I don’t know. In the comments of the last thread, TarheelDem said that Mr. Miranda was an employee of The Guardian but it appears that the British paper merely paid for his flights. He was acting as a courier and carrying classified information in an encrypted form.
Mr. Miranda was in Berlin to deliver documents related to Mr. Greenwald’s investigation into government surveillance to Ms. Poitras, Mr. Greenwald said. Ms. Poitras, in turn, gave Mr. Miranda different documents to pass to Mr. Greenwald. Those documents, which were stored on encrypted thumb drives, were confiscated by airport security, Mr. Greenwald said. All of the documents came from the trove of materials provided to the two journalists by Mr. Snowden. The British authorities seized all of his electronic media — including video games, DVDs and data storage devices — and did not return them, Mr. Greenwald said.
I think everyone needs to relax. Think about what the law is in Britain, what it is here, and what it should be. People seem to be just taking up sides depending on whether they primarily dislike intrusive surveillance or they primarily dislike self-righteous people who do shoddy reporting.
People leak to journalists all the time and those journalists are supposed to be able to store the information and move through airports. But this is a much different set of circumstances. Mr. Miranda isn’t a journalist. He merely agreed to be a courier for a newspaper. Their little operation was sniffed out and it’s a bit complicated to sort out.
Using a terrorism statute seems ridiculous. But I can envision some other statute that would be perfectly reasonable. For example, a statute that says people can be stopped if there is a reasonable suspicion that they are part of a conspiracy to disseminate classified information would fit the bill. The complicating factor is how to treat a contract agent of a journalistic enterprise.
If the government knows that someone is about to leak classified information to a reporter, they can intercept that person and detain them. But what if the reporter hires a courier to bring him the information? I think it’s obvious that the courier can be detained too.
But, still, the use of a terrorism statute is a bit much.
I didn’t say it. Amnesty International said it. There’s a link.
The law here allows TSA to stop anyone for any reason without disclosing the reason. Journalists are regularly detained and questioned here. And terrorism statutes here are used as authority.
That is the key issue if you are to keep freedom of the press and have an informed electorate. All the stuff about classified information is a smokescreen trying to pretend that this is a national security issue. Some folks just want the NSA to be able to go back to business as usual. Calm the public. Wait for the next whistleblower to erupt and be shut down.
We have had a decade of warnings about the NSA (three decades if you count the Church Committee). There is an institutional problem with the agency; it has not been fixed.
You are mixing up many different things here. The TSA is in the U.S. This was the U.K. Also, where did Amnesty say what you say they said?
This guy is not part of the press. He’s part of Greenwald’s crew. If he was suspicious to the U.K. national security and held under their laws, then the only thing to do if you disagree is to move to the U.K. and work to change their laws.
Funny how this happened on a slow Sunday evening. Just the thing to get some more clicks in a drought time.
I posted a link in the previous thread to a statement by Amnesty international.
I was comparing what the UK did with what the US TSA can do which is more extensive than the UK law. The US TSA does not give you a reason for detaining you.
Your cynicism about BooMan is touching.
How do you know Michilines428 was claiming that Booman is trolling for clicks rather than Greenwald or the Guardian?
I didn’t think of that angle. If that’s all it is, I’m sure the European media will be all over the Guardian about it.
However, the Brazilian government is taking it very seriously.
I don’t think they were impressed with the necessity of having to negotiate with the UK authorities for Miranda’s release. Or the fact that the UK authorities held him up to the maximum they could under law without charging him. After nine hours, one would think they would have found evidence of stolen documents if that’s what was on the electronic equipment.
Ok, so Miranda was tasked with meeting Poitras and carrying some documents back and forth between her and Greenwald. The Guardian paid for his trip. And the British got wind of this and detained Miranda for 9 hours while also confiscating all his electronics.
Can we all agree those are the basic facts? Never mind whether it was right to detain Miranda or within the bounds of an anti-terrorism statute. The question is whether any of the statements in my first paragraph up there are incorrect.
