
 The detention of David Miranda was an unlawful use of the Terrorism Act - jacquesm
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/21/terrorism-act-david-miranda-detention
======
brey
The gradual broadening of what 'terrorism' means is worrying.

First 'terrorism' gets conflated with 'actions that help terrorism'

Then 'actions which help terrorism' gets conflated with 'actions which could
hinder counter-terrorism'

If possession of copies of Snowden's material counts as the latter, who's to
say that campaigning for a change in the law to restrict this wouldn't count
either?

with this logic you could write a convincing argument that Lord Falconer's
article was an 'action which could hinder counter-terrorism'. or, frankly, any
other peaceful activity which is in any way contrary to the ideals of a state
of total surveillance.

~~~
alan_cx
As was pointed out at the time these laws were drafted, possession of an A to
Z could aid terrorism, not to mention possession of the Anarchists Cookbook.
Then we get the usual nonsense of people who like to smoke a joint are accused
of funding terrorism.

We are all terrorists now. Hence why we are all spied on. Get used to it, as
no one seems to care.

BTW, the solicitors dealing with this, they are same firm who embarrassed
Teresa May over Abu Qatada, when she got her dates wrong and couldn't kick him
out. If there is anything unlawful about this, (morality and decency well
aside as they simply don't count,) they will find and prove it. For reasons I
cannot go in to, I have experience of how good they are. It should also be
remembered that the law in general is under attack from this government, and
although it is strangely under reported, the legal profession is deeply
unhappy, to say the least, with this government. For those who don't know,
legal aid is being slaughtered and that will wipe out a lot of solicitors
firms who defend and protect the poor from blatant abuse and injustice, who
make up the vast majority of criminal cases. For some reason this government
wants to sell contracts to people like _haulage firms_ to provide legal aid to
people who cant afford solicitors for a little money as possible. Legal aid is
currently bad, this government want it worse. Legal defense will be based on
price, conviction will end up being based on police say so, with out question.
So, if you are poor you will never be able to get impartial advice, since the
contracted solicitors will be working to the bare minimum clock. So,
essentially, they are trying to deny justice to the majority of defendants,
while relying on the lie that the majority of solicitors are rolling in
unearned unjustified cash, which I assume you is a lie. So, any chance of
exposing, even damaging, this government will be thoroughly pursued. In short,
to me, this firm being involved is the best news so far.

~~~
frenger
Why do they want to do all this? I don't get it. It's so plainly wrong, what's
their MO behind the scenes? Surely it's not just all a thinly-veiled pulling
up of the draw bridge between 'us' and 'them'? I mean, what do the politicians
talk about between themselves when they decide to do this shit.

~~~
Silhouette
_Why do they want to do all this?_

The cynical view is that they're all cowards, so deathly afraid of the next
big one happening on their watch that they won't risk anything that might look
like they were soft on national security. One of the difficulties of this
issue politically is that it's all too easy to ignore someone whose civil
liberties have been infringed as long as it's not someone you know personally,
but no-one misses an event like 9/11 or 7/7.

A more dispassionate view might be that right now the British public does
collectively favour having intrusive measures available to fight the bad guys
and trust that the authorities will use them acceptably. For example, see this
recent YouGov poll:

[http://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/08/21/public-divided-over-
mira...](http://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/08/21/public-divided-over-miranda-
detention/)

It's worth reading the PDF linked from that page, which shows the actual
questions they asked, so you can decide for yourself how neutrally phrased you
think they were. The PDF also gives a more detailed breakdown of voting by
demographic.

Notice that in the breakdown, even Lib Dem supporters somewhat support having
having Schedule 7 on the books (54/37), while Tory supporters overwhelmingly
favour it (80/12). It's also striking how the picture changes with age, with
18-24s supporting moderately (49/30) but 60+s overwhelmingly (76/18).

Of course, you can argue that the current public sentiment is/isn't based on a
sound understanding of the issues, as you can with any political polling, but
those are the real numbers they found over the past couple of days.

What is perhaps more striking is that despite the general support for
authoritarian laws being available, public sentiment was much more hostile to
the specific application of the law in this case. Tories and UKIP were still
in favour but by smaller margins (58/27 and 52/40 respectively) but Labour and
Lib Dem supporters were quite strongly against (54/29 and 62/29), and the
overall opinion was against (44/37). This suggests to me that much of the
sentiment in favour of these laws is based on trust that they won't be abused
in practice, and therefore that the degree to which public support for such
measures continues will probably be based on the government being seen to be
using them responsibly.

------
jacquesm
The writer of this article, Lord Falconer used to be Secretary of State for
Justice.

