
How the UK Security Services neutralised The Guardian - ctack
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-09-11-how-the-uk-security-services-neutralised-the-countrys-leading-liberal-newspaper/
======
Angostura
As I understand it, the Guardian had previously always considered D-notice
requests and had usually acquiesced. However, it decided that Snowden was so
important that it took the pretty unprecedented step of ignoring them.

This made the intelligence services particularly dischuffed.

Post-Snowden the status-quo was re-established.

It remains to be seen whether the Guardian would ignore D-notices again, if
something else of the magnitude of Snowden came along - I hope it would use
its judgement and do so, if necessary. I'm not _necessarily_ against
newspapers considering requests from the intelligence service not to publish
something for good reason - it can end up with people dying. It's a tough
decision an editor has to make.

~~~
Singletoned
"dischuffed"?

Surely "nonchuffed"? "Dischuffed" suggests that they had been previously
chuffed with the Guardian.

~~~
Angostura
You raise an interesting point which I shall have to ponder.

But can't I be disappointed by a particular movie, without being previously
... appointed ... by another from the same fim maker?

~~~
Singletoned
I'm pondering this too, and I'm willing to be wrong on it, but I would have
said that you can't be disappointed by a movie without having had some sort of
raised expectation about it. If you thought it would be rubbish you wouldn't
be disappointed.

"Dis" always suggests to me some sort of removal, rather than just the absence
of.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
My dislike of mornings does not, I hope, suggest I ever liked them. A
disability isn't always an ability that's lost. etc.

So many exceptions, I sometimes wonder how others ever end up learning good
English. :)

------
guiriduro
The article clearly demonstrates that The Guardian has become a shadow of its
former self - pro-Establishment, anti-Assange, anti-Corbyn/Labour, all of its
trustworthy intelligence reporters having left. Something of an open secret to
be honest, how it now arrogates to pretend to still be "Left"-leaning but is
nothing of the sort, under editorship veering from amateurish to clearly
complicit.

~~~
Singletoned
I suspect that there going to be a divergence between "left-leaning" and
"liberal-leaning" in Britain. The British Labour party isn't inherently
liberal (as they have shown with their anti-semitism and resistance to gay
marriage). I think they will continue further down a path of non-liberal
socialism, alienating a lot of people who hadn't previously considered that
"left" and "liberal" were different concepts.

~~~
DoctorOetker
[________] anyone who just finished reading the article and checked the
references will think you are trolling if you re-accuse the Labour party for
anti-semitism...

EDIT: removed "Did you even read the article?" per the site guidelines

~~~
irb
The article says Labour doesn't have an anti-semitism problem and therefore it
doesn't?

And yes, I checked the references, and they are not wholly convincing. A
statement that only 0.06% of the Labour membership have been investigated for
anti-semitism (which firstly still seems kind of high to me, and secondly
obviously not being investigated for anti-semitism does not mean one is not
anti-semitic) and an independent inquiry by the person who was subsequently
made Labour's shadow attorney general?

I'm not saying Labour is overrun by anti-semitism but let's try not to just
believe the last thing we read, ok?

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Mo, the facts say that Labour doesn't have an anti-semitism problem.

There has been absolutely no evidence provided by any source to prove
institutional anti-semitism.

There is really no evidence at all that stands up to even the most basic
common sense assessment.

For example - if Corbyn is an anti-Semite, he's been remarkably quiet about
it. In fact he has somehow managed to stay friends with various Jewish
individuals and organisations in spite of his alleged burning hatred for them.
Perhaps someone should let them know?

If you compare Labour's record of "anti-semitism" with the many easy-to-find
examples of outright unapologetic racism of the British (and US) Right,
there's no comparison.

There have however been public statements by Israeli diplomats explaining that
"anti-semitism" is used in a calculated and cynical way to undermine
politicians who do not support Israeli nationalism. And also evidence of
Israeli influencers working to "take down" \- their words - British MPs.

