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Comment by blitzar | Hacker News Reader

"Craig Murray is an author, broadcaster and human rights activist. He was British Ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004 and Rector of the University of Dundee from 2007 to 2010."

A lot of <activists|tiktok pranksters|politicians|others> pretend to be "journalists" these days, and claim to have special rights above and beyond the general population. I dont claim this to be the case here, but notice it constantly as a feature of the modern attention economy. Their own bio doesnt even back up the contention that they are from said "protected" group.

Attacking Citizens as Terrorists, misappropriating the anti-terrorism laws to infringe upon due process is disgusting - although it is the will of the people who were happy to usher through these powers, out of fear, back in the 911 days.

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Murray was a temporary member of the NUJ (the UK's "official" journalists' union), allowed his membership to lapse when working largely on the Assange case, his subsequent request for membership renewal was refused by the NUJ in disputed circumstances. Murray's site has plenty of comment on this.

He's no prankster.

Agreed. I don't think there is much politically that he and I would agree on, but he appears to be fearless. He follows his convictions wherever that may lead - even if it upsets people who you might expect to be his political allies.

It's also worth noting that he a) upset the British government when an Ambassador for publicising GWOT rendition flights, and b) has also upset the SNP/Scottish Government for publicising SNP corruption and their treatment of Alex Salmond.

> He's no prankster.

Though he does seem like a bit of a crank. Apparently Craig Murray thought Russia "lacked a motive" to poison a Russian spy who defected to the West, but he believed the Jews had "a clear motivation." That reeks of a broken reasoning process driven by prejudice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Murray#Skepticism_about_...

>although it is the will of the people who were happy to usher through these powers, out of fear, back in the 911 days.

was right there with you until the very end. people seem to confuse the fact that members of congress that are elected by the people do things on behalf of those people. this isn't a situation where the transitive property from math can be used. for example, if A elected B and B did C does not mean A wanted C

Almost three-quarters of the public believe that it is right to give up civil liberties to improve our security against terrorist attacks. A Guardian/ICM poll published today shows that 73% of respondents back the trade-off, with only 17% rejecting it outright.

Usual disclaimers, 2005, polls etc - https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/aug/22/july7.terrorism - breakdown by party/class/gender/age and the support is the same (+/- tiny margin).

It's not news that people agree with vague statements that sound good on paper. When the specifics are explained to them, they change their minds.

Q.1 Tony Blair has announced a series of anti-terrorism measures following last month's London bombings, which some people say might mean the loss of some civil liberties. Do you think it is right or wrong to lose some civil liberties to improve our security against terrorist attacks?

I dont think you really need further specifics - years later without bombs going off I expect, with no further explanation to those polled needed, that the 70/30 split would probably be the opposite direction.

> "Do you think it is right or wrong to lose some civil liberties to improve our security against terrorist attacks?"

That "some" is the problem. People who say they support the tradeoff often change their minds when the specifics are explained to them. This happens all of the time in polling and even rigorous studies. Subtle changes in phrasing and context completely change results.

We're seeing that right now. There was a survey done on college campuses on the phrase "from the river to the sea". many endorsed it, until they were shown a map of the region such that the specific meaning became clearer, and then a lot of them changed their minds.

This sounds more like manufactured consent than the will of the people. Plus, I don't know if this happened with Blair's measures, but across the pond, the Patriot was initially written to be sunset after 4 years (from 2001), but wasn't fully sunset until 2020! This was long after the majority of Americans in polls said they didn't want to trade civil liberties to fight terror.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/183548/americans-say-liberties-...

> A lot of <activists|tiktok pranksters|politicians|others> pretend to be "journalists" these days, and claim to have special rights above and beyond the general population.

"Journalism" is an activity, like programming, not a protected class of people. No one who routinely does journalism thinks they have rights above and beyond ordinary people; the very fact that anyone can do journalism is what entails that any rights "journalists" have are rights that everyone should have.

I used to hitch-hike quite a bit, and a few times I got picked up by a journalist just back from covering some God-awful war, I guess they just wanted to talk to someone who didn't want to kill people, just to get it out of their head. I'd get out of their car feeling like a low-rent psychiatrist, thanking my lucky stars that I didn't have their job. Journalists have my deepest respect.

Potential abuse of such powers should not be tolerated regardless of whether one is part of a protected group or not.

Bingo. This whole "journalist" as a protected class just gives them cover to treat everyone crappily by distracting from this core issue.

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