Harlowe wrote:If they have cause to believe someone is transporting stolen information that they feel could aid terrorists, how is that that outside of the scope?
Seriously? I mean... seriously? You're buying into the "but he could help TERRERISTS" bullshit?
Next we'll be detaining people for carrying money they feel could aid terrorists.
Think about it. If he was wanting to help terrorists with information, the way to do it would be just post the whole thing on facebook. Confiscating usb drives and detaining people for nine hours just because you can come up with a cock-and-bull excuse is flat out intimidation and completely ineffective at stopping any "terrorist" angle.
Yes - the UK allows for blanket gag orders on the media as well, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be criticized for using it.
I certainly think it's plausible that the information could be damaging to national security. If terrorist groups know exactly how they are being monitored, well of course that's a concern. In no way am I saying the UK Terror Act shouldn't be criticized. I just don't think this particular person being detained under the circumstances he was traveling is worthy of outrage.
People being held with no legal recourse at Guantanamo Bay, that's out-rage worthy. Being the mule for your boyfriend's stolen national security documents and being detained and then released after 9 hours, with your items confiscated for a week ...not so much outrage-worthy.
Here's the thing - Greenwald et. al. are clearly trolling the UK to show how outrageous their policies are.
What possible reason, with the pervasive internet and free strong encryption that is provably unbroken, would Greenwald have to send Miranda with thumb drives full of secrets? If he wanted to pass the data on, just drive to a random internet cafe and upload the encrypted data to a brand new Dropbox or Mega account. Decryption keys are sent through any number of secure channels, or given to Miranda to memorize if he really, really wants to send his partner.
Instead, Greenwald sends Miranda with thumb drives containing large blocks of (apparently) random data and (apparently) makes his intent to do this very well known to pretty much every government because it's clear they had plenty of time to prepare and congratulate themselves on how clever it is to hold people for 9 hours to achieve nothing in particular.
Am I outraged at Miranda's specific treatment? Of course not. It was a clear troll and couldn't possibly be anything else. Am I somewhat outraged that the governments in question apparently don't give a damn that it was a troll and STILL had the complete arrogance to hold someone for no good reason (short of a bit of petty power play, perhaps) and then justify it with the complete bullshit that those specific USB drives could aid terrorists above and beyond what Greenwald/Miranda can do anyway... yeah - that's outrageous. These people just don't give a damn about anyone, about what anyone thinks and make the rules up as they go.
Oh I agree with all of that. If people don’t like the rules, they need to work towards changing them. I guess you could say the outrage is that there is no wrong-doing here; they’ve made these laws so broad, that they can stretch terrorism to include aiding the enemy by disclosing classified government documents.
This is exactly what you’d expect to happen, which is why I'm sure you have a point that Greenwald was trolling them. You have Greenwald who has been assisting Snowden in exposing not only the US but it’s allies via stolen state secrets, who is threatening to release more (and worse according to him) information with regard to the US and its allies, and neither the US nor the UK really know exactly the extent of what he has. Greenwald also said in his Rolling Stone interview that because he is detained so often, he often resorts to having friends and family move his documents around. So he admitted to being in possession of stolen state documents, his partner was traveling with documents from Poitras who is in direct contact with Snowden also has indicated she has documents, Berlin giving the UK the head’s up…. it’s a no-brainer that this guy is getting detained.
What annoys me about Greenwald is that he has altered his stories numerous times, so has the Guardian, but they ultimately admitted what was going on. From what I’ve seen of Greenwald over the years, he has a tendency towards exaggeration and claiming malicious or nefarious intentions from opposing viewpoints as a general rule, so his credibility with me is about nil. He’s faux-pissed his young and very naïve partner was treated like a criminal for 9 hours doing his dirty work. That’s on him for putting him in this situation, but like you said, he's probably trolling. He’s not a stupid man; he should have known this was going to happen. He probably wanted it to happen, to bring further attention to this issue, to how broad the laws are and potentially abused, also he likes being outraged in the spotlight. He said they have copies of everything, so it’s no real loss. The only loss for them is a few electronics and the mystery of exactly what they have. So either he wanted this to happen or he's legitimately pissed they have access to what they do have, so he can't to just continue to threaten the US and allies with mysterious information, they'll know what it is.
