
'Sending a message': what the US and UK are attempting to do - qubitsam
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/21/sending-message-miranda-gchq-nsa
======
kleiba
Folks, take a step back and take a look what is going on here. When you were a
child, would any of you have believed that one day in the early 21st century,
you would wake up in a world where your own government spies on each and every
single citizen, plus whoever is connected to them in another country, where
they send agents to newspapers to oppress the freedom of the press?

I mean, isn't this almost surreal? Like a cheap sci-fi novel has become
reality?

Who's the real terrorists in 2013? I for one am more scared, appaled by what
has been bubbling to the surface every week, almost every day since Snowden.

~~~
rainsford
I certainly get the "cheap sci-fi novel" feeling reading a lot of commentary
on the Internet. But honestly, taking a step back and looking at what's
actually happening puts things in a much different perspective and makes
comments about living in a dystopian future seem more than a little silly.

Look at the David Miranda situation. The Internet reaction about living in a
police state was immediate, but the rhetoric didn't seem to match what really
happened (at least to me). A non-UK citizen (as far as I'm aware) was
transporting classified information through a UK airport almost certainly for
the purposes of releasing that information, information the UK government
considers damaging if it was to be released. The information is confiscated,
but the man himself is let go. And afterwards, the man's journalist husband
more or less openly threatens the UK government with the release of more
classified information in retaliation. That's not quite how I remember sci-fi
police state stories usually going.

~~~
CaptainZapp
Well, the whole affair sounds a bit like a he-said, she-said. There are claims
that Mr. Miranda was a courier and that they offered a lawyer and water during
the 9 hour ordeal. The law office, which represents Mr. Miranda categorically
denies that legal representation was ever offered to him, for example.

Now, I don't know the truth, but even assuming he had documents they wanted to
get their hands on, or files on his devices that they thought pertinent they
could have handled the whole thing in 30 minutes max and then let him go on
his merry way.

That they held him - almost to the minute - for the legal maximum of 9 hours
looks not only vindictive it looks as if they indeed intended to send a
message.

Put that into context with other documented occurrences, like the totally
senseless destruction of hardware and sandbagging the Guardian into this
action (and yes, The Guardian has here more credibility then the UK
government, which denies any threats, but that's just me) and we get a whole
other picture.

While totalitarian police state may be an over exaggeration , we should be
very careful about the direction this is going into.

Assume you're a journalist and suddenly the government(s) have a truckload
embarrassing material on you (from Google searches, Facebook accounts, Skype
calls and whatever your friendly operating system leaks directly to the NSA's
vacuum cleaners) to directly blackmail you.

And no, I don't consider myself a member of the black helicopter faction, but
nevertheless find those developments extremely worrying.

~~~
mabhatter
If you changed the story to be a known drug dealers wife, it isn't that out of
line. Can Miranda clearly say he has NEVER TRANSPORTED leaked documents or
known where his partner keeps them? Really? Even more so, can he prove his
partner has never tried to use him as a mule to pass confidential information
across international borders?

This was just like grabbing a drug dealers wife hoping the drug dealer was
just a little too greedy and his stuff in her packages.

------
yenoham
When articles like this are submitted to HN, can we have a discussion on what
us as individuals can actually do (if anything)?

I'd rather drop 100 comments on general FEELING towards the news, for 1 or 2
comments suggesting 'Let's create a campaign site' or 'There is nothing we can
do, lets just sit here in silence'

Edit: For what it's worth my ONLY suggestion is that a campaign site similar
to that for SOPA, etc. is put together - ideally on GitHub or similar so it
can be rapidly put together.

~~~
espeed
Google was founded on the principle of "Don't be evil", it has the power and
influence to effect change, and it helped lead the charge against SOPA. Why is
Google so silent now?

"He who has the ability to act on an injustice, but who stands idly by, is
just as guilty as he who holds the knife."

How Google handles this will be its defining moment. This is could be an
opportunity for Google to win the world over by showing it truly stands on its
principles, or it could be its downfall, destroying its credibility, losing
the trust of its users.

Maybe Google is working behind the scenes putting a game plan together, or
maybe it's getting something out of the situation -- let's hope it's the
former. Like Eisenhower said, "A people that values its privileges above its
principles soon loses both."

~~~
uptown
'Google was founded on the principle of "Don't be evil"'

I wish people would stop quoting this. It means nothing, and is not binding in
any way. It sounded good, and it was a great marketing slogan - but it means
absolutely nothing in reality.

