UK intel officials raid Guardian offices, destroy hard drives with Snowden docs

boing
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If you’re tired of hyperbolic knee jerk reactions, perhaps “newsflash” and “categorically untrue” should be phrases that leave your own vocabulary?

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Welcome to the real world, Neo.

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I feel a real fool now. I’ve just twigged that Johnny English was a documentary…

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I don’t think they destroyed the hard drives just to destroy the data at one location. The British government probably destroyed the hard drives as a warning that any journalist reporting on this story from the UK using those documents would be jailed. By destroying the hard drives, they have established that the UK considers it illegal for the Guardian to possess that data. Recreating it would be an overt act which would probably trigger a prosecution. So now that reporting has ceased in the UK, it up to the US government to attack the New York office. Let’s just hope that the First Amendment holds.

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they couldn’t find the floppy drive

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I was born and raised in the DC area and, no, there is NOT enough room. A cool million alone would flood all of The Mall and downtown, much less “millions”.

That said, this story is very amusing, considering WIkiLeaks apparently has released the entire 400 GB encrypted archive of data to many locations around the world. Sorry, no, Mr. Sunglasses-and-suit-and-earpiece, you AREN’T going to be able to put this cat back in the bag.

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This idiocy helps confirm my thought that the spies have no clear idea what Snowden copied. They are likely having a quiet meltdown behind closed doors wondering what is going to be released next.

They are not handling it well.

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It’s a classic mistake many officials with an “enforcement” mindset fall into. Essentially, they’re told they MUST have complete control of any given situation at all times, which unfortunately is also patently impossible. So they end up convinced they can bull their way through any situation, if only they can gain enough “control”, even though this has no basis in reality.

:“The Negotiator” is a great movie for illustrating how this control mentality can completely fail.

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Whatev.

I see your piddley “whatev” and raise you:

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I was born and raised in the DC area and, no, there is NOT enough room. A cool million alone would flood all of The Mall and downtown, much less “millions”.

I lived in DC and worked there. You’re wrong, there’s enough room.

Almost 2 million were at Obama’s inauguration with room to spare and it’s considered one of the largest peaceful gatherings in history. Over 600,000 were there for a protest against Vietnam.

But, this is all beside the point anyway.

Sorry, no, Mr. Sunglasses-and-suit-and-earpiece, you AREN’T going to be able to put this cat back in the bag.

Agreed. :gb:

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Unless you are not an employee of the US Government, I suppose…

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@kangorufoo said: If you are an government employee your first job it to uphold the first amendment.

jsroberts said: Unless you are not an employee of the US Government, I suppose…

I’m not so sure… I think it kind of goes with the privilege of United States citizenship.

Naturalization Oath of Allegiance to the United States of America

Oath: "I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; …

The principles embodied in the Oath are codified in Section 337(a) in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which provides that all applicants shall take an Oath that incorporates the substance of the following:

  1. Support the Constitution;

  2. Renounce and abjure absolutely and entirely all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which the applicant was before a subject or citizen;

  3. Support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic;

  4. Bear true faith and allegiance to the same; …

I edited/shorten it down a little for brevity more here: source

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Sorry, I thought he was referring to the UK officials who were harassing Miranda and the Guardian staff.

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Every federal employee swears to the Constitution. But you should not that it is a different oath than the naturalization oath (though it is similar):

I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and
defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies,
foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to
the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental
reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully
discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So
help me God.

Enlisted personnel in the military also swear to obey the orders of the President (and Governor if in the National Guard) and officers per the UCMJ. But even then, the oath to the Constitution is first, and the obeying of others is qualified by law (UCMJ).

tl;dr: In the US if you work in any level of government, you swear to the Constitution and not a king. There is no qualification or exception that allows a government employee in the US to violate the Constitution under any circumstance, whether you are a dogcatcher or a Senator.

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If this had happened in the States, they still wouldn’t have Mirandized Miranda.

(I’m sorry, I just can’t help it.)

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Currently laughing at the idea that those were the only copies.

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So far, Poitras and Greenwald have done an incredibly good job of handling the Snowden material. They have been implementing a long term, strategic, plan that seems to have 2 goals:

  • Restore the US Constitutional limits on the Executive branch.
  • Make the Executive branch accountable to the Legislative and Judicial branches.

As ambitious as it seems, this level of correction has happened several times in US history. I believe that these goals can be achieved if 3 conditions are met:

  1. Poitras and Greenwald must succeed in maintaining public awareness of the problem.
  2. Poitras and Greenwald must continue to be regarded as responsible journalists.
  3. The Public must agree that the threat of an unbridled Executive is greater than the external threat.
So far, Poitras and Greenwald have played Obama and the US Intelligence like a hooked trout. They have skillfully countered every attempt to divert or end the discussion. It looks like they have a chance of advancing reform of the US Executive branch. They may also help bring reform to England.

But now, I think we are seeing the beginning of more strategic responses from the US Intelligence community. I suspect that they are now trying to end the discussion by re branding Poitras and Greenwald as traitorous threats. This approach worked so well with Manning and Assange. I suspect that the goals of US Intelligence are now:

  • Get Poitras and Greenwald to do an irresponsible disclosure. From the Intelligence communities viewpoint, even an immediate, complete disclosure of the Snowden material is a small price to pay in return for swift end to the discussion and discrediting the whistle-blowers.
  • Or create an irresponsible disclosure of the Snowden material. Remember, neither Manning nor Assange/WikiLeaks did the big, irresponsible disclosure. But, they were blamed when it happened. On considering this objective, it seems to me that the primary objective of the Miranda incident may have been to acquire the secret key of the distributed file, so they could create an irresponsible disclosure.
  • If they can't shutdown or re-brand Poitras and Greenwald, then I expect the next step will be to create an immediate, external threat that requires an unbridled Executive.
I am praying for Poitras and Greenwald. We need their help. And their enemies are capable of doing terrible things.
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Why, yes. Quite often, when it has been accompanied with a credible threat against livelihood, life or family.

Of course, staunch countries which invented freedom and democracy would never use such despicable methods. Or at least only against the really bad guys or for national security.

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You DO need a movement. Please, as inhabitants of the country that’s moving this insane tsunami of bullshit, you have your hand closer to the source. Start moving people. Something, anything at all, needs to be done. I will never cease to be amazed at the lack of reaction from your general population.

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From Miranda’s words reported in the Guardian:

“[…] I don’t even know if it was documents that I was carrying. It could have been for the movie that Laura is working on.”

So he probably was carrying something for Greenwald/Poitras. I hope Snowden taught them a thing or two about encrypting and carrying disks (hint: make sure whatever computer you are carrying is not set up to automatically decrypt encrypted disks without a password).

After reading that passage, I wonder if NSA/GCHQ knew that Miranda was going to carry something (Poitras and Greenwald must be bugged to their eyeballs, at the moment) and tried to intercept it. And it would be awesome if this was all an op by P/G to flush out a possible mole, but the reaction is a bit too surprised / vehement (i.e. Greenwald he’s declared he’ll now concentrate on UK records).