For civil libertarians in the United States and England, it is increasingly difficult to distinguish the practices of our own governments and the countries that we routinely denounce as authoritarian. An example of this confusion can be found in the outrageous arrest of the partner of journalist Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian writer who brought the Snowden disclosures to light and a leading voice for civil liberties in the world. David Miranda, who lives with Greenwald, was taken into custody when passing through London’s Heathrow airport on his way home to Rio de Janeiro. He was held for nine hours and had his computer, cell phone and other equipment seized. Such stops can occur at the request of the National Security Agency and other agencies and are carried out under the abusive Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000. The case could also highlight possible surveillance of journalists in England and the United States.
The law allows police at airports, ports and border areas to stop, search, question and detain individuals for up to nine hours. Miranda, 28, was held obviously because he is the partner of Greenwald. Where 97% of people held under the law are held for less than an hour, they held Miranda for the full nine hours and confiscated his mobile phone, laptop, camera, memory sticks, DVDs and games consoles.
Miranda was reportedly in Berlin to deliver Snowden related documents and to pass other documents from Laura Poitras, a documentary filmmaker, back to Greenwald. The use of a loved one for such a function is obviously dangerous and most journalists avoid such involvement since the partner would not necessarily be protected as journalists. The documents were stored on encrypted thumb drives. Greenwald says that the police informed him of an intent to arrest Miranda.
Notably, one defense might have been that Miranda was acting in a journalistic activity as a courier for Greenwald but Greenwald is quoted as saying that Miranda is not a journalist. The use of a loved one for such a job would create a dangerous ambiguity. However, it is also clear that the government is targeting a journalist and trying to obtain records of a journalist. Given the history of the Obama Administration in putting reporters under surveillance, there is a reasonable basis to suspect that wiretaps or other forms of surveillance have targeted Greenwald. How did they know to search the partner of Greenwald? I am surprised to see a non-journalist tasked with such a job if these accounts are true. However, these questions still remain as to whether the U.S. government is working with England to target journalistic records.
England has fewer protections for journalists, particularly under its controversial Crown laws. However, even the United States uses enhanced powers at borders and airports. The Supreme Court has adopted different rules governing such stops. The Metropolitan Police released a statement that “[h]olding and properly using intelligence gained from such stops is a key part of fighting crime, pursuing offenders and protecting the public.” The crime in this case would involve disclosures made by someone viewed as a whistleblower to a journalist. Many view Greenwald as protecting the public in performing his journalistic role. Even if Miranda was not viewed as a journalist as Greenwald appears to confirm, he would be viewed as a courier for a known journalist. Such couriers however are usually employees or contractors associated with the media. That difference may have encouraged this action by intelligence officials.
Most people are assuming the English were carrying out the demands of the NSA. Part of the motivation may be the search of the computer records and devices though the length of time has been denounced as harassment. Some members of Congress have called for Greenwald’s arrest. He is responsible for embarrassing a growing number of politicians, including President Obama and leading Democrats, who continue to be caught in false or misleading statements to the public. Unable to convince the public to simply embrace warrantless surveillance and demonize Snowden, the government appears to have adopted a scorched earth policy.
To add to the abuse, Miranda was denied a lawyer as authorities rifled through his computer files and belongings. Greenwald got the message: “[It] is clearly intended to send a message of intimidation to those of us who have been reporting on the NSA and GCHQ. The actions of the UK pose a serious threat to journalists everywhere.” It certainly does, in my view, constitute an attack on the free press and raises the image of virtual hostage taking by the government.
The only thing missing is a few Guy Fawkes masks, “Finger” police, and the smiling face of Minister Peter Creedy to make the scene complete. “Schedule 7” even sounds like something that only Alan Moore could come up with.
What is most striking about Schedule 7 is how it is virtually without any standard or check on authority:
Interpretation
1(1)In this Schedule “examining officer” means any of the following—
(a)a constable,
(b)an immigration officer, and
(c)a customs officer who is designated for the purpose of this Schedule by the Secretary of State and the Commissioners of Customs and Excise.
(2)In this Schedule—
“the border area” has the meaning given by paragraph 4,
“captain” means master of a ship or commander of an aircraft,
“port” includes an airport and a hoverport,
“ship” includes a hovercraft, and
“vehicle” includes a train.
(3)A place shall be treated as a port for the purposes of this Schedule in relation to a person if an examining officer believes that the person—
(a)has gone there for the purpose of embarking on a ship or aircraft, or
(b)has arrived there on disembarking from a ship or aircraft.Power to stop, question and detain
2(1)An examining officer may question a person to whom this paragraph applies for the purpose of determining whether he appears to be a person falling within section 40(1)(b).
