(Credit: Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP)
In the
first investigative piece
co-written for their new media venture, journalists Glenn Greenwald and
Jeremy Scahill on Monday published a much-anticipated story—based on
eye-witness accounts and leaked documents from whistleblower Edward
Snowden—describing how the National Security Agency uses its digital
surveillance capabilities to assist the CIA and Pentagon as they
carrying out controversial overseas assassinations ordered by President
Obama.
Published under the masthead of
'The Intercept' at their new
First Look website, Greenwald and Scahill report:
The National Security Agency is using complex analysis of electronic
surveillance, rather than human intelligence, as the primary method to
locate targets for lethal drone strikes – an unreliable tactic that
results in the deaths of innocent or unidentified people.
According to a former drone operator for the military’s Joint Special
Operations Command (JSOC) who also worked with the NSA, the agency
often identifies targets based on controversial metadata analysis and
cell-phone tracking technologies. Rather than confirming a target’s
identity with operatives or informants on the ground, the CIA or the
U.S. military then orders a strike based on the activity and location of
the mobile phone a person is believed to be using.
The drone operator, who agreed to discuss the top-secret programs on
the condition of anonymity, was a member of JSOC’s High Value Targeting
task force, which is charged with identifying, capturing or killing
terrorist suspects in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
His account is bolstered by top-secret NSA documents previously
provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden. It is also supported by a
former drone sensor operator with the U.S. Air Force, Brandon Bryant,
who has become an outspoken critic of the lethal operations in which he
was directly involved in Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen.
The explosive story about the relationship between the NSA, CIA,
JSOC, and the White Houes which executes individuals abroad—including
American citizens—
was first mentioned
by Scahill in September of last year when he announced discussions
between himself, Greenwald, and eBay co-founder Pierre Omidyar to launch
their own journalistic enterprise.
Appearing to fulfill their goal of providing a more adversarial form
of journalism than their mainstream counterparts, the NSA refused to
respond to questions posed by Scahill and Greenwald for their
investigation. However, Caitlin Hayden, a spokesperson for the National
Security Council, did release a statement explaining the government's
position that “the type of operational detail that" upon which their
questions were based "in our view, should not be published.”
Both Scahill and Greenwald joined Amy Goodman on
Democracy Now! on Monday
to discuss their article and its numerous revelations:
Read the entire
First Look story
here.
Strikingly, on the same day as the Scahill/Greenwald article was published, an
Associated Press
story—citing numerous "unnamed" U.S. officials—posited as a dilemma the
White House's pending decision to possibly assassinate an American
citizen living overseas who the government accuses of being a member of
al-Qaeda.
In contrast to not speaking with Greenwald and Scahill, the
government officials—hiding behind provided anonymity—seemed very
willing to give away lots of potentially telling information about the
alleged U.S. target.
According to AP:
Four U.S. officials said the American suspected terrorist is in a
country that refuses U.S. military action on its soil and that has
proved unable to go after him. And President Barack Obama's new policy
says American suspected terrorists overseas can only be killed by the
military, not the CIA, creating a policy conundrum for the White House.
Two of the officials described the man as an al-Qaida facilitator who
has been directly responsible for deadly attacks against U.S. citizens
overseas and who continues to plan attacks against them that would use
improvised explosive devices.
But one U.S. official said the Defense Department was divided over
whether the man is dangerous enough to merit the potential domestic
fallout of killing an American without charging him with a crime or
trying him, and the potential international fallout of such an operation
in a country that has been resistant to U.S. action.
Another of the U.S. officials said the Pentagon did ultimately decide to recommend lethal action.
The officials said the suspected terrorist is well-guarded and in a
fairly remote location, so any unilateral attempt by U.S. troops to
capture him would be risky and even more politically explosive than a
U.S. missile strike.
Under new guidelines Obama addressed in a speech last year to calm
anger overseas at the extent of the U.S. drone campaign, lethal force
must only be used "to prevent or stop attacks against U.S. persons, and
even then, only when capture is not feasible and no other reasonable
alternatives exist to address the threat effectively." The target must
also pose "a continuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons" — the legal
definition of catching someone in the act of plotting a lethal attack.
The Associated Press has agreed to the government's request to
withhold the name of the country where the suspected terrorist is
believed to be because officials said publishing it could interrupt
ongoing counterterror operations.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not
authorized to discuss the classified drone targeting program publicly.
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