Slashdot Mirror
Members of Parliament Demand Explanation For Detention of David Miranda
megla writes "Yesterday Slashdot covered reports that David Miranda, the partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald was detained. Now, various MPs and other public figures have expressed their unease over the detention and demanded justification for the incident from the police. Meanwhile, Glenn Greenwald has threatened to be more aggressive with his reporting regarding the UK secret services and to release more documents about their activities, Brazil has stated that it expects no repeat of the incident, and one of the MPs involved in passing the anti-terrorism legislation used for the detention has said: 'those of us who were part of passing this legislation certainly would not have expected it to be used in a case of this kind.'"
Are they idiots, or do they think we are idiots? If a law can be abused, it will be abused. No exceptions.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
one of the MPs involved in passing the anti-terrorism legislation used for the detention has said: 'those of us who were part of passing this legislation certainly would not have expected it to be used in a case of this kind.'"
Of course you weren't: In fact, you weren't thinking about the potential for abuse at all when you passed this bill because even though you were warned by civil libertarians before the passage of the bill that such abuse was not only likely but inevitable, you were more afraid of the quivering masses of voters you believed would spend the next decade hiding under their sofas waiting for the end of the world to worry about such pleasantries. "This is war!" you told us, at the time.
Choke, now, on your own lack of foresight.
When the human race eventually gets around to causing its own extinction it will undoubtedly be caused by a total lack of foresight.
Who did what now?
I don't know what the laws are in Britain, but whenever an incident like this occurs in Canada, the response from The Man is always the same: "We cannot comment on this specific incident in order to protect the privacy of the individual in question" - Even though the "individual in question" is happily waiving their privacy in order to the story out there.
Greenwald has not threatened to be more aggressive with his reporting regarding the UK secret services and to release more documents about their activities. Reuters made that up out of whole cloth, go read his actual words.
If a law can be abused, it will be abused. No exceptions.
True, but as you say that is true for all laws and we certainly cannot have a society without laws so this is a problem we will always have to deal with. So this is not something stupid: this is the first signs of the system hopefully working as it should. An abuse of the law has been brought to light and now those responsible need to be held to account for it with appropriate sanctions, i.e. not just a slap on the knuckles for something as serious as this appears to be. Lets keep our fingers crossed and hope that the system works.
I can't wait to hear how someone is going to justify use of terror laws to detain and question the partner of a journalist.
From what I've seen of the news coverage of this, this is pretty egregious and probably somewhat indefensible.
This is just more over-reach by government agencies who think they can do anything they want -- and quite possibly in response to a direct request from the US to put pressure on the journalist involved.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
That's what happens when you write legislation with a specific problem in mind that you want a nice knee-jerk reaction for. Then people point out the issues or possible abuses and you say "but that's not what this is for". Dumbass, it's not what you wanted that matters, it's what you actually wrote down and made into law that counts.
Did anyone read David Miranda's rights before they arrested him?
22 comments and not one joke about his Miranda Rights?
Did he spend the entire 7 hours saying, "I don't know how to answer that question until I speak to my lawyer"?
In the U.S., you could do that.
Unless the interrogators violate the Constitution, and they would never do such a thing.
I want to see a new law, named after him, which protects everyone's rights in the UK against such detention. That way everyone in the UK will be a beneficiary of this new "Miranda Rights" law. Of course, it should differ from the Miranda Rights in the US in fundamental ways so as to cause the most confusion possible. Especially in internet discussions.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
"'those of us who were part of passing this legislation certainly would not have expected it to be used in a case of this kind.'" demonstrating that pretending to be retarded is preferable to accepting responsibility for your actions when you're an MP
No, no it isn't. Guantanamo is in Cuba, and the only reason it's there is because the US pushed the Platt Ammendment into the Cuban Constitution against their will.
The Cubans don't want them there, and they haven't cashed any of the checks for the 'rental'.
Guantanamo is actually a base the US keeps in Cuba against the will of the Cubans -- they view it as an occupation by a foreign government. It most certainly is not in the US -- they use it because it's outside of the US and they can argue that normal laws don't apply.
But don't pretend Guantanamo is physically on the US soil, or that the Cubans have any interest in keeping it there.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
those of us who were part of passing this legislation certainly would not have expected it to be used in a case of this kind
Bullshit, fuck you, bullshit.
That is the biggest lie I have heard all week. This is exactly what this legislation is designed to do: Make it possible to utterly destroy the friends and family of anyone that dares speak out against the regime. Mr Miranda (how ironic is it that someone named Miranda had his rights so obviously trampled upon), is lucky to not have been secretly imprisoned. Everyone even remotely involved signing the order for his detainment should be jailed.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
I think a Brazilian in the UK has no US rights.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/2013/aug/19/glenn-greenwald-partner-detained-live-reaction
Doesn't http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Relations supersede the Platt Amendment?
Namely, from the follow-up article: "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." In the helpful clarification from Wonkette, "he was actively participating in transporting secret documents that were stolen, and which it is illegal for him to possess." On a trip paid for by The Guardian. So, maybe not quite as innocent a bystander as he initally makes it seem. But that was probably the point, and now British politicians are getting hammered for the abuse of power he baited them into. Well played!
Are you a complete idiot? All of this was known or guessed from the start. No one ever claimed he wasn't helping his journalist partner, the whole point is that even if all that you say is true, where is the connection to terrorism? You know, the direct association with terrorist acts that is required by the statute that he was detained under? It appears that all he was questioned about had to do with the Snowden affair. Even if you think Snowden was guilty of espionage, that is not terrorism! And helping to publish the leaked details, even if they are supposed to be secret, is not even remotely terrorism. It's pretty clear that the law in question was abused in order to send some kind of message, probably at the behest of the USA, despite the denials coming from Washington.