It’s been a dramatic day for whistleblowing news.
A month ago, Glenn Greenwald announced [2] that he was going to publish his biggest story yet: the names of those the NSA has been spying on.
Earlier today, Greenwald tweeted [3] that he would finally publish the story tonight at midnight.
8 hours later, he tweeted [4]:
After 3 months working on our story, USG [the United States government] today suddenly began making new last-minute claims which we intend to investigate before publishing
Many responded that it’s a trap, and that the government is dishonestly and illegally censoring Greewald.
At the same time, Cryptome announced that all of the Snowden documents will be released in July … supposedly in order to avert a war.
As the Register notes [5]:
All the remaining Snowden documents will be released next month, according to whistle-blowing site Cryptome, which said in a tweet that the release of the info by unnamed third parties would be necessary to head off an unnamed “war”.
Cryptome said [6] it would “aid and abet” the release of “57K to 1.7M” new documents that had been “withheld for national security-public debate [sic]“.
The site clarified [7] that will not be publishing the documents itself [8].
***
“July is when war begins unless headed off by Snowden full release of crippling intel. After war begins not a chance of release,” Cryptome tweeted on its official feed [9]. “Warmongerers are on a rampage. So, yes, citizens holding Snowden docs will do the right thing,” it said [10].
“For more on Snowden docs release in July watch for Ellsberg, special guest and others at HOPE, July 18-20: http://www.hope.net/schedule.html [11],” it added [12].
Given that - from ancient Egypt to modern America [13] - mass surveillance has ALWAYS been used to crush dissent, and that top NSA officials say the U.S. gov has turned into the Stasis, Nazis or Soviets [14], release of the Snowden documents showing WHO the NSA is really targeting (i.e. government critics, not terrorists) are of vital public interest.