Dealing with journa-terriztz, or who guards the Guardian

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

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A terrifying dystopia, or vital security measures? That's the dichotomy along which the British and US authorities and media have been fighting over the last couple of months, since The Guardian and WashPo published the revelations of former NSA agent Edward Snowden. Suddenly everyone had to find an explanation of what it really means that the US not only can tap the whole Internet activity of absolutely everyone in real time, but they are already doing it. And also to find an answer to the question if those journalists who expose all this are really threatening national security or just trying to do their job.

Last week the authorities in London did a step that's seriously shaking their otherwise already very weak line of defense after Snowden's revelations that included evidence that the UK Government Communications Headquarters is collecting 21 petabytes of data every day, which is then being analyzed through 70 thousand select keywords by the GCHQ and NSA algorithms. The British authorities detained one David Miranda at the Heathrow airport, the partner of one of the British journalists who was working on the Snowden case, Glenn Greenwald.

The excuse: Paragraph 7 of the British 2000 Terrorism Act, which allows detention, interrogation and search at airports, ports and international railway stations without the police necessarily having firm evidence of actual terrorist activity. As a close aide to Greenwald, Miranda had supported him in his work on the leaked documents. At the moment of his detention, he was going back to his home in Brazil from a meeting he had had in Berlin with American film director Laura Poitras who was also working on the Snowden leaks.

The arrest grew into a scandal within hours. The British government dared (or rather, was stupid enough) to place "journalism" and "terrorism" at the same table, and at a time of increased sensitivity on the issue of government surveillance and the levels of state control. The fact that Miranda was held for the maximum period allowed (9 hours, whereas in such or similar cases most detainees are usually held for less than an hour just to be interrogated and searched), that he's not a British citizen or even a journalist, is only bound to intensify the reaction against the British authorities.

On the next day, the chief editor of The Guardian, Alan Rusbridger came up with the revelation that the government had exerted systematic pressure on his newspaper in the first days after Snowden's leaks had come out. At some point the government's message had boiled down to "Okay, you've had your fun, we want our stuff back now". After Rusbridger had refused to cede the materials (copies of which are being kept in the US and Brazil as well), the GCHQ forced him to destroy the hard drives. So, apart from having to explain their participation in a surveillance program against its citizens, now Cameron & Co. have the detention of foreign associates to British journalists, and the destruction of key journalist information on their hands. Well done, I say. When the shit hits the fan, it should splash on the wall reeeally good.

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The British government has crossed a line by associating journalism with compromising national security, even terrorism. It's exactly the citing of Par.7 that's the most alarming signal. By choosing to detain Miranda and label him terrorist, they're essentially unsubscribing from any laws they're supposed to be upholding. In practice this can suspend all checks and guarantees one would have if arrested on the street. Of course The Guardian has reacted very harshly. They're planning to finance Miranda when he sues UK in court and challenges Paragraph 7.

The problem is that terrorism is being viewed as some kind of war now - just like the Cold War or the war on drugs. Under this pretext, a vast "terror-fighting" apparatus has been developed since 9-11. These are people who control enormous bureaucratic empires and have the power to block any debate on what's happening. Miranda has denied having been interrogated about anything related to terrorism, granted. But he was forced to relinquish all his technical devices, and give them all his private passwords around the social networks. Of course he admits they didn't use any physical force on him to make him do it, but that quite obviously was a classic example of psychological intimidation.

Another problem here is the period of detention. Of course the government has a legitimate interest in understanding what's happening, and once having detained him, it would've been an act of blatant oversight if they hadn't checked the documents he was carrying. But after they asked him all the questions and seized all digital devices he had with him, it wasn't really necessary to hold him for the maximum allowed time. That was quite a transparent attempt to intimidate him and his associate Greenwald, and that serves no useful purpose. It's exactly this stupid approach of the authorities that caused such an outcry.

One doesn't need to spend a lot of time in the UK to notice that the authorities don't generally show a lot of intellect in understanding situations like these. It's possible that they had expected to achieve something, either symbolical or real, by destroying the evidence. Thanks to last year's Leveson inquiry (which investigates the practices of eavesdropping on the media) it has become known that people of extremely high positions have no idea how exactly the Internet functions, or the news websites in particular.

