
US and UK at odds over security tactics - ollysb
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/20/nsa-david-miranda-guardian-hard-drives
======
AmVess
"The White House responded with surprise to the report of the destruction.
Asked at his daily briefing on Tuesday whether President Obama's
administration would enter a US media company and destroy media hard drives –
even to protect national security – the White House spokesman, Josh Earnest,
said: "That's very difficult – to imagine a scenario in which that would be
appropriate."

It's not as if the USA has ever coerced an innocent person into giving up
their livelihood without benefit of due process
([http://lavabit.com](http://lavabit.com)).

1600 Penn doesn't need to physically destroy hard drives when a 46-cent stamp
and and NSL has the same outcome.

Beyond that, I'm not sure why they commented on this at all, considering they
have zero credibility on the matter. It just makes them look worse...if that
is really possible.

~~~
ars
> It's not as if the USA has ever coerced an innocent person into giving up
> their livelihood without benefit of due process
> ([http://lavabit.com](http://lavabit.com)).

Is this an arguing tactic or do you really believe that?

They didn't coerce him, he did the equivalent of resigning in protest. They
might be the reason why he did it, but they did not actually make him do it.

> Beyond that, I'm not sure why they commented on this at all, considering
> they have zero credibility on the matter. It just makes them look worse...if
> that is really possible.

They are trying to backpedal, they realize people are unhappy at this whole
business and are trying to walk it back without looking weak. You should be
happy about them saying this, since it's at least a start.

------
joe_the_user
It is hard to know where this is leading.

The NSA leaks seem to express a national security state that is immune to all
but the most terrible publicity. Yet it seems like the escalation of power and
arrogance means that said national security state is generating exactly that
level of terrible publicity, demonstrating a cynically cavalier attitude so
extreme it is actually keeping the situation in the lime light.

And of course we know that which nation engages in what exact tactic is
somewhat beside the point. The Americans would say "we wouldn't force the
destruction of hard drives" with what is now the standard, _the standard_ ,
kind of disingenuous secret caveat; "no, WE would steal the data in the middle
of the night" or "we would have the courts first declare the reporters to be
non-reporters and then throw them Guantanamo" or whatever.

~~~
jlgreco
Or not destroy the hard-drives, _merely_ steal them for 'evidence'. Or perhaps
sue the harddrives for some crime.

~~~
lcampbell
> Or perhaps sue the harddrives for some crime.

For those not in the know, in the US this is actually a valid legal avenue for
asset forfeiture. The term is "in rem jurisdiction". IANAL, and I wonder
exactly what defense there is against all of one's hardware being sued (since
my impression is that the owner lacks standing).

Wikipedia:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_rem_jurisdiction](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_rem_jurisdiction)

~~~
malandrew
This is my favorite example:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._$124,700_in_U....](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._$124,700_in_U.S._Currency)

------
ihsw
Well they boondoggle'd this one, however the conspiracy theorist in me
believes that this is a pointed distraction aimed at directing attention away
from the Whitehouse/NSA. GCHQ is the sacrificial lamb, to put it bluntly.

Replace all instances of "GCHQ" with "NSA" and it should quickly sink in how
serious this matter is. Imagine if NSA officers had stormed the Washington
Post's office in a similar fashion, threatening and ignorantly ordering the
destruction of a variety of named and un-named hard-drives.