~~~
espeed
"Don't be evil. We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better
served — as shareholders and in all other ways — by a company that does good
things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains" \-- Google's 2004
IPO Prospectus
([http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~hal/Courses/StratTech09/...](http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~hal/Courses/StratTech09/Lectures/Google/Articles/Google_IPO_letter.html)).

Binding or not, it's a social contract, and it could mean the world if Google
stands by it.

------
jasonkolb
This is taking quite a scary turn, but not, I think, in the direction that the
governments are intending. Rather than intimidate people into silence they are
actively creating a movement of people who are abhorred and appalled by these
tactics. Kick that dog enough times and you're going to create an organized
movement that can fight back. This is how unrest happens.

What I don't think they realize is that the dog they're kicking is also the
most technically capable one on the planet. They're not poking Al Qaeda with a
stick, they're poking every programmer and hacker who cares about privacy with
a stick. While they may have unlimited financial resources, I would pit
unlimited technical resources and creativity against that any day of the week.
If they manage to create an organized group of highly technical opposition I
think they're going to be very surprised by how capable it is.

~~~
xradionut
"While they may have unlimited financial resources, I would pit unlimited
technical resources and creativity against that any day of the week."

They are the ones with unlimited technical resources. You don't have armed
drones nor biological nor nuclear weapons. You are an hostage like everyone
else. You might as well accept that fact for now and just enjoy life.

~~~
jasonkolb
I have to respectfully disagree. They have unlimited financial resources,
which translates into unlimited storage capacity etc. But NOT (IMO) unlimited
technical resources in the sense of brainpower and creativity. When I say
technical resources I'm referring to the ability to create new tools.

For example, I know for a fact that a large number of intelligence tools are
written on top of open source projects. That base did not come from the
technical resources of the government (in most cases) but rather the
collective ingenuity of the hackers and programmers that built it for various
reasons. You can already see projects springing up with the intent of
circumventing government technical oversight. This is going to result in an
endless game of technical whack-a-mole where one side is motivated by a
paycheck and the other is motivated by ideals and the desire for liberty.

~~~
xradionut
I don't see "Them" ceding any power or capabilities. Nor do I see any long
term solutions to this situation that don't cause worse problems in the
future. Which is a shame, since there are other serious issues that will
continue to be neglected till things do get really worse. Call me cynical, but
I've read too much history in my life.

I'm all for OSS. I believe this is going to cause a lot more people to take it
and security seriously.

------
a3n
"Here is David Miranda explaining to BBC what it's like to be forced to turn
over your passwords to security agents who have detained you under a terrorism
law, so they can troll through your emails and Facebook account and Skype
program while you are detained. Just watch that short video and judge for
yourself."

As I read this I tried to imagine how to reset my digital life, now that all
my passwords are exposed. You just about have to become a brand new person,
and abandon every account you currently have. Any change to a current account
would be observed by the NSA and GCHQ. To the extent that this guy had any
privacy or security at all, he's screwed for the rest of his life.

~~~
6cxs2hd6
> forced to turn over your passwords

Forced, how? Threat of detention beyond the 9 hour window?

If so, it's easy to speculate I would call their bluff and refuse. But in the
situation, probably not so easy.

What about using a hidden volume in TrueCrypt for plausible deniability? [1]

I suppose that would work effectively for documents. There's no plausible
deniability for stuff like Facebook and Gmail. They can easily see if you gave
them access to the real/full thing, or not.

However given the revelations David Miranda of all people would have to assume
his Gmail, FB, et al have _already_ been compromised.[2] So the only
interesting, still-private stuff would be any documents.