~~~
selectstar
Surprising person to have written this...

"In his role as Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, Lord Falconer
sought to make it easier for government bodies to refuse to release documents
under the Freedom of Information Act (2000), "

Source :
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Falconer,_Baron_Falcone...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Falconer,_Baron_Falconer_of_Thoroton)

~~~
jacquesm
Mindblowing actually. Lord Falconer is the last person that I would have
expected to come out on this side of the debate, I had to re-read the byline
to make sure I got it right, that's how unexpected this is. Imagine Eric
Holder speaking out on behalf of Snowden or something to that effect.
Obviously he's not friend of May's but to pen a column on the issue and
declaring this illegal in so many words is a very strong statement.

~~~
nicholassmith
It's interesting, I'm not actually overly surprised Lord Falconer spoke out
over this as whilst he's was repeatedly hammered over the fact that Section 7
was a clear affront to civil liberties he maintained a consistent line that it
was for a very specific purpose. I imagine he's enjoying the opportunity to
hoist the Conservatives and repeat his line of "we never made it for _this_ ".

Alternatively he might be angry that the overly broad legislation that he was
involved with has been used an imperfect way and justified the criticism that
it received. I lean a bit further toward getting one over on the Tories
though.

~~~
coopdog
If he was a part of 'overly broad legislation' that 'could be used
inappropriately but shouldn't be', then he's an idiot, or naive.

Put specific cases in which the law is applicable into the law itself, and
specifically exclude as many applications as you can see that it shouldn't be
applied for.

Giving broad powers to police and trusting them, just like trusting any human
with broad powers, is a recipe for disaster. But then again we all knew this,
I'm glad it's been an eye opener for him.

------
junto
It isn't right, but the authorities truly believe that these leaks are aiding
terrorists to evade their surveillance. They see Miranda in exactly the same
way in which they see a drug mule. Not knowing what the documents are that you
are carrying is not an acceptable excuse. In their opinion he is carrying
stolen property.

It is perverse, but it is these warped authoritarian beliefs that the public
is up against, and sadly, most of the public don't care.

~~~
ferdo
> They see Miranda in exactly the same way in which they see a drug mule.

They didn't arrest him, so no.

This is harassment of political dissent by the policing arm of the government.
What makes this even worse is that it's the British government harassing a
Brazilian national for the sake of American intelligence.

~~~
junto
You are missing the point. I know people inside the system and this is what
they are telling me.

This is how they see him. They see this in an extremely black and white way.
Secret documents were stolen. Miranda is handling stolen goods. The Guardian
is aiding and abetting terrorism. QED, we can use the terrorism act to stop
and search Miranda.

I kid you not, this is their psyche. This is how they perceive these leaks.

~~~
ferdo
> They see this in an extremely black and white way.

Of course they do. That's why they're harassing people that dissent from their
black and white views.

------
ealexhudson
I think I finally understand this. His detention wasn't to send a message, or
intimidate the Guardian, or anything else: the BBC News article covering the
injunction that Miranda has applied for says this:

"The court was also told that "tens of thousands of highly classified
documents" had been seized."

Miranda had at least some of the Snowden archive with him. The UK, US and
friends have absolutely no idea what that archive contains - except for the
information which has so far been released.

Every information release has been timed for almost maximum effect; Obama in
particular seems to have been caught either being misinformed or deliberately
misdirecting. This is the collective's only opportunity to get ahead of the
game.

There is no way the court in the UK will injunct the use and sharing of this
data; but even if they did, you can bet your bottom dollar that copies have
already been sent out to NSA and friends.

Finally it all makes sense. The various journalists involved will not send the
data over the internet for obvious reasons - even if encrypted, it allows the
various agencies know who has what. Sending data by personal courier is the
only way. However, it's demonstrably unsafe at this point.

What they need is an anonymous system of data mules, smuggling information
just like drugs. Just thinking of all the mechanics you'd need to put in place
to make that actually work just boggles the mind.

