Braces for the down votes but.....
a) He was his partner but he was also acting as a paid employee of the Guardian correct? I read they paid his flight at the very least.
b) Assumption by said governments would be "He's traveling from Germany from Laura Poitras back to Greenwald in Brazil. He's very likely carrying highly sensitive documentation from Snowden"
c) The governments still believe that is highly classified, stolen documentation. So they pull him aside to see if they can intercept it. It's not clear if they have or not - we do know they took a lot of his equipment.
Now I'm not supporting what happened. I'm just trying to point out that there might be a logic to it and it's not the one that's making the rounds much of today "Oh they just targeted my boyfriend to bully/humiliate us" It sounds like to the government's he was a paid willing member potentially carrying what they believe to be stolen sensitive material and they intercepted him to get it back.
Just like many other efforts in this saga the outcome is another huge PR coup for Snowden/Greenwald and yet more political pressure and controls will be brought to bare on government secrecy.
>"...He's very likely carrying highly sensitive documentation from Snowden"
Given the extremely high profile nature of this entire scenario, I don't see how anyone on the case could expect the probability of Greenwald using his partner as a data mule to rank as "very likely." I'm not saying it's impossible. Just that anyone who's been paying attention for the last decade or so knows better than to travel with hardware across unfriendly borders like the US or the UK. They're just going to take it anyway and then you're out thousands of dollars of gear. Between Snowden and Greenwald and Poitras and The Guardian and Wikileaks, I'd sincerely hope that they'd be capable of utilizing dead drops online.
In my opinion, this "retrieving stolen property" argument is merely the parallel construction of the actual motivation: to intimidate journalism. They know perfectly well that the probability of Miranda carrying anything actionable on him is minimal. But that's not the point. That's the pretext. The point was to pressure cook him for nine hours in order to glean from him any useful tidbit of intel, with the understanding that even if nothing comes of it, they've sent a clear message to The Guardian that they're taking the fight to them personally.
I would have agreed with you before hand, but it turns out that Greenwald and the Guardian were using David Miranda as a data mule:
In an e-mail Monday to The Associated Press, Mr. Greenwald said that he needed material from Ms. Poitras for articles he was working on related to the N.S.A., and that he had things she needed. “David, since he was in Berlin, helped with that exchange,” Mr. Greenwald wrote.
...
Mr. Miranda told reporters in Rio that he had been subjected to deep questioning at Heathrow. “I stayed in a room, there were six different agents, entering and leaving, who spoke with me,” he said. “They asked questions about my whole life, about everything. They took my computer, video game, cellphone, memory thumb drives — everything.”
Mr. Greenwald said that all of the documents encrypted on the thumb drives came from the trove of materials provided by Mr. Snowden.
He had spent the previous week in Berlin visiting Laura Poitras, a documentary filmmaker who has also been helping to disseminate Mr. Snowden's leaks, to assist Mr. Greenwald. The Guardian had paid for the trip, Mr. Greenwald said, and Mr. Miranda was on his way home to Rio de Janeiro.
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.
Having read that, I now believe the British were justified in detaining Miranda, though doing so for 9 hours was clearly excessive. What on earth was Greenwald thinking though letting his spouse, who lacks any kind of journalistic privilege, travel through the UK while carrying classified leaked NSA and GCHQ documents? It was foolish at best.
> Having read that, I now believe the British were justified in detaining Miranda, though doing so for 9 hours was clearly excessive.
Much of the controvery kicked off by this is that they used rights that are supposed to be used purely for direct terrorism-related investigations. As one of the Guardian articles so succinctly put it, this is absolutely unacceptable, unless somebody actually and officially declares journalism terrorism.
I agree, it was an abuse of law. But stopping and detaining him temporarily seems justifiable, especially as he is not a journalist, doesn't enjoy any protections other than the ones any normal travellers get and was carrying some of the leaked NSA docs.
In that light using the terrorism law and holding him for 9 hours was a brain dead move as well.
He was acting on behalf of a bona fide investigative journalist and his journey was paid for by The Guardian. That should be enough to afford him the same protection as a journalist.
