Detaining my partner: a failed attempt at intimidation
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
They completely abused their own terrorism law for reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism: a potent reminder of how often governments lie when they claim that they need powers to stop "the terrorists", and how dangerous it is to vest unchecked power with political officials in its name. [1]
This is a great example of why we should treat terrorism like any other crime, and why the police should never be trusted with exceptional powers simply because we feel under threat. Give them the powers, and they will be misused - in this case they were used on a relative of someone nothing to do with terrorism purely for the purpose of intimidation. The security services even called Greenwald to give him the news that his partner had been detained.
[1] http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/18/david-m...
Taking into account that the UK law enforcement and Brazil have a bit of a history when it comes to labelling people terrorist wrongly makes it even worse.
1) A test to see how the journalist will react and to flush out more information. I.e. force him to disclose more information so they know what he has.
2) Another test is to test public opinion. So far we have seen nothing but defensiveness and accusations from the White House. That bill to de-fund the NSA had some legs but didn't get off the ground. If there is no reaction that is a good benchmark, they don't have to stop and do anything. They could even push the envelope further and probably not get an real repercussions.
3) A warning is a powerful thing. It is message to all other journalists working with NSA sources. "Are you prepared to open your family to harassment, black lists and 9 hour detentions during travel?". As some mentioned in the comments, even the Mafia has basic engagement rules to leave family members alone. That tells one the level of engagement and the mentality of government actors we are dealing with.
I do think this is driven by fear and incompetence rather than malice but you could easily be right. I'd love to be a fly on the wall in the various offices dealing with the fall-out from this, especially the interface boundary between the foreign affairs and the anti-terror branches.
Quite possibly the idea of detaining Mr. Miranda originated from an overzealous busy-body relatively low in the hierarchy. Or perhaps it's merely meant to look like that.
(I discount the gay smear argument. It might play in the US, but here in the UK there are/have been out-of-the-closet gay Conservative cabinet ministers.)
Read the middle of the last page: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/magazine/laura-poitras-sno...
> Their discussion turned to the question of coming back to the United States. Greenwald said, half-jokingly, that if he was arrested, WikiLeaks would become the new traffic cop for publishing N.S.A. documents. “I would just say: ‘O.K., let me introduce you to my friend Julian Assange, who’s going to take my place. Have fun dealing with him.’ ”
> Poitras prodded him: “So you’re going back to the States?”
> He laughed and pointed out that unfortunately, the government does not always take the smartest course of action. “If they were smart,” he said, “I would do it.”
I think audit trails and accountability (and the threat of punishment for those who abuse their power) will curtail such civil liberties abuses.
I think they already know through a post event review of MicroSoft's built in auditing logs. My understanding is that Snowden was a low level Windows admin that copied stuff that was either 1) in transit through a Microsoft Sharepoint server 2) anything he could find by roaming around the intranet. The NSA disclosed that he started grabbing documents when he was working as a contractor under Dell. They said he was aggressively exploring the limits of his network access and announced that 1) documents on their intranet would from now on be encrypted 2) that they would drastically reduce the number of system and network (as in Microsoft misuse of the term) administrators.
Plus, Wikileaks leaked an AES256 encrypted insurance file that presumably is everything that have from Snowden. Wikileaks has some of the shittiest OPSEC ever (as the Manning events showed). So, we know that they probably used openssl for the encryption and that the STK string is probably a sentence, or a few sentences, from a seminal published book about liberty/privacy. The NSA has probably already cracked the insurance file key. So, if they don't have the Manning portfolio from audit logs, they probably have it from Wikileaks.
There's an ex-NSA NWC guy that is putting out a lot of excellent information on this whole thing: 20committee
https://twitter.com/20committee
Wow that guy is a dick. Tons of FUD and highly partisan cheerleading, and some pretty sad troll responses (though I'm sure he gets a lot of troll attention, which does wear down a person's reasonableness).
I can understand that someone may have a different view on the balance between liberty and security, but his view is hyperbolic, not informative.
John Schindler is only a source of "excellent information" on this case in the sense that Ann Coulter provides "excellent political commentary". What a total joke.
How did the Manning events show that?
I still have some hope that they are at least capable of learning from their mistakes.
Useful to run this partner through an airport with some clean electronics to see what the reaction would be and to perhaps see how far the British are prepared to go to please our Us masters.
That test of public reaction, it can go two ways.
Imagine if the confiscated electronics contained as-yet unreleased documents describing abuses of "anti-terror laws" by UK authorities - in similar ways to the evidence-laundering revelations in the US?
4) Highlight the fact that Greenwald is in an openly gay relationship in an attempt to discredit him / colour what he's saying in a personal light. Sadly, a large part of the conservative base will cling to this I think.
That was actually mentioned in the article.
hopefully people are finally coming to that realization that the common quip about the government treating itself as above the law is actually true
Maybe in the US, but this is unlikely to make a ripple in the British public sphere.