Because in Greenwald’s own account of what happened, there is no mention of Miranda acting as a courier of any kind. There is no mention that the Guardian paid for his flight. Greenwald casts it as “a failed attempt at intimidation” and no more than that.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/18/david-miranda-detained-uk-nsa
But how can he truly believe that if he knows that Miranda was acting as a courier for him and The Guardian? Again, set aside whether it was right for the British to detain him. The point is if Greenwald truly thinks there was no basis for the search and that it was just an attempt at intimidation, he’s being extremely disingenuous.
I don’t know whether the detention was right or whether invoking the terrorism statute was proper. Those are separate issues that have to be sorted out. What seems pretty clear to me, though, is that Greenwald is either being dishonest or disingenuous. And that’s really too bad because we don’t know his drama mixed into an issue this important.
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○ Obama Appoints Documented ‘Liar’ to Convene NSA Review Board and backtracks
○ If You Thought Obama’s Drone Godfather Was Powerful, Wait ‘Til He’s at the CIA
Cross-posted from my diary – Bloggers pro-Obama and anti-Greenwald – A Distraction on Issue.
Mr. Miranda was in Berlin to deliver documents related to Mr. Greenwald’s investigation into government surveillance to Ms. Poitras, Mr. Greenwald said. Ms. Poitras, in turn, gave Mr. Miranda different documents to pass to Mr. Greenwald. Those documents, which were stored on encrypted thumb drives, were confiscated by airport security, Mr. Greenwald said.
Given what we know about Ms. Poitras and GG already, why do I think this is a setup? Meaning, do you really think they’d pass documents back and forth this way? By the known partner of Greenwald? My guess is that they probably encrypted a bunch of Dr. Seuss or something on those thumb drives and are daring the U.K., or whomever, to press charges. At the very least, to thoroughly embarrass the NatSec gravy train.
Or, maybe, these people are amateurs in the field of espionage.
Did you read that NYT article about Ms. Poitras last week(or was it two)? I don’t see her being this amateur about it.
Calvin, she just used GG’s husband as a courier thinking that that would be a secure way to transmit information. She was wrong.
She’s the definition of an amateur.
Because they really believed that the authorities wouldn’t stop a journalist’s spouse? Fine, believe it. I just don’t think someone would take that chance if they really had important documents. Too risky. I guess we’ll see in time whether they decide to charge Greenwald’s spouse with any crimes.
I can’t really say exactly how these people managed to be so completely incompetent.
But they were. The precise details of what was going through their heads isn’t really the point here.
The encrypted documents turn out to be completely innocuous and everyone looks foolish; as with the Bolivian president’s plane.
But they didn’t.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/19/world/europe/britain-detains-partner-of-reporter-tied-to-leaks.htm
l?_r=0
He knew what his husband had, and lied. The only people who look foolish are the ones who took him at his word.
It’s kind of odd to see people arguing about whether they would pass documents back and forth this way when you’ve got Greenwald himself saying they did pass documents back and forth this way. Hmmm….
I think a lot of people are trying to make GG and his confederates a lot smarter than they are.
I’m here to tell you that you don’t fuck with the IC.
You want to expose their secrets, you might get away with that.
But you try to go to war? You are going to lose.
I think a lot of people are trying to make GG and his confederates a lot smarter than they are.
Well, and make themselves look less dumb for having bought in so completely to the “intimidation of an innocent man” story.
If I felt like being a prick, I could go back and match the people pushing this excuse with the use of the phrase “11 Dimensional Chess.”
But I don’t.
Fu*&(ng incompetent.
That article did not prove that she is anything other than an amateur in encryption.
I’m more surprised at the Guardian. They couldn’t find someone to serve as a courier who wasn’t known to UK/US intelligence?
Encryption was on my mind but I meant espionage. Poitras was already fairly paranoid but now GG is playing at spycraft. He couldn’t be more happier with himself right about now.
