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

boing
62

Why, no, but the point still stands.

63

What? You donā€™t have a Pirate Party where you live? Or a true left?

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Iā€™ve started a whitehouse.gov petition to ask President Obama to denounce these actions.

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/denounce-harassment-journalists-and-their-loved-ones-retribution-exposing-misdeeds-government/h0nrZJVD

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65

Shit has officially hit the fan and is now splattered all over the good, floral-patterned sofa. This is going to be hard to get out.

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Because if Greenwald and all of his known associates werenā€™t on an NSA watchlist before Snowdenā€™s leak, they sure as hell are now.

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And if you just happen to live in Scotland, remember that next year you get possibly your last meaningful opportunity to put a national border and a modern constitution between yourself and this kind of bullshit.

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@NathanHornby Excellent advice.

Following your example, I did the same and encourage all UK citizens to do so. Itā€™s very easy and there is even a webservice that makes this a doddle:

Keith Vaz, chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, has already stated he is going to write to the police and ask why this was done.

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69

I said the same thing in my second sentence.

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Yes, I imagine they are, but surely thereā€™s a better way to transfer bits than with a usb drive? Might be useful to know such techniques if things carry on as they areā€¦

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You have an MP who has a principled view on civil liberties? Who is this person?

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I read that on the Guardian actually. Although itā€™s positive that itā€™s
being taken seriously by the right people, I must admit I found it rather
amusing that their input is as much as mine. They should be bashing skulls,
not writing letters.

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Mike Hancock. Previously Lib Dem, but now independent.

He does have a rather colourful Wikipedia entry (Russian spys, sex scandals, the works) - but for the day-to-day stuff heā€™s been responsive with everything Iā€™ve brought to him - normally one step ahead

I guess no politician is perfect :stuck_out_tongue:

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Youā€™re in a minority having an MP who at least put in some resistance to the anti-terror legislation. Pity about almost everyone else.

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But then he did have an affair with a Russian spy and ā€œā€¦ is a notable supporter of homoeopathyā€.

You canā€™t win em all!

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Iā€™m constantly surprised that, in some many countries, people are not protesting and not brandishing pikes with most of their politicians heads affixed to them.

It really boggles my mind.

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77

Iā€™m trying to think of what alternatives there are/were, and coming up awfully shortā€¦

Once you assume the NSA or equivalent is watching your electronic communications, you lose a lot of options. Your only alternative is to send data thatā€™s not merely encrypted but concealed in such a way that there seems to be no data to try and decrypt in the first place ā€“ think steganography. Of course in this case, the presence or absence of data didnā€™t matter ā€“ the authorities grabbed anything that might conceivably have been used to carry hypothetical data.

The problem with transporting digital data is that most storage devices are dense, metallic, or both. Miranda couldā€™ve tried burning the encrypted data onto a mini-CD and hiding that on his person, but I suspect thatā€™d still show up on a pornoscanner. He could also have tried to get one of the disguised USB drives and hope they arenā€™t noticed: http://www.ubergizmo.com/2009/03/usb-key-comes-in-coin-format/ for instance (which might have blended in against other coins in a change purse) or http://www.amazon.com/LaCie-iamaKey-Flash-Drive-130870/dp/B001V7XPSA (same idea: if no one takes a real close look at your keychain, you might get it through).

But all of this is security through obscurity, and motivated people can do a whole lot of rifling through your stuff in nine hours.

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True, but your pointing that out doesnā€™t mean that 50thomas50ā€™s point doesnā€™t still stand.

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Surely itā€™d be a trivial matter to smuggle a microSD card through the post?

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I live in England, so the problem is two fold:

  1. Our lives are very comfortable.
  2. Weā€™re British and so donā€™t like to complain, unless itā€™s about:
    i. People not queuing correctly.
    ii. The weather.
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81

Oh, I see now. Sorry for misreading yo.

By the way, the US will also haul your ass to jail when you are not on US soil, even if it means kidnapping.