Slashdot Mirror
Partner of Guardian's Snowden Reporter Detained Under Terrorism Act
hydrofix writes "The partner of the Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, who has written a series of stories revealing mass surveillance programs by the National Security Agency (NSA), was held for almost nine hours on Sunday by UK authorities as he passed through the Heathrow airport on his way home to Rio de Janeiro. David Miranda was stopped by officers and informed that he would be questioned under the Terrorism Act 2000. The 28-year-old was held for nine hours, the maximum the law allows before officers must release or formally arrest the individual. According to official figures, most examinations last under an hour, and only one in 2,000 people detained are kept for more than six hours. Miranda was released without charge, but officials confiscated electronics including his mobile phone, laptop, camera, memory sticks, DVDs and games consoles. 'This is a profound attack on press freedoms [...] to detain my partner for a full nine hours while denying him a lawyer, and then seize large amounts of his possessions, is clearly intended to send a message of intimidation to those of us who have been reporting on the NSA and GCHQ,' Greenwald commented."
Land of the Free(*).
*Conditions may apply.
For all the Miranda rights jokes.. c'mon, get them out the way..
In the UK, you don't have Miranda rights.
It's up to you to decide if that's a joke or not.
Even if he gets them back, would you trust a device that has been alone with a spook?
Call him boyfriend or spouse or something. Partner makes it sound like he might have been involved in the journalistic work (and detaining him would still be wrong).
Instead, they're targetting the journalist's relationships. It's absolutely despicable.
Apparently Snowden (and other heroes) had decided that any disappearing family members would trigger the tripwire that leads to releasing of insurance files. Since the journalist's spouse had suddenly gone missing (for 9 hours) and the police probably did not allow any phone calls to be made during interrogation,... Showden (and other heroes) then probably concluded they were under some kind of attack or that they were being tested. So Snowden (and other heroes) did what they had to do - what's the point of having an insurance policy that you would not use.
This is a chicken game. If many key wikileaks people would suddenly disappear, then Snowden (or other heroes) would probably release both encrypted insurance files and the encryption key to the smaller (49GB) insurance file. At least I hope that's what they are prepared to do. Then the NSA and GCHQ would probably have stopped the attack, at least for a moment, and considered the nature of payload data in the first insurance file. Based on that payload NSA might then choose to risk the release of the 349 GB file or they might stop their attack... maybe even for good. To prepare for the next attack phase Snowden (and other heroes) might again have split the remaining 349GB file into a 300GB and 49GB file - the small file being there again as a similar first response tool, but also the key to the nuclear option file (349GB) might also be released at any time.
Basically the NSA and GCHQ had to get this message.
This is so stupid, Snowden is obviously an American Patriot, who still isn't really seeking to harm his country... a country that is trying to harm him as much as it can. It is not very common that asylum seekers keep protecting the country that is doing all it can to harm the asylum seeker. Thus, the today's release of encrypted insurance files was probably just an expected reply to the earlier provocation by the NSA and GCHQ.
Being the 'partner' of a journalist does not entitle you to the normal freedoms of actually being a member of the press
No, but he's still entitled to the normal freedoms of being a fucking human being.
Papers, please.
Brought to you by the same people who entertained you with "Destroyed the Village to Save It" and "Fighting for Peace"
... it hurts me every time people point out the truth of my country, and, it hurts me MORE when I realize that there is NOTHING I could do to change the situation
Indeed, my country is turning, from the best country in the world, into a terrifying state
My heart hurts, man, when I realize that, I, as an American, can't do shit to change the course of my own country
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Nonsense. Vote small (independent) and buy small (independent). Your actions won't count for much but if everyone does this ....money won't control politics regardless of the opinion of SCOTUS.
Sir, I do not know which world you live in, but the world which I am from, the scenario that you have outlined WILL NOT HAPPEN, not when the vast majority of my fellow Americans prefer keep their sheeple status
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
No, not "land of the free". This happened in the UK, not the US and so far we haven't been quite so out of touch with reality to call the UK the "land of the free" - that seems to be a peculiarly american delusion. That being said I really hope that there are some mitigating facts that will come to light because, as it stands now, it is extremely concerning to see such an obvious and open abuse of power. If they are wiling to do this in plain sight what are they willing to do (or already doing) behind the scenes?