The Snowden story has not been a big deal here and today's news has not had much airtime either (it's not even on the BBC News front page). The majority of Brits don't know about this story, nor are likely to have the context to care if they did.
Issues of UK-US cooperation, even over matters as worrying as extraditing Brits to the US for trial, rarely stir up great feelings amongst everyday folk. Being on Twitter and HN, I do know about this story and I still don't care for it much (in terms of how I consider British policy).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/BUGGER
The people who really benefitted from this action are Greenwald, The Guardian and those of us who want our governments to stop abusing their power. The UK government just look like assholes again. This will spawn further news stories in places like The Guardian as the legal fallout from this continues thereby keeping the surveillance state in the news cycle longer.
I don't think it was a coincidence that Greenwald was contacted when Miranda was detained. Whoever made the decision is playing a PR game, and wanted this to be in the news.
Well, it's not like the Guardian is really terribly popular amongst bigots, anyway... If he wrote for the Daily Mail I could see your point.
Glenn reported on the NSA leaks. Glenn is gay. Everything gays do is wrong, therefore reporting on the NSA leaks is wrong. Also, supporting gays is bad, because someone might think you're gay. Therefore supporting NSA leakers is bad.
Where Glenn works is irrelevant. The NSA probably wants to discredit everyone involved, and garner as much support for themselves as they can.
He was not, it was 3 hours later.
But yeah, it's not easy to imagine how such decisions are made. Of course, it's one of the features of authoritarianism that the display of authority trumps "tactical mistakes". But it's people who give such orders, not "authoritarianism". The simplistic explanation would be to state they're "pissed off". But maybe reality is quite close to that. By arresting Greenwald's partner, the UK authorities primarily demonstrate, to themselves, that they still hold certain powers -- and I wouldn't underestimate the self-motivational dimension of such a demonstration.
yes. the power to be subservient to the US twisted domestic politics.. (a US colony perhaps??)
Why would this be a tactical mistake? The general public DOES NOT GIVE A FUCK. The government(s) know(s) this quite well.
If you think for a second that detention of associates of political enemies matters to an electorate far more interested in the minutiae of Kanye West's baby, you're living in a fairy land of your own making.
Right now, in addition to this being the top story on HN, it is is on the default reddit front page at #9 and rising. It's also on the front page of the New York times website, and also in the top three headlines at news.google.com. Google reports 25 articles most being published in the last hour.
By these measures, it seems to me that a lot of people are rather interested in the story.
Now, I understand that you may not consider "the population that consumes its news on the internet" to be equivalent to the "general public". But any argument about that question is a much larger one than an argument about the public's interest in this particular story.
The fact is, even amongst all of the tabloid trash real news stories do matter to people, and people who consume cotton candy celebrity media for entertainment can also be consumers of hard news. The existence of one doesn't preclude interest in the other.
Edit: The Sun does, however, have boobs on its homepage, the Daily Mail talks about celebrities and the BBC's international site talks about Syria, Gibraltar and Usain Bolt, with its England page concerned with assisted suicide, a rider who died after a horse accident, something about climate activists and this gem: "Leicester Globe pub closes over anti-military rumours"...
Edit 2: Colour me impressed, the Telegraph not only reports on it on its frontpage, it also has an additional quote by an Amnesty International spokesperson. That's at least something, I suppose?
They can make an oxygen-sucking scandal out of nothing. This could devour the rest of Obama's second term if it gets out of hand (and the Republicans decide there's more mileage in beating him up about it rather than supporting the security state).
The public does not have to care for this to be a huge negative for the gov't. The only people who need to care are precisely the ones most likely to--folks rather like Greenwald.
"I don't care if Obama reads my text messages. All he'll learn is how to sext."
Most of the "smart" people I know, both in and out of the tech industry, are more interested in Egypt, Syria, and the large drop in US stock market indices last week.
How sad is it that Orwell's dire portrayal of Big Brother is no longer as relevant to most people as following reality TV's Big Brother...
A lot of stories, like the LavaBit shutdown for example, never elicited the strong backlash that it should have. It was however, well known in security and technology media circles.
Because it is a slow(er) Sunday news morning, the reaction on twitter to this story has been quite intense, and that is translating into a huge amount of print and broadcast news stories.
If this was intended to intimidate journalists, that would have been achieved through the inevitable reporting in specialty blogs and twitter feeds of those intensely interested in the subject.
This controversy on the other hand, is blowing up in their face, which will result in reporters making the next 72 hours hell for the various authorities involved on both sides of the pond.
It might be a well-planned tactical move: perhaps they wanted to enrage and provoke Greenwald, hoping he might make mistakes, accidentally disclose sources or additional material.
But yes, the most likely explanation is that they simply don't care, they abuse their power all the time and act like criminals, why should they respect people like Greenwald?