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/08/israeli-
diplom...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/08/israeli-diplomat-
shai-masot-plotted-against-mps-set-up-political-groups-labour)

Meanwhile the Labour MPs making the most noise about anti-semitism also happen
to be the old Blairites who were horrified when Corbyn was elected leader.

As you say - let's try not to just believe everything we read on this topic,
ok?

~~~
irb
Anti-semitism (and prejudice in general) exists on a much wider spectrum than
just "burning hatred", and it is entirely possible to be friendly with members
of a group that you are prejudiced against. If, perhaps, you believe that
Jewish people do not integrate fully and are not "properly British", it does
not prevent you from also getting on perfectly well with your Jewish next door
neighbour, but you're still anti-semitic.

And just as a tip, claiming that accusations of anti-semitism are a Zionist
conspiracy is somewhat self-defeating.

~~~
crdoconnor
43% of tory party members wouldn't vote for a Muslim leader. That's endemic
institutional racism. Labour party members have no such issue with Jews. The
anti semitism accusations are purely about the Israel lobby throwing a fit.

~~~
notahacker
That and the number of Labour members prepared to insist every Jewish person
complaining about their treatment or objecting to the disciplinary body ruling
holocaust denial memes OK is part of the "Israel lobby throwing a fit"...

~~~
crdoconnor
Most of the ones whose complaints get into the media have links. E.g. members
of Labour Friends of Israel like Margaret Hodge who went on a junket to Israel
specifically to apologize to Isaac Herzog (he who said "race mixing between
Jews and non Jews is a 'tragedy'") about the UK Labour party's "anti semitism
issues".

It's frankly quite disgusting the level of Islamophobia some of these people
are endorsing simply because they consider it politically expedient to throw
their support behind a foreign government.

It's not that anti semitism doesn't exist at all in the Labour party. It's
just vanishingly rare and literally nobody - NEVER MIND a leader - has said
anything close to as disgusting as what Isaac Herzog or Boris Johnson has
said.

~~~
notahacker
Newspapers have also covered unambiguously factual stuff such as heads of
disciplinary panels writing emails excusing the posting of holocaust denial
memes from far right websites as "out of context", whilst Labour's own
investigation looked at university kids being bullied - did they all have
"links" too?

When your first resort upon hearing people complaining about a particular form
of racism is to search for dirt on some of the more prominent members of that
minority, I don't think you're in any position to lecture others on endorsing
disgusting levels of racism...

~~~
crdoconnor
Digging up memes shared by nobodies and reinterpreting them as racist (seen
this a few times now) is used as a means of deflecting criticism of obvious
Islamophobia by prominent leaders like Herzog. That's the worst part of this
pseudo scandal: it's trumped up for and on behalf of islamophobes.

like I said: it's not like anti semitism doesn't exist in the labour party.
it's just that the boy cried wolf countless times, and they cried wolf to
protect racists.

this is quite apart from the time members of this community decided that they
spoke for all Jews when they attacked a Holocaust survivor.

~~~
notahacker
Nobody in the UK cares about "protecting" rarely-discussed foreign opposition
politicians like Herzog - they're utterly irrelevant to people objecting to
heads of disciplinary panels defending unambiguously racist stuff like this[1]
as "out of context" and demanding their reinstatement to run for public office

[1][https://www.thejc.com/image/policy:1.461236:1521729565/.jpg?...](https://www.thejc.com/image/policy:1.461236:1521729565/.jpg?f=16x9&h=576&w=1024&$p$f$h$w=a4c2c21)

Nothing demonstrates the nature of racism problem the Labour Party has quite
as much as arguments such as yours that objecting to stuff like this is
"reinterpretation" as part of a shadowy Israeli conspiracy to protect
Islamophobes

------
kingofpandora
As a small aside, I'm always surprised to see that BBC is the most (?) common
go-to source for run-of-the-mill non-technology news here at HN. If you think
the Guardian is compromised as a neutral source, then let's talk about the
Beeb sometime.

