Saturday, June 29, 2013

Guardian and Observer Runs Front-Page Story on Secret European-U.S. Surveiliance Deal Sourced to Jew-Hating Conspiracy Theorist Wayne Madsen

Here's the cover image on Twitter:


Here's Michael Moynihan:


And Louise Mensch calls out Madsen:


And checking the Guardian's homepage, here's the headline at the link for the article, "Taken down: deals to hand over private data to America."

The piece is still available, however, at Democratic Underground (with a Che Guevara avatar adding a nice touch there), "GUARDIAN: Revealed: secret European deals to hand over private data to America":
At least six European Union countries in addition to Britain have been colluding with the US over the mass harvesting of personal communications data, according to a former contractor to America's National Security Agency, who said the public should not be "kept in the dark".

Wayne Madsen, a former US navy lieutenant who first worked for the NSA in 1985 and over the next 12 years held several sensitive positions within the agency, names Denmark, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Spain and Italy as having secret deals with the US.

Madsen said the countries had "formal second and third party status" under signal intelligence (Sigint) agreements that compels them to hand over data, including mobile phone and internet information to the NSA if requested.

Under international intelligence agreements, confirmed by declassified documents, nations are categorised by the US according to their trust level. The US is first party while the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand enjoy second party relationships. Germany and France have third party relationships.
And it's clear the Guardian's editors knew of Madsen's reputation as a conspiracy theorist, as the article makes mention of their source's controversial background:
In an interview published last night on the PrivacySurgeon.org blog, Madsen, who has been attacked for holding controversial views on espionage issues, said he had decided to speak out after becoming concerned about the "half story" told by EU politicians regarding the extent of the NSA's activities in Europe.

He said that under the agreements, which were drawn up after the second world war, the "NSA gets the lion's share" of the Sigint "take". In return, the third parties to the NSA agreements received "highly sanitised intelligence".

Madsen said he was alarmed at the "sanctimonious outcry" of political leaders who were "feigning shock" about the spying operations while staying silent about their own arrangements with the US, and was particularly concerned that senior German politicians had accused the UK of spying when their country had a similar third party deal with the NSA.

Although the level of co-operation provided by other European countries to the NSA is not on the same scale as that provided by the UK, the allegations are potentially embarrassing.

"I can't understand how Angela Merkel can keep a straight face, demanding assurances from Obama and the UK while Germany has entered into those exact relationships," Madsen said.
Read the whole thing at Southport - UK Front Pages.

And it turns out this Madsen dude's a regular on 9/11 truth central's Prison Planet with Alex Jones.

And according this pro-Israel website, the dude's a raving anti-Semite, "Wayne Madsen Promotes Classic Anti-Semitism on Iran’s PressTV," and "So Typical of Wayne Madsen’s Paranoia, Da Joos “Control” Obama and Romney." (Follow the links at those entries.)

I'll update with developments, but it's pretty telling that the far-left Guardian went ahead with a front-page story, with the hard copy print runs already rolling, while sourcing a hardcore 9/11 truther and Jew-hating conspiracy theorist. Well, come to think of it, that's not too different from Glenn Greenwald's ideological program, so there you go.

PREVIOUSLY: "Glenn Greenwald Speaks on NSA Surveillance at Socialism 2013 Conference."

Posted by AmPowerBlog at 5:35 PM
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