UK Government Destroys Guardian's Snowden Drives 508
An anonymous reader writes with revelations that the UK government has been pressuring the Guardian over its publication of the Snowden leaks for a while, and that it ultimately ended with GHCQ officials smashing drives of data to pieces. From the article: "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.' ... 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."
The paper had repeatedly pointed out how pointless destroying the data was: copies exist, and all reporting on the Snowden leaks is already being edited and published from locations other than the UK.
Not pointless at all (Score:5, Insightful)
The point was crystal clear: the friend of my enemy will get no end of crap thrown at them. The Grauniad can expect more such visits in the future, as well as any other news organization who dares publish That Which Must Not Be Published.
Wow nice... (Score:5, Insightful)
They pretty much ensured that data dumping will ensue, on levels never before seen. It's going to be pretty damned interesting considering that Greenwald is a hell of a leftist, and is railing like never before.
Amazing (Score:5, Insightful)
It really is amazing that we (ANZUS+UK+Canada) can lecture the rest of the world about the virtues and freedoms of democracy, chastise China for censoring the Internet and making up economic figures and pass laws like the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (mandating whistle-blowing for corporations); while we are so openly censoring our "free" press.
I do expect a certain level of hypocrisy and self-serving behavior from our governments, but am I alone in noticing this has really stepped up a notch recently?
Re:Not pointless at all (Score:5, Insightful)
An AC who has obviously never read Private Eye...
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Not even government is this incompetent (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well, you know what they say... (Score:1, Insightful)
what we're finding now though is if you cant stop the signal, simply increase the noise and it amounts to the same thing.
Media is in the business of making money (Score:2, Insightful)
The media gets dozens, hundreds, of documents. They slowly release them one or two at a time. Why? Not to make them easier for the public to digest. Not because they need to spend time reviewing them, writing articles, or gather sources. Not even because they enjoy being the gatekeepers of desired information.
No. This is almost entirely about making money and a major ego trip. The writers enjoy getting off on being the center of a public spectacle. You put a few articles out a week and you get more viewers. You keep stringing everyone along and keep those numbers up for more advertising revenue and to try to attract more subscribers. You keep your own name in the papers and get a higher profile for a book release. That's what this game is all about. Snowden leaked his information to people who are using it as leverage to manufacture news.
The reporters that Snowden contacted could easily release everything tomorrow. Total transparency. It would eliminate them being part of the story. But they get off on the attention. Glenn Greenwald wants to BE THE STORY. We've seen this repeatedly with Assange who comments on himself as often as he comments on the news. They don't want to report on some of the most relevant news and whistleblowing in the last decade. This is a chance for Greedwald to make a lot of money, a low of news appearances, some Real Time with Bill Maher, and maybe even a Howard Stern Show appearance. If he releases all of the documents then he's no longer important. His ego can't take that.
I know at Slashdot that people are upset when the news media focuses on Snowden and Greenwald not the major revelations that Snowden has given us regarding the U.S. government's total war on privacy. But this is not new territory for Greenwald. He loves being the center of attention. Look at his news appearances regarding this case. He talks about himself and his involvement far too much in my opinion.
I think that the U.S. citizenry has a right to know about the government's war on privacy. Show us everything. Be transparent the way Obama said he would be when he campaigned. Let us judge. Stop being the gatekeepers of information that you don't have a right to hide from us like the government did. Enough of the games. I can't take anyone in the media seriously anymore. If Greenwald and Snowden want less attention then give the world the information to help people combat the government's overreach.
Rather pointless theater (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep, sounds like what they wanted was a quick, symbolic victory, and they got it.
Symbolizing what, though, will be the topic of many a journal article. I suppose it's a good time to be a journalist, if people are jumping up and down to help you make news?
Re:Amazing (Score:2, Insightful)
The world is a big place with a lot happening.
China Admits Selling Prisoners’ Organs [go.com]
As far as things being "stepped up a notch recently" ... that also applies to the massive theft of state secrets of multiple countries which are being distributed like party favours to one and all, including enemies and adversaries. (When you make something available without discrimination, your enemies and adversaries get it too.)
