Surveillance Fans Angry Journalist Used Metadata, Contact Chaining To Out Comey's Secret Twitter Account

from the not-only-months-after-the-fact,-but-with-zero-self-awareness dept

Earlier this year, journalist Ashley Feinberg outed then-FBI Director James Comey's secret Twitter account, using nothing more than the "harmless" metadata people like James Comey have said no one needs to worry about. The secret account was sniffed out through something the Intelligence Community likes to call "contact chaining." The path ran through Comey's children's Instagram accounts and one conspicuous follower of Comey's previously-secret account: Lawfare writer, surveillance apologist, and personal friend of Comey's, Benjamin Wittes.

For some reason, months after the fact, Wittes has decided the route to unmasking Comey's Twitter account was more like stalking than journalism. Wittes objected to the "use" of Comey's children -- the seemingly-unrelated contacts who Feinberg chained together to reach her conclusion. This was weird because, as Marcy Wheeler points out, Comey seemed to be impressed by the journalist's work. Even weirder is the fact Wittes (and former IC attorney/Lawfare editor Susan Hennessey) didn't see the obvious parallels between Feinberg's detective work and the FBI's own use of metadata, contact chaining, and working its way towards targets through vast amounts of unrelated data.

Not only did he say he wasn't mad and compliment her work, but he posted the link to FBI jobs. I'd say Jim Comey sees a similarity in what Feinberg did. I'm all in favor of protecting the accounts of children from such contact chaining — and am really not a big fan of contact chaining, generally. But those who, like Comey and Wittes and Hennessey and Tait, have championed a system that endorses at least two hop chaining irrespective of who gets hopped, not to mention those who've tolerated the collection on family members in even more targeted surveillance, I'm not all that interested in complaints about the privacy of a 22-year old son. Or rather, I point to it as yet another example of surveillance boosters not understanding what the policies they embrace actually look like in practice. Which is precisely why this “doxing” was so newsworthy.

Wheeler goes into more detail on the FBI's use of contact chaining and metadata and discusses Comey's own approval of these practices during his tenure. This may explain why Comey was more impressed than angry when he was outed. As for the complaints about "outing" Comey's adult children, Wheeler points out Comey himself has thrust them into the public eye on more than one occasion, starting back when they were still young teenagers.

But beyond this there's the hypocritical nature of Wittes' attack on the journalist. Surveillance state supporters love surveillance -- except when the apparatus is controlled by people they don't like or aimed at people they do. These are ridiculous arguments to be making, especially when you actively support state-sponsored "stalking."

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Filed Under: ashley feinberg, benjamin wittes, contact chaining, hops, james comey, journalism, stalking, surveillance, susan hennessey