Finnish police have raided a journalist's home and taken her computer into custody after she attempted to destroy its hard drive to protect sources who leaked highly classified government documents to her detailing a spy facility which monitors Russia, and was about to gain power to monitor Finns online, according to the Helsinki newspaper she works for, Helsingin Sanomat.
Laura Halminen
Journalist Laura Halminen says she was trying to smash her hard drive to protect to make sure sources were protected in the best possible way, when the laptop then began to smoke. Halminen then called the fire department to address her smashed and smoking laptop, at which point the police arrived and searched her property, according to Helsinki Police.
Halminen wrote a story on Saturday about a Finnish intelligence spy facility referred to as the "Postcard Center" (Formerly known as the "Post Office"), which is reportedly monitoring neighboring Russia, and, is readying the ability to monitor Finnish residents online.
Officially, the unit focuses on monitoring all directions, but in practice it is focused on Russia.
According to the documentation received by HS, a total of 150 people worked in Tikkakoski's intelligence service in 2010.
The largest group of them, or about 70, worked at the Central Intelligence Agency. It responded to the most secretive messages of the Message Body, such as a snapshot, strategic and operational analysis, privacy algorithms, message analysis, and so-called signal libraries.
...The Signal Library is basically a database containing electromagnetic radiation captured by the Defense Forces....
...The Defense Forces also maintain photo libraries for pattern recognition and so-called acoustic excitation libraries for submarine identification...
...the main products of the Post Office annually include the titles "Operation of the Russian Armed Forces," "Russia's Threat Assessment," "Electronic Warfare Threat Assessment," and "Threat Criticism of Network Networks", says a secret memo dated December 2008.
The performances include concrete observations, for example on the development of the Russian armed forces management systems, the nearby burial ground and leadership exercises, and military exercises.
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The message center needs more people also because the new intelligence would make the military unit a subcontractor for civilian intelligence, namely Supolle. According to intelligence reports, the Message Center would filter and capture Internet traffic from its network traffic, which is of interest to the police."Civilian and Military Dispute Settlements would give the Postcard Center, the former Post Office, the right to filter and open cross-border internet traffic." -Helsingin Sanomat (translated)
After the article was published, Finland's President Sauli Niinisto launched an investigation to find out who leaked the story to the press.
There are severe warnings on the road to the Postcard Center (PHOTO: PETTER KIVIMDKI)
On sunday, the National Bureau of Investigation said its officers went to Halminen's home where they found a computer burning in the basement. "After that, a special home search was ordered to be carried out in the apartment and basement," the department stated.
Also seized were phones and memory sticks in what is being called a "very worrying" raid. A house search of this scale targeting a journalist is totally exceptional in Finland, said Helsingin Sanomat Editor-in-chief, Kaius Niemi. As Reuters notes, advocacy group Reporters Without Borders ranked Finland third in its 2017 World Press Freedom Index, behind only Sweden and Norway.