But why the set up? What does embarrassing the NatSec gravy train do to further the discussion or persuade anyone to your side of thinking, other than giving the supporters who are already on your side a chance to point their fingers and laugh at the NSA?
I’m just saying a discussion needs to and should be had, but this whole bidness is just muddling the whole discussion and is not rallying anyone to anyone’s side.
But why the set up?
I can’t speak for Greenwald. It’s only my guess. How did he get from Brazil to Germany? Did he fly through London last time? Did he have all this equipment on his original journey? There are still too many unanswered questions for me. And it would seem awful careless to think, in this age of no-fly lists and stuff, that you’d have your partner take the chances that GG’s might of. He’s too visible, to the authorities anyway.
here’s where I think we agree.
I do believe the the choice of Greenwald’s partner as “courier” was deliberately done. It maximizes the outrage factor that a “non-journo”/”average civilian” was treated that way.
But still think a “set-up” does nothing other than rallying your own troops and piss off people who are neither pro/con who you need to put in your corner if there is ever gonna be enough pressure put on politicians and the like
All I know is I hate it when I feel like someone is purposely attempting to “pull my heartstrings” even if it is a cause I agree with.
Shenanigans like this do alot for “keeping it out there”, but it does nothing, IMHO to advance the conversation.
So again, what purpose did/wold the “alleged” setup provide?
My speculation about the set up is that it was a test to see how far authorities would go to interrupt the collaboration between Poitras and Greenwald. Just as the set up with Snowden not getting on a flight full of journalists to Cuba was a test of whether the US would honor international asylum. And the result of that test was the forced landing of Pres. Morales’s plane in Vienna.
Had nothing happened the discussion would not be muddled at all. If it was a set up, the UK authorities fell for it. It made Sullivan sit up and take notice, for example. Joshua Foust’s first reaction was that it was outrageous.
There are multiple sides playing the media in this situation. It is not just Greenwald and the US government. The intelligence community has been selectively leaking to its journalists independent of the White House. The German government is peddling mixed messages because the issue is affect Merkel’s re-election chances. The Brazilian government, which had been moving away from the Bolivarians and toward the US has become very concerned that one of their private telecoms was subverted through an NSA contract. Or is distressed that the better-off public in Brazil knows that NSA is collecting their information.
Looking at the debate solely within the context of the US mainstream media presents a misleading picture of what is happening.
And there are multiple efforts going on in Congress that are not going to be affected one way or the other by what Greenwald does or says but will be by the documents that surface.
Here’s what I think it has done in terms of strategy.
It has put the “fear of God” in journos with spouses initially, cause the idea that just by virtue of being married or aligned with a journo puts all your communique up for investigation.
In the case of people like Joshua Foust and other, the initial reaction became one of “don’t use your spouse as a drug mule” type of reaction if you don’t them to be detain under suspiscion. The outrage while still there over the detainment, now becomes outrage of the fact that a spouse was used for those circumstances anyway. It remains to be seen if this becomes a point for some journos to use for page clicks instead of actual discussion.
As for Sullivan, he sways with whatever winds fits him, and ever since his Bell Curve days, I’ve read him, but disregarded alot of his stuff when he gets on his swaying high horse, he seems to thrive on drama. Take this bit from him tonight for example:
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UK is a police state just like Russia…um ok. He lives for hyperbole
I thought you might get a charge out of Sullivan’s many rotations. And Foust’s for that matter.
It will be interesting to see whether this provokes a wider discussion of protection of journalists during the coming week. Or whether the issue will disappear. Journalists used to be very vigorous in defending press freedom.
I have a similar question. This just isn’t a common way information is passed around these days.
For those who don’t know much about encryption, depending on the algorithm used and the size of the key the encryption can range from being extremely easy to break all the way to almost impossible (by which I mean you can use a supercomputer to try to decode the encryption but it can still take years or even decades). Well, impossible if you don’t have access to the private key.
