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.
Liveleak (Score:5, Interesting)
And we've been wondering what that 350 GB "insurance file" from WikiLeaks was...
Loss of an opportunity (Score:5, Interesting)
There's every chance they had good reason to act as they did but from the outside, to me, it seems like this was a wasted opportunity. Had they forced the government to bring them to trial it would have brought shone more light on both the NSA story and the problem of the erosion of freedom of the press.
Had The Guardian won, they would have the added benefit of setting some precedent for their countrymen.
Had they lost, we would at least know where we stand in terms of press freedom; better, in my mind, than the present situation, in which the rules don't seem to be fixed and government power is arbitrarily applied.
Saying the data is copied somewhere else seems like an avoidance of the principle of the matter.
Re:Wow nice... (Score:2, Interesting)
Personally I hope someone sues over destruction of personal property.
Re:Amazing (Score:5, Interesting)
I like to think that, in Canada, there is a large enough percentage of us who really lose our shit whenever we get even a hint that something oppressive or corrupt is going down.
I mean, a senator and high ranking official just lost their jobs because of ... wait for it ... $90,000 of questionable expenses. It was a huge deal and all over the news here. US government officials wipe their asses with that kind of money and nobody blinks.
Re:Wow nice... (Score:4, Interesting)
Greenwald was actually pretty libertarian/non political, but as a constitutional law litigator, he got sick of what he felt were a series of abuses by the prior and then current administration post 9/11. The truth is that most whistleblowers are generally conservative.
Re:Small Potatoes (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't bother, SuperKendall is a Benghazi truther.
Re:Official Secrets Act? (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem for the UK is the optics and methods of the Official Secrets Act.
If you use it in a sealed court setting, you admit you have a "spy" like situation and need a top cleared legal team. Any person facing that system is by default be facing a Star Chamber and gather world wide sympathy and much legal UK interest spins up fast.
If its in an open court, the defence and press goes to work on every detail and method. All in the open again over years. A situation most UK govs seem to want to avoid at any cost.
So you never "running afoul" of the Official Secrets Act. It is a legal tool to welcome staff into the system with a nice clearance level and hints at years in jail.
The UK would rather use other methods - if your connected to power/gov - no trial, pension but no more talking/leaks.
If your connected to codes/methods but have few friends - a public trial on other topics..
Other non court methods are also very legal in the UK.
Re:Good! (Score:5, Interesting)
There is no better way to motivate a journalist than to tell them that they aren't allowed to to report on something. I mean, seriously, what do these governments think they are going to accomplish. Whistleblowers leak information because they are worried about a surveillance state. And journalists investigate things because they want to find a cover-up. Cranking down on the surveillance state and forcing a cover-up is only going to make them redouble their efforts. And since information can be mirrored around the world in seconds, what could they possibly accomplish? The number of whistleblowers willing to give information to reporters looking for a big story has just exploded, thanks to the kneejerk damage control response.
In other news, another whistleblower has anonymously leaked information on PROTON, CLEARWATER and LEXIS-NEXIS, US government programs that are used to data-mine contacts for intelligence and criminal prosecutions because the government wanted to cover-up how they were getting probable cause to investigate DEA actions (with the bullshit DICE program). Read it and weep [cryptome.org].
Re:Media is in the business of making money (Score:5, Interesting)
Spooks are trying to provoke an irresponsible act. (Score:5, Interesting)
As ambitious as it seems, this level of correction has happened several times in US history. I believe that these goals can be achieved if 3 conditions are met:
So far, Poitras and Greenwald have played Obama and the US Intelligence like a hooked trout. They have skillfully countered every attempt to divert or end the discussion. It looks like they have a chance of advancing reform of the US Executive branch. They may also help bring reform to England.
But now, I think we are seeing the beginning of more strategic responses from the US Intelligence community. I suspect that they are now trying to end the discussion by re branding Poitras and Greenwald as traitorous threats. This approach worked so well with Manning and Assange. Not only did they succeed in discrediting the messenger, they also turned the messenger into an external threat. Now, they can use 'Traitors' to justify Executive excess.
I suspect that the goals of US Intelligence are now:
If they can't shutdown or re-brand Poitras and Greenwald, then I expect the next step will be to create an immediate, external threat that requires an unbridled Executive.
I am praying for Poitras and Greenwald. We need their help. And their enemies are capable of doing terrible things.
Re:Context (Score:5, Interesting)
I think his plan succeeded. He wished to make the argument that Muslims are easily incited to violence, so he made a film insulting them - and the immediate reaction was a series of violent protests and a few murders, making his point quite clearly.
