Snowdon is a dummy

Why would the UK be so interested in intimidating someone over a scandal that basically has to do with the US?

Mr. Miranda was in Berlin to deliver documents related to Mr. Greenwald’s investigation into government surveillance to Ms. Poitras, Mr. Greenwald said. Ms. Poitras, in turn, gave Mr. Miranda different documents to pass to Mr. Greenwald. Those documents, which were stored on encrypted thumb drives, were confiscated by airport security, Mr. Greenwald said. All of the documents came from the trove of materials provided to the two journalists by Mr. Snowden. The British authorities seized all of his electronic media — including video games, DVDs and data storage devices — and did not return them, Mr. Greenwald said.NYT

Readers know I have been grappling for a while with the vexing question of the balance between the surveillance state and the threat of Jihadist terrorism. When the NSA leaks burst onto the scene, I was skeptical of many of the large claims made by civil libertarians and queasily sympathetic to a program that relied on meta-data alone, as long as it was transparent, had Congressional buy-in, did not accidentally expose innocent civilians to grotesque privacy loss, and was watched by a strong FISA court.

Since then, I’ve watched the debate closely and almost all the checks I supported have been proven illusory. The spying is vastly more extensive than anyone fully comprehended before; the FISA court has been revealed as toothless and crippled; and many civilians have had their privacy accidentally violated over 3000 times. The president, in defending the indefensible, has damaged himself and his core reputation for honesty and candor. These cumulative revelations have exposed this program as, at a minimum, dangerous to core liberties and vulnerable to rank abuse. I’ve found myself moving further and further to Glenn’s position.

What has kept me from embracing it entirely has been the absence of any real proof than any deliberate abuse has taken place and arguments that it has helped prevent terror attacks. This may be too forgiving a standard. If a system is ripe for abuse, history tells us the only question is not if such abuse will occur, but when. So it is a strange and awful irony that the Coalition government in Britain has today clinched the case for Glenn.

A disclosure upfront: I have met David Miranda as part of a my friendship with Glenn Greenwald. The thought of his being detained by the British police for nine hours because his partner embarrassed the American government really sickens me at a gut level. I immediately think of my husband, Aaron, being detained in connection to work I have done – something that would horrify and frighten me. We should, of course, feel this empathy with people we have never known – but the realization is all the more gob-smacking when it comes so close to home. So of course my instinct is to see this exactly as Glenn has today.

But put that instinct aside for a moment. David was detained under an anti-terrorism law:

Section 7 of the British Terrorism Act allows the authorities to detain someone for up to nine hours for questioning and to conduct a search of personal items, often without a lawyer, to determine possible ties to terrorism. More than 97 percent of people stopped under the provision are questioned for under an hour, according to the British government.

David was detained for nine hours – the maximum time under the law, to the minute. He therefore falls into the 3 percent of interviewees particularly, one assumes, likely to be linked to terrorist organizations. My obvious question is: what could possibly lead the British security services to suspect David of such ties to terror groups?

I have seen nothing anywhere that could even connect his spouse to such nefarious contacts. Unless Glenn is some kind of super-al-Qaeda mole, he has none to my knowledge and to suspect him of any is so close to unreasonable it qualifies as absurd. The idea that David may fomenting terrorism is even more ludicrous.
And yet they held him for three hours before informing his spouse and another six hours thereafter. I can see no reason for those extra six hours (or for that matter the entire nine hours) than brute psychological intimidation of the press, by attacking their families.

More to the point, although David was released, his entire digital library was confiscated – including his laptop and phone. So any journalist passing through London’s Heathrow has now been warned: do not take any documents with you. Britain is now a police state when it comes to journalists, just like Russia is.

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?
emphasis added

2.08pm BST
The [BBC's]World at One also interviewed David Lowe, a former Special Branch counter-terrorism officer who now teaches at Liverpool John Moores University. Lowe said the use of the Terrorism Act against David Miranda was proportionate. Edward Snowden had access to secret documents relating to the NSA and the UK's GCHQ, Lowe argued, but the authorities did not know what material he had.

Here schedule 7 has been used because there's a short window of opportunity for police officers, immigration officers or customs officers to use this to actually stop and check what was in the laptop and in the electronic sources that have been talked about.

When it was put to him that 70,000 people were stopped under schedule 7 last year, but that only 24 people were arrested, Lowe said the "relatively small" number of arrests actually showed that the police were behaving reasonably.

When Glenn Greenwald started publishing his NSA revelations in the Guardian, Sullivan was sceptical about claims made by Greenwald and other civil libertarians that the state was abusing his powers. Now he says he has changed his stance

So I take it a movie is in the works on the Snowden files?

revelette wrote:

So I take it a movie is in the works on the Snowden files?