What if he had not been the partner of GG, but instead just your average joe paid courier being paid for the delivery of primary source evidence to be used by the staff of the news organization? Would the contents of the package not enjoy the same protection that it would were it being carried by one of the new organization's journalists?
I agree that it was braindead, however, there is a great deal of deliberation involved. Any other form of "meeting" (to be grossly and dangerously euphemistic) would have involved lawyers and probably also consular assistance. A misuse (or, if you prefer, abuse) of anti-terror legislation is the only possible way to intimidate, interrogate and hold a foreign national who has not (and does not) currently commit a crime on British soil.
"Stopping and detaining" was exactly the one option British authorities could not use, because that would have put him outside the law-free zone that is the airport. That's why they chose another way, and that's why they get, perhaps unexpectedly, a great deal of backlash from this.
has Greenwald confirming that David was facilitating the exchange between himself and Poitras of NSA documents.
I shake my head at the matter and wonder why they didn't just use dead drops. Though I wouldn't say this justifies their use of anti-terrorism legislation to perform an extra-judicial shakedown of an individual working in the service of journalism. Free speech is a fundamental human right, not a privilege. One does not need to receive a paycheck from a newspaper to be a journalist or do journalism, nor even be the point man speaking, for journalism is merely the act of speaking informedly to the public at large. Whether you're the final writer, or the editor, or the source, or the courier delivering mail everyday, you're in the service of journalism if the end product is such speech. Any attempt to interfere with that process is repulsive, no matter where in the chain the authorities choose to strike. Sadly though, it seems free speech is not held in very high regard in most parts of the world.
So there's two possible reasons for them stopping him and both are kind of pathetic. One, that stopping someone for 9 hours in Heathrow really amounts to much intimidation of anything. I mean it's wrong and wrong headed but I struggle to buy that someone with half a brain thought this would be at all intimidating. I mean this is England for crying out loud. They probably spoke loudly at him and refused him tea.
So I lean toward they really wanted to see if they could find anything on him directly or indirectly that would help them get to all those documents Greenwald is now saying he'll release. But I understand that most people will chose between these two reasons and it's hard to prove one or the other.
If nothing else, it's intimidating because if they can detain you under a terrorism law for doing journalism, it stands to reason that they can bend or abuse some other over-broad law to actually charge/imprison you depending on the interrogation. Also, you get to hand over every piece of electronics you're carrying for an indefinite period of time. If and when you get any of them back, you might as well assume they're bugged or otherwise compromised, so they're essentially useless unless you want to try your hand at finding any backdoors that might be there. Fun.
I would caution against presuming that nine hours of detention in an interrogation room with a team of very well trained, highly motivated interrogators couldn't be extremely intimidating - regardless of location.
I wasn't surprised to learn that they detained him. What was surprising, and shortsighted I would think, was that they used a law meant for terrorism suspects. One could make a plausible argument that he was a courier for a spy. I don't think one could make the argument that he was a terrorist.
What's wrong here is the way a law that was sold as needed to allow for immediate response to a terrorist threat, without red tape, is used in a situation where normal law enforcement channels should have been adequate. It opens the door to "terrorist" laws being applied to the general population.
Agreed. Without these terrorist laws they probably would have had to jump through more hoops to detain him. But detain him they would have. The fact that the Whitehouse had a heads up means this was something that was planned for quite some time.
Yes, there is a logic to it. It shows very clearly that governments around the world are using anti-terrorism laws as a blank warrant to do whatever they please (particularly to foreigners). If the detention authority extends to someone who interacts with someone who interviewed someone accused of exposing an anti-terrorist program, there are very few things left outside its reach indeed.
>I'm just trying to point out that there might be a logic to it
Is there a legal justification, or is the gov't abusing its authority? Everybody knows that the gov't is embarrassed, and seeks to prevent further disclosures, does that give the gov't the right to break the law?
>a) He was his partner but he was also acting as a paid employee of the Guardian correct?
I don't know.
>I read they paid his flight at the very least.
So, it is not unreasonable for the Guardian to do so, since his connection to the recent Guardian stories are the reason for his detainment (even if he has no involvement).
