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
Dear Santa,
Give Jonathan an edit button.
Kthnxby
anonymously posted
1, August 19, 2013 at 2:17 pm
“…it is a criminal offense to refuse to cooperate with questioning under schedule 7, which critics say is a curtailment of the right to silence.”
Is this anything like how the supreme court ruled?
http://jonathanturley.org/2013/06/17/the-price-of-silence-supreme-court-rules-that-pre-miranda-silence-can-be-used-against-defendant-to-prove-guilt/
That you essentially have no rights until they are “bestowed” until a higher authority says so… The classic parent/child relationship… er, big brother… um, authoritarian and disciplinarian … er, torturer act
Oops. I meant to say that David Miranda has had to endure mistreatment at the hands of the US/UK panopticon. David Cameron, I believe, directed the mistreatment from his hideout at #10 Downing Street.
“Eppur si muove”
The Inquisition threatened Galileo with dungeon and torture, so he recanted the truth of what he had discovered. No one thinks less of Galileo today or more of the Church that revealed its own bankruptcy by persecuting him.
Sometime later in life when his own circumstances no longer mattered so much to him, Galileo reportedly said of the earth he stood on:
“But still it moves”
I sincerely hope that Bradley Manning lives to make a similarly defiant statement about the many truths he revealed to us — if and when he ever finds himself free of the Orwellian American state that has revealed its own bankruptcy by persecuting him. President Obama and his military minions say they want to make an example of him. Such amoral monsters cannot see that he has provided an example for us.
David Cameron has had to endure nine hours at the hands of these motherless cretins. Hopefully he will never have to endure another minute of such abuse. Yet Bradley Manning has had to endure three years of much worse treatment as a prisoner of war tortured by his own government. And the vicious, vindictive bastards now demand 60 more years of his life — effectively what remains of it. Edward Snowden did absolutely the right thing by placing himself beyond the foul grasp of the lawless ghouls whom he has embarrassed by revealing the simple truth about them. But as the ancient Sanskrit motto proclaims:
“Sattyam Eva Jayati.” Only Truth Conquers.
There are two very old Sufi stories about the wise Mullah Nasrudin which illustrate perfectly the methodology of the NSA and TSA in rooting out terrorists:
This next Sufi story may be even more on point:
Elaine:
Okay.😀
Mike,
Add to that: Don’t worry. Be happy.
rafflaw:
Perhaps a new warning is warranted. Stay home. Sit in the dark. Eliminate all communication devices.
Guardian Editor: U.K. ‘Security Experts’ Entered Offices And Destroyed Hard Drives
The Huffington Post | By Adam Goldberg
Posted: 08/19/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/19/guardian-hard-drives_n_3782382.html
Alan Rusbridger, editor of The Guardian, wrote on Monday about an unsettling encounter with “security experts” from the U.K.’s GCHQ intelligence agency.
According to Rusbridger, “a very senior government official” contacted him about two months ago demanding the surrender or destruction of all materials in the publication’s possession relating to the surveillance operations uncovered by Edward Snowden.
About a month later, Rusbridger recalls receiving a phone call “from the centre of government” in which he was told, “You’ve had your fun. Now we want the stuff back.” He goes on to explain:
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 meeting, Rusbridger explained to an official that if the British government were to take legal steps in order to roadblock the paper’s reporting, the work could simply be done outside of the country. That’s when things took a disturbing turn:
The man was unmoved. And so one of the more bizarre moments in the Guardian’s long history occurred – with two GCHQ security experts overseeing the destruction of hard drives in the Guardian’s basement just to make sure there was nothing in the mangled bits of metal which could possibly be of any interest to passing Chinese agents. “We can call off the black helicopters,” joked one as we swept up the remains of a MacBook Pro.
Despite this apparent attempt at intimidation, as well as the previously reported nine-hour detention of Glenn Greenwald’s partner David Miranda at London’s Heathrow airport, Rusbridger explained that The Guardian “will continue to do patient, painstaking reporting on the Snowden documents, we just won’t do it in London.”
Mr. Miranda was given no Warning…or maybe he is warning us all.
That we have not suffered a repeat of 9/11 justifies nothing. The intelligence industry appears to be operating in full panic mode.
David Miranda detention: a betrayal of trust and principle
This subverted the benefit of the doubt that liberal democracies ask for whey they arm themselves against terrorism
Editorial
The Guardian, Monday 19 August 2013 18.49 EDT
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/19/david-miranda-detention-schedule7-editorial
Long before the partner of the Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald was detained at Heathrow airport on Sunday, the law that was used to hold him and remove his possessions had been effectively discredited in its present form. Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 is a sweeping power to detain for up to nine hours. It gives border police a power of detention for questioning without specific suspicion or a right to be represented. It is one of the strongest police powers on the statute book – a useful weapon for security services trawling for information but a potential source of injustice waiting to happen. It has provoked some of the strongest community complaints about the way UK terrorism laws operate in practice. Parliament is already scheduled to reform it.