In case anybody is wondering, the UK murdered a Brazilian man on the train with several bullets to the head after they explicitly identified him as a suspect and authorized his takedown. He had no ties to terrorism at all.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Jean_Charles_de_Meneze...
Some nameless official put anyone plausibly close to Snowden on one of however many "people of interest" type lists the UK has. It might even be a trickle down from some list in the USA. The original list may not even be intended as a "detain this person" list, but the way these secret lists work sourcing from other lists with different intents means the end result isn't necessarily the intended result.
Tyranny through bureaucracy basically. A little bit ironic what with the guy being Brazilian and Terry Gilliam's opus Brazil dealing with basically the same theme.
1) Spend 9 hours pressing the guy in order to learn any details they are interested in. He was probably not prepared enough for that, most of people aren't. Apparently, in such an occasion you don't even have the "right to remain silent!" That is, Mr. David Miranda had no Miranda rights there. I guess they had a good laugh.
2) Get anything from the electronic devices. It's reasonable to expect that both GG and his partner aren't crypto security specialists (GG had problem even starting using crypto).
That they make the pressure to the journalists they saw as the added bonus. Obviously they don't expect that the "public" reacts much.
Note also that UK has laws where you have to give your passwords to the police.
For better or worse, Glenn Greenwald is very skilled in these sorts of extended adversarial interviews. As a litigator in civil matters he would spend days being obstructionist in depositions. One of them, involving a dispute with Greenwald's former landlord runs over 500 pages. It was effective enough to get the opposing legal council fired.
So anyone who's working with Mr. Greenwald is probably much better prepared than the average Joe to spend 9 hours being questioned.
I personally suspect this was mostly about getting a look at the electronics Mr. Miranda was carrying. It's basic law enforcement strategy to realize targets will eventually make a mistake and for investigators to put themselves in a position to benefit from that.
I wasn't aware that Brazilian citizens detained in the UK had rights granted by the US.
I'm pretty sure that Greenwald and Miranda learned to be particularly careful about data integrity after that incident.
2) Sure, but for that they didn't need to seize them, they could have copied them. I take it that Greenwald et al are smart enough to use an encrypted dead drop on the net rather than to hand-carry unencrypted bits with the keys in the head or the possession of the carrier.
From the government perspective I can see only bad stuff coming from this, it is a very clear abuse of the law, it will take a lot of tapdancing to explain this one away as a rogue employee.
Moreover, TSA already prepared the people to be numb about the inconveniences at the airports. It became hard to make news about that.
On one hand, it's obvious that bullying the partner of a famous journalist is going to get negative media attention.
On the other hand, maybe that's exactly what they want. Maybe they know these laws aren't going anywhere anytime soon, and that sort of media attention ensures that generations will know what happens when they start asking the wrong questions. "Hey kids, just look at what will happen to your family if you start questioning the laws we make to protect you."
Would Greenwald have done a better service if he hadn't told the world what happened to his partner? I don't know--but maybe.
Greenwald has basically been provoked into doing as much damage as he can do, likely he'll reveal more rather than less now. They have taken the gloves off against the one party that was still showing some restraint here.
Interesting how places like CNN don't cover this.
If anything, he's chuckling that he managed to provoke them to this kind of outrageous action. Rubbing his hands with glee. (Shades of "You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!")
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/08/18/world/europe/greenwald-par...
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/08/19/world/europe/greenwald-par...
Definitely not. And in the end, nothing happened to his partner. His rights were violated, for sure -- but then ask other Brazilians for their experiences in the transit zone of London Heathrow. It's a pretty much lawless zone if you happen to hold the wrong passport.
So, no. More people than you think will be able to relate to this.
Given that David Miranda was transiting through the country, I would guess that the request originated from MI6, which would mean that the request was routed through the FCO, which would put William Hague in the hot-seat.
Helpfully, the Guardian has a list of senior civil servants here (although it is quite out of date):
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/jun/16/civil-s...
We could probably make some guesses as to which roles were involved in the decision. (Note: Civil servants only stay in a role for a limited period of time, so it is probable that the individuals named in the above list have moved on to new roles by now, and are not involved).
Speculating for a moment that he did give the OK to this, then I do not doubt that he did it with his eyes wide open. He would have known exactly what the PR repercussions were. There must have been a very good reason for him to want to stop Mr. Miranda - which means that it is unlikely to be simple intimidation. (Not the sort of thing that I can imagine your typical Whitehall civil servant stooping to in any case).
My guess is that it was believed that he was carrying a copy of Snowden's cache of documents, and the UK badly wanted to get their hands on a copy. Which is fascinating, if true, because it means that they still do not know what documents he has....
Fun to speculate ....
They are MUCH cleverer than this, it is likely to have been a deliberate provocation to try and get Greenwald to do something rash. It is also a sign that the gloves may be coming off.
I doubt very much if the police would do this off their own bat. What motive would they have to do so?
