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UK High Court Gives OK To Investigation of Data Siezed From David Miranda

Posted by timothy on from the moving-the-goalposts-and-boiling-the-frog dept.

cold fjord writes with this snippet from The Guardian: "The high court has granted the Metropolitan police extended powers to investigate whether crimes related to terrorism and breaches of the Official Secrets Act have been committed following the seizure of data at Heathrow from David Miranda... At a hearing ... lawyers for Miranda said they had agreed to the terms of wider police powers to investigate a hard drive and memory sticks containing encrypted material that were seized on 18 August. Previously the inspection had been conducted on the narrower grounds of national security. Following the court ruling, the police will now be allowed to examine the material to investigate whether a crime of 'communication of material to an enemy' has been committed as well as possible crimes of communication of material about members of the military and intelligence services that could be useful to terrorists." Related: Reader hazeii writes "The BBC are reporting that the files seized from David Miranda (as a potential terrorist — see the earlier Slashdot story) 'endanger agents' lives.' Given that Miranda (and other Guardian journalists) seem to have been exceedingly careful not to release anything that could actually damage national security, and that the source of this information is a 'senior cabinet adviser,' one wonders what exactly the point of this 'news' is."

5 of 165 comments (clear)

  1. No political activism? by Alwin+Henseler · · Score: 4, Informative

    In today's "internet culture", with instant gratification and a certain detachment from one's peers, there is no real political activism occurring in industrialized countries that are economically stable.

    You mean Occupy Wall Street and similar movements didn't happen? Are not political activism? Countries where these movements were active, are not economically stable? And I don't think OWS is the only recent political activism, it comes in many shapes & forms. Am I missing something here?

    1. Re:No political activism? by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 4, Informative

      I must be missing something here because I do not see the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protests achieving anything other then turning some parks into a camp ground for a while and irritating the locals to the point they sent the police in to remove them.

      It wasn't the locals. It was a nation-wide crack-down coordinated by the FBI and DHS all with the banks at the lead.

      http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/29/fbi-coordinated-crackdown-occupy

      Maybe the reason Occupy didn't really cause any immediate change is because they were the first social movement in the US to face wide-scale, modern techniques of repression backed by essentially unlimited funding.

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      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
  2. Re:Without restraint by ian_billyboy_morris · · Score: 4, Informative

    In the UK this week our Prime Minister lost the vote to bomb Syria because MPs from all sides (even his own party ) rebelled due to the strength of public opinion. The last time a PM lost a vote to go to war was the US war of independence. Democracy can work in the age of the Internet.

  3. FBI docs revealing crackdown plan are online by hazeii · · Score: 3, Informative

    The actual FBI docs revealing this are available online.

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    All your ghosts are just false positives.
  4. Congratulations UK! by elashish14 · · Score: 3, Informative

    You are now a province of America. Don't let the shame overwhelm you now....

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    I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.