However, according to UK deputy prime minister Nick Clegg the newspaper was in possession of "data which could pose a serious threat to national security". The authorities have explained the operation at the office of The Guardian as "the better option compared to taking legal actions against the newspaper". Clegg said it was negotiated that destroying the data wouldn't mean further blocking the newspaper from publishing articles, but that was only a preemptive measure for protecting national security and human lives.

The problem in cases like these is that the original version often changes in the course of events, and the more details become known, the understanding of what really happened begins to shift. Cases like that of Miranda or the elimination of data at The Guardian are exactly in that category. In the former case it turns out the Brazilian was "directly involved in transborder trafficking of stolen documents", which additionally complicates things because there's no journalistic protection for such things. Same with Rusbridger's story. His original version was: "bad evil agents force a noble innocent newspaper to destroy some hard drives full of truths". But then it transpired that everyone involved, including David Cameron himself and his deputy Nick Clegg and other top figures had been negotiating for months with The Guardian, trying to find a way to stay within the boundaries of law and meanwhile guarantee the right of the newspaper to keep publishing. And this might be changing the context fundamentally.

Sure, after the destruction of the data at their UK office, The Guardian will continue working on the Snowden case from New York and Brazil. It's still possible that they'd experience some difficulties, because this is a business largely operating from their offices in London, although the stories are being written elsewhere, and the information is not kept in the UK. But digital data could be traced, as all Snowden, Assange and Miranda have realized - people do have to be situated somewhere in space, after all.

And here's one of the ironies of this debate. See, it seems The Guardian is trying to expose the US as a state of tyranny and repression. But in America, even with all the recent intrusions into people's privacy during this War on Terror thingy, the authorities actually seem to be taking their obligation to protect journalism much more seriously than those in Britain.

In the case with Snowden, and Bradley/Chelsea Manning before that, The Guardian has formed international alliances on behalf of the broad public. So one single country's legislation obviously cannot stop them. Meanwhile, the pressure will keep increasing, and in result investigative journalism would be becoming an ever more expensive undertaking, because the investigations would have to become international. The problem is that the resources for investigative journalism are shrinking these days. The latest example is Washington Post which was bought by Amazon boss Jeff Bezos last month.

If we have a look at the European newspaper market, most newspapers are being bought by various businesspeople, and for purposes that are not always related to actual journalism. In many places the situation has started to move into the direction of Turkey, where most major newspapers are owned by large business conglomerates that feel the need to have a certain level of friendliness to the government, and are reluctant to encourage criticism against it, or to support journalists in their battles with the powers that be. The biggest problem today is media ownership, and that's valid everywhere - from Europe to America to anywhere else. And even without these questionable terrorism-induced limitations, it's already become difficult enough to guard the Guardians of truth.

Comments

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

That just goes to show that the Brits and the 'Merikans are terrified by the librul media. Big Bro is watching.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

This may've become utterly banal at this point, but it seems on 9-11 and 7-7 the terrorists really won.

Only, who are the terrorists? Those who slammed the planes into the buildings and blasted the bombs in the Tube, or the ones who used those horrible events as an excuse to point a finger and yell: "See how scary the world is? Give us some more of your rights, that's the only way you can survive! Only we can help you, but there's a price to pay".

One starts to wonder if those who've planted fear into people's hearts and made them believe that a mother with a toddler in her lap and a feeding bottle in her handbag can be terrorist, are really not as much terrorist-ey as the actual lads with the strapped bomb belts mumbling "Allah is great" before pressing the button.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

I think you're right. The Patriot Act was basically a pre-compiled Wish List of every authoritarian wet dream, just waiting for an excuse to be pushed into law and both parties not only passed it but renew it without revision.

As a result, we have massive intrusion into communications and horrible miscarriages of justice like perpetual prisoners in Guantanamo.

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

DQ nomination if you don't mind. I mean the last paragraph.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

There are a number of potential goals that terrorists can have when they carry out a terrorist attack.

