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UK Government Destroys Guardian's Snowden Drives
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.
With the drives destroyed, and the leaks plugged, we can all get back to our normal lives under the new heightened levels of paranoia.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
And we've been wondering what that 350 GB "insurance file" from WikiLeaks was...
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can expect more such visits in the future, as well as any other news organization who dares publish That Which Must Not Be Published.
John
The U.K. thinks it can join the fascism club just because it smashes a computer or two?
The U.S. arrested a filmmaker a year ago just for making a movie. Are those reporters in jail? Don't think so. You're going to have the step up the game U.K. to join the big boys.
Bonus points for all the cameras though.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You can't stop the signal, Mal.
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
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.
Om, nomnomnom...
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?
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.
They know there are offsite backups. This was intimidation, pure and simple.
Story about the arrest.
Note they claim his video ignited muslim protests, when in fact it was a coordinated attack on embassies including Benghazi...
His video had nothing to do with it, but he made a great scapegoat for the embarrassed state department. Now that we know it was terrorists and not a protest, he's out of prison. How odd.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Was that rather pointless and incompetent theater supposed to impress someone? I doubt the Guardian has been cowed by destruction of at most a few thousand dollars of equipment. And it shows that the UK is in bed with the US with this sort of spying.
Mordac the preventer
http://michaelsmith.id.au
...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
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.
The UK has a lot of teeth in a lot of laws, for having a "gun" with you, for reading banned material online and if they so wish the full use of the Official Secrets Act.
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.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
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.
#DeleteChrome
Actually I think it's definitely better to do a slow-release. Snowden may even be planning it this way. Think about it: if it's released all at once, who the fuck is going to go through thousands of documents to see what the gov is up to? Plus once the story is out it'll be forgotten within a few weeks. This way it's constantly in the news, people are always talking about it, it remains in people's minds, and the findings are summarized to make it easier to understand what is really going on. Good stuff, I say.
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.
The really nice thing about releasing documents a few at a time is you have so many more opportunities to directly contradict the official reaction to the previous release. Dump 'em all at once and the government gets much more opportunity to control the narrative.
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.
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.
Let's go ahead and look at some of the "truth" you posted in response to another AC:
Note they claim his video ignited muslim protests, when in fact it was a coordinated attack on embassies including Benghazi...
Except there were widespread protests and riots across the middle east in general, with the worst of it being in Egypt, not Libya. The initial statements from the US government mistakenly identified these protests/riots as the cause of the Benghazi consulate attack -- but within 48 hours of the attack they had updated information and had informed the American public that it was, in fact, an organized and planned terrorist attack.
His video had nothing to do with it, but he made a great scapegoat for the embarrassed state department. Now that we know it was terrorists and not a protest, he's out of prison. How odd.
You're right; he had nothing to do with the attack itself. But let's look at the rest of your version of events. First: He was arrested on probation violations on September 27th, 2012, weeks after the Obama administration had already announced that the Benghazi consulate attack was orchestrated by terrorists. The idea that the initial arrest was part of a cover-up is, thus, a load of bullshit. Second: He was released earlier this month, after serving almost the full length of his 1 year sentence (and almost 1 year after the Obama administration's announcement that Benghazi was a terrorist attack). Thus, the idea that his release is because everyone knows it was a terrorist attack now is absurd -- everyone knew it was a terrorist attack the day he was arrested. The explanation for why he is out of prison somewhat early is the same reason countless prisoners are released early -- good behavior and release to a halfway house.
Now let's go ahead and take a look at the post to which I am replying.
With Benghazi, it was obvious it was a terrorist attack from the start but the government blamed a video for scores of deaths and embassy attacks.
(a) On what basis was it obvious that it was a terrorist attack? Are you asserting that all of the protests and riots across the entirety of the middle east and northern Africa were orchestrated as some massive terrorist plot to cover for a single consulate attack? And if so, do you have any actual evidence of this? And if you do have evidence, was this evidence widely available (which would be necessary for it to be "obvious" that it was a terrorist attack) "from the start"? Alternately, if you are not asserting that the widespread protests/riots were orchestrated as part of any plot, on what basis can you possibly assert that a single consulate attack on a day in which dozens of people were killed in protests/riots was not simply an extension of said protests/riots?
(b) Scores of deaths -- again, do you mean to imply that you believe the entirety of the protests/riots were orchestrated by terrorists? There were only 4 deaths in the consulate attack.
(c) Embassy attacks (plural) -- What embassies? There was a single consulate attacked, and no embassies. You can't even get very basic facts straight, yet we are supposed to believe your grand conspiracy theory is the real story here.
Most people now know also they let people die there because they didn't want any hiccups in the undergoing operation to ship 400 Libyan missiles to Syria... but that's a story for another day.
Perhaps if you seek psychiatric help that day will not come.
the war on free press.
Privacy is terrorism.
Ok, so David was detained and his goods seized under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 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 here I see is committed by the government.
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, 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).
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/
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.
Though it would be hard to deny the incredible decline in quality of 'journalism' over the last several decades.
Definitely. There are few good sources of real journalism. That doesn't mean though that it's all about fancy meals - it's just a shift in the market. Take The Sun in the UK - it's got the largest circulation, and is only a newspaper in the tits and sport sense. The Mail is more upmarket - i.e. no tits, but any excuse to show a teenage girl in a short dress stepping out of a car. The Sun generally keeps people cheery. The Mail is the newspaper for angry middle-aged white people, who don't know why they're angry, so the Mail is happy to give them some reasons for their simmering rage. The Guardian's one of the better ones, but personally I'd go for Private Eye, The Guardian, BBC News and The Economist.
There remains good journalism out there - it's just not found alongside "Su, 18" and her smashing pair.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
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. 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.
I am officially gone from
The intention wasn't to destroy the data, it was to punish and intimidate.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
If we keep oppressing the UK this way they might dump all the tea into the Boston harbor or something.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The intention wasn't to destroy the data, it was to punish and intimidate.
It worked, I think that Laptop is scared and will never hold a harddrive again...
Be seeing you...