Why did journalists help the Justice Department identify a leaker? (opens in new tab)

>The Intercept was widely criticized for its handling of the document Winner leaked—in particular, the decision to show the leaked document to the U.S. government. While attempting to verify its authenticity with the NSA, an Intercept reporter inadvertently revealed its provenance. According to an FBI affidavit, the document had a telltale crease in it, indicating it had been printed and folded. An FBI agent assigned to the case would later testify that a total of six people had printed the document. The pool of potential leakers was further narrowed to one — Winner — when investigators discovered she’d emailed The Intercept from her work computer. The Intercept would go on to conduct an internal review, which found that, in Winner’s case, its “practices fell short of the standards to which we hold ourselves” when it came to protecting sources.

Ouch.

That said this case seems quite different. The Intercept didn't do it on purpose, but instead had someone not competent in protecting the source while attempting verification. The case of Teixeira seems remarkably different, however, in that journalists actively did the investigative work for the government while also, to an extent, reporting on the leaks themselves.

It was a leak of no importance (more summaries and assessments i.e. editorial) that claimed Russiagate stuff was true. The most important part of the leak was the identity of the woman who leaked it, who was a Bernie supporter with idiosyncratic politics. The goal was to bring the Bernie wing of the Democrats into the anti-Russian buildup by putting it into the mouth of a quirky left-leaning woman of pretty impeccable character (as far as that can be true for someone who works in US intelligence.) I absolutely guarantee that she wasn't in on it, they just played to her urge to feel heroic.

Richard Esposito (https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/news/pr0218/nypd-executive-app...) was part of handling her leak on the other side (The Intercept is lousy with spooks), so they had whatever help they needed for their parallel construction, which they would have no obligation to fully explain, anyway. The trial went perfectly because Omidyar was paying her lawyers, so spies on both sides.

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edit: the growing cynic consensus is that this leak is fake, too. The fact that there were "crudely altered" casualty figures and that point was repeated multiple times is bizarre. Why would Russians be altering information that they're meant to use? If it were meant for propaganda purposes, why would it be crude?

And for the papers: why were they immediately convinced of the authenticity of these "crudely altered" documents when past leaked documents that had no indication of falsehood and were easy to authenticate were held in question for months or years after discovery by these same outlets?

My advice is, don't waste your time here.

So you haven't read any documents in the end? Because the worst that these documents say is "mostly stalemate, losses here and wins there". Of course Ukraine isn't overwhelmingly winning, but if you believed that, you just believed war propaganda. You shouldn't be angry at it, because it's literally what happens in every, single war. Every camp will overstate their wins and downplay their losses to the public.

Who has been saying this? First time I've heard it. The closest I've heard is that there's two versions of the "leak", one with modified numbers making it look better for Russia. Which still appears to be true.

> We have US troops on the ground presumably fighting Russia

Does not appear to be true. What are you basing this on?

I don't think this has ever been the case. There's still large contingents of the US that think the Snowden leaks were part of a Russian operation, that the Manning leaks were bad and so on. I wasn't alive during Vietnam, but were those leaks considered unquestionably good?

Also, Bellingcat brought a lot of people into OSINT and ridiculed Russia multiple times (including the one time they modified the wikipedia page of a USSR airplane to fit their narrative on MH17). The thing is, they do not only write articles, they publish their data and methodology, and encourage you to try yourself. It's not just consummer thinking "ahah, Russia Opsec is shit", it's engineers and people interested in OSINT finding out how incompetent Russia is.

The one thing i don't like about Bellingcat is that they don't write when they fail to find something. I understand that for journalists, its bad to report on nothing, but people like me learn more wth failure than with success. But the Osint community is big and i'm not a Bellingcat contributor anymore, i found better shoes (and in my language).

Let me quote from the opening paragraphs of the Wikipedia entry for the source you just quoted:

“ A fringe website,[23] it is known for misleading reporting[24] and sympathetic coverage of authoritarian regimes.[1][15][25] The Grayzone has denied human rights abuses against Uyghurs,[29] promulgated conspiracy theories about Venezuela, Xinjiang, Syria and other regions,[30][31] and promoted pro-Russian propaganda during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.[28] The Grayzone has been described by Commentary as a propaganda shop devoted to pushing pro-Assad, pro-Maduro, pro-Putin, and pro-Hamas narratives.[32]”

Link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grayzone

Or this section from the Wikipedia entry for the author of that “article”.

“ Blumenthal has contributed to broadcasts on RT (formerly known as Russia Today) on many occasions.[13] In December 2015, during a visit to Moscow presumed by multiple sources to have been paid for by the Kremlin,[19][22] Blumenthal was a guest at RT's 10 Years On Air anniversary party attended by President Vladimir Putin, then-Lieutenant General Michael Flynn of the United States and English politician Ken Livingstone.[19][13][23] In an interview with Tucker Carlson on Fox News in November 2017, Blumenthal defended RT against "the charge that it’s Kremlin propaganda."[13][24]

He has contributed on multiple occasions to Sputnik radio,[22][25] as well as to Iran's Press TV[26][27] and China's CGTN.[28] Blumenthal founded The Grayzone website within a month after his visit to Moscow.[5]”

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Blumenthal