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High Court Rules Detention of David Miranda Was Lawful
Alain Williams writes with news that last year's detention of David Miranda and seizure of files destined for Glenn Greenwald has been ruled lawful. From the article: "The nine-hour detention ... of an ex-Guardian journalist's partner has been ruled lawful. ... At the High Court, Mr Miranda claimed his detention under anti-terrorism laws was unlawful and breached human rights. But judges said it was a 'proportionate measure in the circumstances' and in the interests of national security. ... In his ruling, Lord Justice Laws said: 'The claimant was not a journalist; the stolen GCHQ intelligence material he was carrying was not "journalistic material," or if it was, only in the weakest sense.'"
Naturally, an appeal is planned.
To paraphrase, when the government does it, it's not illegal. It would be absurd to expect any other outcome.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
...truthfully rules that the UK is a fascist cesspool.
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So the leaks that have been getting world headlines consistently for the last year are not journalistic material. Yeah...
Beware when things are done for "national security". The Japanese were rounded up and placed in prison camps for "national security".
"Under Nazism, with its emphasis on the nation, individual needs were subordinate to those of the wider community.[172] Hitler declared that "every activity and every need of every individual will be regulated by the collectivity represented by the party" and that "there are no longer any free realms in which the individual belongs to himself".[173] Himmler justified the establishment of a repressive police state, in which the security forces could exercise power arbitrarily, as national security and order should take precedence over the needs of the individual.[174]" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism
Of course this is in England where you have no rights anyway.
The distinction between normal person and journalist is getting smaller all the time. But governments think they can arbitrarily decide if you have the right to report news.
I hope they read him his Miranda rights... :D
--- Bouh !!! ---
Is that a bit of editorializing? Surely someone's title & name aren't really, legally, "Lord Justice Laws." If so, I'd be genuinely worried that such an individual has gone off on a serious power trip.
Mr Miranda made a fatal mistake in his plans. He should have loaded the stolen GCHQ data files onto an Android and fired them into space in an escape pod. I'm sure he'd have been arrested for that, but it's also likely that someone would try and rescue him.
"Is the Chief Priest an Offlian? Do dragons explode in the wood?"
Clegg: "Gee Dave, what're we going to do tonight?"
Cameron: "Same thing we do every night, Nick. Try to take over the world!"
There is a very real distinction between the people and their interests, and the state and its interests. These are useful moments which illustrate for everyone that it's not quite a democracy and not quite a republic. The interests of the people, such as fairness, do not factor in as much as protecting the interests of those in office, those who support those in office and those who are, in turn, supported by those in office.
I've always believed the phrase "freedom of the press" to mean freedom of the printing press, i.e. the right to disseminate information freely, rather than any particular group of people.
Does the UK have laws that protect freedom of the press?
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
from great heights we expire http://rt.com/business/jpmorgan-third-banker-suicide-655/ never a better time to consider ourselves in relation to each other & our universal centerpeace momkind
This was in the UK. Miranda was a U.S. court ruling.
Just asking.
They don't even have effective freedom from the press.
No.
They're trying to pass some kind of gagging law at the moment.
But does this Miranda modify the previous Miranda? And how does that affect Barry Manilow and Mandy?
I'm so confused!
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Based on the drivel they publish that makes American grocery store tabloids look like appropriate child bedtime story reading, I assume so.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
The GCHQ had it right from the 1960 to 1990's - ignore the courts (wrt to useful logs of Soviet spies), the press and just keep on collecting all signals. What the public did not know becomes a US tell all book on the NSA or a few hints by former UK staff mostly about tracking the Soviet Unions efforts in the UK. :)
The great part of this is the new 'interests of national security" aspect. The UK gov is really feeding the press with this kind of open court 'classic'.
Where can the UK gov go from here?
Stop and question more members of the press moving into or via or from the UK for a few hours?
Soon the UK will get that "East German" feel for the press and they will learn the limits any interrogation methods and publish their travel experiences in great detail.
The mood in the room, the color of law used, time taken i.e. if the UK gov did not pull a member of the press aside - your work have become safe, tame, bland.
What can the UK gov do to the press?
Read back in detail their travel/guest/interview history and what 'happened' to past whistleblower in a loud voice between legal clauses without a lawyer in the room?
That kind of effort works once - the member of the press comes out fully understanding the nature of power and keeps on publishing with renewed enthusiasm.
The member of the press comes out fully understanding the nature of power, totally stops publishing but others start work with great enthusiasm after an aspect of the media chilling story become public.