(2)This paragraph applies to a person if—
(a)he is at a port or in the border area, and
(b)the examining officer believes that the person’s presence at the port or in the area is connected with his entering or leaving Great Britain or Northern Ireland [or his travelling by air within Great Britain or within Northern Ireland].
(3)This paragraph also applies to a person on a ship or aircraft which has arrived at any place in Great Britain or Northern Ireland (whether from within or outside Great Britain or Northern Ireland).
(4)An examining officer may exercise his powers under this paragraph whether or not he has grounds for suspecting that a person falls within section 40(1)(b).
My favorite part is the last line: “An examining officer may exercise his powers under this paragraph whether or not he has grounds for suspecting that a person falls within section 40(1)(b).”
The actions taken against Miranda were intended to send a message to Greenwald and other journalists that their families will not be protected from repercussions in such controversies. Indeed, the crude tactics conveyed a menacing message that the government is not concerned with public outcry or any notion of checks on its actions. You will note that no one in Congress has demanded to know if American officials were involved in this abusive action. Scotland Yard refused to answer any questions beyond confirmed that Miranda was held in custody. The message to citizens seems clear: Challenge the government at your own peril . . . and that of your loved ones.
Source: Guardian
This looks like Strategic Drip in action. Wait for an official lie. Then debunk it with documents. Wait for the next official lie. Then debunk it with documents. Keep Story Alive. Encourage — dare I say “embolden” — other news outfits to get in on the action to avoid getting consistently scooped by the competition. Expand network of debunkers. Defeat all attempts to isolate and marginalize the single critic. Keep government totalitarians in the dark. Watch them panic and do stupid things. That has already started and will obviously continue. Good. Do not dump once and then hear “Old news. Move along. Already read that.” Etc. Not rocket science here. Very well thought out and executed strategy by The Guardian, Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, and Wikileaks, et al.
The US and UK government totalitarians sliced their own wrists and have begun to bleed in the water. Soon the sharks of political opportunism will join in. Congressional and parliamentary hearings by the opposition. Perhaps even lawsuits. Watergate started with only a third-rate burglary, as legend has it. But it didn’t end there. Hope does have a better than slim chance here. Watch and learn, fellow Crimestoppers.
LK,
Commitment to principle is one thing. Survival is another. I am sure everyone understands this is the big leagues and they play hardball.
“Even the Mafia had ethical rules against targeting the family members of people they felt threatened by.” (Greenwald)
Thanks OS. Still, I think that the files should just be released and let the world make of them what it will.
Ozzie,
Not sure what you are referring to, but I have no idea what has been released and what has not. Or why. I am curious as to why Forbes magazine felt it necessary to post an article giving advice to Bank of America about damage control before the fact. Could it be somebody is bracing for the worst because they know what’s in those files?
Somebody’s dirty laundry may be due for an airing if certain people disappear, are sentenced to long prison terms or other dirty work takes place. You can bet they are keeping the memory of Barry Seal in mind.
LK,
I submit that not only does vetting take time, but that sometimes sequence is important. Just a thought.
OS
But what about the rest of GG files? What has he been withholding and why?
LK,
Here is one stop shopping, courtesy of Lisa Lockwood at Daily Kos.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/08/18/1232032/-Wikileaks-uploads-new-encrypted-insurance-files?detail=hide
Journalists and their loved ones rounded up under a law that is written to catch terrorists, that about says it all. The truth and anyone that would tell it is a terrorist weapon.This country and Britain are not the countries I grew up in and (regarding Britain) respected.
Aside: On another thread it was posted (by OS possibly but I can’t find it) that a new group of Wikileaks insurance files had been released. I have been puzzled by this. One can assume that the insurance files are so significant that people wouldn’t dare kill the messenger. They are radioactive. That makes them the most important files Wikileaks has. Likewise, I’m sure Greenwald has files he will withhold for similar reasons- if not he’s foolish in the short term but it raises questions about commitment to stated principles. I think those files are the files that should be the first ones to be released. Release the files; free the truth. Otherwise you’re just being coy and self serving- I hate coy.
Just a bit curious….
Lewis clarifies and he is excoriated.
Reuters (and Glenn) clarifies and it rights a wrong..
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
By Alan Rusbridger
The Guardian
Monday 19 August 2013
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/19/david-miranda-schedule7-danger-reporters
Excerpt:
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?
That’s just . . . wrong. lol
Room 101
David Miranda
Nine hours with O’Brien
Ministry of Love
Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller”
Allies in strange places:
August 19, 2013 4:00 AM
Time for Answers from the NSA
After a report of 2,776 privacy violations, even NSA defenders are getting fed up.
