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Braces for the down votes but..... a) He was his partner but he was also acting as a paid employee of the Guardian correct? I read they paid his flight at the v

Braces for the down votes but..... a) He was his partner but he was also acting as a paid employee of the Guardian correct? I read they paid his flight at the very least. b) Assumption by said governments would be "He's traveling from Germany from Laura Poitras back to Greenwald in Brazil. He's very likely carrying highly sensitive documentation from Snowden" c) The governments still believe that is highly classified, stolen documentation. So they pull him aside to see if they can intercept it. It's not clear if they have or not - we do know they took a lot of his equipment. Now I'm not supporting what happened. I'm just trying to point out that there might be a logic to it and it's not the one that's making the rounds much of today "Oh they just targeted my boyfriend to bully/humiliate us" It sounds like to the government's he was a paid willing member potentially carrying what they believe to be stolen sensitive material and they intercepted him to get it back. Just like many other efforts in this saga the outcome is another huge PR coup for Snowden/Greenwald and yet more political pressure and controls will be brought to bare on government secrecy. EDIT: I'd point people to this new comment further down. Fascinating but not surprising: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6239847 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6239847

Zigurd 13y ago
How would that logic lead to detention under an anti-terrorism law?
- jusben1369 13y ago
  It's a huge stretch of that law but not particularly new. Al Capone was finally put in jail for violations of the taxation code! It shows how creative people get when they want to get go after someone. The logic would be Snowden releases documentation that exposes methods used by the NSA to protect people from terrorism. So stopping that release reduces the chance of a terrorism attack. That would be how the mindset goes from folks who were behind targeting this detainment.
  - greenyoda 13y ago
    "Al Capone was finally put in jail for violations of the taxation code!" Except that Al Capone actually was guilty of tax code violations (he didn't report the income from his criminal enterprises), whereas David Miranda is in no way a terrorist (at least under any rational definition of terrorism).
  - pessimizer 13y ago
    Violation of the tax code is a crime, though, and Capone was prosecuted under those laws because he was violating the tax code. That's creative. Miranda was not detained under terrorism laws because he was suspected to be a terrorist, but because he was suspected to be a journalist. That's simple abuse of power.
    - jusben1369 13y ago
      As susi22 points out the laws here are deliberately very broad.
  - denis1 13y ago
    I'm not 100% sure, but i think Al Capone actually broke the taxation code. This guy is most certainly not terrorist. I think your comparison is not a very good one.
    - jusben1369 13y ago
      I'm now wishing I didn't use the Al Capone example because people keep pointing out David Miranda is not a terrorist! I agree! But he might be involved in aiding or abetting terrorism by helping to release documentation that's critical in the fight against terrorism. To be clear, I'm not supporting what they did! I'm just trying to point out what the thought process was behind these actions to try and add to the overall debate.
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
- susi22 13y ago
  Too bad Jusben1369 is getting downvoted. He made a point. It's also that the Terrorism Act of 2000 defines Terrorism very very broadly [1] (b) the use or threat is designed to influence the government [or an international governmental organisation] 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 [, racial] or ideological cause. It looks like the officers in London did act according to law. If that law makes sense or not is an entirely other discussion. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_Act_2000 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_Act_2000
  - grey-area 13y ago
    What has David Miranda done which violates that law? For that matter I can't see what Greenwald has done to violate it either, unless all journalists are on now co-conspirators with their sources if they report anything which the government would prefer to keep secret. It's an awful law, is far too broad, and should be repealed, but even accepting that law the regulator and many MPs have serious concerns that this was illegal.
    - susi22 13y ago
      Laws are not black and white. If they were, judges had a far easier job. Laws are made by the legislative and are interpreted by not only the judiciary branch but also by the executive branch. What has David Miranda done which violates that law? Miranda was not charged with anything, he did not violate a law. He was brought in for questioning and seized of his property. This is allowed since the law is aweful and can be interpreted this way. If it was unlawful the prosecution could prosecute the police that did this. They likely won't since the law is fuzzy. Again, I'm not supporting any of this. I'm just trying to shed some light into this since most comments her on HN are simply complaining about UK/US without digging deeper and asking themselves why this is possible and why nobody has been charged with anything yet. Law are not black and white