How could GCHQ have known which hard-drives were which? Baffling.

~~~
Daniel_Newby
It beggars belief that GCHQ would send out Sean the Enforcer to say "Oy! Give
us the fookin secrets or we break yer fookin kneecaps!" and the fling around
0.01% of their office equipment. Signals intelligence people simply do not do
that. Actual spies rarely do it. Hell, spies in badly written television try
to avoid it.

What would really happen is that a GCHQ man from Eton would call up one of his
old school chums at the newspaper and they would work out some quid pro quo
over tea. Quietly. Discreetly. _Like professional spies_.

It is barely possible that a rogue group inside GCHQ did this in a spasm of
stupidity. It is just an unlikely chain of events for a rogue group to form,
obtain the information, and on their own decide to make a spectacular public
intervention. That sort of thing simply is not cricket.

My bet is that an outside handler goaded the GCHQ misfits squad into doing
something, possibly even planting false orders. France, Russia, and China all
have good reason to run GCHQ into the ground.

NSA? Not so much. Britain has long used intelligence sharing with the U.S. to
punch way above their weight in international politics. The NSA would not
casually throw such a valuable partner under the bus.

Whatever happened, we can at least have the satisfaction of knowing that
whatever squad of fuck-knuckles organized the newspaper job are being
questioned until their fingernails curl up. And then reassigned to surveil
bears in Siberia.

~~~
jlgreco
Occam's Razor mate. GCHQ did it. There is no reason to perform mental
gymnastics to exonerate them.

~~~
Daniel_Newby
The reason matters. It's like if grandma seems to have set your dog on fire.
You don't say "Oh, what a malicious old bag she is." You dig into the complete
chain of events to find out the root cause.

Occam's Razor also dictates that a trivially predictable outcome is an
intended outcome. This media circus is trivially predictable. Ergo someone,
somewhere is counting on the Internet mob to demand rough justice and shout
down deeper analysis.

~~~
mpyne
One of my defenses of government in the types of conspiracy theories that get
batted around here on HN is that government is staffed by people who are just
as stupid as the rest of us, all the way up to the top. The vast majority of
people I've met working in government are upstanding, want to do the right
thing by their position and the people, but they have just as much highs and
lows of average intelligence as the rest of the population. If your one
decision maker is on the low end of that spectrum then there is the potential
for ridiculously stupid acts to occur.

There's no reason this shouldn't apply to GCHQ (and NSA) just as much as it
applies to the rest of government. Is it truly impossible that an agency that
never operates under press scrutiny would be unfamiliar with which of their
actions would exacerbate press scrutiny?

I don't know the org. structure for GCHQ but NSA falls under DOD and so there
is definitely some familiarity with the idea of "Public Affairs", even if NSA
typically never has to engage in such.

------
argumentum
I think this is likely damage control. However, it also shows that Americans
are lucky to have our founding documents.

While they aren't always effective in stopping government overreach, and we
are living in a dangerous time for the ideals expressed within them, _at
least_ our government will always have to pay them lip-service.

------
rdl
I'm curious what game console/games he lost -- I suspect he could get a
signed/etc. version from the developers for the asking.

------
bostik
Okay, this is borderline sick. Just combine _" Theresa May, the home
secretary, confirmed that she was given advance notice of Miranda's detention
as she praised the police action [...]"_ with _" Lord Falconer of Thoroton,
the former Labour lord chancellor who was involved in introducing the anti-
terror legislation used to detain Miranda, said the police had no right to
detain him under the Terrorism Act 2000."_

Let me paraphrase that a bit.

The police: _" Hey guys, we're going to abuse the anti-terror laws and
intimidate a highly visible journalist and his family. This might be
illegal."_

The police oversight body: _" Who cares?"_

The UK home office have effectively announced that they are not doing their
job. Even when expressly told _in advance_ that the police will break the law
in a very visible way, they choose to ignore it.

That must be either gross negligence or crass incompetence.

[Quick edit: italics]

~~~
dTal
1) Where on Earth did you get the idea that the job of the Home Office is
police oversight? That would be the IPCC. The Home Office has been the home of
Big Brother in the UK for some time now.

2) It's doubtful whether they broke the law. That's part of the issue, the law
has been badly mutilated to the point where it is legal to harass people
without any suspicion of wrongdoing. It's lovely and considerate of Lord
Falconer to condemn what he has enabled, but unfortunately it accomplishes
bugger all. It's not as if this wasn't foreseen and protested at the time, so
such cries of "oh but THAT's not what we had in mind at all!" are at best
disingenuous.

------
yuhong
Well, if UK was depending on NSA intelligence, I am not surprised they would
be even more worried than the NSA itself.