What else was the UK going to do though? If you were the US or the UK and knew that stolen state secrets, secrets that reveal programs that monitor terrorists, and other highly sensitive information and probably embarrassing information was being transported from country to country, wouldn’t you detain the a person believed to be transporting your stolen information at the very least to find out what exactly these people have, and are threatening to release, in order to determine whether or not they could affect national security?
Detaining is one thing. Confiscating their stuff after having proven that nothing incriminating was on it is another. So is holding them for the maximum amount of time just to be a dick.
It's like the Jose Padilla case - there's a difference between terrorism concerns and just plain doing shit because you don't have anything better to do.
Well, it’s the Super-Monroe Doctrine: “Get off our oil, people who dress funny!” - M. Bouffant
"You're a bad captain, Zarde. People like you only learn by being touched, and hard. And you will greatly disapprove of where these men put their hands." - M. Vanderbeam.
I don't know if they would immediately know what was on it, since Greenwald said it was all encrypted. There is an actual criminal investigation at this point.
Nope - Miranda got an injunction forcing the UK to prove there was a legitimate threat to security before they can touch anything. Clearly upping the troll.
At a hearing in London's High Court over Mr Miranda's lawyers attempt to prevent British authorities from looking at the tens of thousands of documents on the devices, a lawyer for London's Metropolitan Police said some contained dangerous information.
"That which has been inspected contains, in view of police, highly sensitive material the disclosure of which would be gravely injurious to public safety and thus the police have initiated a criminal investigation," Jonathan Laidlaw said.
The police declined immediate comment on what the criminal investigation was about.
Mr Miranda's lawyer, Gwendolen Morgan, told reporters that she knew very little about the investigation or what the basis for it was.
Two High Court judges, Jack Beatson and Kenneth Parker, ruled that the British authorities could continue to look at the information from Mr Miranda for the defence of national security and to investigate any possible links to terrorism.
The judges gave British authorities until 30 August to sift through the documents
"That which has been inspected contains, in view of police, highly sensitive material the disclosure of which would be gravely injurious to public safety and thus the police have initiated a criminal investigation," Jonathan Laidlaw said.
To summarize what I think you'll find has happened: the police found a great big encrypted file and can't decrypt it. They are assuming (from undisclosed sources) that it is Snowden's cache, but can't prove it. Because they won't be able to decrypt it in 7 days (Greenwald and Poitras are good at this), they won't have a single shred of evidence and will have to give everything back. Miranda then sues the hell out of everyone and everything for whatever he can and tries to get high ranking people kicked out of government (but probably fails).
Of course, MI6/GCHQ will make copies anyway. Then Greenwald discloses the decrpytion key in some other clever way that doesn't tip them off. They run off to act on the info, only to find it's a canary trap by Greenwald who's been itching to expose them directly in contempt of court. Cue some Michael Bay explosions or something.
Or they just end up with a file they can never decrypt because it's actually IS a whole bunch of random data (you can't tell encryption from random data) and Greenwald is just trolling.
Or they just end up with an encrypted file with no way of decrypting it because Greenwald/Poitras know their shit and no way of acting on it.
It's sounding more and more like the NSA/GCHQ/whoever really has no idea of the scope of the leak. The fact that the statements released in response to early leaks have been proven false by more recent documents must be blowing their mind. Without knowing what's yet to come out, they can't do ANYTHING but make a truthful statement, and that must be absolute bloody hell for them. The NSA is looking at least as bad as Hoover's FBI right now.
Nice summary of the Snowden related info so far: http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/m ... tions.html
Interesting summaries of NSA's decryption capabilities (*WARNING* Docs are TOP SECRET/SI, so don't click if that's bad for you, however I got them from Kevin Mitnick's twitter so they're well and truly public knowledge now): 1, 2.
I really rail against the idea that the NSA is deliberately weakening security in consumer products so they can access stuff through back doors. If the NSA can, and they're commercial products, then you have to also assume organised crime and foreign intelligence services can as well. Source code for these products are just not that secret.