So, assuming you want to pass a file to someone and you suspect someone else will get it you can send it in the clear IF you’ve arranged the key(s) in advance.
But let’s suppose you want to pass the file AND you suspect your communications are being watched AND you don’t want the watchers to even know that a file has been passed. Then you might try the thumb drive approach. But in that case would you choose as the intermediary someone whose you know is already being spied on closely?
Yeah, I know some will jump to the conclusions that Greenwald was making and amateur mistake. I can’t rule out the possibility but c’mon, we’re not dealing with an Oliver-North-level of naivety here – for all the hatred people throw at Greenwald you have to admit that he’s very smart, does his research, and given his long studies of first amendment issues and technology simply cannot have been surprised at any of what happened here.
No, I suspect there is more here than meets the eye.
here’s where I think we agree.
I do believe the the choice of Greenwald’s partner as “courier” was deliberately done. It maximizes the outrage factor that a “non-journo”/”average civilian” was treated that way.
But like I said above what does a “set-up” do other than rally your own troops and piss off people who are neither pro/con who you need to put in your corner.
All I know is I hate it when I feel like someone is purposely attempting to “pull my heartstrings” even if it is a cause I agree with.
Shenanigans like this do alot for “keeping it out there”, but it does nothing, IMHO to advance the conversation.
So again, what purpose did/wold the “alleged” setup provide?
Ugh, should read…
“But…people who are neither pro/con who you need to put in your corner if there is ever gonna be enough pressure put on politicians and the like”
Well, if Greenwald did do this intentionally as a set-up … which is pure speculation at this point albeit plausible … the motives aren’t exactly obvious. As you point out, it’s not like it’s going to change minds on the topics already at hand.
The only other things I can think of … and there may be other motives as well … are: a) letting the UK/US know exactly what documents they do have, and b) testing the reaction of the UK/US.
Neither of these ideas is particularly plausible. I mean, if you want to let the UK/US know what you have just give them the internal document filing numbers. And I’m not sure what they learn by testing the US/UK – they have to assume based on what Snowdon has revealed that every spying apparatus ever invented is being used on them right now. But if not those why do this?
Or … one last thought … maybe Greenwald set a trap but it wasn’t fully sprung. Maybe his hope was that the UK would exceed the 9 hour limitation, thus breaking even the weak legal restrictions that now exist. That probably would be a major factor, especially this close to a UK election, and might have actually resulted in some tangible changes in the law.
The fact that Miranda was sprung at the 9-hour limit only with the help of the Guardian legal staff, the Brazilian embassy, and Amnesty International indicates that this was not a case of a trap not fully sprung.
I go back to my speculation of testing communication channels for collaboration on the release of further documents. Poitras through Der Spiegel, Greenwald through the Guardian. It’s kinda mundane, but journalists do exchange documents in doing their work.
And I think Snowden’s instructions are playing a bigger part in what is going on than might appear.
Well, at least we can safely assume that Vladimir Putin ins’t playing any part in this. I mean, he used to be an officer in the KGB, but he isn’t anymore.
Well, really, I don’t have as high a tolerance for unsubstantiated conspiracy theories as some people, so I’m not going to speculate about what role Russian intelligence might be playing here. But if you want to talk about people who aren’t amateurs, I would put Putin on the list. And I don’t know what his motives are for sheltering Snowden, but I somehow doubt it has anything to do with a commitment to transparency in government.
From the NYT profile of Poitras and Greenwald, Poitras said Snowden (then anonymously) in setting up a second level of keys to email the instructions of where to meet told her to think of a key that would defeat a computer that operated at a trillion tries a second. There is the reasonable expectation that given enough time GCHQ or NSA could break the encryption.
My own suspicion as I’ve said in other comments was that it was a feasability test of how far the authorities would go.