> b) Assumption by said governments would be "He's traveling from Germany from Laura Poitras back to Greenwald in Brazil. He's very likely carrying highly sensitive documentation from Snowden"
Where is the connection to terrorism?
> c) The governments still believe that is highly classified, stolen documentation.
> So they pull him aside to see if they can intercept it. It's not clear if they have or not - we do know they took a lot of his equipment.
Harassment
When a politician says they need a law to detain travelers, without due process, in the name of preventing terrorism, I assume that means that the person may have involvement with an ongoing plot or operation to commit actual terrorism imminently. I am totally cool with detaining a person or persons who might be about to murder a bunch of people using a train/airplane. If wrong, the gov't ought to apologize, and make it up to them.
When the gov't detains travelers without due process, in the name of preventing terrorism, and it turns out the person has only computer files/documents/etc. and does not have any bombs, weapons, plans to hijack planes, or any connections to persons who do, and everybody knows the traveler is not a terrorist; that's an abuse of anti-terrorism laws. There are other ways for gov't to hide its shame, instead a gov't chose to shame itself further.
He wasn't detained until he was on the return leg of the trip being paid for by the guardian, so the detainment can't really be the reason they paid for it.
Too bad Jusben1369 is getting downvoted. He made a point. It's also that the Terrorism Act of 2000 defines Terrorism very very broadly [1]
(b) the use or threat is designed to influence the government [or an international governmental organisation] or to intimidate the public or a section of the public, and
(c) the use or threat is made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious [, racial] or ideological cause.
It looks like the officers in London did act according to law. If that law makes sense or not is an entirely other discussion.
Action falls within this subsection if it-
(a) involves serious violence against a person,
(b) involves serious damage to property,
(c) endangers a person's life, other than that of the person committing the action,
(d) creates a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or a section of the public, or
(e) is designed seriously to interfere with or seriously to disrupt an electronic system.
I think it's pretty clear that while the people involved may have been trying to advance a political cause, they weren't intent on using violence or destruction to do it.
What has David Miranda done which violates that law? For that matter I can't see what Greenwald has done to violate it either, unless all journalists are on now co-conspirators with their sources if they report anything which the government would prefer to keep secret.
It's an awful law, is far too broad, and should be repealed, but even accepting that law the regulator and many MPs have serious concerns that this was illegal.
Laws are not black and white. If they were, judges had a far easier job. Laws are made by the legislative and are interpreted by not only the judiciary branch but also by the executive branch.
What has David Miranda done which violates that law?
Miranda was not charged with anything, he did not violate a law. He was brought in for questioning and seized of his property. This is allowed since the law is aweful and can be interpreted this way. If it was unlawful the prosecution could prosecute the police that did this. They likely won't since the law is fuzzy.
Again, I'm not supporting any of this. I'm just trying to shed some light into this since most comments her on HN are simply complaining about UK/US without digging deeper and asking themselves why this is possible and why nobody has been charged with anything yet.
He was brought in for questioning and seized of his property.
On what basis? The Home Office guidelines clearly state that questioning and seizure are to be used only in cases where terrorism is suspected. David Miranda is clearly not a terrorist, nor is he associated with terrorists. To quote the guidelines:
Schedule 7 powers are to be used solely for the purpose of ascertaining if the person examined is or has been concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism. The powers must not be used to stop and question persons for any other purpose. An examination must cease and the examinee must be informed that it has ended once it has been ascertained that the person examined does not appear to be or to have been concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.
Does the law say somewhere that they can question anyone for any purpose? If not then this was clearly illegal.
The problem is that you have been ingrained the picture of terrorism to be a bomb blowing up, killing people or crashing planes. This is how probably 99% of all people would define terrorism (me too). However, laws cannot just talk about a common word without defining it. Everything needs to be made precise. That is what this law is doing in their very first sections. It defines what terrorism includes. And I quoted that in my first reply which you may re-read. It does define terrorism differently.
As has been noted by others, Miranda had potentially national security related material which can be interpreted as (a) or (b) of above.
You misquoted that law by quoting only one section of two which define terrorism. Go back and read the rest of it and you will understand why you are wrong, or see the quote from symmetry below.
