
UK police use terror powers to seize BBC Newsnight journalist's laptop - anon1385
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/police-use-terror-powers-to-seize-bbc-newsnight-journalists-laptop-a6712636.html
======
XJOKOLAT
In the title, change "UK" to "Chinese State" and you might not bat an eyelid.

The democracy we have is a Frankenstein version of the democracy many think we
have. And in the same way you would hesitate at calling Frankenstein human, I
would hesitate at calling what we have a democracy.

I'll still have it over the alternatives but what a mediocre state we've ended
up in.

Needs to be fixed.

~~~
Asbostos
It's still democracy and it still protects against extreme runaway government
power. Ultimately the issue is that people want this. People are scared of
terrorists. People do want the government to bend the rules to track them
down. That's exactly what democracy is supposed to be.

What it's not supposed to be is what everyone wants, fair, right or ensuring
people's information is kept secret from the government.

In short, politicians do what their voters demand.

~~~
scrollaway
People are scared of what they're told is scary. You and I aren't scared of
being bitten by a black widow while we sleep because we know the chances are
remote (or in my case, nonexistant given where I live), and it's not really
something we think about.

The media constantly harassing the population with the big bad scary terrorist
who's out to get you, of course people watching said media are going to be
scared of that, even if the chances are remote.

People "want" this because they are scared of a primarily fabricated threat.
What people _really_ want is for the "threat" to go away, but that's as simple
as having better media that doesn't distort truth for financial gains.

~~~
andygates
Arguing the obvious: you're saying that they should fear the big scary police
state. That's exactly "people are scared of what they're told is scary".

~~~
scrollaway
You're partly correct. But I'm not actually saying "you should fear x". I'm
making observations on mass media and a conjecture on the underlying fears of
people, then just letting you figure out what you think about it. I also do
not hold any power or credibility over my audience, I'm just some guy on the
internet.

Contrast this to media entities, in a position of trust, twisting the world to
conform to whatever they gain most out of. Do you yourself feel that the mass
media sources you are familiar with fairly represent and report on the issues
they address?

------
junto
Short term gain for long term pain from the security services here.

Journalists and researchers into Islamic groups like IS, should be left in
peace to carry out research into how these militant groups operate and
function.

The security services have struggled to make inroads on these groups. Unable
to place effective spies and get Intel, especially on home grown cells.

Journalists therefore provide a double function in these challenging times.
They provide the public with valuable insights into the psyche behind these
groups, and in parallel they gain important access to people in these groups
that no one else can.

The flip side of this coin, is that journalists need to be acutely aware that
they are not used as an IS marketing and propaganda platform.

If journalist fear arrest from the state in order to divulge their sources
then these groups stop talking to them.

My gut feeling is that this was exactly the security services intention. The
article hints at the journalists links to an alleged pro-militant employer, so
it is quite possible that they view him as a sympathiser.

One needs to understand the psyche of people who work in the security services
and special branch. They are very polarised in their beliefs and their
opinions. They tend to be racist, xenophobic and have a tendency to group
people in tidy mental boxes. They see the world in black and white. There is
no grey. They are massively insular and have very much an "us and them
mentality". They have comparatively a large amount of power, and enjoy using
it. They know that they can bend rules like this and will only get a public
slap on the wrists and a quiet pat on the back from their superiors. Therefore
they know that they can for a warning shot across this young Muslim
journalist's bow, and get away with it.

My two cents.

~~~
petewailes
I'm fairly certain you don't actually know anything like enough people who
work for any of the security services in the UK to make this an informed
opinion. Because you couldn't be more wrong. A populist viewpoint with no
basis whatsoever in reality.

Not surprising, but disappointing.

For the avoidance of doubt, no, I don't support what's happened here. It's
ill-judged (no pun intended) to say the least.

~~~
scrollaway
> A populist viewpoint with no basis whatsoever in reality.

What you just said serves no purpose. Can you please provide sources and
alternative viewpoints people can actually discuss, rather than belittle
someone for commenting on a story?

~~~
petewailes
Happily.

[http://www.theguardian.com/careers/careers-blog/spy-
career-s...](http://www.theguardian.com/careers/careers-blog/spy-career-
secret-service)

[http://www.varsity.co.uk/news/3180](http://www.varsity.co.uk/news/3180)

[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/forget-
bon...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/forget-bond-
mi5-wants-cat-loving-twentysomethings-424915.html)

For starters. They're not normal people, in that they're recruited by elitist
institutions from other elitist institutions. Not dissimilar to how branches
of our industry work, although the profile for who they want is somewhat
different. But for the most part, in terms of personality, they're fairly
normal people.

There aren't any mustachioed villains sitting around wondering how best to
abuse their powers. Yes, there's some who enjoy wielding the power they have,
but the same is true in business, and doctors like performing surgery.

Mischaracterising people like this does no service to the reader, no better
than people who take controversial political figures and characture and
demonise them. In the end, it just makes for a lower level of discourse and a
worldview lacking in nuance. Ironically, what the poster was complaining
about.