By John Fund
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/356098/time-answers-nsa-john-fund
Excerpt:
A veteran intelligence official with decades of experience at various agencies identified to me what he sees as the real problem with the current NSA: “It’s increasingly become a culture of arrogance. They tell Congress what they want to tell them. Mike Rogers and Dianne Feinstein at the Intelligence Committees don’t know what they don’t know about the programs.” He himself was asked to skew the data an intelligence agency submitted to Congress, in an effort to get a bigger piece of the intelligence budget. He refused and was promptly replaced in his job, presumably by someone who would do as told.
The response to all of this by some NSA supporters is to point out that the nation hasn’t been attacked in the dozen years since 9/11. As someone who stood on the street across from the World Trade Center as it collapsed on 9/11, I can appreciate how we must strive to prevent similar atrocities in the future.
But steadfastness must be accompanied by a clear understanding of the role of bureaucracies. General Keith Alexander, the current head of the NSA, told Congress in June that data “gathered from these programs provided government with critical leads to prevent over 50 potential terrorist events in more than 20 countries around the world.” But my veteran intelligence-agency source says that no one can be sure if that’s the case: “The NSA grades its own report card, and it wouldn’t be the first bureaucracy to exaggerate its effectiveness.” Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, a moderate Democrat who has been on the Intelligence Committee since 2001, said in a speech last month: “I have not seen any indication that the bulk phone-records program yielded any unique intelligence that was not also available to the government through less intrusive means.” Presumably, NSA would have shared such positive evidence with the intelligence committees.
It was Senator Wyden who famously asked Director of Intelligence James Clapper last March, before the Snowden revelations, whether the NSA collected “any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans.” Clapper’s response was pretty clear: “No, Sir.” When pressed, Clapper amended his answer to “not wittingly.” He later told NBC News that he had given the “least untruthful” answer he could think of. He should have done what previous officials have long done and said he could fully respond only in a closed session. At least one of our top intelligence officials doesn’t display intelligence as often as he should.
Other top officials have made such a hash of explaining each new NSA revelation that even staunch national-security conservatives are beginning to wonder what else we don’t know. “The proper response to the latest revelation is not panic but deep frustration and a demand for data that does more than get the NSA through a news cycle,” writes Jennifer Rubin, the Washington Post’s conservative blogger. “It must be more forthcoming, or it will lose its mandate.”
In 1999, then-senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote Secrecy: The American Experience, in which he analyzed the parallel growth of secrecy and bureaucracy in the U.S. “Secrecy is a form of regulation,” he warned. “At times, in the name of national security, secrecy has put that very security in harm’s way.” He observed that although secrecy is absolutely necessary for our protection, it all too often serves as the first refuge of incompetents or those drunk with arrogance. We should not give these groups the ability to cloak their operations — no matter how virtuous the goal.
— John Fund is national-affairs columnist for NRO.
Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras probability of being victimized by dronecide, high and going higher. They are just too dangerous. The audacity of exposing and embarrassing our government’s involvement in criminality and willingness to defecate on the constitutional liberty that used to exist by way of the fourth Amendment must not be allowed to persist.
There may be one way to save these noble warriors. In 2012 the Nobel Peace Prize was given to the European Union. For, over six decades of having contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe.
Mainstream media has abdicated their responsibility to be anything other than function as the mouthpiece/propaganda arm for authoritarian’s hell-bent on extirpation of civil rights and privacy. Members of congress are either complicit in or inept at reigning in the security state.
Really, there is nothing left to do but poke a sharp stick in their respective eyes. Award the 2013 Noble Peace Prize to Glenn and Laura. Request return of that previous award given to President Obama. Not even “the only remaining super power” can kill Nobel Peace Prize winners without exposing themselves for the soulless tyrants they are and reaping the consequences of their psychopathy
An interesting piece by Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian:
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
The Guardian, Monday 19 August 2013 17.30 EDT
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/19/david-miranda-schedule7-danger-reporters
Excerpt:
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.
Now the Mad Dog and his Englishman hide out from the noonday sun.
Thinking of President Obama here, exulting in the forced confessions tortured out of the little army private that he ordered broken, penitent, and pathetically grateful that the Party has shown him the error of his ways. Obama and his military minions remind me more than anything of the Party apparatchik O’Brien torturing Winston Smith in the Ministry of Love in Orwell’s 1984:
“Always we shall have the heretic here at our mercy, screaming with pain, broken up, contemptible — and in the end utterly penitent, saved from himself, crawling at our feet of his own accord. That is the world we are preparing, Winston. A world of victory after victory, triumph after triumph: an endless pressing, pressing, pressing upon the nerve of power. You are beginning, I can see, to realize what that world will be like. But in the end you will do more than understand it. You will accept it, welcome it, become part of it.”
Damn their eyes.
Yes, that was interesting that liberal newz feed, “Fluffington Post” put it that way as did Reuters. Reuters retracted after the damage was done, as Glenn said.
