Keith Cowing has a message to the “rogue” government employees publishing “alternative” news about their departments on Twitter and elsewhere: “Welcome! Welcome to the revolution. Let the leaking begin!”
Cowing has been at it for a long time. His NASAWatch.com is a precursor to Twitter accounts like @RogueNASA, @Alt_CDC , and @AltHHS. They are all trying to do the same thing for their organizations: Protect them.
The rise of “rogue” and “alt” Twitter accounts for federal agencies was sparked by stories about the Trump administration placing restrictions on some agencies’ communications with the public. Scientists in particular feared that important data and research regarding such issues as climate change would be suppressed. The “rogue” versions of the agency sites — designed to keep the information coming, unofficially if necessary — are presumably run by insiders, although it’s hard to tell, because they are mostly anonymous.
For Cowing, the catalyst was budget cuts. “My website started when there was a threat to downsize NASA by 10 percent,” he said.
At a National Academy of Sciences meeting, a NASA senior manager referred to “fear as a tool in corporate downsizing,” Cowing recalled, “and I said, ‘That’s it. I’m going to say something.’ And that’s how it started.”
He quit and started NASA RIF Watch, which then morphed into NASAWatch.com, on Twitter as @nasawatch.
Its motto: “This is not a NASA Website. You might learn something. It’s YOUR space agency. Get involved. Take it back. Make it work – for YOU.”
The downsizing effort — led by Vice President Al Gore in 1996 — was one of Cowing’s first stories, and it definitely got NASA’s attention. “There were people who thought I had broken into NASA — literally broken into their U-frame. They were investigating me and trying to find out how I got stuff because this was just utterly new territory and they truly thought that I had broken into things,” Cowing said. “I didn’t need to. People were sending me stuff … and I refused to reveal my sources.”
He soon moved his web server to Canada. The message: “Try and get me.”
In June 2000, he broke the story that NASA had found water on Mars. Science Magazine credited him with an “accurate, if vague, item” which it said was “apparently from sources in the astrobiology community.”
Because he’d worked at NASA — and because he never tried to hide his name — credibility was never a concern like it is for a lot of the new rogue sites, most of which are run anonymously and have yet to prove they are legitimate.
In fact, Cowing is concerned that some of the sites seem to be hiding their motives.
But at the same time, Cowing considers the rogue Twitter accounts “a science experiment to prove that the digital revolution has arrived.”
RogueNASA, for instance, explains that “If (when?) the time comes that NASA has been instructed to cease tweeting/sharing info about science and climate change, we will inform you.”
That kind of uncertainty is why scientists in Cowing’s circle have started cloning copies of their climate change research on offshore servers, afraid the Trump administration might delete them.
Cowing noted that “There has been no concerted effort yet to ‘muzzle’ on a large scale people at any given agency,” but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen soon.
“Once you’ve done it to one agency you can do it to others,” Cowing said.
But silencing science can quickly become a matter of public safety, he said. “People are going to get upset when, for example, the National Weather Service is afraid to give the same depth of reporting on storm threats because of, ‘Oh my God, if we say that, it’ll sound like global warming.’ I think it will have a chilling effect on the way that government itself interfaces with the populace.”
Muzzling NASA, however, will be a particular challenge, as Cowing argues that President Trump would first have convince Congress to alter the National Aeronautics and Space Act.
As he explains on his website, NASA is by law required to “provide for the widest practicable and appropriate dissemination of information concerning its activities and the results thereof” as one of the five principle functions of its existence.
Cowing sees the government as an elephant. “And I am a mouse.”
A mouse can move more quickly and run around an elephant’s legs. “I was once one mouse. Now everybody in America is the mouse,” he said. “And should they so decide as we saw [on Inauguration weekend], they can cause the entire consciousness of the country to shift and it’s all based on individual actions.”
And this, Cowing said, is why the elephant is afraid of the mouse.
Top photo: NASA Watch founder Keith Cowing sits in his home office in suburban Washington, D.C. in February 2016. Photo courtesy of Inverse.
NASA isn’t the cutting edge of space transportation any more.
I think you cut to the real issue for a lot of scientists and government employees when you mentioned “budget cuts.” The gravy train for government-supported looks like it might be slowing down.
One amusing example of anonymity is the Twitter account @propornot – which also has a website http://www.propornot.com. It says that it was created to identify propaganda, and describes itself thus:
“PropOrNot is an independent team of concerned American citizens with a wide range of backgrounds and expertise, including professional experience in computer science, statistics, public policy, and national security affairs. We are currently volunteering time and skills to identify propaganda – particularly Russian propaganda – targeting a U.S. audience”.
It also says something on the lines of ‘we can’t tell you who we are because of bad people’.
Okay, so it has said it’s about finding and reporting ‘fake news’, but it is not saying who it is. why should – why could – anyone trust it? How can it prove that it is not itself a fake news site?
Trust nobody. Except Mom. And even she’s a bit sus.
An interesting story- but one maybe a bit more interesting would be how NASA has been integral to much of the warrantless surveillance around the globe, and here in America. In all the reporting to date, the focus is on NSA/FBI/CIA, but NASA is a silent partner in all of it- and sometimes, international satellites as well.
