FC: More on U.S. plan to bug U.N. Security Council revealed

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2003 09:58:44 -0500
Subject: Re: FC: U.S. plan to bug U.N. Security Council revealed --The Observer
Cc: politech () politechbot com
To: declan () well com
From: matthew bradley <matt () machination org>

For those who might take up Drudge's discounting of this email based on
the English spelling, the reporter to the Observer said today on
Pacifica's "Democracy Now" <www.democracynow.org> program that the
spelling was changed to English by some editor for consistency for the
English readers.  A decision he seemed to think was a mistake.

Perhaps other evidence will show that this is false, but the Institute
for Public Accuracy <www.accuracy.org> and The Observer and other
papers around the cite many "government sources" and named former
analysts who say this is consistent with NSA memos, actions and not
actually all that surprising.

Matt

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From: "Richard M. Smith" <rms () computerbytesman com>
To: "'Declan McCullagh'" <declan () well com>,
   "'Richard M. Smith'" <rms () computerbytesman com>, <maurice () bof nl>
Subject: RE: U.S. plan to bug U.N. Security Council revealed --The Observer
Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2003 10:23:32 -0500
Message-ID: <000301c2e198$d9fa8df0$6601a8c0@rms2>

Declan,

The alleged email message from Frank Koza looks suspect.  Here's what
the Drudge Report noticed over the weekend:

ALLEGED 'TOP SECRET' TEXT OF NSA EMAIL...
BUT WOULD AMERICAN NSA EMPLOYEE SPELL FAVORABLE 'FAVOURABLE', RECOGNIZE
'RECOGNISE' AND EMPHASIZE 'EMPHASISE' IN BRITISH TONGUE?...
WOULD NSA REALLY TIMESTAMP EMAILS '31/01/2003 0:16' IN EUROPEAN
FORMAT?...
NAME IN ALLEGED EMAIL IS 'KOZU'* OBSERVER STORY CLAIMS TO HAVE CONTACTED
'KOZA'? [*PAPER LATER CHANGED THIS GOOF]...
GOVERMENET SOURCES TELL DRUDGE CLASSIFICATION LEVEL WRONG ON 'EMAIL' --
'TOP SECRET/COMINT/XL' IS BOGUS.
HOW ABOUT IT, GUYS, LET'S SEE A SCAN OF THE ORIGINAL 'EMAIL' NOT YOUR
RECREATED ONE.

A Frank Koza does live in Columbia, Maryland not far from NSA
headquarters.

And here's what the Washington Times wrote about the Observer story:

Report of plans by U.S. to spy on U.N. states questioned
http://washingtontimes.com/world/20030303-14680312.htm

Richard

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Subject: RE: U.S. plan to bug U.N. Security Council revealed --The Observer
Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2003 09:28:07 -0600
Message-ID: <4045E256C76D7B4DA003AD34CA1B3C2F582156 () porthos lrca com>
From: "Paul Higgins" <pahiggins () lrca com>
To: <declan () well com>

Declan,

I feel it should be pointed out that Maurice Wessling erred in stating
that the "UK newspaper The Observer published an NSA email..."  He
should have said that The Observer published what it *PURPORTS* to be an
NSA email.  I read the article in the Observer, and from what I saw it
neither revealed the source of the alleged leak nor described any
confirmation, direct or indirect, it had received from NSA or any other
U.S. government agency.  (It did describe a phone call it placed to the
NSA, which the recipient quickly terminated when it was revealed that
the caller was a journalist.  That proves nothing, of course: you or I
could experience the same thrill any time.)

The question I would pose to The Observer (and Mr. Wessling) is this:
given the aggressive actions taken by certain European governments in
opposing the U.S. and its allies on the Iraq affair, isn't it equally
plausible that the "leak" you touted was produced by French or German
operatives and released as a "dirty trick" to embarrass the Bush
administration?

Sincerely,

Paul Higgins
Madison, Wisconsin

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From:[deleted]
To: declan () well com
Subject: RE: U.S. plan to bug U.N. Security Council revealed --The Observe
        r
Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2003 08:40:53 -0700

Declan - please keep me anonymous by removing my name & email address.

It is quite a leak, until one reads the memo carefully. There is the
interesting fact that at least three words have British rather than American
spellings: "emphasize" (American spelling) appears as the British
"emphasise," the same also is true for "favorable" ("favourable") and
"recognize" ("recognise"). The probability of an American spelling three
words with British styles is near zero -- especially when one considers that
Microsoft Word's dictionary would pick up all three of those as spelling
errors in the U.S. version, which we have a feeling is used at the NSA or
any U.S. government entity.




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