      - grey-area 13y ago
        He was brought in for questioning and seized of his property. On what basis? The Home Office guidelines clearly state that questioning and seizure are to be used only in cases where terrorism is suspected. David Miranda is clearly not a terrorist, nor is he associated with terrorists. To quote the guidelines: Schedule 7 powers are to be used solely for the purpose of ascertaining if the person examined is or has been concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism. The powers must not be used to stop and question persons for any other purpose. An examination must cease and the examinee must be informed that it has ended once it has been ascertained that the person examined does not appear to be or to have been concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism. Does the law say somewhere that they can question anyone for any purpose? If not then this was clearly illegal.
forgotAgain 13y ago
I wasn't surprised to learn that they detained him. What was surprising, and shortsighted I would think, was that they used a law meant for terrorism suspects. One could make a plausible argument that he was a courier for a spy. I don't think one could make the argument that he was a terrorist. What's wrong here is the way a law that was sold as needed to allow for immediate response to a terrorist threat, without red tape, is used in a situation where normal law enforcement channels should have been adequate. It opens the door to "terrorist" laws being applied to the general population.
- jusben1369 13y ago
  Agreed. Without these terrorist laws they probably would have had to jump through more hoops to detain him. But detain him they would have. The fact that the Whitehouse had a heads up means this was something that was planned for quite some time.
mcantelon 13y ago
If they held him the maximum time they could - 9 hours - then it's likely harassment was also an aim.
- acqq 13y ago
  More probably they hoped to discover something incriminating on his computer or media during that time in order to have a clear case against him and keep him.
  - leot 13y ago
    Whoa. This hadn't occurred to me, and it seems totally likely that they were looking for a way to, in effect, hold Greenwald's partner hostage. Despicable.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
spdy 13y ago
* b) Assumption by said governments would be "He's traveling from Germany from Laura Poitras back to Greenwald in Brazil. He's very likely carrying highly sensitive documentation from Snowden" If i had thousands of documents on how the NSA etc. works i would never ever have anything on my laptop except pictures of my last holiday. This incident is on the same level as grounding the presidential jet of Bolivia. A pure and simple power play to intimidate Greenwald and his co-workers/partners. And they want to show "Look we can do with you whatever we want. Remember that !".
- jacalata 13y ago
  Congratulations, you are smarter about documents than Greenwald and partner. Now you just have to get into a position where the next snowden knows this.
  - _djo_ 13y ago
    People often forget that Greenwald hasn't had any experience in this kind of security. Snowden and others had to work him through setting up GPG and by his own admission he didn't have any knowledge of encryption or anonymisation before the Snowden affair.
drivebyacct2 13y ago
We have this thing called the Internet. Why would people carry physical (only-copy, presumably) documents with them, especially over hostile borders.
aspensmonster 13y ago
>"...He's very likely carrying highly sensitive documentation from Snowden" Given the extremely high profile nature of this entire scenario, I don't see how anyone on the case could expect the probability of Greenwald using his partner as a data mule to rank as "very likely." I'm not saying it's impossible. Just that anyone who's been paying attention for the last decade or so knows better than to travel with hardware across unfriendly borders like the US or the UK. They're just going to take it anyway and then you're out thousands of dollars of gear. Between Snowden and Greenwald and Poitras and The Guardian and Wikileaks, I'd sincerely hope that they'd be capable of utilizing dead drops online. In my opinion, this "retrieving stolen property" argument is merely the parallel construction of the actual motivation: to intimidate journalism. They know perfectly well that the probability of Miranda carrying anything actionable on him is minimal. But that's not the point. That's the pretext. The point was to pressure cook him for nine hours in order to glean from him any useful tidbit of intel, with the understanding that even if nothing comes of it, they've sent a clear message to The Guardian that they're taking the fight to them personally.
- jusben1369 13y ago
