Edward Snowden & The N.S.A Revelations

Byrnzie

The land of the free! Free to buy stuff and to watch t.v. Just don't upset those in power.

Yep, that's real freedom! Did someone mention China yesterday?? :think:


http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... -reporters

David Miranda, schedule 7 and the danger that all reporters now face

As the events in a Heathrow transit lounge – and the Guardian offices – have shown, the threat to journalism is real and growing


Alan Rusbridger [Chief Editor at the Guardian]
The Guardian, Monday 19 August 2013


'...The detention of Miranda has rightly caused international dismay because it feeds into a perception that the US and UK governments – while claiming to welcome the debate around state surveillance started by Snowden – are also intent on stemming the tide of leaks and on pursuing the whistleblower with a vengeance. That perception is right. Here follows a little background on the considerable obstacles being placed in the way of informing the public about what the intelligence agencies, governments and corporations are up to.

A little over two months ago I was contacted by a very senior government official claiming to represent the views of the prime minister. There followed two meetings in which he demanded the return or destruction of all the material we were working on. The tone was steely, if cordial, but there was an implicit threat that others within government and Whitehall favoured a far more draconian approach.

The mood toughened just over a month ago, when I received a phone call from the centre of government telling me: "You've had your fun. Now we want the stuff back." There followed further meetings with shadowy Whitehall figures. The demand was the same: hand the Snowden material back or destroy it. I explained that we could not research and report on this subject if we complied with this request. The man from Whitehall looked mystified. "You've had your debate. There's no need to write any more."

During one of these meetings I asked directly whether the government would move to close down the Guardian's reporting through a legal route – by going to court to force the surrender of the material on which we were working. The official confirmed that, in the absence of handover or destruction, this was indeed the government's intention. Prior restraint, near impossible in the US, was now explicitly and imminently on the table in the UK. But my experience over WikiLeaks – the thumb drive and the first amendment – had already prepared me for this moment. I explained to the man from Whitehall about the nature of international collaborations and the way in which, these days, media organisations could take advantage of the most permissive legal environments. Bluntly, we did not have to do our reporting from London. Already most of the NSA stories were being reported and edited out of New York. And had it occurred to him that Greenwald lived in Brazil?

...The state that is building such a formidable apparatus of surveillance will do its best to prevent journalists from reporting on it. Most journalists can see that. But I wonder how many have truly understood the absolute threat to journalism implicit in the idea of total surveillance, when or if it comes – and, increasingly, it looks like "when".

We are not there yet, but it may not be long before it will be impossible for journalists to have confidential sources. Most reporting – indeed, most human life in 2013 – leaves too much of a digital fingerprint. Those colleagues who denigrate Snowden or say reporters should trust the state to know best (many of them in the UK, oddly, on the right) may one day have a cruel awakening. One day it will be their reporting, their cause, under attack. But at least reporters now know to stay away from Heathrow transit lounges.

Byrnzie

Andrew Sullivan

"In this respect, I can say this to David Cameron. Thank you for clearing the air on these matters of surveillance. You have now demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that these anti-terror provisions are capable of rank abuse. Unless some other facts emerge, there is really no difference in kind between you and Vladimir Putin. You have used police powers granted for anti-terrorism and deployed them to target and intimidate journalists deemed enemies of the state. You have proven that these laws can be hideously abused. Which means they must be repealed. You have broken the trust that enables any such legislation to survive in a democracy. By so doing, you have attacked British democracy itself. What on earth do you have to say for yourself? And were you, in any way, encouraged by the US administration to do such a thing?"



Juan Cole - 'How to create a dictatorship?'

"10. Further criminalize whistleblowing as "terrorism", have compradors arrest innocent people, detain them and confiscate personal effects with no cause or warrant (ie, David Miranda, partner of Glenn Greenwald). Presto, what looks like a democracy is really an authoritarian state ruling on its own behalf and that of 2000 corporations, databasing the activities of 312m innocent citizens and actively helping destroy the planet while forestalling climate activism."

Jason P

If he was acting as a mule and carrying stolen top secret data, he should feel lucky they sent him on his way after nine hours.

mickeyrat

Jason P wrote:

If he was acting as a mule and carrying stolen top secret data, he should feel lucky they sent him on his way after nine hours.

convenient point that gets lost in all this stuff. THIS SHIT WAS STOLEN AND ADMITTEDLY SO BY SNOWDEN!!!!!