So it must have come at least from the Foreign Secretary, but more probably the Prime Minister.
The UK government is currently a coalition. The minor partner, the Liberal Democrats, tend to take a slightly more pro civil liberties line than the two big parties. Did they know about this beforehand? Will they kick up a fuss about it? (I suspect not, their leader is a spineless idiot).
What would you do if you were the head of the spy agency, and you think that Greenwald has information showing that you are spying on your own politicians?
Maybe. But if you've dug yourself into a hole, doesn't it make sense to stop digging?
> What would you do if you were the head of the spy agency, and you think that Greenwald has information showing that you are spying on your own politicians?
They have several options:
(1) Point out to the politicians that they agreed to it (which they probably did, if only passively)
(2) Kill Greenwald. Unlikely to work since Snowden has probably spread any documents widely around by now.
(3) Threaten Greenwald. Less publically than what they did.
(4) Use the information on the politicians to blackmail them into keeping quiet.
(5) Suggest to the politicians that the policy, though done for the right reasons (defence against terrorism, keeping in with the Americans, blah blah blah) may have gone too far and should now be looked into.
If it did, then clearly people in positions of power are happy to abuse them to hold that power.
If it did not, then it implies there is a whole shadow power structure so confident of their position that they are happy to do something like this knowing full well it would get publicity.
I wouldn't never, ever doubt the amount of sheer stupidity and arrogance of a Government.
Icelanders replied with some good pictures: https://www.google.com/search?q=iceland+terrorism&tbm=isch
Then again this is the country that inspired Nineteen Eighty-Four (Minitrue from Orewell's time at the BBC) and The Prisoner.
As an aside, what exactly is wrong with freezing the assets of a company that does not appear to plan to meet its liabilities?
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-terrorism,_Crime_and_Secur...
Intimidation is the purpose of anti-terrorism legislation. This is not an abuse of some exceptional powers -- it's their most common use.
They are justified to the population on the basis of extreme measures for extreme opponents - if that is shown to be a smokescreen and the security services to be inveterate liars, I think the population will be far less inclined to accept any calls for special terror laws.
The war on terror as an excuse just became rather more transparent.
And I'm not so sure about the role of the population either. It's not exactly them who can either accept or not accept the call for such laws.
If you had someone, on a national ticket, who would openly call for their abolishment, matters would be different, of course.
But then -- how do you get onto a national ticket? A hysterical, broken democracy is a hard thing to fix from inside.
Perhaps it is, but the American people don't seem to want that. Kerry voiced a similar opinion in 2004 and Bush took great advantage by pointing that out. Popular opinion appeared to be on Bush's side i.e. that terrorism is not a law enforcement matter:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/10/bush.kerry.terror/
if you guys did want to burn your constitutional rights, what the rest of the world got to do with it?! we value civil liberties, civil rights and freedom..
i know half north-america also do.. but you must put these guys under control, at least until their IQ raise a little bit, so they cannot push the buttons if your country machinery..
but anyway, now it was also the UK.. we could see this one comming from the US, but UK? as sex pistols would say: nevermind the bollocks
All of our contries has its own bad apples, but its a pretty bad thing when they are running our governments.. shame on you UK!
At the same time, treating terrorism prevention as a police mater appears to militarize the police.
As any organisation, you don't survive very long by detonating your leadership class.
Also, the leadership may not care about their consequences too much either, other than preferably living to fight another day.
Unchecked power in the hands of folks with good intention can sometimes be used to great affect to achieve good ends but almost inevitably such powers fall into the hands of folks who would abuse them. More so, even people operating under what they consider to be good intentions can lead to tragedies of unimaginable proportions.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/18/david-m...
At 6:30 am this morning my time - 5:30 am on the East Coast of the US - I received a telephone call from someone who identified himself as a "security official at Heathrow airport." He told me that my partner, David Miranda, had been "detained" at the London airport "under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act of 2000."
David had spent the last week in Berlin, where he stayed with Laura Poitras, the US filmmaker who has worked with me extensively on the NSA stories. A Brazilian citizen, he was returning to our home in Rio de Janeiro this morning on British Airways, flying first to London and then on to Rio. When he arrived in London this morning, he was detained.
At the time the "security official" called me, David had been detained for 3 hours. The security official told me that they had the right to detain him for up to 9 hours in order to question him, at which point they could either arrest and charge him or ask a court to extend the question time. The official - who refused to give his name but would only identify himself by his number: 203654 - said David was not allowed to have a lawyer present, nor would they allow me to talk to him.
I immediately contacted the Guardian, which sent lawyers to the airport, as well various Brazilian officials I know. Within the hour, several senior Brazilian officials were engaged and expressing indignation over what was being done.
"Even the Mafia had ethical rules against targeting the family members of people they feel threatened by."
Inspector Javert?
