7 ms·
Greenwald just posted his own account: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/18/david-miranda-detained-uk-nsa http://www.theguardian.com/commentisf
by throwaway_yy2Di 13y ago
Greenwald just posted his own account:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/18/david-miranda-detained-uk-nsa http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/18/david-m...
At 6:30 am this morning my time - 5:30 am on the East Coast of the US - I received a telephone call from someone who identified himself as a "security official at Heathrow airport." He told me that my partner, David Miranda, had been "detained" at the London airport "under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act of 2000."
David had spent the last week in Berlin, where he stayed with Laura Poitras, the US filmmaker who has worked with me extensively on the NSA stories. A Brazilian citizen, he was returning to our home in Rio de Janeiro this morning on British Airways, flying first to London and then on to Rio. When he arrived in London this morning, he was detained.
At the time the "security official" called me, David had been detained for 3 hours. The security official told me that they had the right to detain him for up to 9 hours in order to question him, at which point they could either arrest and charge him or ask a court to extend the question time. The official - who refused to give his name but would only identify himself by his number: 203654 - said David was not allowed to have a lawyer present, nor would they allow me to talk to him.
I immediately contacted the Guardian, which sent lawyers to the airport, as well various Brazilian officials I know. Within the hour, several senior Brazilian officials were engaged and expressing indignation over what was being done.
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- rolux 13y agoQuote: "Even the Mafia had ethical rules against targeting the family members of people they feel threatened by."
- ams6110 13y agoCome again? I thought threatening one's family was #1 in the mafia playbook.
- jlgreco 13y agoObviously that depends on the mafia, and the era. Hard to make broad statements about "the" mafia.
- davidw 13y agoThe Sicilian Mafia are pretty vile human beings, by and large. Compare and contrast "detained 9 hours", which is a big violation of civil liberties on behalf of a government, with "dissolved an innocent child in acid", which is just sickening and inhuman. http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omicidio_di_Giuseppe_Di_Matteo http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omicidio_di_Giuseppe_Di_Matteo Not to say at all that what the government did in this case was "not so bad", just that there is worse out there.
- octagonal 13y agoThe mere fact that it's becoming possible to make comparisons between a Western government and a criminal organisation, even if it's just to get a message across, is worse enough on its own.
- davidw 13y agoPeople have always made comparisons. The mere fact that they're making them does not necessarily have any bearing on reality.
- rolux 13y agoWhile obviously, mafias and governments work on the same problem: How to govern, how to stay in power. Of course, a government has the power to brand a mafia as a criminal organization, but the line between legal and criminal can be very blurry, and often quite arbitrary. If you just go, historically, by the score of committed crimes, then whatever metric you choose, governments and their agencies will beat criminal organizations by a huge margin.
- anigbrowl 13y agoThis sort of thing is why I have a hard time taking Glenn Greenwald at face value. He's a well-educated person who clearly knows that such statements are nonsense.
- chiph 13y agobut would only identify himself by his number: 203654 Inspector Javert?