A third aspect is a member of the press fully understands the interview process and turns the interview to an ongoing very public legal event.
Its win win win for the UK press. The state has shown its 'power' publically and we are all watching a journalistic Berlin Wall go up
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
When NSA officials are asked in the document if WikiLeaks or Pirate Bay could be designated as “malicious foreign actors,”
So, he erased every copy of the information that was copied? He was carrying around the only copy? Because if not, he didn't steal anything.
LAWYER has evolved into POLITICIAN! Kill it with fire!
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Hardly unique though. Owning lockpicks is illegal unless you're a locksmith.
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
I hope they read him his rights before they questioned him, because, um, you know, that would be the right thing to do, especially because of him name and all and stuff.
Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but didn't that end result of a failed abortion Theresa May want to make people like journalists or what have you stateless before a trial?
(For those who don't know, stateless people do not have the right to legal aid.)
If this had been in the US they would have had to Mirandize Mr. Miranda.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
> "In his ruling, Lord Justice Laws (name completely, absolutely 100% unrelated)said: 'The claimant..."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Journalist shield laws are great if your a gov.
Start with needing an expensive tertiary education, set what kind of valid press pass are needed, then double up with a police press pass per city.
Privacy laws, commercial-in-confidence, wiretap laws, distant ongoing war restrictions... pro gov sock puppets and bloggers...
Still feel like walking around with a camera behind police lines risking your credentials on a real story?
The UK gov has learned a lot from its years in Ireland, during the Falklands and can quickly find a way around the digital UK press years later.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
let's have a vote on that eh?
This is a weird ruling. It highlights how it is usually absurd to have a category of people who are journalists, and a category of people who are not, and a set of things which are okay if done by journalists but otherwise are not legal.
When the judge is parsing who is and is not a journalist, it's pretty much a lost cause. Same thing for whether something journalistic materials, or are but only in a very weak sense.
This is precisely why I think that journalist shield laws are counterproductive. Because now you have journalists arguing about their credentials and what are or not protected materials and all that business instead of focusing on the actual matter at hand - the people's right to know what is being done by their government and why.
If one could say that any information, no matter how it was obtained, is protected from seizure due to freedom of speech (or whatever the local variety of that right is) then that's an awful big shield to hide behind, it basically legalizes all sorts of IP theft so long as the perpetrator is not caught red-handed. Would you be so eager to claim that (if it were actually practical) nation states should not attempt to prosecute those committing industrial or military espionage when they are caught in possession of said material, only because the jump box they used to obtain it was sufficiently scrubbed?
I'm sure this has been said before, but it should be said again and again until everyone gets it into their heads.
The courier should not carry the data. The courier should only carry the one time pad.
Governments are not going to respect their own or any other Governement's rules when stuff like the Snowden Files are involved. It follows that the courier should not carry the data. The courier should only carry the one time pad.
And here I thought that the big bad USA had sole responsibility for *all* the abuses of human rights in the world, at least in the eyes of some. This decision comes from the UK and clearly establishes that there is at least some basis for curbs on the press.
Might it be, that there is at least *some* precedent for the protection of "national security" and some responsibility on the press to be prudent when classified information is disclosed to them? And here we have the same issues being raised in other countries, with similar results.
Remember, that you either allow for and protect classified information though law, or you don't have *any* ability to keep anything classified. You either must allow for there to be things you cannot legal know or live in a world where anything is fair game to publish. I for one think that classified "national security" information is necessary, even in light of the USA's first amendment and the limits such rules put on free speech. We can argue about what goes into the "National security" box, but I don't think there is any viable case for not having the box in the first place.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
We invented the superinjunction: A court order against that prohibits disclosing specified information, as well as prohibits disclosing the existence of the injunction. They are civil things, usually used by celebrities to prevent the the press from disclosing some juicy scandalous gossip about their personal lives, most commonly extramarital affairs. Just how often this happens is something of a mystery though, as the super-injunctions are secret by nature - the only time the public finds out is when the information leaks by some other channel. Even in court records, the person bringing the injunction is only identified by a three-letter random codename.
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I'm sure it would come as a shock to many Americans that those Europeans, whose lifestyle they hold in such high regard, don't share the same rights as they do. Yet they keep insisting America should become more like Europe. Let me know how well that works out for you. Of course, Europeans have managed to figure out that loser-pays tort law is the way to go so it's not all bassackwards.
