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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
The terrorist is the class enemy -- классовый враг -- of the Western world.
I sometimes wonder how it would be if politicians would try to use this rhetorical device in an ex-Communist country (I used to live in one, so I should know). They'd probably be laughed at the first couple of times, and then quickly labeled as crackpots. The catch is, most of them haven't actually experienced terrorism; to a population who hasn't seen a terrorist bombing for generations, "terrorist" is as empty a term as "enemy of the people".
It's things like this that convince me history should be a compulsory, well-treated subject, everywhere. History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes so well!
I'm guessing that the best way to solve this is to "take back the word" and use it in ways that demonstrate its banality and uselessness in debates.
Using fear to sway political discourse is an excellent definition of terrorism because it effectively labels both those causing the physical damage and those selling the antidote as terrorists. Getting a nation to spend billions to trillions of dollars on over-the-top security solutions and leading a country to war based on lies is as much of a terrorist act as 9-11.
Anti-terrorism would be getting every to calm down and avoiding overreactions and unhealthy obsessions, which is about as far from what has happened in the US and UK in the last ~12 years.
I really want to see all journalists and bloggers calling any and people advocating solutions based on fear called terrorists. Osama Bin Laden was a terrorist, Dick Cheney is a terrorist. Al Zawahiri is a terrorist. Barack Obama is a terrorist. Mussolini was a terrorist. George W. Bush is a terrorist. Timothy McVeigh was a terrorist. David Cameron is a terrorist. Ashcroft is a terrorist. Hitler was a terrorist. Mao was a terrorist. Stalin was a terrorist. etc.
If you're selling fear, you're terrorist.
Not terrorists? Dalai Lama. Bradley Manning. Ghandi. Ladar Levison. Martin Luther King, Jr. Edward Snowden. Nelson Mandela. Julian Assange. etc.
It all started when terrorists were called "enemy fighters" and their human rights were removed. Nobody protested. At that moment, the government got permission from the people to ignore our most basic rules and just do whatever they wanted, as long as they label it "terrorism".
In both the US and UK, the authors of their respective anti-terror laws are now trying to distance themselves from the predictable consequences of the laws they passed, i.e. that governments tend to overreach and loosely-written legislation enables this.
I don't think that's fair. The author states in very specific terms, referencing both the document and various definitions, that there is no reasonable way in which Schedule 7 could have been legally used for this purpose.
At a more general level, your point is valid, but on this specific discussion, less so.
The British government has been abusing the Terrorism Act since it received Royal Assent, and critics have pointed out from the time it was introduced that it was susceptible to abuse.
I think my favorite abuse was the use of anti-terrorism law by the UK to seize assets of Icelandic banks in the country during that country's banking collapse.
My comment (which I think I repeated here among other places) was, "maybe they are afraid of a second Viking age."
>there is no reasonable way in which Schedule 7 could have been legally used for this purpose.
And yet it was used, for neither "reasonable" nor "legally" have any objective meaning. Both are convenient fictions to allow otherwise objectionable acts to gain the imprimatur of legitimacy.
"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), "
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.
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.
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.
I remember the way he spoke during the Kelly affair and that stands out more than anything for me. Contrasted with that to speak out like this in the Guardian no less is completely out of character. He's as much a chip of the old block as there ever was and even though he no doubt doesn't mind grilling the Tories he is going far further than would be required for that.
I'm not so surprised. If this were a proper use of the law it would be a much stronger case for the Greenwald/Snowden side -- in that case it would be clear that the law should be changed.
If this was a misapplication of the law then all that's called for is a slap on the wrist for the people who detained Miranda and an official apology. They might get some extra oversight out of it, but that's a stretch. Probably just a few internal memos so future actions don't raise such a stink.
He's a barrister and QC, and his name is associated closely with this law.
He's very much the type that might take this type of abuse as a combination of personal affront and horrible insult to the legal system, as well as worry that abuse of this law will reflect badly on him.
And he's not exactly best buddies with Theresa May.
This, I think, is an indicator that the elected officials (and their direct appointees) have diddly-squat to do with the governance of the country. The UK is governed almost entirely at the whim of the civil service, and I can imagine that something similar holds for all other countries.
Governing a country is a hard job and to expect ministers, whose briefs change every year or two, to do a good job is ridiculous. So they rely on the civil service, who have years of their careers based around governance over individual topics.
You can see this, for example, in the way that UK governments are almost always more authoritarian than oppositions. As soon as they become under the jurisdiction of the civil service, opinions change and the agenda of the previous 'government' is openly advanced regardless of what the new party said in opposition. Once you're actually in Whitehall, I could imagine that your world view changes as you become immersed in a very closed system. The current government came into power claiming to be wanting to repeal the liberty-removing legislation that the previous government imposed. And here they are a few years on, misusing that legislation, defending it and wanting to impose more of their 'own'.