David Miranda’s detention should be seen in the context of the implicit acceptance by the Home Office, which is bringing forward the current changes, that parts of the law are too sweeping. But Mr Miranda’s detention is extraordinary nevertheless. It raises important new issues that parliament cannot now ignore and will have to debate if its terrorism law reform bill is to be in any way meaningful, just or proportionate.
Part of this is because there is not the slightest suggestion that Mr Miranda is a terrorist. But Mr Miranda does live with and work with Mr Greenwald, who has broken most of the stories about US and UK state surveillance based on leaks from the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. None of that work involves committing, preparing or instigating acts of terrorism, or anything that could reasonably fall within even the most capacious definition of such activities. Yet anyone who imagines that Mr Miranda was detained at random at Heathrow is not living in the real world.
The reality about schedule 7 of the 2000 act is that it is a legal power tailored to the half-world of ports and airports. It gives police powers to do things to people in that half-world that they could not do in the real one. In the real world, legal checks and balances apply – in America, ironically, some of these go under the name of “Miranda rights”. In the half-world, people can be held and questioned, searches carried out and property confiscated without particular suspicion or legal safeguards. There were 69,000 such stops last year, only a handful of which led to arrests.
Mr Miranda’s detention was part security service fishing trip, part police harassment exercise and part government warning signal to journalists and whistleblowers. It was an attempt to intimidate journalism in one of the zoned-off jurisdictional spaces where such a thing can happen without legal redress. It was done simply because it could be done – and doubtless because the Americans wanted it done – and for no other reasons.
The detention of Mr Miranda subverts the benefit of the doubt that liberal democracies ask for when they arm themselves against terrorism. States pass anti-terror laws that grant exceptional powers on the strict understanding that terror poses exceptional threats and that such powers will be used proportionately. The Miranda detention betrays that understanding, since it does not involve terrorism in any way. Democratic leaders have likewise claimed to recognise the legitimacy of a public debate about the proportionate nature of the state’s weaponry against terrorism. This case suggests the state takes us for fools.
Because of schedule 7’s troubling history, parliament already has both a chance and a responsibility to prove otherwise. Schedule 7 should be radically tightened, so that exceptional powers are applied only in genuinely exceptional terror-related cases. Detentions should require reasonable suspicion. Confiscated materials should be returned quickly, where no charge is brought or national security involved, as fingerprints and DNA samples now are. Access to a lawyer should be allowed. If parliament rises to the occasion, perhaps some good may have come from what is otherwise a disgraceful episode of state harassment of independent journalism and free citizens.
Ozzie,
In the trade, the adage WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) is not usually the case. Decoys are as old as spycraft.
Jasper Maskelyne was one of the greatest illusionists who ever lived when it came to military operations. When I first heard of this, I asked myself how Maskelyne would have designed the transfer of information if he were alive today. What David Miranda had on him is unknown, and may never be known. It is a safe assumption there are backup copies elsewhere. Miranda may have had absolutely nothing more in those files than chaff. Or even fake documents designed to be red herrings. That is an old trick too.
Blouise
I think this is the first time I disagree with you. Miranda was carrying documents/information to the filmaker and back to GG. Yes, it is not terrorism, but courier is a more apt description than an innocent family member. GG knows how the game is played. He knew Miranda was at some risk. Not death, as some suggest here, but it is no surprise that they would like a chance for an “interview”.
This MadDog does not hang out with any Englishmen.
Woof.
Not doing so well in that “welcome debate,” eh?
Ignoble Cowards
The Mad Dog and his Englishmen
Out in the nighttime dark.
Obama wags his British tail
And the Englishmen will bark.
Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller”
Apparently Parliament (the UK institution, not the band – although they may be irritated as well) is not amused and wondering why GCHQ is apparently doing the NSA’s dirty work:
David Miranda detention: MP asks police for explanation
lotta,
We are all terrorists according to this incident.
The Guardian’s editor has written that agents from GCHQ (British equivalent of the NSA) have come to their offices and physically destroyed hard drives with reporter’s data on them. Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger wrote that he was told: “You’ve had your debate. There’s no need to write any more.”
I cannot imagine the Guardian, Greenwald and all the other players not having mirror sites all over the world. And it is hard to imagine the GCHQ people being dumb enough to think that smashing some MacBooks and thumb drives would make the data disappear. But, there you have it.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/19/david-miranda-schedule7-danger-reporters