  So there's two possible reasons for them stopping him and both are kind of pathetic. One, that stopping someone for 9 hours in Heathrow really amounts to much intimidation of anything. I mean it's wrong and wrong headed but I struggle to buy that someone with half a brain thought this would be at all intimidating. I mean this is England for crying out loud. They probably spoke loudly at him and refused him tea. So I lean toward they really wanted to see if they could find anything on him directly or indirectly that would help them get to all those documents Greenwald is now saying he'll release. But I understand that most people will chose between these two reasons and it's hard to prove one or the other.
  - nugget 13y ago
    I would caution against presuming that nine hours of detention in an interrogation room with a team of very well trained, highly motivated interrogators couldn't be extremely intimidating - regardless of location.
  - 13y ago
jlgreco 13y ago
> So they pull him aside to see if they can intercept it. It's not clear if they have or not - we do know they took a lot of his equipment. Obviously stealing his shit does not take the full 9 legally allowable hours. That could not have been the only motivation.
fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
>I'm just trying to point out that there might be a logic to it Is there a legal justification, or is the gov't abusing its authority? Everybody knows that the gov't is embarrassed, and seeks to prevent further disclosures, does that give the gov't the right to break the law? >a) He was his partner but he was also acting as a paid employee of the Guardian correct? I don't know. >I read they paid his flight at the very least. So, it is not unreasonable for the Guardian to do so, since his connection to the recent Guardian stories are the reason for his detainment (even if he has no involvement). > b) Assumption by said governments would be "He's traveling from Germany from Laura Poitras back to Greenwald in Brazil. He's very likely carrying highly sensitive documentation from Snowden" Where is the connection to terrorism? > c) The governments still believe that is highly classified, stolen documentation. > So they pull him aside to see if they can intercept it. It's not clear if they have or not - we do know they took a lot of his equipment. Harassment When a politician says they need a law to detain travelers, without due process, in the name of preventing terrorism, I assume that means that the person may have involvement with an ongoing plot or operation to commit actual terrorism imminently. I am totally cool with detaining a person or persons who might be about to murder a bunch of people using a train/airplane. If wrong, the gov't ought to apologize, and make it up to them. When the gov't detains travelers without due process, in the name of preventing terrorism, and it turns out the person has only computer files/documents/etc. and does not have any bombs, weapons, plans to hijack planes, or any connections to persons who do, and everybody knows the traveler is not a terrorist; that's an abuse of anti-terrorism laws. There are other ways for gov't to hide its shame, instead a gov't chose to shame itself further. PS, I assume you meant "brought to bear"
- jacalata 13y ago
  He wasn't detained until he was on the return leg of the trip being paid for by the guardian, so the detainment can't really be the reason they paid for it.
wissler 13y ago
The reason to downvote you is not because your rationale is necessarily "illogical", but because 1) it's speculation, and 2) it's better to spend your speculative effort defending and supporting the good guys than the bad guys.
- jusben1369 13y ago
  I come to HN to read views that make me uncomfortable and push my pre-existing assumptions. I started off pretty negative on Snowden but have changed my views over time based on the strength of arguments I've seen here by those who think very differently from me. I'd never downvote something that was genuine and earnest no matter how disagreeable.
  - wissler 13y ago
    So, it's good to think differently than you and challenge your pre-existing assumptions, but just not regarding when to downvote? ;)
    - jusben1369 13y ago
      I see what you did there! :)
      - wissler 13y ago
        Consistency across scales of abstraction, amazingly rare...
fleitz 13y ago
What does this have to do with terrorism? How is the release of classified US information a terrorist threat to the UK? Keep in mind the statute is for terrorism... Not your doing things we don't like to our friends.
- jeremysmyth 13y ago
  It was also classified UK information--there's a lot of stuff about GCHQ activity and the UK's tapping of backbones in and out of British territory in Greenwald's material.
zeteo 13y ago
Yes, there is a logic to it. It shows very clearly that governments around the world are using anti-terrorism laws as a blank warrant to do whatever they please (particularly to foreigners). If the detention authority extends to someone who interacts with someone who interviewed someone accused of exposing an anti-terrorist program, there are very few things left outside its reach indeed.