However, it is also right that schedule 7 powers can only be used "for the purpose of determining" whether the detained person is a terrorist. The use of the power to detain and question someone who the examining officer knows is not a terrorist is plainly not for this purpose, so it would neither be within the spirit nor the letter of the law.
is factually incorrect I'm not sure the insinuation that this is less valuable because it is political point scoring is that valuable.
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.
> 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.
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.
> the authorities truly believe that these leaks are aiding terrorists to evade their surveillance
Even if that were true, leaking documents that aid terrorists is not same as being a terrorist. If it were, they would have arrested Miranda and charged him with being a terrorist. They did not, because they knew full well that he's not a terrorist. Their opinion that he's carrying stolen property or that he's like a drug mule also does not make him a terrorist. Thus it is illegal for the government to use powers that are it's only allowed to use in determining if someone is a terrorist.
I think it is more evidence of naivety than intentional misdeeds. Of course data is going to be released to everyone, and righteous indignation after the fact is a distraction. Regardless of public interest, the security precautions of these agencies has been found to be seriously lacking. They clearly can't be trusted to maintain private or privileged information.
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.
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 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.
"His detention wasn't to send a message, or intimidate the Guardian"
Miranda was held for the full 9 hours permitted under the "law" and threatened with jail time. It doesn't take that long to confiscate/image someone's drives and extract their passwords. In conjunction with the utterly pointless and symbolic destruction of computer hardware at the Guardian offices, I think it's pretty clear that intimidation is at least partly the goal here.
"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."
You need only send a hard drive of random data by courier, which can be used as a one-time pad. If you get intercepted, no loss. If not, you can thereafter communicate completely safely through pastebin.
If you are trying to imply here that the facility that Snowden worked at did not have auditing on top of not having proper access control then you have to wonder who else has a private copy of some of this stuff.
Has a quote to the effect that this was mostly to send a message. If that was the intended effect it failed spectacularly, if the main operational goal was to get an idea of what was taken then that paints a different light on things but so far this is mostly a theory. It would be a very interesting development.
What I don't get about all this is that the only thing that Miranda should have been carrying was a one-time pad. That way they could use dead drops afterwards, to actually move the data was an unnecessary operational risk, especially if the decryption keys were in the possession of the carrier.
Moving data+keys via the same carrier is the same as moving it in plain text.
A lot of recent stories in various papers have made reference to the NSA not knowing exactly what was taken. I don't necessarily read that as lack of audit - more that Snowden was touching so much stuff that they have not yet managed to figure out the 1% or whatever of his accesses that resulted in the data set he shouldn't have.
Or it may be that their audit system is no good (I've seen that claim), or that they actually do know what is taken. I imagine it's a combination: they know for sure some of the things that were taken, they don't know for sure what other stuff was taken, and the audit system is showing them some proportion of the take.
I agree about the data+keys point, that seems a dim move. Arguable legality perhaps - here in the UK, if you can't decrypt something then you can still go to jail, but I guess at least you don't disclose. Is there straightforward software to use with one-time pads that ensures you use them correctly, though?
Sure, but that was my point. Is there some nice piece of software that will a. create and export a pad for you, b. import someone else's pad, c. allow you to [xor] encrypt/decrypt files in a standard format that someone else with the same software can encrypt/decrypt?
I don't even know if the infrastructure exists. You'd need a file format to identify the pad (md5sum or similar) and offset to wrap the encrypted data, and then some useful mechanisms of annexing off the burned parts of the pad.
If you have a network of people, you're going to need more pads, and if the pad is big enough so you don't run into "no more pad left" then that's potentially a lot of storage.
TLDR: if a journo can't make easy use of gnupg, a OTP system is going to be well beyond their means.
> 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?
Many papers on anonymous networks talk about a global passive adversary that has access to the data entering and leaving every node.
Very few of the papers that I have read claim their networks are effective against a global passive adversary (GPA). The ones that do claim to be effective, and back that up with some calculations of entropy, are really inefficient.
I don't think Tor ever claimed to be effective against a GPA. This paper gives some background:
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.
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.
Perhaps via Zip drives? Oh that's right... flash storage is smaller than the rivets in my jeans nowadays. Will my denim jeans be confiscated next time I pass through a checkpoint? I like my jeans (and the privacy they afford my genitalia) and the rivets are used purely to keep them on my hips.
Likely that would show up on a body scanner just fine. There's one idea to get to spend some time up close and personal with a security guard. And if you want to pursue this idea to its logical conclusion it might get uncomfortable in a hurry.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
So true, it's the abuses of these laws that really catch the general public's attention, until that happens it's all academic.
And this is a real life example that really strikes home to the heart of all journalists. Short of shutting the entire media down, this can only be a bad move.
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.
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.
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.
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?
> 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)?
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.
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.