With wording like that, it's very possible that some people could interpret speech to be a tool of terror.
Bona fide investigative journalism certainly can satisfy the criteria for (b) and (c). Is there anywhere where they define the nature of the threat? Does it just have to be "perceived" as a threat or does the threat need to be physical as opposed to informational?
Is there anywhere where they define the nature of the threat?
Section 2, quoted by symmetry above - 1 a,b and c must be satisfied before terrorism is applicable. Satisfying 1a requires satisfying at least one item from section 2, which is a list of possible actions which can be considered terrorism. Endangering life, serious violence against people or property, risk to health or safety etc.
Far too broad of course, but still not applicable to Miranda.
It's a huge stretch of that law but not particularly new. Al Capone was finally put in jail for violations of the taxation code! It shows how creative people get when they want to get go after someone. The logic would be Snowden releases documentation that exposes methods used by the NSA to protect people from terrorism. So stopping that release reduces the chance of a terrorism attack. That would be how the mindset goes from folks who were behind targeting this detainment.
"Al Capone was finally put in jail for violations of the taxation code!"
Except that Al Capone actually was guilty of tax code violations (he didn't report the income from his criminal enterprises), whereas David Miranda is in no way a terrorist (at least under any rational definition of terrorism).
Violation of the tax code is a crime, though, and Capone was prosecuted under those laws because he was violating the tax code. That's creative.
Miranda was not detained under terrorism laws because he was suspected to be a terrorist, but because he was suspected to be a journalist. That's simple abuse of power.
I'm not 100% sure, but i think Al Capone actually broke the taxation code. This guy is most certainly not terrorist. I think your comparison is not a very good one.
I'm now wishing I didn't use the Al Capone example because people keep pointing out David Miranda is not a terrorist! I agree! But he might be involved in aiding or abetting terrorism by helping to release documentation that's critical in the fight against terrorism. To be clear, I'm not supporting what they did! I'm just trying to point out what the thought process was behind these actions to try and add to the overall debate.
* b) Assumption by said governments would be "He's traveling from Germany from Laura Poitras back to Greenwald in Brazil. He's very likely carrying highly sensitive documentation from Snowden"
If i had thousands of documents on how the NSA etc. works i would never ever have anything on my laptop except pictures of my last holiday.
This incident is on the same level as grounding the presidential jet of Bolivia.
A pure and simple power play to intimidate Greenwald and his co-workers/partners. And they want to show "Look we can do with you whatever we want. Remember that !".
Congratulations, you are smarter about documents than Greenwald and partner. Now you just have to get into a position where the next snowden knows this.
People often forget that Greenwald hasn't had any experience in this kind of security. Snowden and others had to work him through setting up GPG and by his own admission he didn't have any knowledge of encryption or anonymisation before the Snowden affair.
More probably they hoped to discover something incriminating on his computer or media during that time in order to have a clear case against him and keep him.
It was also classified UK information--there's a lot of stuff about GCHQ activity and the UK's tapping of backbones in and out of British territory in Greenwald's material.
The reason to downvote you is not because your rationale is necessarily "illogical", but because 1) it's speculation, and 2) it's better to spend your speculative effort defending and supporting the good guys than the bad guys.
I come to HN to read views that make me uncomfortable and push my pre-existing assumptions. I started off pretty negative on Snowden but have changed my views over time based on the strength of arguments I've seen here by those who think very differently from me. I'd never downvote something that was genuine and earnest no matter how disagreeable.
I don't know what is more shocking to me! That the British interrogated this man for nine hours and then STOLE his property, or that the British security forces were actually efficient enough to identify this man at the airport and then detain him.
Miranda was flying from Berlin to Rio de Janeiro with a change of planes in London.
Since you pretty much can't fly under an alias these days, it was probably pretty easy to identify him as he arrived from Berlin. The UK knew the exact seat he was sitting in.
Yes, but first someone in the British government had to have put this man on a list. Some government official consciously come up with a list of names of people to go after.