Where it stands based on the reporting. Snowden is in an undisclosed location in Russia along with his Wikileaks minder, location known to Russian immigration but confidential. The attempt to use his father and Bruce Fein to discover his location failed. Poitras is in Berlin. Greenwald is in Rio. Two encrypted email services have abruptly shuttered their services when faced with and NSA demand to turn over everything or go to court. The Tor encrypted internet service provider was briefly compromised with a (true or false) cover story that the US FBI was looking for child porn. The authorities seized a client service provider that used Tor for communciations. Essentially all email is viewable by the NSA, even encrypted email. So, the number of available communication channels are shrinking, not just for Snowden, Poitras and Greenwald, but for everyone. So this step, lets them know that couriers are likely not a confidential way to send documents or at least not through countries that are friendly with the US.
What is not meeting the eye is how aggressively the authorities are closing the exits.
I suspect Glenn Greenwald overestimates his own intelligence and insight.
The “they did this to set up the Brits” theory suffers from one glaring problem: the Brits didn’t end up looking bad. They ended up looking right.
If there was nothing but episodes of Captain Kangaroo on those drives, that would be one thing.
Captain Kangaroo? I was thinking that they might go for the Magna Charta, the US Constitution, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. How disappointing.
When you put your trust in Glenn Greenwald, you need to be ready for disappointment.
Ok, here’s the problem. The discussion needs to happen…yes. There should be adult discussion…yes.
But tell me how can you have these conversation when one party seems to be more interested in getting headlines and page clicks an sensationalsm (The Guardian)
And you know what, I would include Greenwald in this group too. Here’s the thing, I’m not as computer saavy as some people, but even I know there are “stelthier” ways to exchange information, isn’t there?
We know this, I damn sure bet Greenwald knows this, and damn sure bet Snowden knows this. So the use of his partner, and NOT just any random journo was blatant and deliberate to grab the attention of journos and headline makers across US and non-journos by giving them a more sympathethic, “he’s not even a journalist”, type of figure than Grenwald, Snowden, et al.
which is fine I guess, but damn, don’t be too cute by half and act like it wasn’t a deliberate decision to do it and get mad cause the “sensationalism” wins out over the deep discussion and completely muddles the conversation.
Ugh, anyway, it’s obvious since the beginning that the sides have been chosen in this debacle and neither side is listening to the other anyway.
Not everybody is failing to listen. I’m still trying to decide if what the British did was legal or reasonable. That doesn’t diminish the fact that, as you say, Greenwald seems to be trying to gin up controversy and is overreaching a bit. And it’s really too bad because it’s distracting us from the real issue.
“it’s distracting us from the real issue.”
Beg to differ– if it weren’t for Greenwald’s continued embarrassment of the security apparatus and the politicians who love it, this would be a non-story. Well, except for the preferred narrative out of DC, the “have we caught that bad Edward Snowden yet?” narrative. The detention of Miranda (you could not make the name up) now forms a pattern with the forcing down of Evo Morales’s plane. Several European governments look like they are lapdogs to the U.S., rather than heroic pursuers of the supervillain. And the real issue is being kept on the front pages in part by Greenwald not simply doing a data dump, but by waiting for cover-up statements from the government, then releasing info that directly contradicts said statement.
That’s all very well and good, but the problem is Greenwald seriously distorts or omits the facts. In his own account of the events, he never acknowledges that Miranda was taking a trip paid for by the Guardian newspaper in order to courier documents between himself and Lauren Poitras. Instead he acts like it’s a “failed attempt at intimidation” (his own words). Given what we now know, Greenwald can’t seriously believe that.
The issue of our security state apparatus is still there and still valid, but instead of talking about it, we’re wasting time trying to figure out where Greenwald is telling the truth and where he’s fibbing.
if it weren’t for Greenwald’s continued embarrassment of the security apparatus and the politicians who love it, this would be a non-story
Wait wait wait: if someone was arrested for attempting to smuggle stolen classified American intelligence documents through Heathrow Airport, it would be a non-story?
And catching a guilty party through a search that proves correct establishes a pattern with the Evo Morales plane episode?
I find those claims less than obvious.