Yea, uh, that's how it's supposed to work. The major point of the 4th Amendment was precisely to prevent fishing expeditions either in scope of area searched, duration of search, or material to be seized. It all amounts to basically hard evidence gathering of otherwise known facts. To that end, I would actually support requirements of handing over encryption passwords to things if the 4th Amendment was actually being followed as intended. Instead, it takes but the world of a border guard or law enforcement officer to fish into all you personal documents or as in this case the personal documents of your supposedly close associates.
Of course, all of the above is a moot point since this is the UK and obvious US laws don't apply. But, then, as I already stated it's not as if US laws really apply in the US properly either. As a sort of tangent, I think this scenario disproves Upaya--I don't think journalists intent to reclaim their inherent rights was anything more than a expedient step towards their real needs to oversee government intrusions but it's come at the cost of enshrining the false belief that journalists deserve these inherent rights and everyone else will use them to shield their crimes. It's funny that we don't see that logic used to have harsh, dismantling laws over governments and companies which consistently function as much worse shields to crimes not only of wanting desire to harm but simple, consistent apathy to negative consequence.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
Except that Miranda is not, never has been or claimed to be, a journalist.
He was, in essence, a mule.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Uhm, no - there are no "fundamental" human rights, the very idea is a bullshit concept.
Every right we talk about are rights we grant each other - you don't have a right to life, that's a privilege society around you grants you to have and enjoy. You don't have a right to freedom of expression, that's a privilege society around you grants you to have and enjoy. You don't have a right to carry lock picks, that's a privilege society grants to certain members.
The only thing protecting your "right" to do anything at all is society as a majority, which distinctly removes the possibility that its a fundamental right.
What freedom of expression, self governance, life and everything else are are in-fact rightful and just privileges that should be defended by society as a whole for each other.
I've read some of the ruling and it would seem to me that the British high court ruling is wrong.
The British authorities seem to have a flawed understanding of what constitutes "espionage acticity", yet has used such FOR an excuse for wanting to apprehend and then keep Miranda for questioning/interrogation for hours:
"Intelligence indicates that MIRANDA is likely to be involved in espionage activity which has the potential to act against the interests of UK national security. We therefore wish to establish the nature of MIRANDA’s activity, assess the risk that MIRANDA poses to UK national security and mitigate as appropriate. We are requesting that you exercise your powers to carry out a ports stop against MIRANDA.” (quoted from the ruling)
One might expect anyone claiming that someone else carrying secret documents IS, MIGHT or is LIKELY to be involved in "espionage activity", however given the qualifying term as seen above in my quoted text with the stated notion of "espionage activity which has the potential to act against(...)", it seem all too obvious that the initial notion of "espionage activity" is merely self referential, meaningless and probably tautological, when the notion of "espionage activity" in the quoted text appear to merely be a needed qualifier for constituting a "potential to act against", and so the authorities appear to have been "begging the question". A CONSTRUCTED suspicion, that with the ruling in turn are turned into a mere qualifier that simply fit the need of the authorities in approving the rationale with regard to their existing laws and regulations.
It is not so much that the British authorities made up a particular pretext, as having made an otherwise 'lawful' action (questioning) fit for purpose, which really is just as damning as "having a pretext" in this context. This is so, given that the schedule 7 powers already seem to have an element of making things fit to purpose in the first place (given the lawful application of powers to see if it is relevant with questioning/interrogation), and so the notion of there being "espionage activity" is intellectually fraudulent.
The only excuse the British authorities would have in this case, is to prove that intelligence found Miranda to be involed in espionage activity, AND NOT simply providing indications that have other people believe that Miranda is merely LIKELY to be involved in espionage activities. This is such a long stretch that it doesn't merit the suspicion, other than making an interrogation fit for purpose, or, simply allowing a questioning end up becoming a pretext. This kind of 'pretext' is a notion apparently already baked in the schedule 7 powers from the little I read in the ruling, given how authorities make use of 'powers' and then are obliged to come up with a rationale for it, either to their superiors or to the high court.
Since Miranda is not someone found guilty of having been involved in espionage and is not deemed to act against the interest of the UK national security, I think it should be obvious that the authorities are wrong and that the British high court is full of shit.
The high court notion of justice is as refined as shooting suspects.
