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Emma Best (journalist)

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For the British politician, see Emma Best (politician).
Emma Best
Portrait of Emma Best
OccupationInvestigative reporter
Notable workDistributed Denial of Secrets

Emma Best is an American investigative reporter and whistleblower. They gained national attention for their work with WikiLeaks and activist Julian Assange. Best is known for prolific filing of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests on behalf of MuckRock and co-founding the whistleblower site Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets).[1][2]

During the Trump administration, Best was also known for reporting on the FBI files of President Donald Trump, his associate Roger Stone, and a company owned by then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.[3][4][5][6]

Best has been referred to as a former hacker and a "journalist and transparency advocate with a specialty in counterintelligence and national security".[7][8][9]

Career

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Best has said that before becoming a transparency activist and investigative journalist, they worked for Wikistrat[10] and subcontractors hired by the Intelligence Community before becoming disillusioned.[9] They left over concerns for source safety and bureaucratic obstruction,[9] and have discussed disillusionment about surveillance, police militarization, and expansion of the military.[8] Best said in 2020 that they hadn't kept in touch with old colleagues.[9]

Activism

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In July 2016, Best uploaded 3,471 issues of TIME Magazine from 1923 to 2014 to be freely available online. This may have violated TIME's terms and conditions. Best released a statement that included a quote the magazine's founder, Henry R Luce: "Journalism is the art of collecting varying kinds of information (commonly called news) which a few people possess and of transmitting it to a much larger number of people who are supposed to desire to share it".[11]

Freedom of Information Act

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From 2016 to 2020, Best filed more than 6,000 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, including numerous requests to U.S. intelligence services and over 1,600 with the FBI, and published hundreds of articles.[9][12][13]

In 2016, the Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated and considered prosecuting Best for their use of FOIA.[14] According to the Calyx Institute, Best "consistently sits at or near the top of FBI's list of vexsome FOIA requesters."[15]

In 2017, Best helped get the CIA database of 13 million pages of declassified files online.[16] That year, Best also filed a FOIA lawsuit against the FBI for their files on the Church of Scientology.[17] In 2019, Best and former NSA hacker[18] Emily Crose embarked on a project to use FOIA to get documents on historical hacking incidents, called “Hacking History.”[19] That year,[20] Best filed another FOIA lawsuit against the FBI for their file on the Church Committee.[21]

In 2020, Best said they were concerned that the government was using the COVID-19 pandemic "as an obstructive step."[12]

In 2021, the FBI banned Best from filing FOIA requests, and their existing requests were closed. With the help of national security attorneys Mark Zaid and Brad Moss, the ban was lifted after several months and their requests were reopened.[22][23]

WikiLeaks

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Before DDoSecrets, Best had joined a narrow group of WikiLeaks contributors before falling out with Julian Assange, accusing him, among other things,[23] of having lied about the source of the DNC email leak,[9][24] and the incomplete nature of its archive of John Podesta's emails.[1] Best has also published several of WikiLeaks' own leaked documents[25][26][27][28] and material favorable to Mr. Assange leaked from the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.[29]

On 19 July 2016, in response to the Turkish government's purges that followed the coup attempt,[30] WikiLeaks released 294,548 emails from Turkey's ruling Justice and Development party (AKP).[31] Most experts agree that Phineas Fisher was behind the leak.[32] On 21 July, WikiLeaks tweeted a link to a database which contained sensitive information, such as the Turkish Identification Number, of approximately 50 million Turkish citizens.[33] The information was not in the files uploaded by WikiLeaks,[34] but in files described by WikiLeaks as "the full data for the Turkey AKP emails and more", which was archived by Best, who then removed it when the personal data was discovered.[23][35]

In mid-August 2016, Guccifer 2.0 expressed interest in offering a trove of Democratic e-mails to Best. Best tries to negotiate the hosting of stolen DNC emails and documents on the internet archive. Assange urged Best to decline, intimating that he was in contact with the persona's handlers, and that the material would have greater impact if he released it first. The conversation ends with "Guccifer 2.0" saying he will send the material directly to WikiLeaks.[36][37]

In November 2018, they leaked sealed chat logs that were part of the case against Assange.[38]

In January 2019, they made a cache of Russian documents available to WikiLeaks before Distributed Denial of Secrets published them.[29] In April 2019, they revealed that Chelsea Manning's FBI files were central to the ongoing proceedings against Assange before the indictment was unsealed.[39]

