and ordering the destruction of Iraq, is addressing a conference on religious tourism in Bethlehem today. I understand pilgrimages to view the site where he addressed the multitude will follow the disposal of the evidence.)
Ah,,, I see the Chilcot story came from the Indie on Sunday. That puts a slightly different complexion on the matter. Lebedev, the Indie’s owner, dashed to the rescue of Blair’s ‘reputation’ (as he might call it) last week with an obsequious puff piece depicting Blair as the mighty warrior who overcame ebola in Sierra Leone with only the aid of the suits in the AGI office. Lebedev and Blair are good mates. He may well be trying to push the Chilcot enquiry a little further into the political rubbish heap himself.
Habbakuk
A few, even two, is fine by me. Iain and I have be threatening to have a drink for a while now anyway. It’s always good to meet in person.
If anyone not used to such things is even vaguely interested then please do consider popping along. The reality is possibly not what you may fear. We do not live in a police state. Anything we might or might not do will be agreed and people only do what they can. Probably better to consider Iain rather than your impression of me as a measure of what might be discussed. Come and have a pint.
Living not a million miles away I happen to pass the building that doesn’t exist from time to time. When I have seen someone entering the turnstiles (a grand total of twice) I love to point and say “ooh look a spook!” like a tourist seeing a red phone booth. Cheap laughs.
So my suggestion will be a halloween mass assault with everyone sporting a white sheet over the head and going “whhhhoooooooo” and handing out leaflets with facts MI6 don’t publicise themselves. Then link up with the seditionary homeless brigade (London Polish delegation), storm parliament and the revolution will be over by xmas.
I told you to listen to Iain.
Abe Rene
You appear to struggle with the meaning of “most”
A well known policy of the security forces has been operating in Europe since the end of WW11. That is the ‘strategy of tension’. Which operates as a series of ‘false flags’ terrorist assaults and press release ,as with Edward Snowden latest.
Snowden did not flee to Russia.He was in transit and his Passport was annulled by the USA, causing him to be stranded in Moscow Airport. Where he subsequently received political asylum.
Those gullible citizens who believe that “our government would never kill its own people” have much understanding to gain from knowledge of Operation Gladio and Northwoods Project, about which much information is available on the Internet and in parliamentary investigations and officially released secret documents.
The Northwoods Project was presented to President John F. Kennedy by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. It called for shooting down people on the streets of Washington and Miami, shooting down US airliners (“real or simulated”), and attacking refugee boats from Cuba in order to create an atrocity case against Castro that would secure public support for a full-fledged invasion to bring regime change to Cuba. President Kennedy refused the plot and removed the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, an action that some researchers conclude led to his assassination.
Operation Gladio was revealed by the prime minister of Italy in 1990. It was a secret operation coordinated by NATO and operated by European military secret services in cooperation with the CIA and British intelligence.
Parliamentary investigations in Italy, Switzerland, and Belgium and testimony by secret service operatives have established that Gladio, originally established as a “stay-behind” secret army to resist Soviet invasion, was used to commit bombing attacks on Europeans, especially women and children, in order to blame communists and keep them from gaining political power in Europe during the Cold War era. The policy was called maintaining a ‘creative tension’, implemented.to sway the populace to allow repressive laws to be enforced.
These are but a small and historically recent examples of Govt sponsored ‘false flags, to condition the populace to the Govt secret agenda, there are many more going back a 100 years.