As such, if Mr. Miranda( ironic name considering what happened to him) was in possesion of any of it, it could be argued that he was/is complicit in the initial crime.

As far as I know being a significant other to a journalist doesnt provide the same protections under US law.


Since not much has been said until now about the Brits and how THEY are conducting themselves, I expect the same scrutiny as given the US.

JimmyV

mickeyrat wrote:

Jason P wrote:

If he was acting as a mule and carrying stolen top secret data, he should feel lucky they sent him on his way after nine hours.

convenient point that gets lost in all this stuff. THIS SHIT WAS STOLEN AND ADMITTEDLY SO BY SNOWDEN!!!!!

And, by now, probably by the Russians too.

mickeyrat

JimmyV wrote:

mickeyrat wrote:

Jason P wrote:

If he was acting as a mule and carrying stolen top secret data, he should feel lucky they sent him on his way after nine hours.

convenient point that gets lost in all this stuff. THIS SHIT WAS STOLEN AND ADMITTEDLY SO BY SNOWDEN!!!!!

And, by now, probably by the Russians too.

I would believe the chinese have it too, at least what pertained to them.

Jason P

JimmyV wrote:

mickeyrat wrote:

Jason P wrote:

If he was acting as a mule and carrying stolen top secret data, he should feel lucky they sent him on his way after nine hours.

convenient point that gets lost in all this stuff. THIS SHIT WAS STOLEN AND ADMITTEDLY SO BY SNOWDEN!!!!!

And, by now, probably by the Russians too.

I imagine most countries with developed economies and a half-ass spy networks have a copy of it by now.

Guitar92player

Jason P wrote:

I imagine most countries with developed economies and a half-ass spy networks have a copy of it by now.

I agree. Just because Snowden says they don't have it doesn't mean it is true. Those countries are not perfect and probably lie like the US gov't does.

Byrnzie

The far bigger crime is the government lying to Congress under oath, and spying on the American people in breach of the U.S Constitution.

As for him being a mule and carrying the NSA documents; do you really think he, or Greenwald, or Snowden, are that stupid?

Maybe you think any and all material critical of those in power should be able to be seized by the police?

This was an attack on journalism Worldwide, and an attempt to intimidate and threaten critics of the NSA spying programme.

Guitar92player

Byrnzie wrote:

As for him being a mule and carrying the NSA documents; do you really think he, or Greenwald, or Snowden, are that stupid?

So it's okay for you to call Americans sheep and other things, but others can't say what they think about Snowden?

Jason P

Byrnzie wrote:

As for him being a mule and carrying the NSA documents; do you really think he, or Greenwald, or Snowden, are that stupid?

.

Perhaps naive ... Or power drunk

Why would you fly into Britain otherwise if you we're a direct link with this case?

He met with the lady that snowden gave his stolen files to. And then tried to fly through england. Stupid is as stupid does.

Or this was a scam to justify releasing more files. That would be smart. Any other reason would be beyond dumb.

Byrnzie

Jason P wrote:

Or this was a scam to justify releasing more files. That would be smart. Any other reason would be beyond dumb.

Why do they need any extra justification to release more files?

Byrnzie

Guitar92player wrote:

Byrnzie wrote:

As for him being a mule and carrying the NSA documents; do you really think he, or Greenwald, or Snowden, are that stupid?

So it's okay for you to call Americans sheep and other things, but others can't say what they think about Snowden?

When did I call Americans sheep?

Guitar92player

Byrnzie wrote:

Guitar92player wrote:

Byrnzie wrote:

As for him being a mule and carrying the NSA documents; do you really think he, or Greenwald, or Snowden, are that stupid?

So it's okay for you to call Americans sheep and other things, but others can't say what they think about Snowden?

When did I call Americans sheep?

Byrnzie wrote:

I just hope that your views are not widely held views in the U.S. Because if they are, then that's a very, very sad state of affairs. 'America, the land of the free.' What a fucking joke.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... -australia
'...you have four times the chance of being struck by lightning as you do from being killed by a terror attack. You are nine times more likely to choke to death on your own vomit; you are eight times more likely to die at the hands of a police officer than a terrorist. You are also something like a thousand times more likely to lose your life in a car crash than from a terror plot.'