The “non-story” I was referring to was the revelations in the Snowden docs. Regarding this particular instance, the intelligence community has a vested interest in missing secrets not being reported. But that horse has left the barn, so of course they want the malefactor publicly punished.
The thing I find very odd here is that Poitras and Greenwald would need to send original documents to each other, after meeting Snowden face-to-face-to-face. TarheelDem sees this as a possible dry run for sending docs, I think it might just be a fake out, to have the British government piss off the Guardian and Brazil. So, as for “catching a guilty party,” I guess we’ll see.
Legal? I have no idea. Hell, even in the US I’d have no idea. As I explained to my kids as we were approaching US customs – when you re-enter the US you have NO constitutional rights. At least none that anyone enforces.
Reasonable? Of course not. This is what the 4th amendment was about – you have to have probable cause for a specific crime and be looking for a specific item. I realize that the US population has been so accustomed to the War on (some people who use some) Drugs that few people mind random searches for anything anymore, but just because the population has been brainwashed into accepting a practice doesn’t make it reasonable.
If the British knew that Miranda was acting as a courier for some classified documents, wouldn’t that be probable cause to detain him and search for those documents? I don’t think there’s a serious question about whether it was reasonable to detain him. What’s in doubt for me is whether it was right to invoke a terrorism statute and whether they had to detain him for a full 9 hours.
How would the British know that Miranda was acting as a courier for classified documents without having already done a search of communications among Miranda, Greenwald, the Guardian, and Poitras. And what would be the legal authority for that search of communications? They clearly aren’t terrorists. For what other categories of people does the UK allow such searches?
We don’t know how (or if) the British might have known Miranda was carrying those documents. Did they obtain that information through an illegal search? Did they wiretap communications with Greenwald under the reasonable suspicion that he possessed classified documents (being as, you know, he writes about them)? Did they search Mr. Miranda for no reason other than that he is Greenwald’s partner? We don’t know.
What I do know is that Mr. Miranda was indeed carrying those documents, so I can’t discount the possibility that things are legally above board. And I also know that Greenwald has proven unreliable and that the British aren’t talking.
I don’t seem to understand why someone was detained in England when the potential crime was American? I mean were anything Snowden took english property? It seems not. A brazilian citizen in england under suspicion of carrying american stolen property. very strange indeed that this happened.
Some of what Snowden stole and revealed was related to British surveillance efforts. I don’t know exactly whether the law says that those documents are therefore British property, but the British do actually have an interest in the matter.
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Part of my diary – Bloggers pro-Obama and anti-Greenwald – A Distraction on Issue
For what other categories of people does the UK allow such searches?
How about former KGB officers who are now the President of Russia and giving refuge to people who openly declare that they have large amounts of classified information on their laptops?
Strange that Greenwald chose such an obviously connected courier. Could it be mused that the choice was meant to stir the pot?
If he wanted to stir the pot, there wouldn’t have been any stolen classified information on the drives.
But we don’t know what was on those thumb drives. And they did let GG’s partner go.
What we know, Calvin, is that they detained Miranda and went through his electronics to find stolen documents, not to intimidate Glenn Greenwald.
What we also know is that when Greenwald wrote his piece about this being an attempt to intimidate him, he knew it wasn’t.
Are you going to continue to race to this guy’s defense and take him at his word?
The confiscated Miranda’s electronics and let Miranda go.
Wow. What a police state.
What a bunch of patsies for American intelligence.
We will never know what was on those electronics because the UK government now has control over them.
And had they been returned we would never know what was on them either.
You really need to do some international travel, Joe. Just for the enjoyable experience of our post 9/11 world.
Oh, NOW you decide you can’t take Greenwald at his word; when he says something incriminating.
You want to bitch and moan about airport security? Find a better opportunity than it working and catching a crook.