~~~
toyg
Well, sometimes the Beeb's gov status is a protection, though. The Guardian
can be more or less shut down by imperium, as a private company in this weird
kingdom, and its employees can be sued into oblivion; the BBC works under
different rules. After the Kelly affair, for example, the head was forced out,
but as far as I know actual reporters were not touched. Compared with barging
into an office and literally smashing all tools, it's easy-going.

It is true that this situation comes at a cost, every government _leans_
somewhat on its news desk (particularly on political issues), but in many ways
that's actually easy to discount.

~~~
jackweirdy
A protection from some things but not others. Since 2016 the editorial
direction of the BBC is set by a board of 13, where 11 are appointed by the
government: [https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/mar/13/government-
cho...](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/mar/13/government-choose-bbc-
board-john-whittingdale)

------
SideburnsOfDoom
So in summary:

\- The Guardian is more Blairite than Corbynite. This one is not a surprise.

\- Relations between MI6 and The Guardian got worse with Snowden, and then got
better again. This isn't shocking.

The UK is running out of top-tier independent media platforms. This is
concerning. But the dominance of millionaire-owned right-wing tabloids, and
the failure to implement any of the recommendations of the Leveson report is
far more concerning.

------
samastur
There are interesting bits in this article, but on the whole it is not well
written and clearly slanted. For example, section about Guardian's reporting
on Corbyn has 8 long paragraphs about other media reports like it has any
bearing on Guardian's.

I don't like much of Guardian's reporting, but it is difficult to evaluate how
much credence to give to an article that is also problematic.

~~~
k1m
I followed the Guardian's reporting on Corbyn. It was clearly aiming to damage
him on the basis of very flimsy evidence. I worked on this page compiling a
list of Guardian articles showing the extent the Guardian had gone to to paint
Corbyn and Labour as antisemitic.
[https://theguardian.fivefilters.org/antisemitism/](https://theguardian.fivefilters.org/antisemitism/)

Now if the charges were true, you'd think it would continue to be a problem,
especially now that a general election is getting so much closer. As Media
Lens pointed out recently, it seems the media has lost interest in that
particular attack:
[https://twitter.com/medialens/status/1169157686300217345](https://twitter.com/medialens/status/1169157686300217345)
\- which would suggest there wasn't much to it in the first place.

~~~
toyg
Guardian editors have definitely decided Corbyn is the lesser evil, most of
the hypercritical coverage is gone. The first year it was a non-stop barrage.

The rest of the press is still mostly at it, though.

------
Nextgrid
Just wondering, why leak the documents to a select few newspapers that can be
silenced instead of the whole world, if the goal is to tell the truth to the
people at large? I’d love to see these goons go after every single one of the
tens of thousands of seeders in hundreds of different countries if the
documents were leaked on a popular torrent website.

~~~
michaelt
Credible journalists can reveal key facts derived from the leak while keeping
other details secret.

For example, a journalist could verify a leak came from a real FBI agent by
checking their badge, and assure their readers of that, but keep the agent's
name secret.

Or a journalist given a list of secret base addresses could report the number
and countries without revealing the precise addresses.

Also, newspapers might be happier to make a big splash reporting an exclusive,
but be less motivated if every other newspaper got the same stuff at the same
time :)

------
dannyw
This is some real investigative journalism that should overtake the pro-
establishment propaganda that passes for 'news'.

------
stef25
If Guardian has been compromised by anything it's surely by editors that are
trying to turn in to a social justice organisation.

Number of pages mentioning "white men" as indexed by Google:

Guardian: 7840 / 3,680,000 (0.21%) BBC: 623 / 4,720,000 (0.01%)

Some headlines of the Guardian that come to mind are "All landlords are scum"
and "Maybe white men should just disappear for a while". In the case of the
latter it was an interview with the USA's female national soccer captain and
that line was something she just joked at the very end and the editor decided
to make that the title of the article (if I'd have been her I'd have been
furious).

Another rage inducing article was one that nailed David Attenborough to the
cross for daring to suggest climate change activism could benefit from
separating it from left/right politics.