In July 2022, Best was the first to discover that WikiLeaks had launched a new submission portal after being offline for months. The system didn’t work and then shut down completely.[40]

Distributed Denial of Secrets

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On December 3, 2018, Best co-founded Distributed Denial of Secrets with another member of the group known as The Architect.[1] Best’s work at WikiLeaks laid the foundation for the group to come together.[23] According to Best, The Architect, whom they already knew, approached them and expressed their desire to see a new platform for leaked and hacked materials, along with other relevant datasets.[1] In 2024, it was revealed that The Architect was Thomas White.[41][42]

In July 2020, three agents who identified themselves as part of Homeland Security Investigations visited a woman in Boston to question her about BlueLeaks, Distributed Denial of Secrets and Emma Best. The agents asked the woman about her involvement with BlueLeaks before eventually asking her to become an informant, and offered to pay for any information that led to arrests.[2][43]

As of January 2021, the site hosts dozens of terabytes of data.[44]

In February 2021, Distributed Denial of Secrets leaked 70 gigabytes of data from the far right social media platform Gab, including email addresses, passwords, and internal emails; the group referred to the action as "GabLeaks".[45]

In 2022, Best and Distributed Denial of Secrets joined in the information war being fought by Russia and Ukraine by publishing lots of information leaked from inside Russia.[8]

Commentary and beliefs

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Best believes in radical transparency.[1] Best explained their motivations by saying that "getting and publishing government documents means that with five years’ effort, you can change 50 years of history."[9]

For Best, freeing information is a step toward safety. They said “it’s impossible to walk through the world and not be keenly aware of its absence.” Best added that "queer people are attracted to transparency because we’re forced into closets and into confronting broken and abusive systems"[46]

In 2022, Best said "I don’t long for any nationality. I’m not happy to be called an American. It’s accurate. I’m not happy about it." They said it was because of "Imperialism. Uber-capitalism. Neo-colonialism, military expansion, pansurveillance, militarization of police, the police system itself."[8] The same year, they said that "the leaking will continue until morality improves."[40]

In the media and the arts

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Best was part of Vice's roundtable of technologists, hackers, and journalists that dissected the fourth season of Mr. Robot.[7][47]

In 2022, Best presented a talk called "Leak The Planet: Veritatem cognoscere non pereat mundus" and a fireside policy chat at DEF CON, an annual hacker gathering in Las Vegas.[48][49][50]

In 2024, Best presented two talks at Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE), The History of Leaks and The Future of Leaks.[51][52][53]

Personal life

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Emma Best lives in Boston.[54] They are queer and nonbinary,[55] and are married to fellow DDoSecrets member Xan North.[13] In 2018, Best's passport application was denied and paperwork with their application disappeared.[54] After Best published private WikiLeaks chats in 2018, Julian Assange’s personal Twitter account cited their transgender status and dismissed them as a disgruntled activist. Assange's account was locked until the tweet was deleted for violating Twitter rules.[56]