Uh no it's hyper partisan either side, not especially on the "left" and the "right". What's more conservatives label facts as being hyper partisan nowadays. Liberals of course do this too, but to a much lesser degree, but that's only because it tends to already coincide with their value structure. The 4th estate is seriously flawed, and this goes back most recently to the removal of the fairness doctrine. When infotainment became more valued than education by the American populace this crap fed on itself. If Americans demand less bias and are willing to actual do more research than take the sound byte fact machine's words for it things will change. But that's hard and we all have limited attention spans.
Pinky: Gawrsh Brain what are we doing tonight?
Brain: The same thing we do every night: clean up after HMG. They've bollocksed it up properly again.
Uhm, no - there are no "fundamental" human rights, the very idea is a bullshit concept.
Well, in the view of the authors of the US Declaration of Independence, there are 3 "inalienable" human rights: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. I think we can equate "inalienable" with "fundamental".
However, it's noteworthy that despite these high words, the USA is very big on the death penalty, which would seem to indicate that the right to life isn't so inalienable after all.
I know that this is more of an American/Canadian term, but does "chilling effects" ring any bells? If the government can't* do this to journalists but can and will do it to their families and friends, they have to see how that would affect journalist behavior? It's pretty classic operant conditioning AND probably a case of collective punishment as well. * We know they will, but just for the sake of argument
At least Sweden do have freedom of the press - if someone provides secret information to a journalist of a newspaper then it's by law forbidden to try to backtrack the information flow to find the leak.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Unfortunately the meaning of Miranda Law differs between the UK and the US now.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Strangely or not the US Bill of Rights specifiably prohibits government infringing freedom of the press so the press and journalists are consequently accorded special legal privileges.
Well, in the view of the authors of the US Declaration of Independence, there are 3 "inalienable" human rights: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. I think we can equate "inalienable" with "fundamental".
As the Declaration of Independence has no bearing in law, those inalienable human rights are a damn fine philosophical aspiration and nothing else.
Good constitutional law does not claim to enumerate all rights, but does explicitly protect the ones believed at the time to be the most readily threatened by government power. Of course, that makes dumbasses in the "it's not listed in the Constitution" camp claim that the other unspecified rights aren't rights. (Many of the dumbasses I speak of are in places of power, so I suspect it's actually shoddy and dishonest attempt to justify infringements on fundamental unenumerated rights.)
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
At least Sweden do have freedom of the press - if someone provides secret information to a journalist of a newspaper then it's by law forbidden to try to backtrack the information flow to find the leak.
Yes, but then there is FRA that gathers information about all communication and sends it over to NSA. (At minimum, no one really knows what FRA does with the data themselves or who they share it with.)
NSA does not follow Swedish law when it comes to finding sources and it isn't har to figure out that the only person calling the journalist releasing the information that day might be involved somehow.
Then it's not freedom of the press IMO, if the laws only protect people who happen to be employed by a media outlet.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Did they read Mr Miranda his Miranda rights?
That inalienable right to liberty certainly applied to the slaves owned by the signers of that document.
Yup!
This is, to put it bluntly, precisely opposite of the philosophy of the US constitution. In US law, individual rights are enumerated, they are not granted. That's what "inalienable rights" means. It is not up for debate, it's supposed to be the fundamental bedrock that makes western style democracies work. It's possible for society to impinge upon those rights, but doing so can only be described as violating the central tenet of what modern western society is founded upon.
No, not a bullshit concept, and not that hard to understand: Fundamental human rights are not "a privilege society around you grants you"; you can buy a car and drive it, or buy land - those are privileges. You need to follow some rules to do either. Not so your human rights: as you -- hopefully -- are a human being, you possess certain rights; if society or any government for that matter does not grant you those rights, you are deprived from what civilized humanity has agreed to be the most basic things each and every human being posseses. Not so much a concept, it's rather a state, and you entered it simply by being born. There is no debate whether those rights exist. They just do. You did not just miss a memo here.
I hope I didn't brain my damage.
you're pathetic.
this sounds like an april fools article: .... In his ruling, Lord Justice Laws
At the High Court, Mr Miranda claimed his detention under anti-terrorism laws was unlawful
so miranda was complaining about his rights and lord justice laws laid down the, um, law...
awesome...
I believe you are referring to what is frequently known as 'natural rights'. Rights inherint by existing. Things that have to be actively denied or taken from you in order for you to not be able to do.
Such natural rights generally include the ability to..
live
talk
breathe
walk
use any tool you are mentally capable of grasping and making / is infront of you.
Eat whatever is infront of you.
Depriving others of a natural right isn't a natural right.
