Monat: April 2017

Louise Mensch Has A List Of Suspected Russian Agents

Ben A. Pruchnie / Getty Images

Since last November’s election, the former British politician Louise Mensch has transformed herself into the leader of a wide-ranging internet investigation into Russian espionage and influence in American politics, media, and business. Every day, Mensch and her network of online detectives unravel what they claim is a massive conspiracy linking the Kremlin, the Republican party, armies of internet trolls, and moneyed puppet-masters around the world.

Mensch, who sometimes tweets hundreds of times a day, has claimed or implied that targets ranging from top government officials to journalists to teenagers to anonymous twitter users are in thrall to Vladimir Putin.

Just since inauguration day, according to an extensive review of her tweets, the New York-based Mensch has accused at least 210 people and organizations of being under Russian government influence.

Mensch's campaign has played out almost entirely on Twitter. But she has also been validated at the highest levels of English-language media: She published an op-ed in the New York Times, appeared on MSNBC and Real Time with Bill Maher earlier this year, and was the subject of a flattering Guardian profile. And her relentless tweets and passionate following have made her a central figure in a new obsession with Russian influence that recalls Cold War era divisions over Communist infiltration. That “red scare” reached its paranoid height in the late 1940s and early 1950s, when substantive fears of (real) Soviet intelligence operations turned into a politicized hall of mirrors in which figures like Senator Joe McCarthy ruined the lives and careers of thousands of Americans with baseless allegations of working for Moscow. (The era also persuaded some on the “anti-anti-Communist” left that real Soviet spies were innocent victims of hysteria; their guilt was settled with the opening of the Soviet archives at the end of the Cold War.)

Mensch’s list includes 35 American politicians and government officials, 26 journalists, 26 organizations and corporations (among them think tanks, banks, media outlets, foreign intelligence agencies, and security firms), 18 Russians, 18 US citizens notable for political donations or affiliations, 80 low-profile Twitter accounts Mensch has characterized as “Putinbots” or similar (many of which appear to belong to Americans who support President Trump), and two British politicians. The list includes figures as disparate as Bernie Sanders and Sean Hannity.

Among the 210 named by Mensch are individuals and entities who do have obvious or reported ties to the Russian government and intelligence agencies, ranging from Wikileaks — which has denied that accusation — to the anonymous hacker Guccifer 2.0 to the Kremlin-owned news agency Sputnik. Mensch’s specific allegations draw on the reality of a large-scale and widely-documented Russian campaign to influence the U.S. election. But in many cases, she lacks strong, or any, evidence connecting her targets to that campaign.

In addition to the journalists, media personalities, and politicians, among those fingered are a Twitter comedian, a fake White House staff account, and a 15-year-old girl who Mensch suggested does not actually exist except as a Kremlin fabrication. (BuzzFeed News interviewed the teenager in person.)

Mensch’s criteria for accusing someone of being under Russian influence vary. Sometimes she cites her own and others’ reporting. In some cases, she points out suspicious geotags and catfishing attempts. In others, mangled English syntax appears to be enough to prove Russia ties. She has accused people of being affiliated with Russia simply for disagreeing with her or calling her theories far-fetched, but she has also called someone a Russian agent for being too enthusiastic about her own theories.

Many of the people Mensch has accused vociferously deny involvement with the Russian government. Many of those share the attribute that nobody other than Mensch has ever accused them of it.

“I am proud of my service to this country and to be a loyal first generation American, to suggest anything otherwise is both absolutely false and offensive to me, my family and first generation and naturalized citizens who continue to serve this great country,” Naveed Jamali, a former FBI double agent who Mensch has accused of being a Russian spy, wrote to BuzzFeed in an email.

The political strategist Evan Siegfried denied Mensch’s accusation that he is a “Kremlin troll.”

“In no way, shape or form am I or have I ever been a Kremlin operative, Russian agent or party to aiding Putin and/or Russia. Any and all accusations are not only false, but strain credulity. The closest I&039;ve come to Russia was the time I went to NYC&039;s Russian Tea Room in 1993. I was ten,” he said in an email.