Re:Amazing (Score:4, Interesting)
Stuff like this used to be mainly done on a local level, where you could always "vote with your feet" and go elsewhere if you didn't like the attitude of a particular county sheriff towards your family (whatever skin color or ethnicity you might have). Quite a few people did pack up and leave, moving from one area to another from time to time.
What is different today is that it is the federal government that is doing stuff like this, where as before they were such a small part of American life that they couldn't do anything like what is happening today. It wasn't that long ago (still in the 20th Century) when the total number of federal employees, including the military and the post office (by far the largest department at the time) numbered just over 100,000 people in a republic of over 200 million. America was governed very well at the time too.
If you want to leave America, where do you go? Edward Snowden has gone to Russia, but is that a realistic option?
Re:Amazing (Score:4, Interesting)
And yet you voted Paul Harper back for another go-round? Oh well. It isn't good that Scott Walker is not on the media radar currently, so maybe that is 2016 for the US.
That's Stephen Harper and he kicked that Senator out of his party because is is a real "Conservative". I'd like to see either Republicans or Democrats have the guts to kick out a Senator or Representative for wrong doing. Never going to happen.
Free speech? lol (Score:4, Interesting)
Australia and the UK have never really had free speech provisions.
And as if to underline the point, the UK also gave us English defamation law [wikipedia.org], with this very attractive trait :-
So you can sue someone for defamation and make them bankrupt if they fail to prove what they said was true. Pretty nifty when you need to sue say, a newspaper exposing your scandals -just sit back and bleed them with legal fees while they scramble for evidence (which you've already buried, of course).
Re:Spooks are trying to provoke an irresponsible a (Score:4, Interesting)
Laura Poitras for several years has been subject to extraordinary harassment, intimidation and searches when travelling. http://www.salon.com/2012/04/08/u_s_filmmaker_repeatedly_detained_at_border/ [salon.com]
Re:Good! (Score:5, Interesting)
No, they didn't 'simply followed a law' they chose to victimise somebody in a very deliberate manner, they made a legal choice and not a moral choice, they flouted the spirit of the law whilst sticking to the letter of the law.
The law books didn't tell them to victimise the guy, their boss did.
Re: Good! (Score:5, Interesting)
Reporters without borders [rsf.org] sure sounds like a global network of these terrorist-journalists - "douple tap" that too!
Re:Media is in the business of making money (Score:4, Interesting)
One legitimate reason for the slow release is it keeps the issue in the public mind for longer. That actually seems to be more effective than 1 giant event.
For an example, compare the tactics of Occupy Wall Street with Feb 15 2003. I'll bet good money that you can tell me a bit about Occupy Wall street, but can't tell me what happened on Feb 15 2003 that might be related in any way to Occupy Wall Street.
Give up?
That day was the Largest single-day protest in the history of the world [wikipedia.org]. Approximately 8 million people were out in the streets complaining about George W Bush's decision to invade Iraq. That's about 1 out of every 500 people on the planet at the time. And it's almost completely forgotten, because there was a splash in the papers the next day, and then it disappeared from the headlines. By contrast, Occupy Wall Street stuck around for months, and by simply not ending until the police came by to beat people up at 3 AM, they became a long-term part of the public consciousness.
You may disagree with the politics of either or both protests, but my point here is about tactics - both involved massive efforts, but one was a lot more effective than the other.
Re:Small Potatoes (Score:2, Interesting)
Don't bother, SuperKendall is a Benghazi truther.
How does one become a "truther" over a factual event? We know that Obama, and the Obama administration directly lied to the public over what caused it. We know the administration lied and said there was no available military assets, but there were. Including exfil teams standing by 24/7 for instances just like that. We know that one person managed to hold out for 12 hours on the roof of the embassy *after* the guys who were defending the embassy had died. We know that someone within the administration told them to stand down and *not* defend. We also know that it was al qaeda affiliated, it wasn't spontaneous, and that the ambassador had requested more protection--but the administration turned it down. After all, blowing $150k on battery powered cars and charging stations for embassies in europe was more important.
And we also know that right up until it came out, that the administration refused the truth of the matter. This isn't anything new, it's the continuing pattern of the administration. Much like Fast and Furious(the gun walking scandal), much like Ft. Hood was really a Jihadi attack--but they're trying their best to make it "work place violence."
And we also know that in the case of the first two scandals, if the media actually did their job and factually reported it, instead of bending over backwards to kiss his ass. He wouldn't be president right now.