See, the fun thing is, I already know youâre going to be a killer value-add once we figure out your angle. Youâre freakinâ brilliant, and very often right. . . but also as stubborn as I used to be 
I have a feeling that once we give you the one or two bits you need, youâll give us another five as a bonus.
I have some people I consider âsecond waversâ, people who are . . . like a fundamental part of who I was. . . a bit too smart for their own good and a bit focused on a path in their head, and will need to see things in action to begin to believe thereâs a chance, but youâre a pretty damn agile and keep looking around things . . . I suspect youâre a slightly different egg.
Iâm not sure how long itâs been, but for quite a while Iâve heard/seen my own quotes around anyone saying ârealityâ⌠except when itâs physicists talking, when the term explicitly means either âthe actual unknowableâ or âa given conception of itâ.
So anyway, why not investigate this difference in perspective on whether the bulk of ârealityâ is worth preserving? I suspect youâre inclined to agree with me but figure ditching most of it is too radical to be feasible.
Are you serious? You have just equated spies with journalists and implicitly said journalists are the enemy (as if their profession would ignore the extermination of the ewoks). Have you missed the fact that most developed countries consider it a founding principle that the press should be protected and not interfered with? And have you missed the fact that the reason this protection is explicit is because the government WILL interfere and attack the press at every chance they get? Erode this protection only at your own risk. The press is designed to piss of the government. But the press also knows about the ethical release of information. Have you seen Greenwald or Poitras outing informants or giving away information that could get people killed? Why not? Because they are professionals, not mindless automatons who pass classified information across borders. They edit information to explain to the public what it needs to know to control the government.
I probably didnât frame my thought experiment carefully enough, but I donât think it changes the dilemma. Regardless of your profession, if you are handling unauthorized classified information (often, although not always, classified because people would die if it was made public), then it is de jure illegal. The reporter themselves may be sancrosact, but the particular files they have are not.
One of the ways to make it legal would be make them officially public, like Sen Gravel did by entering the Pentagon Papers into the Senate record. Greenwald and Poitras are to be commended for not being irresponsible with their reporting, but ironically, the very fact that they have not just dumped everything on Bitorrent is that it gives the government some justification to keep searching them to prevent currently undisclosed files from reaching the "bad guys"⢠at some future time.
I agree though, that if Greenwald or Poitras were actually arrested and charged with a crime, or prevented from publishing, that would be a significant encroachment on the prerogatives of the press (and depending on the country, unconstitutional).
And thanks for the ewok reference. I am glad to know the fourth estate would be there to stop the furry genocide.
No it isnât, and that is the point. Classified information is a contract between the government and its employees. If one of those employees decides to leak it for no compensation to the media, then the contract doesnât jump. And even worse, once that information is leaked, it is likely leaked to many different sources or protected with a dead-manâs switch. You canât put the genie back into the bottle, and any attempt to attack the media for possession of such data only serves the purpose of censoring them in particular. I mean, if you logically think that the data should be censored because it is government property, then you need to be consistent and censor all forms of transmission of the data. Newspapers would have to be burned, hard drives smashed, prior restraint exercised, and the internet censored.
But letâs take your thought experiment one step further. Letâs pretend that it was illegal for the media to possess classified information. In that case, it would be illegal for them to receive it or to report on it. Then, what would be the purpose of laws and principles that protect the media from the government? And what function would the media have in a democracy if they werenât able to dig into stories, expose cover-ups, and expose government wrongdoing, most of which is classified or based on secret sources?
With the destruction of the NSA leaks in the UK, and the fact that they would be searched at an airport for information contraband we have a strong indication that they couldnât do their work in the UK (which also threatened the Guardian with prior restraint). I mean Poitras in particular has been harassed dozens of times when entering the US (she embarrassed those in power by making a documentary about how Iraqi civilians lived under the occupation) and there has started a little movement by other filmmakers to end her harassment. So letâs not pretend that the rights of the press arenât being encroached. It isnât total, but it is on a spectrum where the current value is nowhere close to free exercise of the press.
Good point. I agree with you that journalists cannot be prosecuted for publishing classified information, and if they canât be prosecuted then it canât be illegal for them to possess it.