Reached for comment by Twitter direct message, Mensch said that, if anything, the number of Russian agents she identified was understated.

“No, I doubt that number is accurate. I am quite certain the number is going to be a lot larger than 210 people or organizations once the trials are finished. It takes a village to elect a President who is working hand in glove with the Kremlin both in terms of propaganda and hacking collusion – and that&039;s before we even get to the money laundering.”

Mensch went on to say that her criteria for determining whether or not someone was a Russian agent depended on “Intelligence, from sources; actions; words, such as tweets; and other primary source material.”

Asked about her accusations against Jamali, Mensch referred BuzzFeed News to earlier tweets about a dispute between the two. She provided no evidence that Jamali is a Russian spy, and did not address a query about why she thinks Siegfried is a Russian agent.

Mensch had a colorful and storied career in British public life, which reached its peak when as a Tory member of Parliament, she grilled Rupert Murdoch over his role in the News of the World phone-hacking scandal. She moved to the US in 2012, at one point founded a social network intended to rival Twitter, and in April 2016 started a conservative news site for Murdoch’s company, News Corp. (She left the site, Heat Street, in January, and tweeted in March that she had left News Corp, which a company spokesman confirmed.)

An ally of intelligence services and a fierce critic of Edward Snowden and the press who published his leaked material, Mensch in 2016 established herself as a prominent voice on the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia. Her following grew in November, when she published a blockbuster story alleging that the FBI had been granted a FISA warrant in order to examine connections between Trump and Russia. Other media outlets later reported that the U.S. government had indeed obtained a FISA warrant in connection with the Trump campaign, though the details of those reports have differed from hers. That story won her legitimacy among close followers of the Trump-Russia story (BuzzFeed News reporters, among others, spoke to her to see if she had information that could advance reporting on Russia), and she has continued to use it as a calling card. And Mensch told BuzzFeed News that her reporting on Trump connections to Russia are being borne out.

But recently – and particularly over the last month — Mensch has become increasingly outspoken in labeling accounts who disagree with her “Kremlin shills,” “Putinbots,” and “RIS,” Russian intelligence services.

Some of her targets say they are puzzled and alarmed by her attention.

“It’s been very frustrating to encounter people who assume I’m a Kremlin propagandist simply because one of my jobs has the word “Moscow” in it,” said Kevin Rothrock, the web editor of the Moscow Times, who Mensch referred to as “Vlad” — her oft-used shorthand for an agent of Vladimir Putin — after Rothrock chided Mensch for “tweeting the dumbest shit.” The Moscow Times, which is known as a training ground for foreign correspondents, has a reputation as a rare independent voice in Russian media. Mensch did not respond to a query about why she thinks Rothrock may be a Russian agent.

Mensch’s critics have accused her of fomenting an anti-Russia panic. In an article last month in Rolling Stone, journalist Matt Taibbi warned of a resurgent “case of mass hysteria” about Russia among politicians and journalists.

(Mensch has speculated that Taibbi, who once lived and worked in Russia, “might be a Russian agent.”

“I am not a Russian agent,” Taibbi said to BuzzFeed News. “I have never been engaged in any kind of espionage work.”

Mensch did not respond to a query about why she thinks Taibbi may be a Russian agent.)

Some have accused Mensch of going too far. Cassandra Fairbanks, an American social media personality and journalist filed a complaint with the FBI against Mensch, alleging a “months long campaign of cyber stalking and harassment.” (Fairbanks works for the Russian-owned Sputnik.) Others, including Taibbi, suspect that going too far may be part of what has made Mensch such a popular figure.

“A lot of her success has come from some of the same instincts that have given Trump success,” Taibbi said. “The ability to generate headlines [is] a quality that is good to have if you are an attention seeking person in the internet age.”

And one way to generate headlines and amass a following in a bitterly divided political climate — as Donald Trump has demonstrated — is to find someone to blame. Indeed, if her tweets are to be believed, the number of people Louise Mensch believes to be agents of Russian influence may exceed 210 astronomically:

Steven Perlberg contributed reporting to this story.