If I went out and suggested that the families of the politicians who did this should be kidnapped, held by force for hours without any contact with the outside world, and have all their possessions stolen, I'd be rightly condemned all around. Hell, even if I suggested one of the politicians who conceived this should be abducted by goons and abused for hours on end, I'd probably be indicted under some terrorist act or another.
And perhaps I should be: it's a deep depravity what happened here, and I'm deeply ashamed it happens anywhere, let alone in the Western world. Soon we won't be able to hold ourselves up as beacons of freedom to those in savage, barbaric places like China where all Internet usage is surveilled or Russia where you can be targeted for being gay or being a member of the press who has printed stories critical of the State.
I've just finished reading a pamphlet written ~370 years ago, in 1644, called "Compassionate Samaritan", authored by a very interesting character named William Walwyn, where he had this to say about the religious establishment of his time:
> There they brand men with the name of heretics, and fasten what errors they think are most hateful to the people upon those men they purpose to make odious. There they confute all opinions, and boldly they may do it, for as much as no liberty of reply or vindication in public is allowed to any, though never so much scandalized by them. And that men may not vindicate themselves by writing, their next interest is to be masters of the press, of which they are lately become by an ordinance for licensing books; which, being intended by the Parliament for a good and necessary end, namely the prohibition of all books dangerous or scandalous to the state, is become by means of the licensers, who are divines and intend their own interest, most serviceable to themselves in the stopping of honest men's writings, that nothing may come to the world's view but what they please - unless men will run the hazard of imprisonment, as I now do. So that in public they may speak what they will, write what they will, they may abuse whom they will, and nothing can be said against them. Well may they presume of making themselves masters of the people, having these foundations laid, and the people generally willing to believe they are good.
Now, anyone can replace "the divines" from the (very long) quote with the current establishment and the "heretics" and "honest men" with, well, the few honest men of our times.
Nevertheless, I was questioned by the queue as others boarded the plane, casting nasty looks my way. The cop asked some pretty insulting, at times ignorant, questions. I guess to see if I harboured any anti-British/anti-state/anti-cop feelings. I got the impression if I lost my cool I'd be spending a lot longer in that airport.
I didn't know my rights, that's my fault. Nor did I want to escalate a situation where the odds were stacked against me. I did feel pretty disgusted though, given that I'd done nothing wrong. Even now I feel like I shouldn't share this kind of thing online lest the wrong person read it. I found myself asking; why me? Was it something I said on Twitter or Facebook? Did I just look at him the wrong way without realising?
Luckily he let me go after some thorough questioning and the plane waited for me (although finding my seat was basically a walk of shame). They probably do this day and daily to all kinds of people. And most would never talk about it for fear of receiving worse down the line.
That's one of the worst parts of abuses of power; the people not being abused very quickly start to blame the victims of abuse. "You must be a bad person if they're talking to you," onlookers might be thinking to themselves.
This whole thread has destroyed any credibility HN had.
Yeah, don't think too far - it's probably your skin color that makes you a terrrist.
Thievery and intimidation are good indicators of who and what we're dealing with.
Ah, bless. Its almost funny, isn't it?
All we can do is harass our own, in order to suck up to Uncle Sam.
TBH, I find UK behavior worse. Its not on principle, its sucking up. My country turns my stomach at times, and this is one of them.
Going by history, the UK is the most threatening entity ever...
What a flagrant abuse of power. It looks like their power should be reigned in.
The acts are fascism. The public would pay more attention if we refer to them as such.
* edits: wording. I have hard time being dispassionate about this.
"They're not on the road to fascism, but they're not very far from that road."
I really don't know anything beyond genocide I could muster (we don't have a word for holocaust of entire humanity, do we?)
Which fits the situation.
Your genocide reference, an attempt to trivialize the above statement, doesn't even make sense.
Overusing these labels dilutes their 'brand', and then you don't have appropriate adjectives for real cases of fascism or genocide.
(Not to mention those sort of comments are nothing but unproductive comment sniping. They do absolutely nothing to further the conversation.)
Edit: shocked is probably the wrong word it's hard to get surprised by this stuff anymore.
Once you get in the country you have different rights (http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/england/law_e/law_legal_system...) (https://www.gov.uk/police-powers-of-arrest-your-rights)
Maybe since they know they can't intimidate Greenwald directly they are going after his family and loved ones?
Link to the open letter: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/18/david-m...
If only the same outrage that exists now, existed back then...
You haven't read up much history of Northern Ireland? There is a lots of examples of the UK and anti-terrorism laws. Imprisonment without trial, etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-terrorism_legislation#Unit...
There were major changes to "terrorism" legislation between 2000-2010. The 2001 and later acts/modifications were more a result of 9/11, 7/7 and the "war on terror" (and the UK being Bush's little bitch).
>Schedule 7 is the law that allows the police to detain anyone at the UK borders without any requirement to show probable cause and hold them for up to nine hours, without seeking further justification. The detainee must respond to any questions, regardless of whether a lawyer is present. No lawyer is provided automatically.
