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...
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.
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...
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) 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.
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.
I wasn't aware that Brazilian citizens detained in the UK had rights granted by the US.
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'm pretty sure that Greenwald and Miranda learned to be particularly careful about data integrity after that incident.
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 this wasn't officially sanctioned from above there will be fall-out.
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.
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??)
FWIW, this sort of behavior was expected from the UK and US authorities. They did the same to @ioerror and will likely do the same to any individual who is seen as challenging the interests of the US and UK intelligence organizations.
If you've de-cloaked yourself as an investigative apparatus that's dedicated to exposing the secrets of folks who expressly do NOT want their secrets exposed, you should expect no less.
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.
It's naiveté at the highest level to think that any meaningful proportion of the electorate cares, and that a single thing will change. If anything, the State now has tacit permission to press even further down the road of dystopia.
We live in a highly insular world in which our ideas are echoed by like-minded people. In such a world, it's easy to make the mistake of assuming that the broader populace is similarly like-minded. The reality, however, is that so long as sufficient bread and circuses are provided, nobody will care nearly as much as you or I do.
The second option is equally unpleasant, but for different reasons. We would require a total and catastrophic economic collapse, such that bread and circuses can no longer be affordably provided and such that the populace becomes sufficiently uncomfortable to actually start giving a shit. THIS solution is also not advisable, since such scenarios don't offer options to guide who is elected in the place of the devil we know. The transition from the Weimar to the Third Reich offers a valuable, and scary, precedent here.
Since both of the above are unpalatable, my solution is to drink heavily and bitch endlessly on the internet while still enjoying my comfortable life.
FFS don't talk nonsense and if you must don't do it here.
People overestimate the impact of the Internet, but they also underestimate it; I have a suspicion that the dissolution of traditional mass media will make it easier for interest groups to influence the public sphere via social networks, using propagation techniques similar to those that Upworthy is currently harnessing. That's what I find fascinating about Upworthy: using social media marketing strategies to sell ideas instead of products.
There is a legal solution. Courts may yet declare this unconstitutional.
Then there is a voting solution. People voted for Obama because he promised to get rid of all this. As Bush said fool me once, you cant fool twice. So people might in 2016 elect someone who has a record of being against these measures.
Plenty of solutions before a violent revolution. See for example the transition from The McCarthy era.
FWIW, the nephew of a very close friend of mine mentioned the topic of Snowden to me. He's a former army ranger, just recently mustered out and now going to veterinary school. He thought Snowden was a hero. His mom, who basically owns a few gas stations, has been very pro Assange and Bradley Manning for years and I'm sure is also paying a decent amount of attention to Snowden's story.
I've had quite the opposite experience so far. Most of the non-tech people I met recently on buses, shops etc. seemed to understand the problem very clearly and they cared. People cared about the issues at hand and quite intensely at that.
True that the majority seems silent, but deep inside almost everyone expressed a kind of hatred towards the 'O-force'.
Let's not misunderstand people because each one of us wants to hear positive news everyday. Stuff like Kanye's baby. This is not an unexpected behavior because ordinary people like us really want only one thing: Not being hassled by assholes.
In my opinion most of the times people are in pursuit of happiness and that is also, mark my words, the sole reason why people voted the O's to power in the first place. Let's not underestimate the power of people and lose hope altogether. It's much quicker to fall downhill than to climb high in the trust game of politics. Ever wondered how many people still dislike the bygone Bush?
Astrophysicists, mathematicians, and scientists, for the most part, don't read Hacker News. But they do read the Huffington Post. Some of them even are so clever they made these microwaveable-beef taquitos that always come out crunchy that I'm just about to snack on. They don't care about issues that directly affect their freedoms and liberty? The masses are unwashed?
Your corrosive cynicism isn't helping them care, nor is it furthering the debate any.
People may not be up in arms and shouting in streets now, but once the public opinion takes root in the mind, it would be hard to change come election no matter who promises what.
