UK officials detain Glenn Greenwald's partner at Heathrow, question him about Snowden interviews, steal all his gadgets & data

I’m torn between agreeing 100% with the content of your post, and saying something really snarky about why you think your capitalization choices are worth noting. The heartrending challenges of being a politics nerd…

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or Dreyfus ?

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the same b*****ds threw out a 83 year old “dissenter” from a public meeting citing
the same laws.
law creep/ mission creep/ …

shame england, bum boy to the empire.

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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. The British authorities seized all of his electronic media — including video games, DVDs and data storage devices — and did not return them, Mr. Greenwald said.

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Probably because this Christian vs. Muslim vs. Whatever has been going on too long…centuries too long.

It also probably has to do with formerly being a preacher’s kid. Well, probably still am, but I don’t subscribe to that magazine anymore.

I hope you’re not reading that as if I don’t think he did.

Here’s the Terrorism Act 2000.

Now Amnesty International claims that Miranda was unlawfully targeted by the authorities because

Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 allows the police to detain anyone at the UK’s borders without any requirement to show probable cause and hold them for up to nine hours, without seeking further justification. The detainee must respond to any questions, regardless of whether a lawyer is present and there is no automatic provision of a lawyer. It is a criminal offence for the detainee to refuse to answer questions - regardless of the grounds for that refusal or otherwise fully cooperate with the police. According to the advice published by the Association of Chief Police Officers’, Schedule 7 should only be used to counter terrorism and may not be used for any other purpose.

and as it is quite improbable that Miranda was involved in any activity that could be construed as terrorism, the detaining officers were acting in excess of their authority, as defined by Schedule 7 of the Terrorist Act 2000

Putting aside the invitation to mischief contained in clause 2(4)

An examining officer may exercise his powers under this paragraph whether or not he has grounds for suspecting that a person falls within section 40(1)(b).

Section 40(1)(b) defines a terrorist as

(1)In this Part “terrorist” means a person who—
(a)has committed an offence under any of sections 11, 12, 15 to 18, 54 and 56 to 63, or
(b)is or has been concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.

And though the other sections refer to bog standard “membership in a terrorist organization”, “money laundering,” “fundraising”, “bombing”, “inciting terrorism” or “weapons training”. Section 58 contains the following

(1)A person commits an offence if—
(a)he collects or makes a record of information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism, or (b)he possesses a document or record containing information of that kind.

Now, 58(1)(3) does observe

It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under this section to prove that he had a reasonable excuse for his action or possession.

but since defenses are not bars to prosecution, the individuals harassing Miranda could claim that they believed they were justified in doing so, and if they were mistaken, they would still be immunized under section 2(4).

Sometimes the law is an ass.

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I hope that I am not the only person who finds it ironic that another person with the name of Miranda has been mistreated by police.

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1992 studying International Development, our prof from a certain course prompted the assembly too consider, with the fall of Communism, who the new "Enemy’ would be with the Western hegemony society. Answer, as he speculated, Muslims. Not far off the mark.

Guilford Four comes too mind regarding the incarceration of terrorists, although, no nitrogen laces gloves where found under Auntie’s kitchen sink in Greenwald’s case.

Not all activists are straight, married men.

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Freedom is lost, now on UK as well.
Who are the terrorists, really ?

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You’re not but you get equal points for pointing out the irony.

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Technically, at border crossings you are not in the country you are crossing in to and therefore are not subject to citizen rights. However, if you are a citizen and wanted for a crime the US will haul your ass to jail without benefit of extradition, because technically you’re on US soil. Go figure.

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Just the tip of the iceberg I’m sure.

I suspect the spies are trying desperately to figure out what files and documents Snowden took. As far as I can tell, they had no idea he was taking them, he had access to great mountains of data, and he took a lot. They have certainly given nobody any reason to tell them exactly which files he copied.

So now they are almost certainly having a complete meltdown, behind closed doors. I have no doubt they want to figure out what is ‘out there’ and what is secure. And I have no doubt they will stop at nothing to figure it out. Of course, Greenwald and the rest have no reason to tell them, and won’t. I assume Greenwald, Poitras and whomever else have deadman switches for a document dump if they are kidnapped or killed. I hope so.

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Whichever country you reside in, please remember this sort of abuse of power when it comes time to vote.

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This just in: Chinese curses a western invention. Details to follow.

At one time, the civil liberties groups had bullied the US Federal government into making actual rules for seizure of computer systems and information and even occasionally following them - if they took your computers, they had a certain (very short) amount of time to copy the data and give your machines back, unless they had sufficient probable cause to justify keeping them, beyond just the data they hoped to take advantage of.

Obviously that doesn’t apply to the US, and those rules seem to have disappeared by the time Customs thought up the idea of being able to arbitrarily confiscate computers at the border, just like they can arbitrarily rip apart cars looking for drugs, but it was nice while it lasted.

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I thought the western world was free? I thought the western world valued freedom of the press and free speech? To say this is outrageous is an understatement. This is like watching a crime in broad day light. The only upside to this is that spies, military, and police are showing their true colors. Strip their powers, throw them in jail, and burn their uniforms in a garbage can. Who are these people working for away? They are not working for their countries.

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Hah. I’d say you haven’t been paying attention; that noise has always been mere lip service, only now it’s becoming obvious.

Like Frank Zappa said,

The illusion of freedom will continue as only long as it’s profitable to
continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too
expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they’ll
pull back the curtains, they’ll move the tables and chairs out of
the way and you’ll see the brick wall at the back of the theater.

I’m fucking sick of all this blind faith in our oppressors. It’s long past time enough of us get fed up with this whole shitfight and decide to draw a fucking line under it.

I’ve felt this way for bloody ages, but only just the other day did I discover the clever way around Bullshit Mountain I’ve been waiting all this time to find - right here in the BB BBS!

Wherein The Doctor Explains How to Save Us From Ourselves

This looks like the best shot we’ve got to me; it completely blows away anything else, making other ideas look like rearranging Titanic’s deckchairs.

So come on! Who’s with me?

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Amateurs. They forgot to make him sign that he cooperated freely and by his own decision.

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