>It is a criminal offence for the detainee to refuse to answer questions -- regardless of the grounds for that refusal or otherwise fully cooperate with the police.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/for-media/press-releases/uk-deten...
Theorizing about being intimidated and kept without any form of process is different than being in the middle of it.
"Glenn, Glenn - did you really think there'd be zero consequences for you and those close to you? I expected Ed to believe WL lies, but you?"
- John Schindler (@20committee) August 18, 2013
It should not be allowed that power is so easily abused, nor should written laws be so easily twisted without fear of consequence.
I believe a civil disruption of the airport specifically targeting the security apparatus would be an appropriate response.
To the cynics, yes, I am idealistic and, yes I'm pretty much just venting, but damn, this is just going too far. Suggestions for constructive frustration welcome.
By who ?
Allow me to take John Stuart Mill out of context momentarily, because he was speaking with regard to Irish-English relationship (territory disputes between the two countries). But it summarises Mill's thought on why radical and extreme thought is useful: it helps bring small to moderate change because it incites dialogue. Unfortunately, this seems to be where we are at now.
"...I well knew that to propose something which would be called extreme was the true way not to impede but to facilitate a more moderate experiment. [...] To induce them to approve of any change it is necessary that they should look upon it as a middle course: they think every proposal extreme and violent unless they hear of some other proposal going still farther, upon which their antipathy to extreme views may discharge itself".[1]
[0] http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/18/david-m...
[1] Autiobiography. John Stuart Mill. Penguin Classics. p. 216.
Why are they so angry? There must be a good reason.
Why do people think the security state is being rammed through with such a sense of urgency right now? Are they expecting something? A war? An economic crisis? Ecological meltdown? Invasion from outer space?
I ask because I get the impression that there is a top-down (from the executive branch) full-court-press on this, and that the gloves are coming off. That leads me to wonder if there's something driving this, some sense of urgency.
In effect, the guardians of the status quo are in full panic mode and are not necessarily reacting rationally.
This is why this incident should be investigated by ( on the UK side ) a parliamentary commission, and ( on the US side ) by an independent congressional commission.
1. http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/07/a-bad-dr...
The recent PRISM scandal has exposed the results of this short-term and irrational behaviour, and now the UK and US governments are embarrassed and angry. Either they regret their surveillance of their own citizens, or else they still believe in it and are angry at the revelation. So rather than repair the situation, they're making it worse.
The final component is that extraordinary powers will always be abused, eventually. And this is probably what we have seen here.
I don't believe in any huge conspiracy, just a political elite that is often incompetent, and (particularly in the UK) stuck in the past.
It now feels impossible to criticise other countries for their appalling human rights records. We don't respect democracy or freedom, so how can we ever argue in its defence? The Western powers should be the torchbearers for democracy, not those trampling on it.
I think the solution is more whistle-blowing until we achieve sufficient transparency from the states involved and ethical behaviour from the security services. The EU is also already doing a great job of criticising the US and UK, and hopefully that political pressure will pay off. A change of government on both sides of the atlantic (don't hold you breath in the UK) would also provide an opportunity for progress.
9/11 and the lack of civilian resistance to a lot of the government actions which followed has (IMHO) shown that they can push the envelope and encounter no outcry. 'They' have continued the push ever since.
I would love to be corrected on this, but I can't think of another modern era when so much obvious, unscrupulous actions were taken by authorities and yet no grand resistance was put up.
No matter how conservative my friends and I were, we saw not so long after those days Farenheit 9/11, the then controversial 9/11 documentary. No matter how hard-core Republican I was then (spending time in the Arab world later had me quickly outgrow that), I was appalled by the admission of lifer Congressman, scumbag Charles Rangel (NY - D) in his interview in the movie. He said no one he knew read the Patriot Act, not a single one, him included. No one would say no at the time to such legislation. Even as a sophomore I was appalled and said in the first real interest in non-partisan politics, we should have people removed for such incompetence.
As I said I was a sophomore then, and discovered subsequently how very sophmoric I was. Nothing is more self-serving than govt in crisis, in the alia acta est way. That was the beginning of my disbelief in my government, then all government more as each year passes. Fuck them all.
Or issues of national security or state emergencies or...
Actually, I can think of one area that probably won't be receiving all the extra scrutiny that the rest of us have been enjoying in new found police state, and that's Wall Street. Someone's gotta pay for all those toys cops have been buying lately.
Again, sorry. Our country is being run by fuckwits. We keep voting for different parties but it doesn't seem to make a difference.... Hang on a sec....
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/japan-end-abusive-detention-s...
More and more, it appears western governments are following the policy of if you criticize us, you are terrorist.
"You are either with us, or you are with the terrorists." - George W Bush
I could see this being the case because politicians train to talk about health care and the economy, while the details of NSA programs are rarely discussed and so politicians have little incentive to be up on the facts.