There are people out there just waiting to exploit that sort of information to slip by unnoticed: Al-Qaeda 'targeting European rail network' [france24.com]
Things will get figured out in some form eventually.
Zoolander clowns (Score:5, Insightful)
...joked one as we swept up the remains of a MacBook Pro.
Anyone else think of the scene in Zoolander? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze3hthGRbRo [youtube.com]
Did they really destroy a functional computer to destroy the drive? Could they not have removed the hard drive and destroyed just those parts that have any persistent data retention? Even including the optical drive would have been overkill-- eject the disk. What was the purpose of destroying perfectly good hardware? Just to be sure? Why not steam roller the remains and then incinerate them in an induction furnace? Where they worried about a secret compartment? Notes scribbled on the inside? What a bunch of clowns.
Re:Amazing (Score:5, Insightful)
From my standpoint the degree of dishonesty hasn't increased, events have just made it a bit more obvious to many of us than it has been at other times in the past.
People in the US were crowing about freedom back when blacks were still getting lynched for seeking basic civil rights. I could go on with numerous other examples, from every period. The pretexts for abuse are more obviously lies at some times than at others, but always they are largely pretexts.
I'm not saying that the US is worse than other countries, and its a lot better than a great many. But there has been a persistent fascist streak from the beginning.
Inspiring (Score:5, Insightful)
So, basically, guys who are apparently stupid enough to think this actually accomplished anything are the ones we're supposed to give the benefit of the doubt to when they say they're adequately protecting our data when they vacuum everything up?
No wonder they say they need to gather up every available piece of data they can - they're not bright enough to walk and chew gum at the same time.
Thank god for microSD... (Score:5, Insightful)
Utterly stupid. It's trivial to hide a microSD card, all you need is AES encryption and Saran Wrap. Just stash it under a rock, or up a tree, or in a hotel room. You've got 57 million square miles to choose from.
Re:Media is in the business of making money (Score:5, Insightful)
Because of the original idiotic comparison (Score:5, Insightful)
A popular thing here on /. which the original poster did is to turn any story either about China doing something bad, or the US doing something bad in to a "Oh look at how bad the US is, they can't say anything to China!" or "OMG the US is worth than China/Russia, they are more free!" Or equally stupid shit like that.
In no way is China relevant to this. What's more, the idea that only if a nation is perfect that it could level any criticism at another is completely ludicrous.
It is just spin, just crap to try and hate on the US and allies for no particular reason. So the GP had a good point: China does some pretty bad shit, things that even the imperfect countries that are the UK and US might have an issue with.
If people want discussions of the problems with western governments to stay on topic, something I think is a good idea, then the first step is to stop dragging in China et al at every opportunity. What the US, UK, etc do is good or bad, right or wrong, regardless of what they say to China, regardless of how they compare to China, etc.
If you want to start playing the "compare and contrast" game, well then don't be surprised when others come back in kind.
Re:Amazing (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, unless you believe that the US has an impervious border (at which point you have issues that can't be solved simply by education) then it should be obvious that al Qaeda isn't what we're being told it is for the simple reason that WE'RE NOT BEING ATTACKED. A dozen guys armed with second hand deer rifles, working as landscapers and dishwashers, driving old beater cars, could take down the entire US electrical grid. No suicide attack necessary. If they work at the Tyson plant they could poison thousands or tens of thousands with biological agents that can be grown in home beer fermentation kits. They can make iron oxide and aluminum powder and burn out railroad bridges with simple thermite. And yet none of these things are happening. Instead we have a Shoe Bomber who forgets to bring matches with him, and the Underwear Bomber.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Re:Good! (Score:3, Insightful)
With the drives destroyed, and the leaks plugged, we can all get back to our normal lives under the new heightened levels of paranoia.