Property & ownership is a social construct. Generally speaking a society that restricts natural rights (for whatever reason) is 'less free' than one that does not. Yes, it is possible to create a less free, but more 'secure' society. For example resticting soda size / availability in exchange for hopefully better security in health would be giving up some natural rights in favor of security. (this is a some what poor example, but I don't feel like using the yelling fire in a theater one today).
Society doesn't grant natural rights. I cannot magically fly around and weld the sword of superBob by the will alone of society. Society however can grant social rights -- i am king, therefore i own Everything. Dicking with social rights can be done ad naesum and be relatively stable as long as the majority tolerate or support it. Doing so with natural rights tends to be a failure -- no one say F!@K -- because most everyone is capable of doing so and its impossible to police.
For now.
Well, NOTHING is more American than dollars.
In a Plutocracy, money is the real first class citizen, eh?
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
No wonder we plunged to 46th place on press freedoms...
Listen to this On The Media story or this article for details, but basically Reporters Without Borders changes its methodology every year, and the rankings are largely based on the perceptions of reporters within the respective countries, which is far from an objective measure. So as WP article states,
Most of the coverage is based on the premise that 2013 saw a sudden, alarming and perhaps unprecedented decline in media press freedom because the ranking dropped from the previous year. This is just bad data journalism for big two reasons. First, it confuses relative rankings with absolute scores – more on this later. Second, it ignores the fact that Reporters Without Borders has been raising and dropping the U.S. ranking for years.
I actually largely agree with your more abstract points, but it's worth pointing out that the entire press freedom ranking you cite is at best fairly misleading, and arguably entirely worthless. As the author of the article points out when interviewed on On The Media, Reporters Without Borders does some excellent work compiling statistics and incidents of press freedoms being impinged upon around the world. But their ranking system is best ignored.
I remember sigs. Oh, a simpler time!
Because nothing is illegal when done in the name of national security cuz terrism.
The US gov't funds abortion too. And, we have the NSA vs. Liberty. That leaves the Pursuit of Happiness, vs. the IRS.
What?!
"Freedom of the press" did NOT mean "Freedom of news corporations and their employees." When the U.S. Constitution was written, a press was a device someone might own or otherwise have access to. "Freedom of the press" meant that the U.S. federal government was not allowed to tell citizens what they could or could not say in writing. It was supposed to make clear that "freedom of speech" was not just restricted to what you could say with your mouth, but also via other methods of communication.
In other words, every U.S. citizen has the right to "freedom of the press," at least in theory. In reality, almost every supposed right enshrined in the U.S. Constitution can (or often has been) taken away almost at will by those in power. In other words, the Bill of Rights basically has become the "List of Things We Might Let You Have Unless You Really Annoy/Embarass Us."
Lose essential liberties to get temporary safety = get only hassles and security theater.
Uhm, no - there are no "fundamental" human rights, the very idea is a bullshit concept.
If that's how you feel, I'm going to kill you, which is my assumed human right. You only have the right to die.
Uhm, no - there are no "fundamental" human rights, the very idea is a bullshit concept.
Every right we talk about are rights we grant each other - you don't have a right to life, that's a privilege society around you grants you to have and enjoy. You don't have a right to freedom of expression, that's a privilege society around you grants you to have and enjoy. You don't have a right to carry lock picks, that's a privilege society grants to certain members.
The only thing protecting your "right" to do anything at all is society as a majority, which distinctly removes the possibility that its a fundamental right.
What freedom of expression, self governance, life and everything else are are in-fact rightful and just privileges that should be defended by society as a whole for each other.
The only impetus for society to protect these rights is a belief in their fundamental nature. If there was no fundamental human rights, we would still practice slavery, for there would be no good reason to stop.
Uhm, no - there are no "fundamental" human rights, the very idea is a bullshit concept...you don't have a right to...that's a privilege society...
You are very confused and your post is incoherent. All rights have limits, hence there is no meaningful distinction between a right and a privilege. The distinction is purely a matter of propaganda.
The ambiguity of human language necessarily means that any statement of a right will necessarily be incomplete and hence limited.
Therefore, the fact that a right is limited is of no significance. Once one recognizes this truth, it is but a small step to understanding that some rights are more fundamental than others.
Turn your brain on and think about this.
The only thing protecting your "right" to do anything at all is society as a majority, which distinctly removes the possibility that its a fundamental right.
There can be and have been many rights in many different societies (across the world and throughout history) that protect either individuals or a minority against majority groups. Human beings being imperfect, such rights tend to get abused fairly often, but over time things tend to get better.