What catches my attention is the wide variety of reasons people have for carrying. Some are afraid that the government is going to use it to take away their guns, others are concerned about surveillance of GSM/LGBT activists, others are particularly disturbed by the NSA/DEA angle. One of those conversations was then followed up with a tirade about 9/11 and the moon landing... but the vast majority of people who are concerned by this are perfectly normal people.
The DEA partnership basically won over minorities, drug people, young people.
You could probably find ways to make this an anti-immigrant issue in general (spying on foreigners; obviously if you're Muslim or brown, but maybe it could somehow extend to Chinese immigrants too?)
Tech people hate it naturally. Business people (other than defense contractors) hate it because it makes doing business harder, particularly if you're doing business with Europe or other international business.
This abuse of Greenwald's lover might win over gay people.
Gun people were already super suspicious of the government since Sandy Hook w.r.t. registry and confiscation (honestly for the entire Obama administration, and even during Bush, and definitely during Clinton, too, but more so now)
Right wing people are suspicious due to IRS and general hatred of Obama. "NSA shares records with IRS" would be a great extension to the story, but even lawful IRS subpoena of electronic records supports the case for strong crypto under the control of the end user.
All we need is for NSA records to be used against Christians (pro life groups? I'm finding it hard to find ways NSA spying is specifically anti mainstream Christians) to essentially have 80% of people on the side of freedom, each for his own reason and maybe totally different from the others.
The only people left on the other side are die-hard militarists, defense contractors, and the political class, or people who are irrationally putting hypothetical safety over even their own liberty (I'd expect people to sacrifice unused liberty or the liberty of other people for their own hypothetical safety, always).
This is the demographic we need.
It may not be related, but we know first hand what its like to have the government entirely too "in the know" about your life. Not many of us are fans of it, even when it was arguably necessary to keep people alive.
From what I've seen so far, many people care, but not in the way we'd like. A surprising amount of people think along the lines of "If Greenwald/Snowden/etc are doing something wrong, maybe they shouldn't be doing it" or "If this makes me safe from terrorists, then I support it".
Don't underestimate the stupidity of the general populace. People are dumb and selfish and generally won't stand up against injustices unless it somehow directly affects them.
It'd be like giving a batter an extra swing. He'll probably miss, but there's no reason to give him the opportunity.
This has been news for two months now and it continues to be news. It affected US-Russia relations, its big in Brazil, Germany. There was a vote which almost succeeded in defunding the NSA. Ordinary people do care and opinion polls show it.
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.
Either those changes are due to Snowden and then he should own up and show some of that transparency he's promised or he's lying through his teeth. Either way it is not looking good.
Probably need a citation for that. I didn't see such an assertion in his conference. In fact, he said "repeated leaks of classified information have initiated the debate".
"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...
So Orwell was a little paranoid... but Huxley was spot on.
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?
Now, along comes a situation which looks a lot like an attempt at journalistic suppression by the state. The incentive for the media to go along with any potential D-notice has evaporated because this is just censorship by other means, and if you're going to censor us anyway, why bother with D-notices? Issuing a D-notice over harrassing a journalist (via their family, in this case) would be something of a bodyliner, and I don't think even the British press would have a hard time figuring out what to do about it.
If anyone issued a super-injunction over this, the British media would see it as a challenge as to who could ensure the details were insinuated in such as way as to ensure the widest distribution.
You see it all the time. Go back to the very first HN discussions about PRISM and phonetapping and you'll see people swearing on their mothers life that nobody outside HN will ever care because it is just a 'nerd issue' or something.
I wrote to my MP, (Michael Gove) about this. While I disagree with him on many (if not most) things as an ex-journalist I hope he is unhappy with this.
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?
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.
The fact that you instantly jump to 'licking the boots of power' indicates to me that you don't tolerate any dissent from your views.
> 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
This is not 'journalism'. This is blackmail.