Border crossings are a different legal environment where agents are given broad leeway to detain, search, and confiscate âcontrabandâ (as I well know). However, even that distinction is lost with the recent idiotic hard drive destruction. I personally think the Guardian might have won had they taken it to court, but the damage is done.
This image of the damaged computer is going to haunt the UK for decades. By not taking it to court they can show how obscene the destruction of data was.
The reason that border crossings are given extra leeway is to prevent people from smuggling things into the country and - I guess - to prevent terrorism. It is not so that they can circumvent the rights of their own citizens. By doing things like this the government is basically jeopardizing those extra powers. I donât agree with some of those powers to begin with, but if there is any rationale for them then that same rationale says they must be used responsibly.
Wow just when I thought I agree with you you whip this out.
By not going to court they have set a precedent that will intimidate other newspapers for those same decades. Who wants to publish when they might be forced to lose thousands of dollars in equipment? If they had won in court, it would have ensured the freedom many others, and if they had lost, they it would have galvanized a movement to change the laws.
Only computer nerds will care about the hard drives (poor MacBook, it was innocent, the horror!).
Yeah, that is a good point. You are right, they should have fought it.
Edit: reading the statement from the editor of the Guardian, it looks like he took this action so that the government wouldnât go for prior restraint. If that were the case, the Guardian would have been fully censored. This is a really ugly situation.
In the interests of balance debate, hereâs Thereas Mayâs attempt at justification - her argument is that since the Snowden data âmayâ be of use to terrorists, itâs an offence for any person to possess it.
Surprisingly, you donât need to be planning a violent act to be guilty of terrorism in the UK, we have newspeak for this.
Itâs rather like the indictment of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev who faces 30 charges of using a weapon of mass destruction - something most of us would think meant he personally initiated World War III using Nuclear, Biological or Chemical weapons, but apparently also includes one pressure-cooker filled with scraped out fireworks. Stretch the definition of the crime in order to bring harsh sanctions.
We need to look at exactly how broadly Britain defines terrorism:
1.â(1) In this Act âterrorismâ means the use or threat of action whereâ
(a) the action falls within subsection (2),
__&&__
(b) the use or threat is designed to influence the government or to intimidate the public or a section of the public, and
__&&__
(c) the use or threat is made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause.
Then:
(2) Action falls within this subsection if itâ
(a) involves serious violence against a person,
__||__
(b) involves serious damage to property,
__||__
(c) endangers a personâs life, other than that of the person committing the action,
__||__
(d) creates a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or a section of the public, or
__||__
(e) is designed seriously to interfere with or seriously to disrupt an electronic system.
So, clearly the actions of Greenwald and his partner Miranda are covered by section 2(e) - they are tying to interfere with an illegal electronic surveillance system, so the requirement of clause 2(e) is satisfied, and the test in clause 1(a) is satisfied. They are trying to influence Government policy away from mass illegal spying, so the test in clause 1(b) is satisfied, and they are using this to advance a political ideal, ie. that Governments should be accountable, and therefore the test 1Š is satisfied.
ergo: In the newspeak of Albion, Miranda and Greenwald are terrorist suspects through dint of their opposition to government policy on illegal electronic surveillance; therefore everything is justified.
Well Iâm glad thatâs cleared up.
Thanks, Theresa May!
Well⌠weâll see. Itâs a free vote with a straight question. Iâll concede itâs far from a certainty.
Canât disagree with anything you wrote. Bush was a monster. The only reason I am more disgusted with Obama is that he pretended to know what Bush did was wrong. And he not only clearly approved of Bushâs performance but has done everything he can to expand and further those abuses. He lied and continues to lie in pretty much every way imaginable to the American people. Bush never claimed the ability to order the assassination of American citizens, though he did claim the right to indefinitely detain us without trial. Watching a supposed constitutional scholar sign the NDAA and then âreassureâ the people by telling us he wouldnât utilize its more draconian clauses⌠the mind reals at the hypocrisy and lack of principle. If this is what passes for a legal mind at the U of Chicago, Harvard, etc., then its obvious the rule of law is a joke. Our rights are no longer rights, but privileges to be revoked at the whim of our rulers.
