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U.K. Government Thought Destroying Guardian Hard Drives Would Stop Stories

washingtonpost.com

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Re: U.K. Government Thought Destroying Guardian Hard Drives Would Stop Stories

#4
Sounds quite similar to me.

"As Gestapo chief of operations and later (after 1939) its chief, Müller played a leading role in the detection and suppression of all forms of resistance to the Nazi regime.[12] Under his leadership, the Gestapo succeeded in infiltrating and to a large extent destroying the underground networks of the Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party by the end of 1935."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_M%C3%BCller_%28Gestapo...

Re: U.K. Government Thought Destroying Guardian Hard Drives Would Stop Stories

#5
I don't think there's any indication that they actually thought destroying the hard drives would stop anything; seems more likely that:

1) They didn't want anyone else to get access to the material that the Guardian had but would not end up publishing;

2) The rules said that that's what they had to do, so they did it;

3) That's all they could do on "their patch", so CYA;

4) A little intimidation would never go amiss, surely...

Re: U.K. Government Thought Destroying Guardian Hard Drives Would Stop Stories

#6
post #3

These people are dinosaurs. That is the most scary aspect. Imagine if Dinosaurs still existed but new how to search internet databases to find their targets!

> These legislators and business leaders are dinosaurs.

This would more accurately portray the threat that they pose -- they're people in charge of running the world, and their backwards notions of how the world should operate will lead us down a very dark hole of no return. They need to be stopped quickly.

Re: U.K. Government Thought Destroying Guardian Hard Drives Would Stop Stories

#7
post #5

I don't think there's any indication that they actually thought destroying the hard drives would stop anything; seems more likely that: 1) They didn't want anyone else to get access to the material that the Guardian had but would not end up publishing; 2) The rules said that that's what they had to do, so they did it; 3) That's all they could do on "their patch", so CYA; 4) A little intimidation would never go amiss,…

Also, there was always a possibility that the guys in the guardian slipped somewhere. Didn't have a copy of all the files, some password/key was stored only on that drive, note/edited information that's easy to forget was only on that drive, etc.

Backups are hard - if there was even a slight chance that they destroyed the only copy of something, why not go ahead with it? They're not that stupid.

Re: U.K. Government Thought Destroying Guardian Hard Drives Would Stop Stories

#9
What goods or services could be boycotted, to protest these actions by the British Gestapo?

Largest UK companies (that seemed recognizable): HSBC, Shell, BP, Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays, GlaxoSmithKline, Unilever, Vodafone, Anglo American (thought the name was funny for a huge British company), Prudential, Coldplay

Edit: Added services

Edit 2: Added list of largest UK companies

Edit 3: Added Coldplay

Re: U.K. Government Thought Destroying Guardian Hard Drives Would Stop Stories

#10

What goods or services could be boycotted, to protest these actions by the British Gestapo? Largest UK companies (that seemed recognizable): HSBC, Shell, BP, Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays, GlaxoSmithKline, Unilever, Vodafone, Anglo American (thought the name was funny for a huge British company), Prudential, Coldplay Edit: Added services Edit 2: Added list of largest UK companies Edit 3: Added Coldplay

Does the UK actually make anything anymore? I thought they were like the US and had become a "service-based" economy. I guess you could boycott visiting.
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