Don’t use the apps Muhannad used, and a Question on “reporter privilege”
Last Wednesday The Intercept, an adversarial news site, published an article on the life and death of their — and several other media outlets — AQAP source. The source “Muhannad Ghallab” was a spokesman for AQAP, the terrorist organization responsible for Charlie Hebdo.
On April 22, Muhannad was killed by a missile fired by a drone. It’s unknown how his location was identified, but a “possible scenario is that a data trail from his communications with Western journalists gave away his geolocation”.
Some of the communication apps that Muhannad asked to use journalist were shared by The Intercept with Matthew Green an expert in cryptography. However noteworthy to state that it isn’t mentioned or implied that The Intercept used any of these apps in communication with the source, although other contacts may have. Green found that the apps provided no protection against tracking and could have been used by NSA/CIA.
Intel on the apps AQAP uses could be useful for the intelligence agencies. Information that Green now has. Journalists are protected by “Reporter privilege”, but fall external consultants like Green also under the same protection? A question I tweeted to Orin Kerr (Law Professor) and Jay Rosen (Journalism Professor), Kerr didn’t reply, and Rosen replied “Don’t know the answer to that well enough to answer”.
https://medium.com/@janwinter15/don-t-use-the-apps-muhannad-used-and-50e0a22484