You take such due to what informations?

Aside from all understandable concerns and outrage surrounding the whole NSA leaks, the whole thing is shaping up to be a James Bond type of a movie which is why I thought perhaps there was a movie in the works.

David Anderson QC becomes latest figure to question treatment of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald's partner

Britain's anti-terrorist legislation watchdog has called on the Home Office and Metropolitan police to explain why anti-terror laws were used to detain the partner of the Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald for nine hours at Heathrow airport.

Amid mounting concern across the political spectrum over the treatment of David Miranda, David Anderson QC said that the treatment of Greenwald's partner on Sunday appeared to be "unusual".
[...]
Downing Street declined to answer questions about the treatment of Miranda on the grounds that it was an operational matter.

The No 10 spokesman added that police would judge whether they had exercised their powers proportionately. The Downing Street spokesman said: "The government takes all necessary steps to protect the public from individuals who pose a threat to national security. Schedule 7, which was used in this case, forms an essential part of the UK's border security arrangements. But it is for the police to decide when it is necessary and proportionate to use these powers."

But No 10's position was directly contradicted by Anderson, who said: "This is an important power. But the question of whether it was proportionately used in any given case is not ultimately for the police.

"The police, I'm sure, do their best. But at the end of the day there is the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which can look into the exercise of this power, there are the courts and there is my function. I report to the home secretary and to parliament every year on how this power is being used and whether it is being used properly."

Davis also dismissed the Downing Street position. He said: "This is absolutely not solely an operational matter for the police. This relates directly to press freedom and directly to our adherence to the rule of law. I'm afraid you cannot shove this one under the carpet on the basis of national security."

He added: "What did ministers know of this? Did they authorise it? Have they returned his computers, have they retained data from those computers and phones? There are a lot of questions to be answered as a matter of urgency.

"The truth is there is too much of a habit in Britain of using terrorism law as a catch-all … The 2000 act was not designed, and certainly not presented as a mechanism for trawling through people's private information when they passed through Heathrow between two other non-enemy countries."

Anderson, who has raised questions about schedule 7 of the 2000 terrorism act, said he hoped MPs would look carefully at the measure. The government is proposing, on the basis of a recommendation from Anderson, to reduce the maximum detention period from nine to six hours. The change is to be made through the antisocial behaviour crime and policing bill.

Anderson said: "At the moment anybody can be stopped under this power. There is no need for the police to believe they are a terrorist or to suspect they are a terrorist. The only reason they can talk to them is in order to determine whether they are a terrorist.

"It seems to me there is a question to be answered about whether it should be possible to detain somebody – to keep them for six hours, to download their mobile phone – without the need for any suspicion at all. I hope at least it is something parliament will look at."

Scotland Yard has refused to be drawn on why Miranda was stopped using powers that enable police officers to stop and question travellers at UK ports and airports.

... ... ...

The Lib Dems have finally put out a line about the detention of David Miranda. This is from a party spokesman.

It is important that the police use these powers [schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act] proportionately and for good reason. The independent reviewer of terrorism legislation has already asked for more information on this incident and we will wait to hear his conclusions.

Unsurprisingly, it's much the same as the line Sir Menzies Campbell was taking earlier. (See 2.32pm.)

Keith Vaz, the Labour chair of the Commons home affairs committee, has now released the text of the letter that he has sent to Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan police commissioner, about the detention of David Miranda. Here it is, in full.

I am writing to you regarding the use of Schedule 7 under the Terrorism Act 2000 to detain David Miranda, the partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald at Heathrow Airport on Sunday 18 August 2013 at 8:05 a.m. I understand that this legislation is very important to the work that the police do.

The Home Affairs Select Committee is currently conducting an inquiry into terrorism and I would be most grateful if you could provide the following information:

1. Who took the decision to detain Mr Miranda under Schedule 7, at what level this decision was sanctioned and when this decision was taken?

2. Why this decision was taken, and upon what grounds it was deemed justified?

a) Whether any foreign authorities asked us to take this decision?

3. Why Mr Miranda was not stopped in Germany and were the German authorities aware of the decision?

4. Whether you were aware of this decision prior to the detention and if so, when?

5. Whether the Home Office was informed prior to the detention and if so, when

6. Whether Ministers, Security Services or any other agencies were involved in the process?

7. Why Mr Miranda

a) Had his personal effects confiscated?

b) Was detained for the full 9 hours?

8. Whether the decision was scrutinised prior to the detention of Mr Miranda, and by whom?

9. Whether Mr Miranda was afforded the possibility of legal representation?

10. How many people have been detained under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 in similar circumstances since January 2012 and at what level each of those decisions was sanctioned

a) Generally?

b) At airports?

c) In transit?