EDIT: I meant to link to the Beeb article; it's this one:
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23790578](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23790578)

Another edit: This just struck me. The Guardian hard drive incident happened
about a month ago. The Govt could have pulled this Terrorist Act stuff with
them, and indeed they intimated it, but they didn't go through with it. They
wanted this data, but legally didn't seem to be able to get it. One man
travelling alone through an airport is much easier to pressurize, and maybe
the jurisdiction is just unclear enough that their onshore-illegal tactic is
legal there.

Final edit: the judgement is out:
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23790578](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23790578)
The data taken can only be examined or copied for "national security
purposes", which - since it's all secret - I believe basically means nothing.
The various agencies will soon know exactly what Snowden took.

~~~
yungchin
> The various journalists involved will not send the data over the internet
> for obvious reasons - even if encrypted, it allows the various agencies know
> who has what.

Question out of my ignorance: couldn't the Tor network obfuscate such things
sufficiently?

~~~
ealexhudson
I suppose "sufficiently" is indeed the question. If the NSA own enough of the
end points they can see the data coming in and out again. Snowden said
encryption was good enough to keep data private, but perhaps he also believes
Tor isn't good enough to keep usage anonymous.

~~~
crazypyro
What about PGP or other encryption? Surely, the NSA couldn't crack a PGP
encrypted message sent over tor, could they? (Assuming no access to private
keys)

Disclaimer: I have basic understanding of security, but not much more.

------
junto
In my opinion, the government knew that stopping Miranda was wrong and they
knew it would cause a bit of a protest, but they also knew that the vast
majority of that protest would come from the liberal left, which in the UK is
a small and relatively obscure part of society.

They did this because they really wanted to know what documents Snowden has in
his possession. They made an educated guess that Miranda might well have the
entire Snowden archive in his person.

Up until now the US/UK have been embarrassed several times by denying
something, and then Greenwald releases something that proves otherwise. People
in major positions, including the President of the United States have been
made to look stupid.

Therefore, the risk of obtaining what is in the archives was worth a "small
amount" of abuse of the terrorism act. Now they have the possibility of
cracking that encrypted archive and finding out what is in there. They can
then prepare to dilute each leak as it comes out.

I'm surprised that Greenwald / Guardian allowed this to happen. He should have
known better. Miranda should have disposed of anything in his possession that
had already been delivered. He should never have transited the UK. He should
have had a burner laptop, and not one that left forensic residue.

Anyway, the damage is now potentially done. Even if encrypted, the NSA quite
possibly has the resources to crack that archive. We'll see come the next few
releases. If the US is embarassed again then they haven't cracked it. If they
come out quickly with smart rebuttals, they've cracked it. Greenwald should
come out and state how the data was encrypted. At least then we will know
which encryption is / isn't safe once the computing power of thr NSA is thrown
at it.

------
simonh
If the public were to know exactly what their governments are up to, they
might be terrified. Therefore informing them is an act of terror. QED.

------
segmondy
The detention of David Miranda IS TERRORISM.

It's sad that those who are supposedly trying to protect us from terrorists
are beginning to terrorize us.

Picture this, you have a wife and little kids at home. One day while the
family is away, the family home is "attacked", broken into. The family's sense
of security is lost. As the man of the house, you decide to protect your
family from these "terrorists" thieves. You become too paranoid, waking up
randomly at night and checking all doors and windows, waking up your wife and
kids in the process, you stock pile weapons and ammunitions, sometimes you go
outside at night and shoot randomly into the sky as a warning to potential
thieves that you are ready. How would your family feel? Would they feel more
safe or terrified that you are losing your mind? Yeah, well that's what the
government is acting like today.

I for one is scared as hell. Hell, this is the first time I'm really posting
on this topic and it's scary to consider the fact that a posting like this
could be used to crucify me tomorrow.

------
wilhil
Or is it a lawful use and shows just how badly written, widespread and unjust
the act is?

~~~
jka
As discussed in the article, it seems fairly clear that it is not lawful use,
and that it's a political overstretch.

There have been statements by Teresa May attempting to justify the use of the
powers since possession and latterly publication of confidential documents
could arguably aid terrorists, but Miranda's actions are clearly not within
the conditions that apply.

So it is a case of the UK overstepping the mark legally in an attempt to buddy
up with the US, again (the White House has confirmed being notified of the
action, and thus did not prevent it).