I was first followed by an FBI/DEA/otherunknown airplane in 2011, a small yellow aircraft that managed to somehow be circling above me no matter how far I tried to drive away.
Eventually, I ducked onto a street with great tree cover, and pulled the battery out of my phone- and the airplane drifted off in the direction of my initial path; and over a waterway, hoping the radio scatter would confuse the DRT box ( which I didn’t even know the name of then_).
An enterprising reporter might find that these agencies, working with the sales teams of companies like Harris Corp, et al, were using some of America’s citizens for target practice as they tested, or demonstrated or otherwise deployed these technologies across the country.
And, I would also suggest that they are doing it today as well- in order to sell their gadgets, they pick certain people, and use them as guinea pigs to make the sale to local LEO’s and others.
The same is true of satellite technologies, and the selling of “space” on their flight paths.
Of course, when I wrote about these events in 2011, most people drew the “too crazy to be true card,” and slapped it into each and every internet conversation (much like is the situation with some Intercept threads these days.)
Back in 2004, I was a govt rogue. Eventually, they threatened to put me in in jail with heavy fines. You can’t survive doing it alone. Back then there was not the help that I see today.
NASA is a fraud and so is this weasel. The earth is not a spinning globe, please research with open mind to the truth.
“The earth is not a spinning globe…”
Ayup. It’s more a spinning ellipsoid.
And once again the Indians get screwed in the process. This is way more then environmental effects on the weather. It has environmental effects of people.
“…which are run anonymously and have yet to prove they are legitimate.”
If identity exposure puts the rogue twitter profile-holders at risk, wouldn’t ‘legitimacy,’ nullify the effectiveness? As police-state powers expand and dissociate themselves from the rule of law, shouldn’t the message, not the messenger, be the litmus test for legitimacy?
It doesn’t seem so far off that the maintenance of anonymity will be the pre-requisite for legitimacy.
As the operators of these social media accounts learn their way around, focus their message, find how to review the accuracy of things they post, admit their errors (when they make them), and do interviews with journalists under the guarantee of non-disclosure – then they will be able to establish an increasing amount of credibility. But it takes time and effort. Yet there’s always the lingering doubt that goes with anonymity. Its human nature. I solved my anonymity problem by openly identifying myself very early on. That said, not everyone can do this and there is a very, very real threat of retribution. So we’re stuck with this double edged sword: how to be credible without having a name … after 20 years I wish I had a better answer.
300 million citizens of USA. One 300 millionth of the weight of an elephant is a large ant. Not mouse.
You must work in accounting at NASA ;-)
If you adjust for social influence, some people are mice. The rest of us are mites.
The lack of verification is what kills my potential trust in rogue accounts. For example, @RoguePOTUSStaff states in their bio that they “will block anyone who asks us to ID ourselves (including press),” which should be an immediate red flag right there. Doubly, they posted a picture they claimed was an elevator within the White House, only for a simple Reverse Image Search to show that it was a photograph plucked from Pinterest.
So, yeah. I don’t buy it.
So you want the Rogue accounts to ID themselves so that they get shut down and their administrators fired, huh? Sounds like shrewd strategy to me. Are you intentionally working for Bannon?
It’s one thing to publicly verify themselves, and it’s another to privately verify themselves to people who can be trusted with private affairs; for example, they could easily send some kind of verification to journalists who work for companies with SecureDrop or PGP or other privacy guards that they feel they can trust.
It’s a third thing entirely to say that anybody who asks, regardless of who they are and where they work, will be blocked outright.
given the treatment of whistleblowers, why would they id themselves? and why is a picture of an elevator so important? i don’t get it.
Without some kind of identification, we can only take what the accounts say at face value, which is something you should never do with anything you learn on the Internet, much less with Twitter accounts.
As for the elevator picture, it was a photograph they had directly purported as being within the White House, only to be shown minutes later that it was not the case. This is coupled with other examples of the account being less efficient than they claim, such as missing out on potential scoops such as the firing of Yates (they said it was “so obvious” that they didn’t bother to announce it).
For the record, my only beef is with @RoguePOTUSStaff. I’m not versed on what other rogue accounts say.
I think anonymity matters a lot here. But verification also matters: there should (and I am sure are) be ways of verifying the authenticity of the information without compromising the anonymity of the source. Indeed spies & journalists have had just this problem to solve essentially for ever: in fact I’d expect that people at The Intercept might have good information on how to do this, as will cryptography/security people.
As I noted above this conundrum is not one that is easily solved if anonymity is needed by the prime source i.e. the social media accounts. It is not impossible to develop the credibility associated with a news outlet with identifiable people on the masthead, but it takes much longer. You need to have very thick skin to do this sort of stuff.
“Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name,
and they’re always glad you came. You wanna be where you can see,
our troubles are all the same You wanna be where everybody knows
Your name.”
As one who had a career short-circuited in the 90’s trying to keep the publics information public, I salute you. I post anony-mouse-ly (for now) and it’s largely because of that experience. Thank you!
SillyPutty – thanks! More voices are better than fewer voices!
Agreed; maintaining anonymity while providing verification is somewhat of an oxymoron/paradox.
But yes, as you say, I believe the first step would be to reach out to people whose first priority is security.
Or, if that’s unfeasible, maybe steal some stationery and mail a letter to somebody? Hell if I know.