I know you're trolling me here, but fuck it there probably are some halfwits out there nodding along with these power-worshiping redefinitions of old, well-understood law. From 18 U.S.C. § 873, blackmail: "Whoever, under a threat of informing, or as a consideration for not informing, against any violation of any law of the United States, demands or receives any money or other valuable thing, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned..." There's no money here. What is the "other valuable thing"? The safety of journalists' innocent loved ones? That's monstrous, and that isn't a proper interpretation of law.
No, the 'other valuable thing' in this case is immunity from search or seizure.
"Don't do this or I will harm your reputation" is blackmail. Not really a moral thing to be talking about doing.
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.
He was not, it was 3 hours later.
But, you know that can go both ways. Maybe the caller was sympathetic to Miranda's situation but his hands were tied by the bureaucracy and all of his fellows who were less-than-sympathetic? By alerting Greenwald he let someone else without anything to lose take action. Maybe the reason he wouldn't give out his name is because he didn't want to face internal reprisals, but he had to give his serial number because of policy so he went by the book.
I'm just saying that with such little information we have so far, it is a real rashomon situation. Also, hanlon's razor.
Greenwald sends his husband all the way to Berlin and back to meet with Poitras? And he's allegedly (from some headlines this weekend) carrying all the Snowden documents? Wouldn't Greenwald already have this? Why would he send his husband and not some unknown person that was probably under the radar?
And obviously the US/UK is trying to let the Snowden/Assange group know that their every step is being watched. I'm also guessing Poitras' safe house in Berlin is now not as safe anymore.
This is like watching a spy novel unfold in real life. I can't wait for the book that eventually explains everything that is currently happening.
As for what they're trying to accomplish... that seems like a fun thing to speculate about over drinks :)
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.
Discrediting gay people because they are gay is losing its power even in the US.
The only prominent politician I can think of who pushes that line is Nick Griffin, and he's literally a nazi.
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.
Any tech they seized is now being foresically analysed. He is unlikely to get it back.
They probably thought that it was highly likely he was a data mule between Greenwald and Poitras. I'd guess that they were probably right in that assumption.
I know a man, who knows a dog. I'll leave it at that.
If you're right, they screwed up, because they detained him on his trip back to Brazil. Any data he might have been carrying to Poitras he could have already delivered -- and I'm sure he would have been smart enough not to keep a copy.
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.)
Somewhat surprisingly, I don't think it plays in the US anymore either. I have heard fairly little about either Greenwald or Manning's GSM status. The media has made more of a deal with Snowden and his "pole dancing" ex-girlfriend.
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.”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/06/25/greenwald-s...
“When I was in Hong Kong, I spoke to my partner in Rio via Skype and told him I would send an electronic encrypted copy of the documents,” Greenwald said. “I did not end up doing it. Two days later his laptop was stolen from our house and nothing else was taken. Nothing like that has happened before. I am not saying it’s connected to this, but obviously the possibility exists.”
After that his partner was definitely in play and that set the stage for todays (or yesterday, depending on where you live) action.
I think audit trails and accountability (and the threat of punishment for those who abuse their power) will curtail such civil liberties abuses.
Mr Miranda should consult a qualified lawyer: There will likely be several good ones who would do the work pro bono, to explore avenues whereby he can seek redress.
At the very least, it will cost the government (significant quantities of) time and money in legal expenses, and may cause them to think twice about using such tactics in future.
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
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.
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).
It's a struggle for me to even vaguely consider the Mail as a good source but they do seem to needle the government over certain things the others won't touch. I'd imagine because they feel they have such a swing over a large proportion of the main voter base for the UK they feel like they can get away with things that a lesser newspaper would be dragged over the coals for.
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
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.
Detaining partner of journalist -> bad.
Detaining newspaper employee, possibly journalist -> very bad.
Once journalists will feel that they are in danger of no longer being free to do their reporting this story will get a lot more attention than it does at the moment.