It probably wasn't a UK list, might well just be a US one, but it's interesting that we have no idea what lists there are of people of interest, who makes them, or how people end up on the lists or are taken off them (if they ever are). See Laura Poitras being stopped and searched in Sarajevo based on a US watch list for example:
Whole thing makes no sense. Unless they are planning on going full retard and abducting/killing/imprisoning someone, then minor harassment just makes you look like assholes. Impotent assholes at that. Cameron is bad, but he isn't Putin. Greenwald knows his threats are idle. Obama has been playing it cool and making some token concessions which is a much more media-savvy approach.
It seems very much like they stopped caring about how it looks. Pretty much around the time the revoked Snowden's passport.
We're through the looking glass now. Our governments (no Western government is exempt here) are operating in a way that closely resembles the regimes of the former Eastern Bloc, and they are making no attempts to hide it anymore. That's the scary part.
Revoking a citizens passport? Blocking attempts to seek asylum? Forcing down a plane of a foreign, democratically elected leader of a country? Detaining the boyfriend of a reporter under false pretenses? None of this is happening in secret anymore. And it's no longer "them", the anonymous evil "terrorists", the "enemy combatants" that cannot be fought by conventional means. They've turned on us now.
I wouldn't be too sure anymore they aren't planning to go "full retard". They obviously have no shame, and no fear of consequences.
Acts like this are designed to have a psychological effect on the target. Since government can't outright just kill the guy any more, they will do everything they can to make his life miserable by doing things like this. Imagine being in Greenwald's shoes and knowing that your spouse is bearing the brunt of consequences for your actions. It would make many people rethink what they're doing.
My point is that holding him in an airport for few hours is piss poor attempt at intimidation. I've been subjected to worse at the hands of baggage handlers strike or a heavy storm.
Every turn by the governments has been an attempt to cast the issue as a personal one by unhinged opponents. With every revelation putting the spotlight on the government and the laws and processes they have put into place, they try to turn around and say it's just some lone spy nut or whatever. Hasn't been working too well, but I suppose this gives them a minute of breathing room on the news cycle.
My sense is that if they're going after Greenwald's hubby, they don't really know what to do about all this. They certainly don't want any focus on the past, since they can't help but lie about it (and later be exposed for doing so), so this makes the story about "today." That means the governments can (finally) be the source of information in the story, rather than being wrongfooted as the subject. The western governments really don't seem to like the spotlight these days, but we'll see if they can convert this story to one favorable to them, if even for a couple of days until Greenwald/Gellman/Sanchez/etc.'s next story.
It could be they were trying to score points with the US for their "special relationship". Show commitment etc. so they continue to get funding from the US for surveillance activities (I hope you do remember that revelation, a few weeks back!).
To be honest it was confusing as hell because they said partner and his name is Miranda, more commonly a girls name. Seriously, boyfriend or husband, partner just sounds like some live in person or like you said business related.
I'm also amused by just how hard these reporters seem to even avoid pronouns or other language that would indicate his gender. Strikes me as really really odd.
I wonder if the media and/or government(s) were bending over backwards to make damn sure no one could be accused of homophobia. Dunno about the US, but in the UK, if there were the slightest smell of homophobia, a whole new can of worms would have been opened. The gay rights folk would have, rightly IMHO, exploded, with quite a lot of public support. Oddly, I reckon if this had been some how made a gay issue, the government would have been in a lot more trouble. Last thing this UK government in particular wants is any more controversy over gay rights issues. Lining it to the spying would be both explosive, and kinda 1960's traditional!!!
Or perhaps some credit is due in that some parts of the media have simply grown up, and the gay part really is a non issue. Which would be a good thing.
Even the Daily Mail's coverage was surprisingly good (I looked at it explicitly expecting a total hatchet job).
You know they government has fucked this up when even the Daily Mail writes an article that sympathetic about terror law abuses directed at a gay couple closely linked to the Guardian.
I'm not British but I lived in London for two years and I believe this is the way the British say "significant other." Its pretty forward thinking actually, because they use it for all of the options and therefore take the stigma out of same-sex couples using it to refer to themselves.