Quelle: <a href="Louise Mensch Has A List Of Suspected Russian Agents“>BuzzFeed

Palantir’s Relationship With America’s Spies Has Been Worse Than You’d Think

Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images

Palantir Technologies, the Silicon Valley data company co-founded by billionaire investor Peter Thiel, has developed an almost mythical reputation for its work building tools for the U.S. intelligence community. But Palantir has had a far rockier relationship with the nation’s top spy agencies than its image would let on, BuzzFeed News has learned.

As of summer 2015, the Central Intelligence Agency, a signature client, was “recalcitrant” and didn’t “like us,” while Palantir’s relationship with the National Security Agency had ended, Palantir CEO Alex Karp told staff in an internal video that was obtained by BuzzFeed News. The private remarks, made during a staff meeting, are at odds with a carefully crafted public image that has helped Palantir secure a $20 billion valuation and win business from a long list of corporations, nonprofits, and governments around the world.

“As many of you know, the SSDA’s recalcitrant,” Karp, using a Palantir codename for the CIA, said in the August 2015 meeting. “And we’ve walked away, or they walked away from us, at the NSA. Either way, I’m happy about that.”

The CIA, he said, “may not like us. Well, when the whole world is using Palantir they can still not like us. They’ll have no choice.” Suggesting that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had also had friction with Palantir, he continued, “That’s de facto how we got the FBI, and every other recalcitrant place.”

Palantir’s data-mining software has become ingrained at the CIA, according to people familiar with the company and the agency. But the relationship has also been marked by tension and even hostility, three people with direct knowledge of the matter said. One source of the tension, these people said, has been Palantir’s failure to quash persistent publicity about its CIA business and about its supposed role in helping to track down Osama bin Laden.

Palantir was never so critical to the NSA, despite media reports over the years linking the two. Palantir performed some pilot work for the NSA, but this did not turn into a full-fledged contract, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. The NSA has plenty of its own computer talent, and Palantir’s particular expertise fit awkwardly with the agency’s mission of intercepting communications and electronic signals, the people said.

A Palantir spokesperson said the company couldn&#039;t comment on its relationships with intelligence agencies. Spokespeople for the CIA and the NSA declined to comment.

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Palantir, founded in 2004, has authentic ties to the intelligence community. It got an early $2 million investment from the CIA’s venture capital arm, called In-Q-Tel, which helped the young startup develop data-crunching software that was well suited to the CIA’s brand of spycraft. Later, Palantir won significant business from the FBI and the Defense Intelligence Agency, as well as the Department of Homeland Security, the military’s Special Operations Command, and other federal agencies, according to company documents. (Don’t ask what “SSDA” stands for; even many Palantir insiders have forgotten the origin of the company’s nickname for the CIA.)

Palantir has expanded into corporate work — Karp said in the video that it had a total of 400 “deployments,” or jobs around the world — but it still relies on the federal government for a significant portion of its revenue. And it now has a significant connection to the White House. Thiel, its co-founder and chairman, prominently supported President Donald Trump’s campaign and became an adviser to the President after the election. Karp, however, supported Hillary Clinton for president and said in the 2015 staff meeting that “it would be hard to make up someone I find less appealing” than Trump.

LINK: Video Shows Palantir CEO Ridiculing Trump And Slamming His Immigration Rhetoric

In a June 2016 lawsuit that it filed against the Army in an effort to be considered for a lucrative contract, Palantir said its government clients had “overwhelmingly praised” its software.

But in the August 2015 meeting, Karp described the relationship with the federal government as colder, while discussing Palantir’s business more broadly. “I think France may be the country where they just like us — as opposed to the U.S. government, where they tolerate us because nothing else works,” he said.

Palantir’s relationship with the NSA, for one, has been limited, though it seems to loom large in the public imagination. A February report in The Intercept said Palantir had worked in the past to “facilitate, augment, and accelerate” an NSA tool called XKeyscore. In early 2015, TechCrunch reported that potential investors were circulating a document from two years earlier that listed the NSA as using Palantir software. TechCrunch didn’t say whether that information originated from Palantir or from an outside broker — or whether it was still true.

