Ken Dilanian
Associated Press Intelligence reporter Ken Dilanian reports on the NSA/GCHQ’s theft of mobile phone keys, as reported by The Intercept.
WASHINGTON AP — Britain’s electronic spying agency, in cooperation with the U.S. National Security Agency, hacked into the networks of a Dutch company to steal codes that allow both governments to seamlessly eavesdrop on mobile phones worldwide, according to the documents given to journalists by Edward Snowden.
via AP News | The Times-Tribune | thetimes-tribune.com.
Dilanian’s soft-pedaling arrives in the second paragraph:
A story about the documents posted Thursday on the website The Intercept offered no details on how the intelligence agencies employed the eavesdropping capability — providing no evidence, for example, that they misused it to spy on people who weren’t valid intelligence targets. But the surreptitious operation against the world’s largest manufacturer of mobile phone data chips is bound to stoke anger around the world. It fuels an impression that the NSA and its British counterpart will do whatever they deem necessary to further their surveillance prowess, even if it means stealing information from law-abiding Western companies.
Dilanian claims there is “no evidence” that intelligence agencies “misused it to spy on people who weren’t valid intelligence targets.” However, by qualifying this with “using the eavesdropping capability” he glosses over the fact that GCHQ targeted a mobile phone security company accused of no wrongdoing whatsoever. Intelligence agencies targeted innocent employees of Gemalto in what was clearly an extra-legal activity.
Dilanian also fails to tell his audience why this is a serious issue. All the reader gets is “experts called it a major compromise in mobile phone security.” No “experts” are quoted although credible security experts are pretty easy to find. It might be helpful for readers to know that they can now have zero confidence that their communications can’t be monitored but he didn’t find it worth mentioning.
Interestingly, Dilanian has a history of being cozy with intelligence agencies. Last September, The Intercept broke the news that FOIA documents showed Dilanian was collaborating with the CIA, sending them entire stories before he published them and even requesting feedback from agency officials on improving his stories. This is a major breach of journalistic ethics and apparently continued even after he left the Los Angeles Times for the AP.
When confronted with the CIA allegations, Dilanian responded:
“I shouldn’t have done it, and I wouldn’t do it now,” he said. “[But] it had no meaningful impact on the outcome of the stories. I probably should’ve been reading them the stuff instead of giving it to them.”
Riiiight. So in hindsight you should’ve read your stories to them because then you wouldn’t have gotten caught, is that it? For a reporter who writes about intelligence he doesn’t seem to have much of his own.
Dilanian posted this on his Twitter feed:
The NSA's job is to break the laws of other countries by stealing info that helps US security. Still, this one looks bad.
— Ken Dilanian (@KenDilanianAP) February 19, 2015
The NSA’s job is to break the laws of other countries by stealing info that helps US security. Still, this one looks bad.
You know what really looks bad? Being a journalist with a lack of ethics.