In reality it may be invoking the Streisand effect and fueling opposition at
least as much as it is suppressing free speech - after all, it is fairly clear
that Greenwald et al take precautions (as they must have to) to ensure that
documents are replicated and available in multiple jurisdictions. But there is
perhaps _still_ not a good understanding of those processes and the ways that
digital data can move at a UK political level.

~~~
jacquesm
Journalists the world over are taking this very seriously.

The EFJ has released a statement regarding the affair, but I can't find an
English text copy of it. Here is a dutch article referencing it, google
translate probably required:

[http://www.nu.nl/media/3556146/europese-journalistenbond-
hek...](http://www.nu.nl/media/3556146/europese-journalistenbond-hekelt-
misbruik-antiterreurwet.html)

One choice quote from all the material about Miranda's detention is this:

"One US security official told Reuters that one of the main purposes of the
British government's detention and questioning of Miranda was to send a
message to recipients of Snowden's materials, including the Guardian, that the
British government was serious about trying to shut down the leaks"

It looks like it has sent a message alright, every journalist in the world has
been made aware of how serious this issue really is and that they _and_ their
family members (active or otherwise) are potential targets. This is the media
equivalent of sticking a baseball bat into a hornets nest.

~~~
jka
I'd hope this should imply that journalists will become more aware of the
benefits of using encryption and replicating documents (even centralized/cloud
services would be OK, as long as the content is encrypted and they can't all
be seized).

The big question for me is - why send such a strong signal to journalists?
What is the big secret?

* That the fight on terrorism is ineffective because they have long been using techniques which evade all this surveillance

* That terrorism is no longer genuinely a significant threat thanks to human and signals intelligence, and thus the entire war is essentially a huge budget grab (and employment industry, and control/power mechanism)

* Simply that shutting down independent journalism is a goal

Or some combination of the above? I never imply wide conspiracies as I think
they're genuinely too difficult to co-ordinate, but people/organizations do
independently/implicitly collude by seeing each other's behaviours and reading
the zeitgeist.

------
carlosdp
From my understanding, he was actually making that trip to exchange classified
documents with another person Snowden sent the documents to. That would be a
justified detention.

~~~
jacquesm
Please read the article, he's arguing that that is not enough, and would not
be enough either under the spirit _or_ the letter of the law.

------
raldi
Can we stick "[opinion]" in the title? I mean, _I_ think it's a fact, and
_you_ probably think it's a fact, but the headline as written makes it look
like a piece of breaking news about an official ruling.

~~~
jacquesm
That is the title of the article.

~~~
raldi
By that logic, we should never stick [2010] or [pdf] in the submission title
either.

The same words suggest different things, depending on whether they appear
under a commentary heading next to the columnist's headshot, or by themselves
on the front page of Hacker News.

------
qwerta
I do not get this. In many countries police can keep person up-to 24 hours
without court order. This guy had clear links to Snowden, so his detention is
justifiable (from police point of view). And he could easily avoid UK
completely by traveling via Madrid.

Some people in USA and Western Europe are held in detention for years or even
decades without fair trial. Perhaps we could talk about them?

~~~
jacquesm
> This guy had clear links to Snowden, so his detention is justifiable (from
> police point of view).

That's the whole point here, Falconer argues that from a police point of view
_it wasn 't justifiable_.

The fact that there are people in the USA held in detention for years is
something I'm not familiar with, the Guantanamo bay prison is not in the USA
for that specific reason. And I'm also not familiar with people in Western
Europe that are held in detention for years or even decades without a fair
trial, which people do you mean (it's off-topic but interesting)?

~~~
qwerta
They could detain him (and eventually charge) under different law (PACE or
whatever). 9 hours is practically rounding error.

[http://www.yourrights.org.uk/yourrights/the-rights-of-
suspec...](http://www.yourrights.org.uk/yourrights/the-rights-of-
suspects/police-powers-of-arrest/police-detention.html)

Guantanamo _is_ under US jurisdiction. Raul Castro is certainly not boss
there.

Other cases are illegal immigrants, various `thought criminals`, people
accused of crime where court is delayed...

~~~
6d0debc071
They can detain you under the limitations set out in PACE but, as far as I
know, they still have to arrest you first and then the custody officer has to
accept the arrest. And if they're arresting you for no reason you can then go
on to sue them for wrongful arrest.