[1]: [http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/plausible-
deniability](http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/plausible-deniability)

[2]: Not that this makes it right to demand the passwords at LHR.

~~~
polymatter
> Threat of detention beyond the 9 hour window?

No, the threat of 2 years in jail.

"The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA), Part III, activated
by ministerial order in October 2007, requires persons to supply decrypted
information and/or keys to government representatives. Failure to disclose
carries a maximum penalty of two years in
jail."([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law#United_Kingd...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law#United_Kingdom)).

TrueCrypt is no escape if they have reasonable suspicion there is a hidden
volume. And you will have to prove that there isn't one.

------
frank_boyd
There are people who've been planning these things all along, just to give you
a hint:

“The technotronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled
society.

Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional
values.

Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every
citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most
personal information about the citizen.

These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities.”

Author: Zbigniew Brzezinski, United States National Security Advisor to
President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981.

You can find this at: [http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/162691-the-
technotronic-era-...](http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/162691-the-technotronic-
era-involves-the-gradual-appearance-of-a-more)

~~~
espeed
Brzezinski is Obama's advisor.

~~~
frank_boyd
Ok, now I really need to throw up.

------
ohwp
If you think there is nothing that can be done you should take a look at Gene
Sharp's theory of nonviolent resistance:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Sharp](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Sharp)

~~~
boi_v2
Gene Sharp is excellent, I am reading From Dictatorship to Democracy.

On the subject, I think the biggest problem is how to make people understand
how serious this is, make them see that the similarities between what is
happening and totalitarianism and even fascism is to disturbing.

Today I was speaking with a friend about faceCrap and he just doesn't care
about it, he doesn't even try to get properly informed and said that no one
would do anything against him because the information he shares is not
relevant. I tried to explain the problems with the greed ones controlling the
information (hence truth) of the planet, the political and economical
advantages it brings to people that doesn't care about society and how his
data could say a lot about him but at the end he told me I am paranoid :).

So the political problem we are facing, in my opinion, is a consequence of
lack of interest and even selfishness.

------
jstalin
I love his coining of the term "state-loyal journalists." Greenwald, Snowden,
et al deserve Nobel Peace Prizes...

~~~
TallGuyShort
Obama wins peace prize, Obama administration supports spying, Snowden leaks
spying, Obama calls Snowden a traitor, Snowden wins peace prize? Wow.

------
autonomy77
The policy of intimidation is working - it doesn't matter if the NSA/GCHQ
really do have the technology which is actually capable of performing this
scale of surveillance - something which I'm entirely unconvinced of,
incidentally - they are spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) and being
quite successful at it too. Are they capable of trawling so much data to the
depth that is claimed? Probably not. Are they capable of intimidating
individuals with wide reaching knock-on effects including among the general
public? Absolutely. So which method is having the most impact? The threat is
far more effective than the reality. Make people scared - it saves you having
to actually do anything.

------
wil421
Lets condemn places like China, Russia, and Syria for they way they limit or
monitor electronic communications but when the US and "Friends" do it its for
mumble mumble TERRORISTS mumble mumble....

If the laws don't allow us to monitor our citizens lets just change the laws
or interpret the words differently.

~~~
rainsford
Except the US and friends aren't really "doing it" in the same sense that
China, Russia, etc are. Those countries develop powerful surveillance
capabilities and use them to target political dissent, among other anti-
democratic things. Nothing that's been reported about the US comes even close
to that sort of usage.

~~~
JackpotDen
>use them to target political dissent

locking up a dissenter's partner doesn't count, right?

------
fnordfnordfnord
Just pay attention to the messaging coming from some of these media sources.
The gov't propaganda is growing less subtle; making it easier to identify who
is working for whom.

------
TausAmmer
Government is us, when stomach tries to fight with brain over trivial details
like food you or giving, amount, quality and so on. One day brain will kill
stomach with all the control mechanisms, it dies too.

"For the benefit of all".

We already live in virtual reality where most of the things we do is just to
numb our perception. Nothing to do with advancements in energy, space travel,
consciousness. Going where no man has gone before.

And we lough and down talk anyone daring to, so we create spying/regulatory
system, government that picks oddities and puts them in place. It works well,
very well, so well that now we are stuck in place where we want to be, beer
Fridays, pizza Saturday, sunny ice cream Sundays, something to look forward
after week long slavery you hate so much.

It is so complicated and weaved trough all of us and all out
needs/wishes/predicaments. To long and want something, you create opposite
situation that makes that "something" so amazing.

Sometimes I wonder, what would take this organism(humanity) to evolve/change.
Searching for health(happiness) in cancer(fear)? Or total annihilation for
something else to come in play.

~~~
xradionut
We are semi-rational animals. Not many of us can handle the "Truth", it's
fucking depressing.