All I know is, I’m going to be WAY more careful next time I travel to Berlin to deliver encrypted information to an intermediary for a fugitive from US justice who’s taken refuge with a foreign power.
travel to Berlin to deliver encrypted information to an intermediary for a fugitive from US justice who’s taken refuge with a foreign power
You know, journalism.
I learned something from the Bush administration’s WMD claims in the run up to the Iraq War:
When you catch the used care salesman in his second or third lie, you need to walk away from the deal.
Good Lord, I love me some Spandan.
Spank them, Spandan.
Spank.them
……………………….
Professional Left’s Professional Pimp Julian Assange Comes Out as Far Right Extremist
Sunday, August 18, 2013 | Posted by Spandan C at 12:21 PM
For some time now, the pragmatic Left has been warning that Wikileaks, its Founder Julian Assange, and their cohorts in The Guardian (think Glenn Greenwald) are nothing more than right wing libertarian moles trying to fool the Left in America, just as Ed Snowden did. That truth came into some stark relief yesterday:
But but but, you say. It’s not like Assange was celebrating the entire political ideology of the Pauls; he was merely speaking approvingly of Rand Paul’s crusade against domestic surveillance programs of the NSA. Well, beyond completely ignoring the fact that nothing is being done by the government that is illegal, abusive or unchecked, the idea that Assange is merely advancing the libertarians’ anti-surveillance agenda is devastatingly incorrect. In Assange’s own words:
Isn’t that great? The Professional Left’s Great White Hope and worshiped hero is not only avoiding extradition on sexual assault charges (because for some reason, it is appropriate to be outraged over sexual assaults in the military – and it is – and at the same time rank-canonize a man who is accused of sexual assualt of multiple women), but is also takes extreme anti-tax positions and believes that abortion is “violence.”
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/2013/08/professional-lefts-professional-pimp.html
The “terrorism statute” authorizes detention for no particular reason–you don’t have to be suspected of being involved in terrorism to be detained under the terrorism statute. In other words, everyone detained and questioned at an airport in the UK for any reason has that happen under Section 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000. Elsewhere I pointed out that the Patriot Act has provisions against money-laundering. That doesn’t mean that everyone investigated for money-laundering is suspected of being a terrorist. I don’t think we need to be preoccupied by the specific name of the UK law.
Putting the merits aside, I guess I don’t follow why use of a “terrorism statute” has any bearing on people’s feelings to this story. The definitions of “terrorism” and “terrorists” in the UK law are so broad that they could seemingly apply to many acts that we would not necessarily think of as such. Specifically, “terrorism” is vaguely defined to include actions that threaten public safety, that are intended to influence a government (not necessarily the UK government), and that are done for a political or ideological cause.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/contents
It looks like the law was intended to have an extremely broad application and so its drafters just crammed a lot of disparate activities under the statute-specific definition of “terrorism.” Using the statute here doesn’t mean that anyone is pretending that Miranda is a terrorist in the popular sense.
People seem to be just taking up sides depending on whether they primarily dislike intrusive surveillance or they primarily dislike self-righteous people who do shoddy reporting.
Again, if you can do better reporting or whistleblowing, then fuck-well DO IT! Asshole.
I am so fucking ill from liberals trashing Greenwald. If you can do better, fuckwad…Not that there is anything wrong with Greenwald. It’s you, and only you. You and driftglass are the problem.
/nutshell
I remember when the word “whistle blowing” had something to with uncovering criminal activity.
Not blowing people’s covers and blowing up operations for shits and giggles.
I’m willing to give Snowden more credit than Manning, by a long shot, but I don’t see why I can’t describe the factions.
After reading these comments about how this must have been a brilliant maneuver we just can’t understand (from the people who were just saying that the Brits had no legitimate reason whatsoever to look at MIranda’s electronics), I don’t ever want to hear the phrase “11-dimension chess” again.
This has been some bullshyt from beginning to end.
And, if ANY of these muthafuckas were BLACK
their asses would be under the jail already.
Alan Rusbridger, Guardian: David Miranda, schedule 7 and the danger that all reporters now face