Yet the U.S government has convinced it's citizens that it needs to spy on every single one of them, and carry out this spying program in total secrecy, with no transparency or accountability. And the American public nod their heads like obedient sheep.

Byrnzie

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... -detention
'The 2000 Terrorism Act, which I helped introduce, was not passed with people like David Miranda in mind...

...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.

There is no suggestion that Miranda is a terrorist, or that his detention and questioning at Heathrow was for any other reason than his involvement in his partner Glenn Greenwald's reporting of the Edward Snowden story.

...Schedule 7 does not contain a power to detain and question journalists simply because the state thinks they should not be able to publish material because of the damage publication might do, or because they do not approve of where the information came from. The state has exceeded its powers in this case.'

gimmesometruth27

manning gets 35 years for exposing war crimes.

bush, cheney, rumsfeld, rice, ashcroft, powell, wolfowitz walk free while being responsible for the committing of war crimes.


that the fuck is wrong with this picture???

Byrnzie

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... a-gchq-nsa

'Sending a message': what the US and UK are attempting to do

State-loyal journalists seem to believe in a duty to politely submit to bullying tactics from political officials
Beta


Glenn Greenwald
theguardian.com, Wednesday 21 August 2013


'...the US and the UK governments go around the world threatening people all the time. It's their modus operandi. They imprison whistleblowers. They try to criminalize journalism. They threatened the Guardian with prior restraint and then forced the paper to physically smash their hard drives in a basement. They detained my partner under a terrorism law, repeatedly threatened to arrest him, and forced him to give them his passwords to all sorts of invasive personal information - behavior that even one of the authors of that terrorism law says is illegal, which the Committee for the Protection of Journalists said yesterday is just "the latest example in a disturbing record of official harassment of the Guardian over its coverage of the Snowden leaks", and which Human Rights Watch says was "intended to intimidate Greenwald and other journalists who report on surveillance abuses." And that's just their recent behavior with regard to press freedoms: it's to say nothing of all the invasions, bombings, renderings, torture and secrecy abuses for which that bullying, vengeful duo is responsible over the last decade.

But the minute anyone refuses to meekly submit to that, or stands up to it, hordes of authoritarians - led by state-loyal journalists - immediately start objecting: how dare you raise your voice to the empire? How dare you not politely curtsey to the Queen and thank the UK government for what they have done. The US and UK governments are apparently entitled to run around and try to bully and intimidate anyone, including journalists - "to send a message to recipients of Snowden's materials, including the Guardian", as Reuters put it - but nobody is allowed to send a message back to them. That's a double standard that nobody should accept.

If the goal of the UK in detaining my partner was - as it now claims - to protect the public from terrorism by taking documents they suspected he had (and why would they have suspected that?), that would have taken 9 minutes, not 9 hours. Identically, the UK knew full well that forcing the Guardian UK to destroy its hard drives would accomplish nothing in terms of stopping the reporting: as the Guardian told them, there are multiple other copies around the world. The sole purpose of all of that, manifestly, is to intimidate. As the ACLU of Massachusetts put it:

The real vengeance we are seeing right now is not coming from Glenn Greenwald; it is coming from the state."

But for state-loyal journalists, protesting thuggish and aggressive behavior from the state is out of the question. It's only when aggressive challenges come from those who are bringing transparency and accountability to the state do they get upset and take notice. As Digby wrote last night: "many elite journalists seem to be joining the government repression of the free press instead of being defiant and protecting their own prerogatives." That's because they believe in subservient journalism, not adversarial journalism. I only believe in the latter.

satansbed

looks like there has been a twist in the snowden case

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... paper.html

if this is true they where right to detain Miranda

JimmyV

satansbed wrote:

looks like there has been a twist in the snowden case

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... paper.html

if this is true they where right to detain Miranda

Skeptical of anything the British government announces in this case, but it also would not surprise me if this is true. The Brits behaved very badly with the detention of Miranda. At the same time...why was he connecting through there anyway? Very strange episode all around.

unsung

gimmesometruth27 wrote:

manning gets 35 years for exposing war crimes.

bush, cheney, rumsfeld, rice, ashcroft, powell, wolfowitz, obama walk free while being responsible for the committing of war crimes.


that the fuck is wrong with this picture???

Fixed for you.