This is all not directly related to politics, but it's pretty telling. The
website / usability is great but the spin they (are pressured to?) put on the
content is nauseating.

~~~
Dylan16807
There are severe problems with how we handle land ownership so I don't find
that hyperbole rage inducing / infuriating.

The idea of white men "disappearing for a while" is new to me and it sounds
like an amazing idea. How better to shake up entrenched power structures?
Spread around the leadership roles and experience, and then once that settles
combine everyone back and you can end up with a much better mix at all levels.

~~~
whenchamenia
Your racism is showing.

~~~
Dylan16807
Power structures are objectively unbalanced. Wanting to shake them up is not a
slight against any particular race.

------
JetSpiegel
Ctrl+F Greenwald ... No results Ctrl+F Intercepted ... No results

The question "Can you write an article about Snowden and The Guardian without
mentioning Glenn Greenwald" has been answered.

[https://www.theguardian.com/profile/glenn-
greenwald](https://www.theguardian.com/profile/glenn-greenwald)

------
MichaelMoser123
I have a stupid question: how does this committe know in advance what a
newspaper is about to be publishing? I mean in order to give advanced notices
they need to know what the newspaper is up to?

~~~
diodesign
Credible journalists contact governments, businesses, individuals, and any
other subjects of articles, ahead of publication to ask for official comment,
interviews, on-the-record explanations and confirmations, and so on.

It's basic due diligence to speak to both sides of a story. However, it can
tip off organizations and folks that they are about to be a headline...

------
CalRobert
""" An error occurred during a connection to www.dailymaverick.co.za. Peer
using unsupported version of security protocol. Error code:
SSL_ERROR_UNSUPPORTED_VERSION """

In Firefox 69...

------
interfixus
Fishy! This site requests access to _all_ passwords in my KeePassXC Firefox
addon. Never seen quite that level of blatancy before.

~~~
k1m
Can you elaborate? How does it do that? And why would that level of access,
even if a website wanted it, even be a feature of a password manager?
Genuinely curious.

~~~
interfixus
You're right, I should elaborate. The site causes a normal KeePassXC-Browser
popup, "www.dailymaverick.co.za has requested access to passwords for the
following item(s). Please select whether you want to allow access."

Then comes the weird stuff. It may not actually be _all_ my passwords, but it
sure is a lot of them, the long list ominously beginning with my bank and a
mobile payment solutions.

It's probably a bug of some kind. But sure looks scary.

On my way to work, and on phone only for next many hours, so not able to look
further into.

~~~
ctack
Please do. The editorial staff seem like a really well intentioned bunch, but
of course there could be something nefarious going on.

~~~
goldcd
Or it could all be FUD, spread by MI6 _raises eyebrow_

------
StreamBright
Not many people care about these atrocities in the west.

------
NullPrefix
This website shows a popup about adblockers and the close button says
"Naaah...journalists should go hungry."

"Let me try to peddle some malware to you, you don't want me to go hungry, do
you?"

~~~
rnotaro
I personnaly thought it was a clever way and prefer that than an AdBlocker
Wall.

You can either :

\- Buy a no-ads pass.

\- Disable your AdBlocker

\- Click on "Naaah...journalists should go hungry."

~~~
satori99
or

\- Context Menu->Delete Element

------
intricatedetail
This is load of crap. Just Google what they kept writing about cannabis.
Independent... all press feeds off big pharma.

------
tgsovlerkhgsel
The one sentence below the article makes me sceptical:

> Daily Maverick will formally launch Declassified – a new UK-focused
> investigation and analysis organisation run by the authors of this article –
> in November 2019.

This would give them a strong motivation to write a biased or even non-factual
article to a) generate attention and b) paint themselves as more credible, or
at least a direct competitor as less credible.

------
CapacitorSet
>An error occurred during a connection to www.dailymaverick.co.za. Peer using
unsupported version of security protocol. Error code:
SSL_ERROR_UNSUPPORTED_VERSION

How can you test so little on Firefox that it doesn't even connect? (FF
Nightly, Linux)

~~~
k1m
Works fine in my Firefox.