Zigurd 13y ago

How would that logic lead to detention under an anti-terrorism law?

jusben1369 13y ago
It's a huge stretch of that law but not particularly new. Al Capone was finally put in jail for violations of the taxation code! It shows how creative people get when they want to get go after someone. The logic would be Snowden releases documentation that exposes methods used by the NSA to protect people from terrorism. So stopping that release reduces the chance of a terrorism attack. That would be how the mindset goes from folks who were behind targeting this detainment.
- greenyoda 13y ago
  "Al Capone was finally put in jail for violations of the taxation code!" Except that Al Capone actually was guilty of tax code violations (he didn't report the income from his criminal enterprises), whereas David Miranda is in no way a terrorist (at least under any rational definition of terrorism).
- pessimizer 13y ago
  Violation of the tax code is a crime, though, and Capone was prosecuted under those laws because he was violating the tax code. That's creative. Miranda was not detained under terrorism laws because he was suspected to be a terrorist, but because he was suspected to be a journalist. That's simple abuse of power.
  - jusben1369 13y ago
    As susi22 points out the laws here are deliberately very broad.
- denis1 13y ago
  I'm not 100% sure, but i think Al Capone actually broke the taxation code. This guy is most certainly not terrorist. I think your comparison is not a very good one.
  - jusben1369 13y ago
    I'm now wishing I didn't use the Al Capone example because people keep pointing out David Miranda is not a terrorist! I agree! But he might be involved in aiding or abetting terrorism by helping to release documentation that's critical in the fight against terrorism. To be clear, I'm not supporting what they did! I'm just trying to point out what the thought process was behind these actions to try and add to the overall debate.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
susi22 13y ago
Too bad Jusben1369 is getting downvoted. He made a point. It's also that the Terrorism Act of 2000 defines Terrorism very very broadly [1] (b) the use or threat is designed to influence the government [or an international governmental organisation] 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 [, racial] or ideological cause. It looks like the officers in London did act according to law. If that law makes sense or not is an entirely other discussion. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_Act_2000 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_Act_2000
- grey-area 13y ago
  What has David Miranda done which violates that law? For that matter I can't see what Greenwald has done to violate it either, unless all journalists are on now co-conspirators with their sources if they report anything which the government would prefer to keep secret. It's an awful law, is far too broad, and should be repealed, but even accepting that law the regulator and many MPs have serious concerns that this was illegal.
  - susi22 13y ago
    Laws are not black and white. If they were, judges had a far easier job. Laws are made by the legislative and are interpreted by not only the judiciary branch but also by the executive branch. What has David Miranda done which violates that law? Miranda was not charged with anything, he did not violate a law. He was brought in for questioning and seized of his property. This is allowed since the law is aweful and can be interpreted this way. If it was unlawful the prosecution could prosecute the police that did this. They likely won't since the law is fuzzy. Again, I'm not supporting any of this. I'm just trying to shed some light into this since most comments her on HN are simply complaining about UK/US without digging deeper and asking themselves why this is possible and why nobody has been charged with anything yet. Law are not black and white
    - grey-area 13y ago
      He was brought in for questioning and seized of his property. On what basis? The Home Office guidelines clearly state that questioning and seizure are to be used only in cases where terrorism is suspected. David Miranda is clearly not a terrorist, nor is he associated with terrorists. To quote the guidelines: Schedule 7 powers are to be used solely for the purpose of ascertaining if the person examined is or has been concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism. The powers must not be used to stop and question persons for any other purpose. An examination must cease and the examinee must be informed that it has ended once it has been ascertained that the person examined does not appear to be or to have been concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism. Does the law say somewhere that they can question anyone for any purpose? If not then this was clearly illegal.

forgotAgain 13y ago

I wasn't surprised to learn that they detained him. What was surprising, and shortsighted I would think, was that they used a law meant for terrorism suspects. One could make a plausible argument that he was a courier for a spy. I don't think one could make the argument that he was a terrorist. What's wrong here is the way a law that was sold as needed to allow for immediate response to a terrorist threat, without red tape, is used in a situation where normal law enforcement channels should have been adequate. It opens the door to "terrorist" laws being applied to the general population.

jusben1369 13y ago
Agreed. Without these terrorist laws they probably would have had to jump through more hoops to detain him. But detain him they would have. The fact that the Whitehouse had a heads up means this was something that was planned for quite some time.

mcantelon 13y ago

If they held him the maximum time they could - 9 hours - then it's likely harassment was also an aim.

acqq 13y ago
More probably they hoped to discover something incriminating on his computer or media during that time in order to have a clear case against him and keep him.
- leot 13y ago
  Whoa. This hadn't occurred to me, and it seems totally likely that they were looking for a way to, in effect, hold Greenwald's partner hostage. Despicable.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

spdy 13y ago

* b) Assumption by said governments would be "He's traveling from Germany from Laura Poitras back to Greenwald in Brazil. He's very likely carrying highly sensitive documentation from Snowden" If i had thousands of documents on how the NSA etc. works i would never ever have anything on my laptop except pictures of my last holiday. This incident is on the same level as grounding the presidential jet of Bolivia. A pure and simple power play to intimidate Greenwald and his co-workers/partners. And they want to show "Look we can do with you whatever we want. Remember that !".

