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Detaining my partner: a failed attempt at intimidation

theguardian.com

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Re: Detaining my partner: a failed attempt at intimidation

#251

Post by danielharan »

jlgreco wrote: post #246
danielharan wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada's RCMP spied on Amnesty, the Anglican Church and the Raging Grannies. Our secret services gave their American counterparts information that led to torture of Canadian citizens and others. You think we're not part of this totalitarian movement?

I'm not Canadian, but do you think that Canada is participating in a particularly more extreme manner than non-engligh speaking countries? Language is not the binding factor here.

US / UK / NZ / Canada and Australia have historically cooperated on Intel. See e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKUSA_Agreement

Re: Detaining my partner: a failed attempt at intimidation

#252

Post by anologwintermut »

grey-area wrote: post #22

The salient quote from Greenwald's article on this: They completely abused their own terrorism law for reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism: a potent reminder of how often governments lie when they claim that they need powers to stop "the terrorists", and how dangerous it is to vest unchecked power with political officials in its name. [1] This is a great example of why we should treat terrorism lik…

I hate the governments expanded terrorism powers too, but the "we should treat it as a crime" policy is either a naive statement or one where it's non-obvious how to go about it. The criminal justice system is used to punish criminals and through that deter crime. This has little effect on a suicide bomber (nor does the ability to detain people for 9 hours for that matter).

At the same time, treating terrorism prevention as a police mater appears to militarize the police.

Re: Detaining my partner: a failed attempt at intimidation

#253

Post by lazyjones »

throwit1979 wrote: post #82
jacquesm wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder from how high up this order came. After all, it's not like Greenwald is going to take this lying down and that's something that they could predict quite accurately ahead of time. To abuse these powers on the partner of the journalist that is reporting the abuses is the worst tactical mistake made by any government to date, short of the diversion of a diplomats plane. Taking into account that the UK law enfor…

the worst tactical mistake made by any government to date Why would this be a tactical mistake? The general public DOES NOT GIVE A FUCK. The government(s) know(s) this quite well. If you think for a second that detention of associates of political enemies matters to an electorate far more interested in the minutiae of Kanye West's baby, you're living in a fairy land of your own making.

> Why would this be a tactical mistake? The general public DOES NOT GIVE A FUCK. The government(s) know(s) this quite well.

It might be a well-planned tactical move: perhaps they wanted to enrage and provoke Greenwald, hoping he might make mistakes, accidentally disclose sources or additional material.

But yes, the most likely explanation is that they simply don't care, they abuse their power all the time and act like criminals, why should they respect people like Greenwald?

Re: Detaining my partner: a failed attempt at intimidation

#254

Post by kabdib »

jacquesm wrote: post #182
kabdib wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clerical for an hour, /maybe/. Not clerical for nine hours, that's planning.

Alternative explanation (without endorsing either): it took 9 hours because nobody high enough could be found that would sign off on keeping him longer.

I like that better.

Re: Detaining my partner: a failed attempt at intimidation

#255

Post by patrickk »

joseph_cooney wrote: post #245
jacquesm wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brazil has a tit-for-tat policy when it comes to how their citizens are treated. Backpressure could come from all kinds of interesting directions. If this wasn't officially sanctioned from above there will be fall-out.

Also lots of people from all nations will be travelling to Brazil soon for the Olympics, and more importantly, the World Cup.

Imagine if high ranking FA official or English politicians were turned away at the border. It would be hilarious.

Re: Detaining my partner: a failed attempt at intimidation

#256

Post by knowtheory »

jacquesm wrote: post #179
rdtsc wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2 tests perhaps and a warning. I suspect they are a step ahead, and actually did think this through. Whether it will backfire or not is up to the citizens to decide. But I suspect it won't backfire enough to cause a dent. 1) A test to see how the journalist will react and to flush out more information. I.e. force him to disclose more information so they know what he has. 2) Another test is to test public opinion. So…

Sharp. I do think this is driven by fear and incompetence rather than malice but you could easily be right. I'd love to be a fly on the wall in the various offices dealing with the fall-out from this, especially the interface boundary between the foreign affairs and the anti-terror branches.