It's quite probable that Obama knows about shit the various agencies have done that would make GG's hair curl. It's also quite probable they've done much worse shit that he doesn't know about.
You think we're not part of this totalitarian movement?
Language is not the binding factor here.
less of this: "ohh noo.. Should I write my opinion on the internet? What if the NSA is watching????! Will I be put on the...the. the list???"
At least with these incidents we get to know which other countries are complicit and under the influence of the NSA.
Our biggest hope is this becomes a national issue for the next election so we at least have the opportunity to elect the leader who respects our constitutional rights the most.
if people dont really pressure for a immediate change in laws, its a illusion that by exchanging parties in power they will change their behavior..
they had made us believe there were only 3 powers in democracy.. but the truth is there are only 1 real power.. and thats the one that comes from the people.. the other 3 ones, are just institutionalized..
its in times like these, people must show this power in action in a way that make the institutions fear the people power..
they made it in the french revolution, they made it in the arab spring.. they are making it here in brazil..
in brazil now they are just listening, and doing what they are told to.. dont know what will become of all of this.. but it is working..
people must stand.. its the only way against distopic and schizophrenic governments
IMHO it is very unlikely as very few people in the developed countries today care about political power and modern weapons, like drones and PRISM, are very anti-democratic in nature.
Those "sociopath banksters" might have a long list of sins and villainies, but that doesn't mean that they're the ones at fault here. Oppression is a system, not a rational order directed by a single person or group. I would not be surprised if a poll of your "banksters" revealed a far higher level of personal support for civil liberties than the average citizen. There's no reason to suppose that they want or have any interest in living in a world where the State can seize and steal the property of someone with no trial or opportunity for appeal.
Yup, looks like we are officially living in some sort of Orwellian dystopia.
It seems obvious that a targeted person should travel with a lot of older/disposable devices full of lightly encrypted but legal "NSFL" material, like medical/battlefield/surgery photos or, depending on the country, various types of legal porn. Or perhaps Slavoj Zizek books sans title information.
Looks like a total travel boycott of the UK is prudent. In addition to compelled disclosure of keys, it is worse than the US for this reason too.
I'm not sure how it works for transit. Also, if I were not a US citizen (and, even as a US citizen), I'd avoid the US as a transit country if at all possible -- lack of sterile transit makes it a pain due to waiting and scheduling even if you're a citizen, and if you're not visa waiver, it's horrible.
The UK does sterile transit, so most travelers shouldn't even have to touch security/immigration/customs if they're in transit only, which is what confuses me about this story.
Yes, the UK is worse. I never really got why Assange went there willingly in the first place.
http://filipspagnoli.wordpress.com/stats-on-human-rights/sta...
Are you prepared to argue that the threat of home furniture will ever cause a chilling effect?
I doubt they think they can intimidate him. They probably are hoping they can get their hands on as yet unreleased docs to stop them being published. Either way it's a real mistake.
- Does it sound like he is now reporting impartially or is he clearly a participant in the game with revenge on his mind?
"Reuters is the absolute worst at tearing comments out of context for sensationalizing headlines. The paraphrase:
Q: Will the UK's detention of your partner deter your future reporting?
A: Absolutely not. If anything, it will do the opposite. It will embolden me: I have many more documents to report on, including ones about the UK, where I'll now focus more. I will be more aggressive, not less, in reporting.
Q: What effect do you think they'll be of the UK's detention of your partner?
A: When they do things like this, they show the world their real character. It'll backfire. I think they'll come to regret it.
REUTERS: HE VOWS TO PUBLISH DOCUMENTS ABOUT UK AFTER DETENTION, SAYS THEY WILL BE SORRY!!!"
I don't think most people in this country will care until they can't buy a new iPhone 6, or Galaxy S 5... What I am really surprised by is how many other countries have tolerated this so far.
[1] https://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/human-rights/terrori...
[2] https://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/policy/bill-tracker/...
I think I'll buy the Guardian tomorrow...
More than a few years ago, I had key evidence about a felony and therefore had good reason to cooperate with the investigating officers. The initial questions were simple, factual, and related to the felony. But then the questions changed. At a certain point the questions became almost accusatory, at which point I started to ask WTF. It was then - and only then - that I was told I was a suspect and read my Miranda Rights. As knowledgeable as I was about my rights in my own country, all this still left dumbfounded. (It turned out the suspect in the felony had subsequently accused me and a colleague of a different felony. For months we were still suspects, had our own rights limited and were interrogated frequently. Thankfully, evidence came to light several months later that firmly cleared me and my colleague.)
I can not imagine being in a foreign country and going through a comparable situation. Beyond the right and wrong of David Miranda being interrogated, I've got a huge moral problem with any country interrogating a non-citizen without legal counsel.
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." -Mahatma Gandhi
The UK's credibility as a democracy is fading fast...
