The legal gymnastics these assholes used to try and harass a reporter mean nothing. The state picked someone and harassed them for being associated to someone speaking out against the government. They locked him in a room against his will without legal council, which means he couldn’t even get advice as to what rights he might or might not have. They did this to terrify and intimidate a law abiding person. Only an ironclad legal limit prevented them from taking their legal gymnastics and blatant ignoring of the intent of the law from going any further.
If you EVER needed proof that these people are untrustworthy scum, this is it. They have absolutely no capacity for self governance and no respect for a free society. These people despise a free society. These people are thugs. If the law says you can’t pluck out a citizens eyeballs with a spoon if they piss you off, they will just use a fork. These spy agencies need to be chopped down to size, opened up, and put under so much scrutiny and surveillance that they feel naked. I’ll pretty happily take my chances with a slightly elevated risk of laughable small threat of “terrorism” over an assured brutal police state.
I don’t think that “thoughtcrime” is the right term here. It wasn’t simply that he thought about something that he shouldn’t think about, but took active steps in furtherance of a potentially dangerous, criminal act (according to the govt). This is a quite-common definition of conspiracy, and/or “attempted” crimes where one not need to actually commit the final act to be guilty of the crime, provided intent to commit the final act is shown. And conspiracy laws (as well as laws prohibiting possession of dangerous items) are necessary to protect the public, since otherwise we’d have to wait until after bombs were detonated or guns were fired and people were killed before arresting someone who clearly had the intent to do harm.
I’m not justifying the detention, nor saying it was legal or right; if having these documents isn’t a crime, and disclosing facts from these documents isn’t a crime, then obviously it’s wrong. But thoughtcrime isn’t the right term for it. Perhaps we should say instead he was in possession of a thoughtbomb.
He was offered legal representation - the duty solicitor, but he was denied the right to use (and telephone) his own solicitor. He declined the use of the government appointed solicitor.
He also was offered water, which he also declined because he wasn’t able to draw it from the tap himself.
You are not playing devil’s advocate. You are playing brutal police state advocate.
Oh I say, steady on there. Weatherman’s just pointing out that there were two prongs to the warrant and that the ‘thoughtcrime’ one was the other one, the ‘terror’ prong being provided by the ‘hazardous material’ bit. Seems a fair criticism of the presentation to me.
It does our side (assuming we’re all on the same side here) no good to misrepresent or cherry-pick the arguments of the antagonist.
He’ll be gone by then - but he’s successfully laid the ground works for that unfortunate inevitability.
In some ways I think it’s a good thing. Because it has to get worse before it gets better, and in a weird kind of way David Cameron is such an arsehole that he’s becoming a beacon for change - someone that everyone can rally against. People don’t get up in arms about potential - they need the bad shit to happen before they do something about it. And the bad shit is totally happening.
He’s a very evolved form of politician - looks, speaks and acts like a robot, has family (but sometimes forgets it and leaves it in pubs) and caves to the oddest mix of public opinion and corporate interest. He’s gone over the edge, he’s too ‘politician’, to the extent that basically no one likes him anymore - he’s a dickhead whether you’re a foamy nationalist or a stinky pleb; and clearly has no opinions or convictions of his own (some shine through occasionally, but they’re the kind of things only Boris Johnson could relate to). It’s actually quite impressive and likely a bookmark for historians of what happens when PR and grooming goes too far.
Yeah, but no. We have plenty of laws written down about freedom of speech, just no central document like the US’ constitution we can point to that guarantees it. In practice it comes to much the same thing.
What does Miranda do for a living? (Honest question) I know that he is a against mass surveillance (but so am I), and he speaks against it, but the documents from Snowden were released to Greenwald. So suspicions arise from guilt by association? Would it be okay if they held his parents, or brother, or cousin, or neighbor, etc? What about someone who commented under his column?
One of my favourite books is The Count Of Monte Christo. Spoiler alert: a guy gets locked up indefinitely after being falsely accused of being a Bonapartist. Modern translation: a terrorist.
One thing that strikes me is how at several junctures, his release is denied on the basis that he is “dangerous”. Not that he had done any specific crime, or was caught conspiring to, but just that his supposed affiliation (which he didn’t actually hold) made him dangerous.
This is basically the same thing: Miranda was held for 9 hours (and thank fuck they weren’t allowed to hold him indefinitely, or he’d currently be tunnelling out of some prison with a spoon and plotting revenge) for holding “dangerous” information.
The nub of this is, once they can imprison you for being dangerous (and as Gandalf says, aren’t we all?) you have no defence. You can demand proof beyond reasonable doubt that you did something illegal, as long as proof is needed. But if all that is needed is the bare unsupported assertion that you know or possess or believe or are capable of something dangerous, then game over. Because there is no way to prove that you don’t know or possess or believe or are capable of something, and it has become a very one-sided exercise in name-calling backed by state power.
And they have never yet shown that material released by Snowden, nor by Manning, has endangered any lives. The standard excuse is that explaining how it endangers lives would endanger lives. But they also can’t explain why that is, because that would also endanger lives. It’s pant-wetting fear of terrorist bogeymen all the way down.
But that’s not true. He wasn’t caught with documents, no one can prove he ever had possession of documents. Greenwald may have shared info with him, but he also shared info with the world.
So (according to the UK), disclosure of unspecified information would endanger people’s lives, and the disclosure is intended to influence the government politically, therefore it is terrorism. But such disclosure is obviously not intended to endanger people’s lives. So anything you do intending to influence government but which might inadvertently endanger people’s lives is terrorism.
Ian Tomlinson died after being unlawfully struck by a police officer during the London G-20 summit protests in 2009. Therefore that protest constituted terrorism.
The problem is that “plenty of laws” can be ignored with the strike of a pen by a simple majority of MPs, because each Parliament can choose to ignore everything previous parliaments established. Whereas “constitution” is a magic concept which will (or rather should) reduce the amount of shenanigans future generations can enact. The superior flexibility our system allows, does go in both directions on any topic. There are very few piece of papers a UK Parliament must fully respect, and none of them mentions a lot of rights we currently enjoy.
It’s a difference we’ll soon start to appreciate more, between this and a certain new charter.
The silver lining in all this is, David was eventually released. A judge hasn’t yet had to rule on the legality of Miranda’s detention, but when he does, he might end up castigating the government. This particular coalition of parties will likely be weakened at the next election, maybe even voted off. Democratic institutions might just have a chance to show their resiliency, and there might be light at the end of this long night.
