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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

#441

Post by ferdo »

jusben1369 wrote: post #419
ferdo wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the functions of a free press (journalists) is exactly to aggressively report on the malintent of bureaucrats and the maladministration of government power. Actual journalism is and always has been a form of dissent.

"He said he would respond by writing reports "much more aggressively than before" and would publish "many more documents". "I have lots of documents about the way the secret services operate in England. Now my focus will be there as well," he added. "I think they are going to regret what they did." - Does it sound like he is now reporting impartially or is he clearly a participant in the game with revenge on his mind…

Greenwald's response:

"Reuters is the absolute worst at tearing comments out of context for sensationalizing headlines. The paraphrase:

Q: Will the UK's detention of your partner deter your future reporting?

A: Absolutely not. If anything, it will do the opposite. It will embolden me: I have many more documents to report on, including ones about the UK, where I'll now focus more. I will be more aggressive, not less, in reporting.

Q: What effect do you think they'll be of the UK's detention of your partner?

A: When they do things like this, they show the world their real character. It'll backfire. I think they'll come to regret it.

REUTERS: HE VOWS TO PUBLISH DOCUMENTS ABOUT UK AFTER DETENTION, SAYS THEY WILL BE SORRY!!!"

http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1rm09tf

Re: Detaining my partner: a failed attempt at intimidation

#442

Post by anologwintermut »

regularfry wrote: post #390
anologwintermut wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 preven…

It's not aimed at the suicide bomber. It's aimed at the person convincing them to strap the vest on. As any organisation, you don't survive very long by detonating your leadership class.

Ok, but the leadership class is usually in a foreign country. Historically, hostile foreign countries or ones where you can't trust the local government. So to get people in those countries, you need a militarized police force. We could have sent in police to arrest OBL in Pakistan, but they would have looked a lot like seal team 6 ( or maybe we could have had the Pakistanis do it, but that doesn't work in all cases. For example, the Taliban in 2001 would not have helped us)

Also, the leadership may not care about their consequences too much either, other than preferably living to fight another day.

Re: Detaining my partner: a failed attempt at intimidation

#443

Post by dtf »

dthunt wrote: post #371
foobarqux wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wikileaks has some of the shittiest OPSEC ever (as the Manning events showed). How did the Manning events show that?

As I recall it, one of their partner newspapers deliberately misunderstood how encryption worked, leaked their special passcode to one of the document archives, and then pointed at Wikileaks for being shitty after themselves handing the keys to the unredacted documents to the world.

The partner newspaper was in fact The Guardian.

Re: Detaining my partner: a failed attempt at intimidation

#444

Post by josephlord »

rmk2 wrote: post #218
legutierr wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm kind of confused by what you consider the "general public" here. Right now, in addition to this being the top story on HN, it is is on the default reddit front page at #9 and rising. It's also on the front page of the New York times website, and also in the top three headlines at news.google.com. Google reports 25 articles most being published in the last hour. By these measures, it seems to me that a lot of peop…

Neither the BBC, Independent, The Sun nor Daily Mail report on it; q.e.d., the "general public" doesn't care. Edit: The Sun does, however, have boobs on its homepage, the Daily Mail talks about celebrities and the BBC's international site talks about Syria, Gibraltar and Usain Bolt, with its England page concerned with assisted suicide, a rider who died after a horse accident, something about climate activists and th…

I didn't catch it all but it had a significant section on the main BBC Six O'Clock News.

I wrote to my MP, (Michael Gove) about this. While I disagree with him on many (if not most) things as an ex-journalist I hope he is unhappy with this.

Re: Detaining my partner: a failed attempt at intimidation

#445

Post by TWAndrews »

hahainternet wrote: post #392
TWAndrews wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a mistake because targeting a journalist's family member is quite likely to piss the average journalist the fuck off. The Washington Press corps can make Obama's life fucking miserable if they so choose, and absolutely drown his agenda in press about Snowden, Greenwald, how and when the White House communicated with the UK about this, and a million other things. They can make an oxygen-sucking scandal out of not…

You realise that such speculation is more immoral than the acts carried out so far right? You're ostensibly describing trying to blackmail the most powerful man in the world.

No, I think that's a rediculous assertion. Journalists have choices about what the direct their attention to. Various things help them make those choices, and misuse of state power against somebody they can personally identify with is the sort of thing that will draw their attention.

Re: Detaining my partner: a failed attempt at intimidation

#446

Post by tmslnz »

Unlikely and perhaps wrong under most perspectives, but as soon as I read Greenwald's account I thought "shit, he's caught the bait". The government and those detaining his man were wholly aware of what a shitstorm this would have caused. I would have LOVED to see the alternative scenario, where Greenwald tells Miranda "Don't tell anyone else.". The police wouldn't and couldn't speak publicly, no-one gets to know about the event, the political game of those who had this brilliant idea is now in pieces. The gov's option at that point would have been to further escalate their offensive, exposing themselves even more. Instead what we got now is a lawful, yet badly-intentioned use of the law, which is grave, but likely insufficient to warrant & spark any significant tectonic movements.

Re: Detaining my partner: a failed attempt at intimidation

#447

Post by cma »

kevinpet wrote: post #263

I stopped reading when he implied that the US was behind it. GB is a sovereign country, and still a democracy. If you don't like the fascist laws people are voting for, stop voting for them. If you blame some outside party, you're just passing the buck and making excuses why you can't convince people to grow a spine and stop voting for the status quo -- "oh, my people would never put up with this, but the big bad USA…

"US is behind it" doesn't mean "US has sole responsibility for it, letting GB off the hook".

Re: Detaining my partner: a failed attempt at intimidation

#449

Post by jcromartie »

Andrew_Quentin wrote: post #367
jcromartie wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Taking into account that the UK law enforcement and Brazil have a bit of a history when it comes to labeling people terrorist wrongly makes it even worse. In case anybody is wondering, the UK murdered a Brazilian man on the train with several bullets to the head after they explicitly identified him as a suspect and authorized his takedown. He had no ties to terrorism at all. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Je…

It was a mistake in all the confusion right after 7/7 bombing of London tubes. Tragic, but completely understandable.

How was it understandable? Because he looked brown enough and lived in the same apartments as the suspects?

Re: Detaining my partner: a failed attempt at intimidation

#450

Post by waxjar »

claudius wrote: post #391
waxjar wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are people living on that island that really don't deserve what you propose to do to them.

Then they should have voted for a different government. Sorry, but “there are people in a country with a democratic government that don’t deserve what their government brought upon them” is not a particularly good reason – and even then, I don’t think it’d hurt to allow immigration into Europe for a while, so there’s even a perspective for those that “really don’t deserve” the results of their (in)action.

The people vote for law makers. The law makers produced a law which was abused by law enforcers. Law enforcers can't be voted for.
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