One is harrassment, the other is political intimidation in an attempt to censor.
https://twitter.com/20committee
I still have some hope that they are at least capable of learning from their mistakes.
How did the Manning events show that?
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.
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.
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.
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...
I wouldn't never, ever doubt the amount of sheer stupidity and arrogance of a Government.
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.
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.
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 ....
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!
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.
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.
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."
Compare and contrast "detained 9 hours", which is a big violation of civil liberties on behalf of a government, with "dissolved an innocent child in acid", which is just sickening and inhuman.
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omicidio_di_Giuseppe_Di_Matteo
Not to say at all that what the government did in this case was "not so bad", just that there is worse out there.
Of course, a government has the power to brand a mafia as a criminal organization, but the line between legal and criminal can be very blurry, and often quite arbitrary.
If you just go, historically, by the score of committed crimes, then whatever metric you choose, governments and their agencies will beat criminal organizations by a huge margin.
Bullshit.
You'd do well to read more about the Mafia and how it affects places where it's strong. They are badly governed, and generally not good places to live or do business as an honest person.
Denmark has a strong government that is quite involved in its citizens lives, but the number of them that end up dead, tortured, with their lives ruined, and so on is minimal compared to people in Sicily, Calabria, Campania, or other areas in southern Italy dominated by Mafias. And the standard of living is far higher. People are happier; with the possible exception of the climate, which is not really something either Mafias or anyone else can change on a local level unless you read some of the wackier subreddits.
Mafias are nothing like western democracies. If you're going to compare them with governments, compare them with feudal, tribal systems where family and personal loyalty is everything, and the rule of law counts for nothing.
To equate even something so abhorrent as fascist Italy to the Mafia is to have a gross and severe misunderstanding of history. They are both bad, but very different.
The Mafia is a real thing here in Italy, not just some abstract talking point for your libertarian ranting.
Lesley Stahl: "We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?"
Madeleine Albright: "We think the price is worth it." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctions_against_Iraq#Albright...)
Dissidents (those who Greenwald praises) point out that international politics runs on the mafia model. (Keeping in mind that the mafia is small and nation-states are large. https://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/03-2)
The thinking that most politicians are just like people who would take a 12 year old boy and dump him in a vat of acid after strangling him is shallow and devoid of any depth of thinking on how different organizations operate.
States do dirty things, and so do individuals, and so do organizations on various levels. But there's a lot of differences in incentives, capabilities, tradeoffs, calculations and so on between them all. If you are really interested in understanding the world, rather than making the point that THE GUBERMENT IS EEEVIL, thinking about some of these differences would behoove you.
So: are you genuinely so poorly informed that you see no difference, or are you completely blinded by your libertarian propaganda as to not see any difference?
I live in Italy, and like many people, I intensely dislike Berlusconi. But, you know what? I'd prefer him 10 times - 100 times - to the sort of people who run actual Mafias.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/03/25/uk-italy-mafia-tria...
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004ZZMBAS/?tag=dedasys-20
By a former corespondent for The Economist in Italy.
I don't really think the Mafia was an integral component of his success though - in some ways that's an easy out for people looking for someone to blame for the whole Berlusconi phenomenon.
(http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/200205--.htm, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborations_between_the_Unit...)
Western liberal democracy often forgets (or pretends to forget) that history is a thing, and that people have memoeries. There are many more instances where Western foreign policy (often initiated by the US, supported by Europe) was beneficial to us in the short term, while having negative long term consequences. The CIA calls it 'blowback'. The last century in the Middle East and South and Central America is riddled with it. And then people turn around and ask 'why do they hate us?'.
I despair.
For example seeing the people in Egypt now (VICE documentary), both camps, whether the secular camp/army or Muslim Brotherhood were blaming Obama for the current situation.
On a similar note, hats off to Russia, that, even though is supporting the Assad regime in Syria and beyond, never gets such a strong backlash or blowback as you say. Or maybe the fights in Caucasus are underreported.