~~~
wfo
Comparing them to tech industry folks is not doing you any favors; the tech
industry is EXTREMELY insular and thinks in almost lockstep. Look at the magic
contentless words people use like "disruption" like a mantra to express group
identity and nothing more. The tech industry clings onto weird extreme
political views that are laughably absurd to almost anyone else, the extreme
libertarians you see at the forefront, the anti-education people, the people
who want to remove all patents and IP.

Coming here is like entering a weird extremist alternate-reality echo chamber
on the weirdest issues the tech industry seems to have a hard-on for. Poll us
on any issue relating to technology or politics and you will find we are so
radically different from the general population.

And we're (almost) all white, middle-upper class Indian or East Asian men. If
the intelligence community is anything like that I'm much more afraid than
before I read your post.

And the fact that you start out by saying they are cherry-picked from elite
institutions and then you go on to say they are normal -- the first notion
completely contradicts the second. Elite institutions often come with
narcissism, a notion that you know better than the rest of the world, a
single-minded determination that it takes to excel in a particular area (the
educational system) eschewing any other considerations it takes to be a full,
complete normal human being.

------
lucaspiller
The BBC article has some more on this [0]:

> "It did not resist Thames Valley's application for an order under the
> Terrorism Act in court because the act does not afford grounds under which
> it could be opposed.

> "It is troubling that this legislation does not provide the opportunity for
> the media to mount a freedom of speech defence."

[0] [http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-34666281](http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-34666281)

~~~
gaius
Was it freedom of speech when the BBC informed the Argentines that their bomb
fuses were wrongly set to attack British ships, or when they warned them of
the impending attack on Goose Green?

I get what you're saying but the BBC plays both sides of this argument.

~~~
bainsfather
You are aware that it was the Number 10 (Prime Minister's office) that
provided the information on Goose Green to the BBC, the BBC then reported it?

The worst/only criticism of the BBC that I have read (from e.g. Mrs Thatcher's
autobiography) is that the BBC should have double-checked with the PM's office
to make sure they'd not really been so incompetent as to 'unintentionally'
announce news of an impending operation.

------
maweki
And why exactly are people wondering that it's always the fictionalized UK
that turns into a fascist dictatorship and not any other country?

~~~
peteretep
Because it's pretty much the only country in Europe that's never had a facist
government.

~~~
madaxe_again
Hehe, that's a good one. The UK has pretty much the only European fascist
government to survive the second world war.

I mean, what else would you call close collusion between "loyal" industry and
state? WWII wasn't "freedom v. fascism" \- it was one lot of fascists against
the others - and the ones that won just had better branding. Fewer skulls on
uniforms, just as much pomp and pageantry, more economic fascism than social.

~~~
peteretep
The UK only has a facist government if you're willing to reduce the term to
meaning "one I don't like". Take a country with one of the most diverse
capitals on earth, with one of the last protectionist and most liberal
capitalist systems in the world, democratic traditions that go back to the
magna carta, and you get ... not facism.

------
SwellJoe
So, I nearly said something mildly snarky about the US having at least not
stooped _this_ low. But, then I remembered that Glenn Greenwald's partner's
laptop was stolen from their home immediately after Greenwald mentioned on the
phone he would be sending copies of encrypted communications from Snowden. The
obvious candidate for that theft would be the US government. And, that would
probably be even more despicable than doing it out in the open like this.

Nonetheless, I find it hard to believe people exist who want to live in a
world like this, where privacy and free speech mean nothing. And, yet, when
given the chance to build a world like this, so many weaselly little tyrants
in bureaucratic roles take every opportunity to push people around, making the
world sadder and more bleak for everyone.

------
Kliment
"terror powers" seems quite appropriate - that this is legal at all is
terrifying

------
ck2
Will UK folks actually protest this or have they become like the US public,
completely complacent and apathetic to all intrusions, as long as they can
still go shopping at the mall, watch football and get drunk every weekend?

So the pattern is basically, pass insane laws because "terrorist" then use the
incredibly broad and overreaching laws beyond abuse for anything they want to
do.

Exactly the pattern law enforcement does with every single tool they are
given, physical or virtual.

~~~
ionised
> Will UK folks actually protest this or have they become like the US public,
> completely complacent and apathetic to all intrusions, as long as they can
> still go shopping at the mall, watch football and get drunk every weekend?

Exactly this.

I'm British and I'm completely fucking tired of living here and watching how
right-wing, xenophobic, poor-bashing and just all-round ignorant and
unpleasant people are and are becoming.