------
padobson
Almost anything can be crowdsourced nowadays. 237 years ago, the founders of
the US tried to crowdsource power. I don't see why we can't reboot that whole
idea.

Political candidates, lobbying initiatives and legislation can all be directly
impacted, in the current framework they exist under, by crowdsourcing. While
Kickstarter and Indiegogo have shown us it's possible with art and industrial
design and dozens of other media, there's not a go-to place to do it for
politics.

So if this community really wants to change our dystopian future, then that's
the answer. We could have the NSA completely defunded in a year if we wanted.

------
baggachipz
Presumably, the Snowden leak files are distributed among Guardian employees.
In order to insure against the destruction of all copies of these files due to
a worst-case scenario, wouldn't it be a good idea to distribute the files
globally? If the Guardian wants to maintain control of the divulgence of
leaks, they could encrypt the leaks as a series of files in a bundle and
distribute it over, say, BitTorrent. They could then release the key to
decrypt each leak file as they see fit.

------
nicholassmith
The British government looks like a farcical bully in this. A playground
bruiser that intimidates his way down the hall before promptly slipping over.

Destroying the hard drives was an exercise in dominance, 'do as we say or face
the consequences' which had no impact (aside from inconvenience and the cost
of a couple of Macbook Pros) to The Guardian but has made the UK .gov look
foolish.

Pulling Miranda, abusing the terrorism laws, sending a message is another
dominance play but it's back fired awfully. Brazil is annoyed, GG is annoyed,
America has calmly washed it's hands and said "leave us out of it". In terms
of strategic decisions it can't be described as an excellent one. What's the
UK .gov gotten out of it? Some encrypted data and social network passwords,
it's not a win.

If you're in the UK and you think this is unacceptable for our government to
be trying to intimidate the journalists who're revealing the uncomfortable
level of surveillance we now live under, and what the security apparatus has
become, then write to your MP. That's what they're there for. We can't just
hope that it'll surge through the halls of Parliament, we need to be heard
that we think it's not acceptable and not representative of what we want
Britain to be.

~~~
boi_v2
Honestly I don't think the "write to your MP" action would have any result,
for me this is just another tool to make people think that Democracy is being
exercised, anyway, I am not saying that you shouldn't do it, please do it, but
don't stop your actions there because it is just not enough.

~~~
nicholassmith
It's a piece of the puzzle, it's a way for them to know what the concerns are
and they can choose to act or ignore. You're right, it shouldn't just stop
there but people should shout from every rooftop even if it's potentially
ineffective.

------
ttt_
I can almost picture NSA analysts vulturing all over the private data
collected of these enemies of the state.

How soon utnil they send out the drones into the foreign lands where they have
not so great a political strongarm?

"Drone bombing in brazilian airport kills dozens"

"Sadly it was necessary as one of the passangers carried terrorist intel that
would put our free world at risk"

------
acheron
Of course, remember that the Guardian was perfectly fine with the government
harassing journalists as long as it was not them:
[http://reason.com/blog/2013/08/20/despite-its-battle-with-
th...](http://reason.com/blog/2013/08/20/despite-its-battle-with-the-
surveillance)

~~~
cabalamat
While dare say the Guardian isn't perfect (not that it's relevant) I would
distrust anything coming from Spiked, a magazine whose _modus operandi_ is to
be contrarian on every issue. They are, in effect, professional trolls.

~~~
rahoulb
"Spiked" used to be "Living Marxism", which was the magazine of the
Revolutionary Communist Party. The RCP members I used to know (only a handful)
would revel in their own inconsistency - so since the demise of the RCP I can
fully understand Spiked carrying on that particular tradition.

~~~
cabalamat
> The RCP members I used to know (only a handful) would revel in their own
> inconsistency

That doesn't surprise me one bit.

------
FELICIA-JOY
The US government spying on citizens is not new at all. It has happened for as
long as our nation has been one.

It may be more insidious now because the technology to aggregate spying on "we
the people" is available. Welcome to the truly post-privacy era.

Furthermore, the average person is not outraged by this. Cue the shock and awe
for one to ten minutes after the biggest breaking stories about it and after
that, for the common (wo)man, its all yawns.

Plus, it is quite a dilemma. How does the government protect against terrorism
while trying to protect the citizens' privacy when a citizen, or anyone moving
among us citizens, could be a terrorist or sympathizer?

The intent is not bad but what could come of this kind of stealthy access is
bad if it falls into the wrong hands or becomes guided by ill-intent.