The Palantir software, built with the CIA in mind, works better for managing HUMINT, or intelligence from human sources, than SIGINT, or intelligence from signals, which is the NSA’s bread and butter, people familiar with it say. Even Palantir insiders say it’s not surprising that the NSA relationship never took off.

If you have information or tips, you can contact this reporter over an encrypted chat service such as Signal or WhatsApp, at 310-617-1302. You can also send an encrypted email to will.alden@buzzfeed.com, using the PGP key found here.

The report that Palantir had a role in the bin Laden mission, though unconfirmed, has been repeated in numerous articles, sometimes as a “rumor,” and always in nonspecific terms. The truth of the matter is a government secret and could not be determined.

But the very existence of the report — with the implication that Palantir provided a crucial assist — has rankled CIA insiders, who strenuously avoid being recognized publicly for their work and are aware that the bin Laden mission included a large number of participants, the three people familiar with the matter said.

Moreover, such a report “would probably be a true statement for almost any contracting company,” Glenn Carle, a former CIA officer who worked on terrorism issues, told BuzzFeed News. “Companies will have some finger in the pie, whether it’s providing analysts or technical capability. They all played a part.”

People gather in Times Square shortly after the announcement that Osama bin Laden was dead.

Timothy A. Clary / AFP / Getty Images

Though it usually carries the caveat that Palantir would not comment on it, the rumor has appeared in several stories — in The New York Times, Fortune, and Forbes, for example — that featured on-the-record interviews with Karp.

After the publication of a 2013 Forbes article, the CIA grew so frustrated by the publicity about Palantir’s business with the agency that it considered canceling its Palantir contract, according to a person with direct knowledge of that discussion. The agency decided, however, that it would be too difficult to replace the work Palantir was doing.

Palantir’s reputation for helping take down the Al Qaeda founder stems from a single paragraph in a 2012 book, “The Finish: The Killing of Osama Bin Laden,” by Mark Bowden. The book cited Palantir as an example of a company that had “elegantly accomplished” what a government data-wrangling project had sought to do. It said Palantir’s software “would help turn America’s special forces into deadly effective hunters,” but it did not explicitly say how the software was used in the bin Laden raid, or even whether it was used in that mission at all.

Not long after, in early 2013, a Wall Street Journal columnist quoted from the book and added that Palantir’s technology “is known to have been key in locating bin Laden” — and Palantir posted a PDF of the entire column on its website.

Months later, the Forbes article opened with: “Since rumors began to spread that a startup called Palantir helped to kill Osama bin Laden, Alex Karp hasn&039;t had much time to himself.” (The Forbes story got a link on Palantir.com.) Since then, journalists have written that “Palantir’s software has been credited with helping intelligence agencies find and kill Osama bin Laden,” that Palantir “may or may not have helped track down Osama bin Laden,” and that Palantir is “best known for helping the U.S. government track down” bin Laden.

This reputation wasn’t lost on Palantir’s customers. The subject of bin Laden came up during an “incredibly positive” meeting in March 2015 with the health insurer Molina Healthcare, as the two sides discussed project ideas, according to meeting notes compiled by a Palantir employee and shared internally. The line about bin Laden appeared in a list of “favorite quotes.”

“Find Osama Bin Laden,” the insurer’s CEO, Dr. Mario Molina, was quoted as saying, according to the notes. “Palantir didn’t do that by going out to the Middle East and surveying people asking ‘Where’s Osama?”

In an interview with BuzzFeed News, Dr. Molina said he didn&039;t recall saying that. He sought Palantir&039;s data-mining services on the advice of a friend, whose son had gone to work there, and Palantir has since done “really good work for us,” Dr. Molina said.

“First of all, we didn’t go to Palantir because they found Osama bin Laden,” he said. “Number two, no one at Palantir has ever told me they found Osama bin Laden.”

Quelle: <a href="Palantir’s Relationship With America’s Spies Has Been Worse Than You’d Think“>BuzzFeed