NSA and GCHQ targeted WikiLeaks and supporters

Newly analyzed documents from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s trove point to the US NSA and the UK GCHQ targeting WikiLeaks, its supporters and other activists, and trying to designate WikiLeaks as a “malicious foreign actor” so that they could use electronic surveillance against them without having to worry whether they are simultaneously surveilling US citizens.

The documents apparently reveal, among other things, that:

• The GCHQ collected the IP addresses of visitors to the WikiLeaks website
• The US Army was scheming to destroy WikiLeaks
• The Obama administration tried to convince several allied foreign governments to file criminal charges against Julian Assange for the publishing over 70,000 classified documents covering the war in Afghanistan
• That there were discussions about targeting the Pirate Bay and Anonymous hacktivists.

For more details, for (finally!) published documents, and for reactions to the revelations, I suggest visiting the newly established The Intercept.