~~~
EthanHeilman
>The US government spying on citizens is not new at all. It has happened for
as long as our nation has been one.

The mission and organisational capability of the government as changed
dramatically. Nations in the late 18th Century (1776+) didn't have
intelligence agencies per se. Some had military intelligence that was focused
outward and they had various figures and organisations that would informally
engage in domestic espionage usually in an extremely targeted fashion.
Remember that formal police departments didn't exist until the 20th Century.
Most of what we think of as the Government didn't exist in your Great-
Grandfathers time. None the following existed in the US in my Great-
Grandfathers time:

1\. Intelligence agencies CIA/NSA/CSS/NRO,

2\. Dept. of Defense,

3\. Welfare,

4\. Police Local, State, FBI, DHS,

5\. FDA (Drugs were unregulated),

6\. Income Tax/IRS,

7\. EPA and consumer protection agencies,

8\. Public Education in its present form,

9\. Federal Reserve Bank

The US Federal Government was the Postal Service to most citizens. It is
really important to understand that we are living at the height of Federal
power in the history of the US.

The closest thing that Europe pre-18th Century had to the NSA was the
Inquisition and it was more focused on "investigation".

------
eeeeaaii
"sending a message" == getting you to doubt, think twice == instilling fear ==
creating terror == being a terrorist

Fighting terror with terror. How can it be that no one in the UK government
agencies responsible for this can see the irony? How can it be that they don't
understand their actions are degrading society just as much as those of the
terrorists?

------
smegel
If they do succeed in "shutting the leaks down", I wonder if that would be
enough for supporters to finally release all the docs publicly. Or for Assange
to give out the key to one of his insurance files.

I wouldn't get my hopes up though, these so called leakers seem more
stringently against full pubic disclosure than the people they are leaking
against.

------
hans0l074
I could sense anger wash all over Mr.Greenwald again, as he typed that one out
(which might have resulted in the typo I noticed "...They threatened the
Guardian with prior restrained(t?) and then forced the paper to physically
smash their hard drives in a basement..."). Heck, I was upset just reading it.

------
Malstrond
>the remains of the hard disc and Macbook

Yet the picture shows a (PCIe?) extension card, which can not be found in
Macbooks. The green PCB isn't a Macbook part either. And no part of a HDD is
shown at all.

------
coldcode
The one good thing I see is that cross-party-lines anger by some politicians
is actually happening. The party leaderships are fighting it but for once they
might be powerless to stop it.

------
api
Oh they're sending a message alright. I'm just not sure it's the message they
want to send.

------
peteretep
Controversial article that made me think:

[http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100231711/why-
do...](http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100231711/why-does-being-a-
relative-of-glenn-greenwald-place-you-above-the-law/)

~~~
ganeumann
Straw man. Nobody argues he's above the law. They argue because:

\- The law is to detain suspected terrorists, nobody thinks the UK believed he
is a terrorist, so they were abusing the law;

\- If, as the UK government now says, they just wanted any electronic devices
he had so they could see what he was carrying, that would have taken less than
an hour to confiscate them and ask for whatever passwords Miranda had, not the
close to nine hours they held him.

Nobody is above the law. I am sure the reason Miranda was travelling from
Berlin back to Rio and not Greenwald was that Greenwald knew he would be
detained and thought perhaps Miranda would not. But just like Miranda is not
above the law, neither is the UK government. If they misuse a law to harass
and intimidate then they should be held to account.

There's always some jackass journalist who thinks they should take the other
side, no matter how contrary to the facts, to get some attention. I am just
surprised it's at outfits like The Telegraph and Reuters.

~~~
anon1385
>I am just surprised it's at outfits like The Telegraph

I'm not sure why. David Cameron could literally murder a baby on live TV and
Dan Hodges would describe it as a 'political headache for Miliband'. Nobody
takes him seriously; his columns are just fodder for Telegraph readers looking
to confirm what they already believe.

Not to mention all the wacko conspiracy theories about climate change that
they print.

------
b8sell
fuck the NSA