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.
Yeah, don't think too far - it's probably your skin color that makes you a terrrist.
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.
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.
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.)
Even though those are relatively exotic forms, compared to the one that exists in the middle of the political spectrum.
I really don't know anything beyond genocide I could muster (we don't have a word for holocaust of entire humanity, do we?)
"They're not on the road to fascism, but they're not very far from that road."
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...
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...
This I understand due to the threat level here. Bombs are discovered on a regular basis (I've linked to just one example[1] but if you take a look through the news in the last 2 months you'll find more) and the threat of terrorism is real.
If only the same outrage that exists now, existed back then...
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).
Theorizing about being intimidated and kept without any form of process is different than being in the middle of it.
>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...
"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.
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.
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.
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.
How about you choose a line in the sand. And say that behaviour on this side is OK and on the other side it's not.
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.
The one thing that is clear is that we shouldn't expect change under an Obama administration.
Election time is the best time for reform, i.e. where the democratic process has the most influence.
I agree that hope is better than despair but hope seems to be a bit of a tarnished word after the last 4+ years.
Or it may be that the average person still doesn't care. People who really don't care don't vote though, so all you really have to do is reach the people who are in any way paying attention.
And assuming we agreed that those changes would be beneficial to the political system, how might we go about achieving those reforms?
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.
Yes, the UK is worse. I never really got why Assange went there willingly in the first place.
AF had a cool "Petroleum Club" program, too, which let anyone marginally affiliated with the oil industry get free lounge access and other benefits.
I'd still almost always prefer making my connection within the US and flying nonstop from the US to my final European destination. I generally only fly ex-SFO, JFK, IAD so there's generally a non-stop flight anyway.
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.
The Heathrow airport is quite a mess, actually.
What one doesn't have to do is pass through border control or customs (unless one is transferring onto a domestic flight, then quite where you clear border control and customs varies from place to place — in the UK you clear the border at the port of entry and customs upon arrival at your final destination).
Also — just to note, I can't imagine anyone ever being actually arrested under the no-right-to-silence clause (and if they did, I expect it'd just get take to the ECHR and thrown out) except potentially for UK citizens/subjects/nationals/whatever-other-categories-there-are-that-I-always-forget (for whom entry cannot be refused).
If what you mean by not being sure how it works for transit is how it works in the US — you must posses a valid visa (probably a transit visa) or not need a visa (VWP, citizenship, etc.) for entry into the US, regardless of your further destination. Sadly, for many of us from Europe, many flights to South America require pre-approval from the US, because you cross US airspace, even though you never land.
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.
Sorry, but “there are people in a country with a democratic government that don’t deserve what their government brought upon them” is not a particularly good reason – and even then, I don’t think it’d hurt to allow immigration into Europe for a while, so there’s even a perspective for those that “really don’t deserve” the results of their (in)action.
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.
What I did mean to say was that the EU as a whole should (politically) take a strong stance on such issues, implement appropriate, EU-wide legislation to protect the privacy of European citizens from their own and third party governments as well as private companies and enforce corresponding standards in international trade – i.e., I was referring to a political process that I would like to take place (within the EU), not a judicial lawsuit in front of the appropriate court of law.
Regarding your last paragraph: The Treaty of Lisbon does contain an exit clause[0], which either requires the agreement on a withdrawal treaty or a period of two years from the notification of the intention to secede. This means that, within the current legal framework, it is possible
a) for the UK to declare its intention to leave and just do so in roughly 2015.
b) for the UK to declare its intention to leave, agree on an appropriate treaty and then leave as soon as possible.
c) for the other member states to leave (in 2015) and – in parts – form an appropriate core union which is made clear to be more than a free trade zone.
Naturally, the last option is rather unlikely to occur any time soon, but it would be legally possible and certainly not damage the reputation of the Council of Europe (at least not more than Russia’s prolonged membership therein).
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_from_the_European_U...
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!