I feel absolutely no kinship with my countrymen, because most seem completely
unwilling to think for themselves. It semms like they would rather just be
told who to hate on any given day by a media known for its lies, and by
politicians known for their utter greed and contempt for the people.

I'm currently looking into moving away and possibly even renouncing my
citizenship in future.

The problem is, where to move to?

~~~
mike_hearn
I think you're wearing rose tinted glasses. You say "are becoming" but do you
have real evidence that the past was a utopia of rationality where propaganda
fell on deaf ears, nobody was ever scared of any threats and everyone loved
deeply religious immigrants?

Because the UK I know from my history readings has things like the cold war,
the Falklands war, massive tribal struggles between political left and right,
and if you go back to Orwell's time you find he found it tough to get
published because the idea that Stalin was a bad guy was deemed terribly
gauche.

The UK has not had any truly evil governments for a very long time (perhaps,
if we judge them by the standards of their day, the answer might be that it's
never had an unusually evil government). It's not like Germany where they're
super sensitive about privacy and democracy thanks to their experiences the
Nazis and then the communists. So not very surprisingly, British people tend
to be very trusting of their governments as they never saw how bad things can
really get. See: popular support for Cameron executing a British citizen by
drone strike, merely because he was in Syria and GCHQ promised cross-our-
hearts-and-hope-to-die that he was a Bad Guy™.

This lack of experience doesn't excuse things, mind you .... just explain
them. British people (like me) _should_ look to the experiences of other
countries to learn from their mistakes and _should_ make sure to avoid them.

But modern UK is not significantly worse than even the recent past where it
did things like run a global empire, persecuted gay people, had no minimum
wage, etc. And Cameron, for all his faults, has actually been a pretty
centrist PM (for a Tory). Certainly more than his backbenches would like.

~~~
ionised
All I can say is, I really, _really_ dislike this country and the political
system that operates it.

My personal and political beliefs seem to be completely at odds with most of
the British public and I feel like I would be crazy to stay. I mean, we have a
_monarch_ and an unelected upper house of parliament. What the hell am I doing
here?

My identity as a British person means very little to me. I was born on this
patch of dirt, someone stamped 'British person' on my arse and here I am.

~~~
mike_hearn
If you mean you're significantly more left wing than many people, well you'll
see that split everywhere in the democratic world, even in Scotland.

Yes, there's a monarch. Who does diddly squat other than putting on a dog and
pony show for visiting dignitaries - which happens to be useful for trade
purposes (see recent visit of the Chinese president) - giving people
entertainment and attracting tourists. So the monarchy is tolerated. That
tolerance would vaporise if say Charles came to the throne and started trying
to fuck with government policies. You'd pretty quickly see the monarchy put in
a purely ceremonial role and the country transition to a kind of pseudo-
republic which would be a republic in all but name, in which people still
pretend to be loyal to the King even though he has no power at all.

So I wouldn't worry about that.

The house of lords has such limited power I wouldn't worry about that either:
it can slow legislation down but can't stop it due to the Parliament Act. Like
the monarchy, it's a tolerated holdover from earlier times that doesn't really
impact much of anything.

If these are the worst things about Britain you can think of, I'd suggest you
have a case of grass-is-always-greener syndrome (btw, I'm British and I live
in Switzerland ... but not because I thought the UK sucked so bad I had to get
out).

~~~
ionised
They are not even close to the worst things I can think of about Britain, they
are just the most visible to people.

The two I mentioned I mostly symbolic, true but that's even more reason to get
rid of them. Screw the financial benefit.

They are representative of obscene wealth, privilige and elitism and have no
place in a democratic society, symbolic or not.

------
Paul_S
I'm scared by how terror laws can be used to justify anything the state wants
to do. I think it's too late to stop it now.

~~~
jarek
Far from the first time - they used them to try to settle a banking dispute
with Iceland once!

------
gizi
The situation here is even worse than it looks like. You've got two government
departments, one way or another both reporting to Downing Street 10. Suddenly
one government department confiscates government assets from another
department. This is not supposed to be possible. If they wanted assets from
another department, they were supposed to politely ask. If the request was
refused, and they believe they were right, they should appeal.

------
nbevans
And I'm okay with this. He talking to ISIS fighters over the internet. He was
naive to think that MI6 wouldn't want to know precisely what he has been up
to. I'm sure he is innocent and I'm sure MI6 aren't interested in him either;
but more concerned with who he has been talking to. And don't worry, I'm sure
he will get his computer back once they've cloned the hard disk.

------
venomsnake
Can anyone explain how and why British society moved from "Mind the gap" and
"Keep calm and .." to this permanent state of fear?

------
mirimir
Reporters ought to protect their sources. Nothing that's discoverable should
contain sensitive information. In UK, encryption doesn't suffice. Maybe
there's a market for anonymous contact management.