After the publication of "GabLeaks" in 2021, Gab CEO Andrew Torba released a statement in which he referred to the leakers as "mentally ill tranny demon hackers".[57][58] Best said that the incident left them with "the constant awareness that many of the people we publish data [about], at best, do not care about the quality of life for people like me unless it’s profitable for them in some way, and many others would gladly cheer on or commit violence against queer people like me just for existing."[23] After Barrett "Brown's life spiraled" in 2021, he accused Best and other members of DDoSecrets of faking being transgender to obscure their histories in the intelligence community.[10]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e Thielman, Sam (February 6, 2019). "A new group devoted to transparency is exposing secrets Wikileaks chose to keep". Columbia Journalism Review. New York City: Columbia University. Retrieved June 5, 2021.
  2. ^ a b Franceschi-Bicchierai, Lorenzo (July 20, 2020). "ICE Questions an Admin of The-Eye Archive Site About 'BlueLeaks'". Vice. Retrieved June 5, 2021.
  3. ^ Leopold, Jason (January 19, 2017). "Trump's Long History With The FBI: In 1981, He Offered To "Fully Cooperate"". BuzzFeed News.
  4. ^ North-Best, Emma (September 7, 2018). "FBI Documents on Roger Stone Reveal Sabotage, Espionage, and the Life of a Serial Bagman". Property of the People.
  5. ^ North-Best, Emma (January 2, 2017). "Trump's Treasury pick appears to be part of a federal investigation". MuckRock.
  6. ^ Brown, J. Pat (January 31, 2018). "Even Congress wasn't allowed details of FBI's Steven Mnuchin probe". MuckRock.
  7. ^ a b Grauer, Yael (2019-10-07). "A Roundtable of Hackers Dissects 'Mr. Robot' Season 4 Episode 1: 'Unauthorized'". Vice. Retrieved 2024-02-20.
  8. ^ a b c d Brewster, Thomas. "An 'Unhappy American' In The Russia-Ukraine Information War Promises A Huge Leak Of Data Stolen From The Kremlin's Internet Censor". Forbes. Retrieved 2022-04-05.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g "Database Exposes Offshore Holdings of Prominent Germans". Der Spiegel. 22 May 2020. Retrieved 5 June 2021.
  10. ^ a b Silverman, Jacob (2024-02-20). "The Ballad of Barrett Brown". Intelligencer. Retrieved 2024-02-20.
  11. ^ Cox, Joseph (2016-07-16). "Activists Release Nearly 100 Years of TIME Magazine Issues For Free". Vice. Retrieved 2024-02-20.
  12. ^ a b Salame, Richard; Zweig, Nina (March 25, 2020). "Public Access to Information Suffers Under Coronavirus". Columbia Journalism Review. New York City: Columbia University. Retrieved June 5, 2021.
  13. ^ a b Elder, Jeff (August 8, 2020). "How 'Keyser Söze' leaked a secret trove of police documents that exposed cops tracking George Floyd protesters". Business Insider. Retrieved June 5, 2021.
  14. ^ North-Best, Emma (December 12, 2017). "FBI appears to have investigated - and considered prosecuting - FOIA requesters". MuckRock. Retrieved June 5, 2021.
  15. ^ "Hacking History Project - Calyx Institute". calyxinstitute.org. Retrieved June 5, 2021.
  16. ^ Brown, J. Pat (January 17, 2017). "The CIA's declassified database is now online". MuckRock. Retrieved June 5, 2021.
  17. ^ "FOIA Lawsuit: The Scientology Files". Daniel R. Novack. 2017-05-25. Retrieved 2024-02-20.
  18. ^ Franceschi-Bicchierai, Lorenzo (January 4, 2018). "This Ex-NSA Hacker Is Building an AI to Find Hate Symbols on Twitter". Vice. Retrieved June 6, 2021.
  19. ^ Franceschi-Bicchierai, Lorenzo (May 10, 2019). "Researchers Are Liberating Thousands of Pages of Forgotten Hacking History From the Government". Vice. Retrieved June 6, 2021.
  20. ^ "BEST v. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, 1:19-cv-00256 - CourtListener.com". CourtListener. Retrieved 2024-02-20.
  21. ^ "UPDATED: Help release the FBI's massive file on the Church Committee". MuckRock. 2018-11-30. Retrieved 2024-02-20.
  22. ^ Best, Emma (June 13, 2021). "FBI Tried To Ban Me From FOIA". Emma Best. Archived from the original on June 14, 2021.
  23. ^ a b c d e "Distributed Denial of Secrets is picking up where WikiLeaks left off". Mic. 2021-10-21. Retrieved 2024-06-08.
  24. ^ Collier, Kevin (April 5, 2018). "These Messages Show Julian Assange Talked About Seeking Hacked Files From Guccifer 2.0". BuzzFeed News. Retrieved June 5, 2021.
  25. ^ Cox, Joseph (July 31, 2018). "Activist Publishes 11,000 Private DMs Between Wikileaks and Its Supporters". Vice. Retrieved June 6, 2021.