It's not just legally and politically impossible, it wouldn't solve the problem, it would have dire economic consequences, it would be grossly disproportionate and unfair and these kind of petty attempts at disciplining sovereign nations would only serve to politically destabilise Europe.
Furthermore, by cutting ties with the UK, both its financial and economical situation will be worsened, making for a loss of importance until it’s only an annoying island off the coast of France rather than the first waypoint to Canada or (in this case) Brazil.
It's the Council of Europe, which is the body which coordinated the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) and runs the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).
The only human rights cases that come before the EU courts (the CJEU) are only those within its jurisdiction. Which means: either reviewing acts of EU institutions (e.g. as in Kadi, which was reviewing regulations by the EC implementing a UN Security Council directive), or reviewing EU laws, or reviewing acts of member states implementing EU laws.
So: while the EU does have a charter of fundamental rights (the CFREU) - and is itself soon going to be a signatory to the ECHR - you can only sue the government in the CJEU for violating it when they're implementing EU law. (Especially for the UK and Poland, who have a pointless clause which restates this just for them because they're special snowflakes).
The Terrorism Act 2000 is not an EU law.
So: this is outside the scope of the EU's jurisdiction. The appropriate international court to take this to is the ECtHR.
As for kicking the UK out of the Council of Europe, that's something that can and should happen if, and only if, someone brings this to the the ECtHR, they rule against the UK, and the UK refuses to bring UK law into compliance. Trying to short-circuit that and kick the UK out without that legal process would do nothing except damage the reputation of the Council of Europe for rule of law.
Deleted comment
That's not the first time I see an article with that many upvotes dead. Was it 'not dead' first? If so then it was a moderation action.
>Why is this submission* of Greenwald's account of the incident dead (even after it got on the front page with 25+ upvotes)?
>* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6233685
I'd say it's because the submitter for the linked submission, with username cransa (https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cransa), is only 17 hours old, while the submitter of the active link is m1 (https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=m1), a user for 2 years. It is interesting that m1 hasn't commented on any submissions in months, and this submission is one of only two in his history. If he's been active recently, he's only been lurking. Of course, it shouldn't matter how old the user is or what their activity history looks like, so long as the submission isn't spam. The deaded submission clearly isn't spam and cransa's comments aren't spammy either (and that dead link is his only submission to boot), but this isn't the first time the mods have decided to give preference to links submitted by older users (edit: as well giving preference to other users with no discernible rationale for doing so). As well, in my own observations, it appears that there is a upvote/comment threshold that once crossed means the rising submission is liable to get killed. That is, if a rising submission has ~10-20 upvotes but no comments, it seems at greater risk of being deaded. And of course there's the auto-hellban for new users that decide to jump into active discussions, regardless of their comments' content. I think that's a more insidious action than any of the preceding.
tl;dr: Mods = Gods
(I don't know if qubitsam deleted the comment of his own accord. But assuming he didn't: Please, dear gods/mods, consider not deleting this one too.)
Could the case be made that journalists are legitimate targets for investigation following on from Manning and Snowdon? My focus here is less on terrorism and more towards counter-intelligence. Were I a rival nation-state I would see an intelligence-gathering opportunity in what's happened: Rather than bribing/coercing people into become informants, there is now the option to invite them to 'blow the whistle' by posing as a journalist.
It's sad, very sad. I am pessimistic and I have an impression looking at how Obama and co. are lying without any consequences, what NSA has being doing and other recent examples, that we lost that war and we have no tools to fight against it.
The title was edited by the mods at least twice.
After all, when the security state starts to be driven by the profit motive, were we really so naive as to expect anything less?
I can only hope that this incident is investigated further and that we get some solid answers from those in power about why David had been detained for the legally permitted time of 9 hours without charge.
Had they found anything during the 9 hours, I'm afraid he wouldn't be flying to Brazil - he would have been detained indefinitely as a "terror" suspect in order to intimidate Greenwald even more.
case in point, there was this guy who stripped naked at a TSA check a while back.
you yourself can easily trigger an incident like this and escalate it.
right now there is one side of the story, reported by a deeply involved, non-objective actor. if you ask a parent about what happened to their kid in school when it was expelled you'll also get a very subjective, partisan take.
this "discussion" here smells of the reddit hivemind, quickly jumping to conclusion, throwing around terms like fascism and full of nerd bravado. nobody asks what really happened.
> Terrorism: The use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims. [1]
Ok... Someone with a lot of power is too easily intimidated.
[1] http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=terrorism+definition
it is all 'ifs', which is my point - not much is known, the so called fog of war is still in full effect but people around here are already jumping to conclusions.
might have been a nasty way of intimidation, might have been a security clerk reacting to standard procedure. no one here right now knows.
Wait...What? HFSMFCSWTF!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/09/sister-megan-rice-s...
tomorrow this can be us just for posting the truth on the forum here folks! Wake up!