Why is a supposed liberal newz site feeding people lies?
“No, Glenn Greenwald didn’t ‘vow vengeance.’ He said he was going to do his job.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/08/19/no-glenn-greenwald-didnt-vow-vengeance-he-said-he-was-going-to-do-his-job/
David Miranda: ‘They said I would be put in jail if I didn’t cooperate’
Partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald gives his first interview on nine-hour interrogation at Heathrow airport
Jonathan Watts in Rio de Janeiro
The Guardian, Monday 19 August 2013 16.30 EDT
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/19/david-miranda-interview-detention-heathrow
Excerpt:
David Miranda, the partner of the Guardian journalist who broke stories of mass surveillance by the US National Security Agency, has accused Britain of a “total abuse of power” for interrogating him for almost nine hours at Heathrow under the Terrorism Act.
In his first interview since returning to his home in Rio de Janeiro early on Monday, Miranda said the authorities in the UK had pandered to the US in trying to intimidate him and force him to reveal the passwords to his computer and mobile phone.
“They were threatening me all the time and saying I would be put in jail if I didn’t co-operate,” said Miranda. “They treated me like I was a criminal or someone about to attack the UK … It was exhausting and frustrating, but I knew I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”
Miranda – a Brazilian national who lives with Greenwald in Rio – was held for the maximum time permitted under schedule seven of the Terrorism Act 2000 which allows officers to stop, search and question individuals at airports, ports and border areas.
During that time, he said, he was not allowed to call his partner, who is a qualified lawyer in the US, nor was he given an interpreter, despite being promised one because he felt uncomfortable speaking in a second language.
“I was in a different country with different laws, in a room with seven agents coming and going who kept asking me questions. I thought anything could happen. I thought I might be detained for a very long time,” he said.
He was on his way back from Berlin, where he was ferrying materials between Greenwald and Laura Poitras, the US film-maker who has also been working on stories related to the NSA files released by US whistle-blower Edward Snowden.
Miranda was seized almost as soon as his British Airways flight touched down on Sunday morning. “There was an announcement on the plane that everyone had to show their passports. The minute I stepped out of the plane they took me away to a small room with four chairs and a machine for taking fingerprints,” he recalled.
His carry-on bags were searched and, he says, police confiscated a computer, two pen drives, an external hard drive and several other electronic items, including a games console, as well two newly bought watches and phones that were packaged and boxed in his stowed luggage.
“They got me to tell them the passwords for my computer and mobile phone,” Miranda said. “They said I was obliged to answer all their questions and used the words ‘prison’ and ‘station’ all the time.”
“It is clear why those took me. It’s because I’m Glenn’s partner. Because I went to Berlin. Because Laura lives there. So they think I have a big connection,” he said. “But I don’t have a role. I don’t look at documents. I don’t even know if it was documents that I was carrying. It could have been for the movie that Laura is working on.”
Miranda was told he was being detained under the Terrorism Act. He was never accused of being a terrorist or being associated with terrorists, but he was told that if – after nine hours – his interrogators did not think he was being co-operative, then he could be taken to a police station and put in jail.
“This law shouldn’t be given to police officers. They use it to get access to documents or people that they cannot get the legal way through courts or judges,” said Miranda. “It’s a total abuse of power.”
He was offered a lawyer and a cup of water, but he refused both because he did not trust the authorities. The questions, he said, were relentless – about Greenwald, Snowden, Poitras and a host of other apparently random subjects.
“They even asked me about the protests in Brazil, why people were unhappy and who I knew in the government,” said Miranda.
He got his first drink – from a Coke machine in the corridor – after eight hours and was eventually released almost an hour later. Police records show he had been held from 08.05 to 17.00.
Unable immediately to find a flight for him back to Rio, Miranda says the Heathrow police then escorted him to passport control so he could enter Britain and wait there.
“It was ridiculous,” he said. “First they treat me like a terrorist suspect. Then they are ready to release me in the UK.”
Although he believes the British authorities were doing the bidding of the US, Miranda says his view of the UK has completely changed as a result of the experience.
“I have friends in the UK and liked to visit, but you can’t go to a country where they have laws that allow the abuse of liberty for nothing,” he said.
The White House on Monday insisted that it was not involved in the decision to detain Miranda, though a spokesman said US officials had been given a “heads up” by British officials beforehand.
The Brazilian government has expressed grave concern about the “unjustified” detention.
Speaking by phone from the couple’s home in the Tijuca forest, Miranda said it felt “awesome” to be back. “It’s really good to be here. I felt the weight lift off my shoulders as soon I got back. Brazil feels very secure, very safe,” he said. “I knew my country would protect me, and I believe in my husband and knew that he would do anything to help me.”