Of course the drives were mirrored all over the internet, so by destroying the data on the drives nothing was really accomplished other than an indirect fine charged to the Guardian.... who needed to replace this equipment at their expense so all of that data can be put upon new equipment.
Really, it didn't accomplish anything at all other than making some low level bureaucrat think they accomplished a big deal that ultimately meant nothing at all.
Re:Spooks are trying to provoke an irresponsible a (Score:1, Insightful)
Sounds like a good analysis. As retarded as the government usually acts, I have to believe that at least the intelligence communities have some brains; you can't build sophisticated systems like PRISM and XKeyscore with mere corruption and fascism alone.
So, since they know destroying one individual copy of the data is pointless when everyone knows it's been backed up all over the place, the only rational reason I can see for their actions is to attempt to get one or more people holding onto other copies decide to dump everything at once, and soon, for fear of being the next target. The spooks can't really go into full damage control mode until the leaked material is completely published.
Obama calls it (Score:5, Insightful)
the war on free press.
Re:Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
So they did something.
It wasn't effective, but it obeyed the order.
See also the cold war conflicting requirements of needing missile launch codes and needing a system that the last enlisted person standing could use which resulted in a code of all zeroes. Ultimately a useless extra step, but an answer to "something must be done."
Re:Amazing (Score:4, Insightful)
Israel had a real persistent terrorist problem with at one point daily bombings in its cities. Ditto for Norther Ireland. Nothing like that has remotely happened in the United States.
If anything, I'd say that Al Qaeda has been completely ineffective and unable to carry on operations that even the Symbionese Liberation Army was able to accomplish (an otherwise no-name group of idiots who managed to pull off a couple of stupid "terrorist" operations prior to 9/11 in the USA). The only place that Al Qaeda seems capable of destroying is Iraq and Afghanistan... mainly killing their own supporters for the most part (and makes you wonder why they have support?)
Curious, what gives them the right to destroy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok, so David was detained and his goods seized under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 [legislation.gov.uk] which states :-
In the first place, they had no right to detain the personal property. I wish the officers joy in explaining why he thought these items were "evidence in criminal proceedings" or were relevant to a "deportation order".
In the second place, nothing I can see therein allows them to destroy detained property, which is a very extreme response under any cricumstances. It also contradicts the intent of the section, which was to allow collection of property to be used as evidence.
Pretty ironic since the preamble states that the Act was "An Act to make provision about terrorism; and to make temporary provision for Northern Ireland about the prosecution and punishment of certain offences, the preservation of peace and the maintenance of order.". The only terrorism [reference.com] here I see is committed by the government.
Re:Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep, sounds like what they wanted was a quick, symbolic victory, and they got it.
Said victory is likely to prove pyrrhic [wikipedia.org] in the long run. The only thing it did was to draw the public's attention to how the Terrorism Act 2000 can and has been abused against "enemies of the government". And how officers implementing said provisions can completely ignore the safeguards built into the statute- for example, that the powers be used only against suspected terrorists, of which David clearly is not.
Re:Wow nice... (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally I hope I get democracy back.
Re:Media is in the business of making money (Score:4, Insightful)
You mean Greenwald is manipulating the public? Good! His goals, be they of self interest or not, coincide with my goals. I want the public outraged by this, so things will change. He wants them outraged so he can get famous. Sounds like a fare trade to me.
Re:Free speech? lol (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think it's so horrible. What if somebody called you a pedophile. How would you prove that you weren't a pedophile? Wouldn't it make much more sense to say what evidence the person making the claim had?
Re:Effects of Motivation on the Sheeples (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A show of power (Score:5, Insightful)
The intention wasn't to destroy the data, it was to punish and intimidate.
Re:Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm so happy to hear that I can only be detained for 6 hours without cause. I was really worried about 9 hours and now that it is only 6 hours, I feel just fine.
Also, it will be nice to have a lawyer there who will parrot the law and tell me that I will go away to jail for a long time if I refuse to answer questions... this removes any doubt I may have had about how screwed I really would be.
Thank you UK for your enlightened terrorist laws.