I deliberately leave that question unanswered when I'm speaking to groups I don't know personally (such as HN). When I'm talking about my significant other, I refer to them as my significant other. Not my boyfriend/girlfriend/wife/husband. In this day and age, that really only matters when you're speaking about legal rights as recognized by the state. The gender or legal status of the person I love doesn't generally make one bit of difference.
On the other hand, my dad is a business owner and I've had people assume he was gay when I referred to his co-owner as "his partner, Jeff".
It does in this sense: people were talking about governments going after families. I thought this was just the now-typical bullshit overstatement that I've gotten used to seeing, so I wrote off all the criticism along that line as crackpot, because I assumed Miranda was just another journalist who happened to work directly with Greenwald a lot.
This angle of understanding is now clearly incorrect.
Now I have to go and look up whether or not Miranda is a Guardian reporter, for instance, because that's an assumption I made that may not be true after all.
I am not sure why everyone thinks this has anything to do with bullying and intimidation. Greenwald implicated his partner by saying he had considered sending STOLEN documents to him in a previous interview. Of course British authorities would detain someone who might have stolen property with national security implications.
Stolen documents? No, no. He was, at worst, carrying a copy of information someone else copied without being allowed to so.
You see, if he were carrying stolen documents, someone at Booze Hamilton would be saying "shiiit, that manilla folder with the post-it saying important stuff, don't lose got stolen!".
If someone tells you a secret, hd might be a hero or a villain... but a thief he is not!
"When I was in Hong Kong, I spoke to my partner in Rio via Skype and told him I would send an electronic encrypted copy of the documents,” Greenwald said. “I did not end up doing it. Two days later his laptop was stolen from our house and nothing else was taken. Nothing like that has happened before. I am not saying it’s connected to this, but obviously the possibility exists.”
"O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't!"
- Miranda (Act V, Scene I, The Tempest)
Some people with the first name Miranda even have the last name Law, e.g. https://www.facebook.com/miranda.law.71 (public profile, you don't have to sign in)
Indeed, I find it hard to accept how blatant it all is, but with seemingly little public out rage. The abuse of anti terror laws to harass people who merely embarrass a so called democratic government is truly corrupt.
I mean, the police are being now asked why he was stopped under anti-terror laws, and they will abide by those self serving laws themselves by saying that they cant say why because its all top secret. Does any one really think the police will say, "we were asked to shake the guy down by the Hone Office, on behalf of Obama?" No, we'll just get the usual slight of language designed to let these people slither away. And most people will just accept it and move on.
What pains me most is that I think I find the lack of public interest singularly the most worrying aspect of this whole thing. No one really cares that much at all.
And then I think: well, if the majority want to sleep walk in to a future like and probably worse than this, well, fine. Just means an increase in hacker types buying "I told you so" t-shirts in a few years time. Oh, and a lot of pain for those caught up in the mean time. But who cares about those "terrorists", "pedophiles", "traitors", and "pirates" any way?
Even Russia, who is more than happy to see the West twist in the wind, has said Snowden should stop leaking state secrets, presumably because they also don't want their secrets leaked.
No, they said he should not "harm the US" if he was to get asylum.
As Snowden had already handed his documents to others, presumably Russian authorities knew full well that making that promise would be easy for Snowden and would not make any difference, and it made it easier for Russia to appear to be taking the high road.
After the incident they are shrugging it off. My guess is that they were trying their luck; had they found anything on his laptop which they could use against him - like any of the leaked documents - who knows where he would be detained right now.
I think it's like a teacher checking your bag (under the pretence of "finding drugs") in order to confiscate your camera that contains incriminating pictures of them.
Now I'm not supporting what happened. I'm just trying to point out that there might be a logic to it and it's not the one that's making the rounds much of today "Oh they just targeted my boyfriend to bully/humiliate us" It sounds like to the government's he was a paid willing member potentially carrying what they believe to be stolen sensitive material and they intercepted him to get it back.
Just like many other efforts in this saga the outcome is another huge PR coup for Snowden/Greenwald and yet more political pressure and controls will be brought to bare on government secrecy.
EDIT: I'd point people to this new comment further down. Fascinating but not surprising: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6239847