Some of those goals include:

Increasing their prestige among terrorist groups (there's always a top dog and bottom bitch)
Proving they have the capability to carry out an attack
Forcing the opposition to over-reach and anger their own populace


Those goals I'd say worked.

Other potential goals failed of course. Sometimes the goal is to have the demand met--but when you demand something too big (ie. Israel must cease to exist) you know full well you won't get your demand. But if it's a small-scale demand (ie. US troops must leave Lebanon, circa 1983) you may be able to get your goal through terrorist means.

So depending on what their goal was, they either succeeded beyond their wildest dreams or they failed miserably. All depends on the target.

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

I don't know if you've ever seen The Boston Strangler, and I have no idea what it was actually like in Boston at that time, but as far as the movie goes, it was the police and the media that were terrorizing everyone (and of course, you could then add the filmmakers).

Edit: Hmm, I just read the wikipedia entry. But anyhow, the same thing goes for a lot of the murders committed by people you'd never suspect. I've read articles, fairly recently, about how you can't trust anyone, blah blah blah.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Only, who are the terrorists? Those who slammed the planes into the buildings and blasted the bombs in the Tube, or the ones who used those horrible events as an excuse to point a finger. . . .

Which is exactly why so many believe the two parties are perhaps one in the same, or at least coordinating activities to make the events worse. If one looks at the "who benefits" angle (just as Watergate's Deep Throat encouraged Woodward and Bernstein to "Follow the money"), al Qaida definitely came out on the short end of that stick, where the US and UK security apparatus has flourished.

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

After destroying the discs at the Guardian HQ, the British secret services promised to postpone the black helicopter attack for the time being.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

So, they decided to use a black helicopter rather than a drone. How civil!

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

Was David Miranda in possession of stolen classified documents?

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

If the govt is breaking the law and the documents proving that they break the law are classified, what do you want to have happen?

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Miranda had 'highly sensitive stolen information', Home Office suggests (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/20/david-miranda-sensitive-stolen-information)

British government claims Greenwald’s partner David Miranda had ‘highly sensitive stolen information that would help terrorism’ (http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/20/british-government-claims-greenwalds-partner-david-miranda-had-highly-sensitive-stolen-information-that-would-help-terrorism/)

Of course, quite conveniently, none of that can be proven at this point, now that the documents are gone and the veracity of these "suggestions" cannot possibly be established.

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

That's really beside the point. We're giving up a whole bunch of our rights to get on planes because, at least theoretically, it makes the trips safer. It can of course be argued if it's necessary or not, but for the sake of argument, let's say it's a good tradeoff.

The cops should not be using this as a general purpose reduced civil rights zone. If their investigation had nothing to do with ensuring the safety of the people getting on the plane, it's incredibly inappropriate to take place at an airport screening station just because they couldn't get by with it elsewhere.

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

Well, according to him, he was just a courier and had no idea what was on the disks and drives. Just like any other courier, your job is to take a package and deliver it.

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

The British government being a bunch of hypocrites? I'm so very shocked.

[devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com]

I got as far as the RT logo.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

You actually have a point. ;-)
It's the first news vid I came across the U-tubez that was related to the story.

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

So what brand would make you feel more comfortable digesting?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

If a country in the Middle East, the Balkans, or Africa did this this would be considered despotic. The WASPs of WASPs do it, and it attracts relatively limited commentary on how much this anti-terrorist mentality is actually a long-term ticking time bomb that will go off in horrible fashion. Of course the British are never really given credit for these kinds of tendencies the way other nationalities do, because they essentially wrote the book on modern hypocritical double-think.

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

despotic and fantasy as they still use stings and tin cans for communications in most areas of the Balkans.


JOKE..it was a joke people.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Oh, no worries. We Balkanites are used to constantly being preached to about various things (particularly freedomdom and democracycy).

Sad the freest country in the world for a cannabis smoker is NK

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

Isn't it time we updated the so last century term internet to spynet or nannynet?

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

Quick! You should copyright the term nannynet! People will owe you money every time they use it! :)

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

soon brother, we will come to know SKYNET
but not too soon

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

I do like the caption at the base of the RT feed: "Like us on F/RT News." Huh, huh. Fart News.

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised no one has said, "The Guardian? Meh", yet.