This is actually the 2nd salvo. Glenn Greenwald basically made his opening statement in the negotiation for how this is going to go down in the NYT's profile of Laura Poitras:

Read the middle of the last page: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/magazine/laura-poitras-sno...

> Their discussion turned to the question of coming back to the United States. Greenwald said, half-jokingly, that if he was arrested, WikiLeaks would become the new traffic cop for publishing N.S.A. documents. “I would just say: ‘O.K., let me introduce you to my friend Julian Assange, who’s going to take my place. Have fun dealing with him.’ ”

> Poitras prodded him: “So you’re going back to the States?”

> He laughed and pointed out that unfortunately, the government does not always take the smartest course of action. “If they were smart,” he said, “I would do it.”

Re: Detaining my partner: a failed attempt at intimidation

#257

Post by yk »

api wrote: post #238

HN is a smart bunch, so I'm going to ask: Why do people think the security state is being rammed through with such a sense of urgency right now? Are they expecting something? A war? An economic crisis? Ecological meltdown? Invasion from outer space? I ask because I get the impression that there is a top-down (from the executive branch) full-court-press on this, and that the gloves are coming off. That leads me to won…

It is not pushed with especial sense of urgency, there were the crypto wars in the nineties for example[1]. On the other hand, if there is a special sense of urgency then it is probably more future shock than anything concrete. From the perspective of the old mans with pencils, suddenly you get all these leaks and you get all this computer stuff they do not really understand. So they err on the side of heavy handed security, because they do no longer trust their model of the world.

[1] http://wiki.openrightsgroup.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars

Re: Detaining my partner: a failed attempt at intimidation

#258

Post by VexXtreme »

throwit1979 wrote: post #98
jacquesm wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a tactical mistake because stuff like this will tip the scales into the direction of the general public caring about it without giving much of anything in return. It's mostly downside unless Greenwald & co did something dumb, and so far they don't strike me as dumb.

Really? If you talk with any of your non-tech friends about this topic, does a single one of them care? My money is on no. And in the unlikely case the answer is nonzero, the proffered solution is always to vote for "the other guy". It's naiveté at the highest level to think that any meaningful proportion of the electorate cares, and that a single thing will change. If anything, the State now has tacit permission to…

> If you talk with any of your non-tech friends about this topic, does a single one of them care?

From what I've seen so far, many people care, but not in the way we'd like. A surprising amount of people think along the lines of "If Greenwald/Snowden/etc are doing something wrong, maybe they shouldn't be doing it" or "If this makes me safe from terrorists, then I support it".

Don't underestimate the stupidity of the general populace. People are dumb and selfish and generally won't stand up against injustices unless it somehow directly affects them.

Re: Detaining my partner: a failed attempt at intimidation

#259

Post by jlgreco »

danielharan wrote: post #251
jlgreco wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not Canadian, but do you think that Canada is participating in a particularly more extreme manner than non-engligh speaking countries? Language is not the binding factor here.

US / UK / NZ / Canada and Australia have historically cooperated on Intel. See e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKUSA_Agreement

Yeah, I am not disputing that... read my above comment again.

Re: Detaining my partner: a failed attempt at intimidation

#260

Post by bigiain »

alan_cx wrote: post #200
rdtsc wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2 tests perhaps and a warning. I suspect they are a step ahead, and actually did think this through. Whether it will backfire or not is up to the citizens to decide. But I suspect it won't backfire enough to cause a dent. 1) A test to see how the journalist will react and to flush out more information. I.e. force him to disclose more information so they know what he has. 2) Another test is to test public opinion. So…

Useful test for Greenwald and the Guardian too, no? Useful to run this partner through an airport with some clean electronics to see what the reaction would be and to perhaps see how far the British are prepared to go to please our Us masters. That test of public reaction, it can go two ways.

I wonder how deep the game goes?

Imagine if the confiscated electronics contained as-yet unreleased documents describing abuses of "anti-terror laws" by UK authorities - in similar ways to the evidence-laundering revelations in the US?

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