Sure Bush was bad, but as you say so was Clinton. And now Obama. The similar arc of all three presidencies makes it plain that they are doing the bidding of the moneyed ruling class and the MIC, not the people, and that our western governments are utterly broken and corrupted. Iâm not sure what is going to change this, but its obvious that the powerful see themselves as above the law. And they are indeed above the law.
Because the Government can access any part of the internet they want. If you have something you want to keep private, donât put it on the Internet.
Gotta do what we can.
I got a very positive response from my MP, I wonât repost it here because it wasnât a group/canned response - but heâs just as concerned as we are, which at the very least is a comfort.
This isnât a comment, itâs a bloody thesis. Bravo.
And he not only clearly approved of Bushâs performance but has done everything he can to expand and further those abuses.
Thatâs not true. Obama has rolled back some (but clearly not enough) of the Bush administrationâs abuses of power as well. Some of which has been thwarted by (guess who?) greater evil Republicans.
Bush never claimed the ability to order the assassination of American citizens
Thatâs not true.
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2002-12-03-american-al-qaeda_x.htm
Our rights are no longer rights, but privileges to be revoked at the whim of our rulers.
That didnât start with Obama by a long shot, nor GW Bush, but the downward spiral at an exponential rate started with Bush administration policies. Obama has thankfully pulled back on some of the policies while despicably continuing and expanding others.
Thank God the American public was at least smart enough not to vote in McCain/Palin nor Romney/Ryan who would have made it even worse on a scale Iâm not sure youâve been able to grasp nor come to terms with. But, if youâd like a reference for that scale, see this again.
Sure Bush was bad, but as you say so was Clinton. And now Obama. The similar arc of all three presidencies
Similar arc? That arc nosedived with Bush. What would put Clinton on the path of even a remotely smooth arc with Bush? The clipper chip? Never implemented and even if it had, it required a warrant. Renditions (while maintained) werenât increased under Clinton at all, it went apeshit under Bush. Clinton wasnât perfect, but to compare what he did with civil rights to Bush is ludicrous.
And, this is exactly what Iâve been talking about. False equivalency gets us nowhere.
Hereâs an âarcâ for you:
(Hover over image, then click bottom-right arrows - or click to enlarge)
Embracing false equivalence only further empowers the corporatists and they sure LOVE it when you do that. Thereâs good Democrats and, by far, a lot more âlesser evilâ Democrats than Republicans if you look at their actual voting records and actions.
For example, 60 percent of Democratic Representatives voted against the Iraq Resolution while less than 3 percent of Republican Representatives voted against it. For some reason the media rarely focuses on how much dissent there was from the Democrats. They continually paint a non-partisan picture LIE. I wonder why?
When the Iraq Resolution was âup for discussionâ it would have clearly been voted down (see percentage above) if more âlesser evilâ Democrats were in office. But, there was a dire lack of lesser evil and greater evil prevailed. Weâve lost countess people worldwide and in the USA and multi-trillions of our precious treasure to the Iraq War based upon LIES. Sometimes less evil is more, no?
The recent NSA scandal had a vote that failed to neuter it. Guess who voted in greater numbers to stop it? The Democrats. For some reason the media rarely focuses on how much dissent there was from Democrats. I wonder why?
Iâll tell you why, because false equivalence falls right into the hands of those who want to enslave you. It keeps our country ping-ponging back and forth between lesser evil and greater evil without making the slow progress weâd have by now if we consistently voted in the lesser evil.
Instead⌠many get frustrated, say the entire system is fucked and give up (by throwing away votes or by not voting at all). And now you do what they told yaâŚ
Yes but the problem is that they will show that it is like encrypted data and who would have random data on them, so it must be. Then use that to demand a key, however as you can never acquire the key you will go to pirson for refusing to perform an impossible task.
This sounds like a similar process to routing a zero knowledge email client through an onion router fundamentally. They can see who uses the service and the total encrypted traffic but cannot associate any one with any other and cannot associate any data (nor access its contents) with any user
