Slashdot Mirror
UK High Court Gives OK To Investigation of Data Siezed From David Miranda
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."
It is almost as if they want to see just how far they can push. But that push back is going to be a bitch...
Frustratingly, it is actually possible for released information to endanger agents' lives. By using this as a pretext for searches when there's no real basis for thinking an agent's life is being endangered, it is they who endanger agents' lives, not the people whose data they search on that basis.
What are we to believe when, likely soon, they claim that some piece of data they "found" in Miranda's possession actually endangers someone's life? That the data actually endangers anyone? That it was actually on one of Miranda's drives? How would we know? This is a farce.
Like it or not, privacy is unenforceable. We can fiddle with our settings so they leak less data, but there is still lots of data given out, and leaking, just by having a cellphone, credit card, car, job, name and ID.
The battle now, is to end the privacy/secrecy for THEM. In other words, get gov't transparency, corporate transparency.
They won't give it up easy, their one-way information flow.
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There is ample evidence, historically, and in every country that has ever existed for any length of time, that the government's expansion of police powers will continue until the people fight back. When the cost of consolidating power exceeds the cost of political activism, that is where the balance lays.
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. This has meant a rapid expansion of police powers in virtually every one of the top 20 countries by GDP.
Bluntly, the internet may give us access to the knowledge of what's going on anywhere on Earth, our collective knowledge, and does it all nearly instantaniously, but all of this information has blunted our resolve. It has given rise to the idea that technical solutions to social problems are not only viable, but preferred. It has substituted direct social interaction for abstract social interaction.
It could be argued that the internet itself is the proximate cause of the current state of affairs; It has made people complacent and politically impotent.
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Miranda is clearly guilty, then, as he certainly communicated embarrassing information to dirty red commie journalists.
Sadly, many Western governments are unable to carry out some actions they want to if the general public knows about them, simply because most people consider them immoral and unacceptable. They are, then, presented with a dilemma. They can stop doing things their electorate would find objectionable, they can try to eliminate the ability of the electorate to influence government, or they can lie about what they are doing and try to keep it secret. The third is impossible if people like Snowden are allowed to tell people what their government is doing on their behalf.
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?
They're playing double-or-quits, raising the threat to the Guardian in an effort to suppress further reporting. This law is under examination for MET's extreme over use of it, so MET pushes for even broader use of it.
That works on the Daily Mail, who are chicken shit scared. But the other non-Murdoch newspapers are expanding their reporting. So this isn't working. BBC was threatened with DA notices, and even they're reporting more about these leaks.
If you're not aware of it, MET is the police agency that gets GCHQ data feeds. It's the secret conduit by which GCHQ targets people for police prosecutions. Any evidence GCHQ provides is heard in court in secret, is not seen by the defendant, and cannot be challenged because it isn't revealed.
The argument for this is that is protects NSA intelligence gathering methods. Methods that are now public courtesy of Snowden and is clearly illegal mass surveillance. So they're covering up crimes of a foreign spying agency and their accomplices in GCHQ.
Mass surveillance is not legal, is does not matter whether it is GCHQ for NSA or STASI for KGC.
I don't agree with the misuse of anti-terrorism laws in this case, but this is ridiculous:
a piece of paper with the password to part of the encrypted files was discovered along with the hard drive
Why? Why would you do that? What possible rationalisation could there be for writing the password down and keeping it with the encrypted data?
It's a pity there is no law against negligent custodianship of encrypted data, it might teach people to be more sensible.
Democracy only works if those in power are committed to its preservation. Important policies and actions need to be discussed and public opinion allowed to influence final decisions. There is ample evidence that the U.S. and some other older democracies no longer really want their people involved in important decision making. They need to pay lip service to the concept. However, a combination of lies, secrecy and manipulation (partly by politicians themselves and partly by well funded PACs) ensure informed participation from the general population is next to impossible.
"Democracy" and "human rights" in these countries will no doubt remain for a long time as key justifications for very undemocratic foreign policies, but are well on the way to being dead in any meaningful sense.