  26. ^ Gilmour, David (July 31, 2018). "Activist speaks out about publishing damning WikiLeaks chat". The Daily Dot. Retrieved June 13, 2021.
  27. ^ Gallagher, Sean (January 7, 2019). "Please don't repeat these things WikiLeaks says you can't say about Assange [Updated]". Ars Technica. Retrieved June 6, 2021.
  28. ^ Stone, Jeff (July 14, 2020). "After Assange indictment, DDoSecrets publishes old WikiLeaks chats, strategy sessions". CyberScoop. Retrieved June 6, 2021.
  29. ^ a b Shane, Scott (2019-01-25). "Huge Trove of Leaked Russian Documents Is Published by Transparency Advocates". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-08-27.
  30. ^ Sezer, Can; Dolan, David; Kasolowsky, Raissa (20 July 2016). "Turkey blocks access to WikiLeaks after ruling party email dump". Reuters. Archived from the original on 21 July 2016. Retrieved 21 July 2016.
  31. ^ Yeung, Peter (20 July 2016). "Here's what's in the Wikileaks emails that Erdogan tried to ban". The Independent. Retrieved 25 July 2016.
  32. ^ "The CyberWire Daily Briefing 07.22.16". The CyberWire. Archived from the original on December 5, 2020. Retrieved March 18, 2021.
  33. ^ Tufekci, Zeynep (July 25, 2016). "WikiLeaks put Women in Turkey in Danger, for No Reason". The Huffington Post. Retrieved December 3, 2016.
  34. ^ Murdock, Jason (26 July 2016). "WikiLeaks criticised for tweeting link to leaked database of millions of Turkish women". International Business Times UK. Retrieved 12 March 2017.
  35. ^ Cox, Joseph (July 28, 2016). "How 'Kind of Everything Went Wrong' With the Turkey Data Dump". Vice. Retrieved July 30, 2016.
  36. ^ Khatchadourian, Raffi (August 21, 2017). "Julian Assange, a Man Without a Country". The New Yorker. Retrieved June 6, 2021.
  37. ^ Collier, Kevin (2018-04-05). "These Messages Show Julian Assange Talked About Seeking Hacked Files From Guccifer 2.0". BuzzFeed News. Retrieved 2024-06-08.
  38. ^ McLaughlin, Jenna; Luppen, Luppe B. (November 16, 2018). "Leaked chat logs on hacks may be part of case against Julian Assange". Yahoo! Finance.
  39. ^ Cameron, Dell (April 8, 2019). "Chelsea Manning's FBI Files Are Central to Ongoing Criminal Proceedings, Bureau Claims". Gizmodo.
  40. ^ a b "How DDoSecrets built the go-to home for Russian leaks". therecord.media. Retrieved 2024-06-08.
  41. ^ Cox, Joseph (August 12, 2024). "Co-Founder of DDoSecrets Was Dark Web Drug Kingpin". 404 Media. Retrieved August 12, 2024.
  42. ^ "Statement on Thomas White - Distributed Denial of Secrets". ddosecrets.com. Retrieved 2024-08-27.
  43. ^ "Foreign propaganda pitted DHS against DDoSecrets (and me)". emma best. 2024-08-14. Retrieved 2024-08-27.
  44. ^ Coburg, Tom (January 23, 2021). "A socialist 'hacktivist' has helped expose the platform used by both US rioters and UK government ministers". The Canary. Retrieved June 5, 2021.
  45. ^ Greenberg, Andy (February 28, 2021). "Far-Right Platform Gab Has Been Hacked—Including Private Data". Wired. Retrieved June 24, 2021.
  46. ^ "Distributed Denial of Secrets is picking up where WikiLeaks left off". Mic. 2021-10-21. Retrieved 2024-06-08.
  47. ^ "Mr. Robot Season Four". www.vice.com. Retrieved 2024-02-20.
  48. ^ "DEF CON 30 Schedule". DEF CON.
  49. ^ "DEF CON Forums". DEF CON. 2022-06-18. Retrieved 2024-06-08.
  50. ^ "DEF CON Policy Schedule". DEF CON.
  51. ^ "HOPE XV". schedule.hope.net. Retrieved 2024-08-27.
  52. ^ "The History of Leaks HOPE XV". schedule.hope.net. Retrieved 2024-08-27.
  53. ^ "The Future of Leaks: What's Next for the Online Library of Hacked Data? HOPE XV". schedule.hope.net. Retrieved 2024-08-27.
  54. ^ a b "7 Trans People Share How Hard It Was to Get a Passport". Teen Vogue. 2018-08-01. Retrieved 2024-02-20.
  55. ^ Lynn, Samara (March 31, 2021). "Transgender in tech: More visibility but obstacles remain". ABC News.
  56. ^ Gilmour, David (2018-07-31). "Activist speaks out about publishing damning WikiLeaks chat". The Daily Dot. Retrieved 2024-02-20.
  57. ^ Browning, Bil (March 1, 2021). ""Mentally ill tr**ny demon hackers" blamed for massive data leak at far right site Gab". LGBTQ Nation. Retrieved June 5, 2021.
  58. ^ Murdock, Jason (March 2, 2021). "Gab CEO Andrew Torba condemns threats of violence against social network's hackers". Newsweek. Retrieved June 5, 2021.
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