jacalata 13y ago
Congratulations, you are smarter about documents than Greenwald and partner. Now you just have to get into a position where the next snowden knows this.
- _djo_ 13y ago
  People often forget that Greenwald hasn't had any experience in this kind of security. Snowden and others had to work him through setting up GPG and by his own admission he didn't have any knowledge of encryption or anonymisation before the Snowden affair.

drivebyacct2 13y ago

We have this thing called the Internet. Why would people carry physical (only-copy, presumably) documents with them, especially over hostile borders.

aspensmonster 13y ago

>"...He's very likely carrying highly sensitive documentation from Snowden" Given the extremely high profile nature of this entire scenario, I don't see how anyone on the case could expect the probability of Greenwald using his partner as a data mule to rank as "very likely." I'm not saying it's impossible. Just that anyone who's been paying attention for the last decade or so knows better than to travel with hardware across unfriendly borders like the US or the UK. They're just going to take it anyway and then you're out thousands of dollars of gear. Between Snowden and Greenwald and Poitras and The Guardian and Wikileaks, I'd sincerely hope that they'd be capable of utilizing dead drops online. In my opinion, this "retrieving stolen property" argument is merely the parallel construction of the actual motivation: to intimidate journalism. They know perfectly well that the probability of Miranda carrying anything actionable on him is minimal. But that's not the point. That's the pretext. The point was to pressure cook him for nine hours in order to glean from him any useful tidbit of intel, with the understanding that even if nothing comes of it, they've sent a clear message to The Guardian that they're taking the fight to them personally.

jusben1369 13y ago
So there's two possible reasons for them stopping him and both are kind of pathetic. One, that stopping someone for 9 hours in Heathrow really amounts to much intimidation of anything. I mean it's wrong and wrong headed but I struggle to buy that someone with half a brain thought this would be at all intimidating. I mean this is England for crying out loud. They probably spoke loudly at him and refused him tea. So I lean toward they really wanted to see if they could find anything on him directly or indirectly that would help them get to all those documents Greenwald is now saying he'll release. But I understand that most people will chose between these two reasons and it's hard to prove one or the other.
- nugget 13y ago
  I would caution against presuming that nine hours of detention in an interrogation room with a team of very well trained, highly motivated interrogators couldn't be extremely intimidating - regardless of location.
- 13y ago

jlgreco 13y ago

> So they pull him aside to see if they can intercept it. It's not clear if they have or not - we do know they took a lot of his equipment. Obviously stealing his shit does not take the full 9 legally allowable hours. That could not have been the only motivation.

fnordfnordfnord 13y ago

>I'm just trying to point out that there might be a logic to it Is there a legal justification, or is the gov't abusing its authority? Everybody knows that the gov't is embarrassed, and seeks to prevent further disclosures, does that give the gov't the right to break the law? >a) He was his partner but he was also acting as a paid employee of the Guardian correct? I don't know. >I read they paid his flight at the very least. So, it is not unreasonable for the Guardian to do so, since his connection to the recent Guardian stories are the reason for his detainment (even if he has no involvement). > b) Assumption by said governments would be "He's traveling from Germany from Laura Poitras back to Greenwald in Brazil. He's very likely carrying highly sensitive documentation from Snowden" Where is the connection to terrorism? > c) The governments still believe that is highly classified, stolen documentation. > So they pull him aside to see if they can intercept it. It's not clear if they have or not - we do know they took a lot of his equipment. Harassment When a politician says they need a law to detain travelers, without due process, in the name of preventing terrorism, I assume that means that the person may have involvement with an ongoing plot or operation to commit actual terrorism imminently. I am totally cool with detaining a person or persons who might be about to murder a bunch of people using a train/airplane. If wrong, the gov't ought to apologize, and make it up to them. When the gov't detains travelers without due process, in the name of preventing terrorism, and it turns out the person has only computer files/documents/etc. and does not have any bombs, weapons, plans to hijack planes, or any connections to persons who do, and everybody knows the traveler is not a terrorist; that's an abuse of anti-terrorism laws. There are other ways for gov't to hide its shame, instead a gov't chose to shame itself further. PS, I assume you meant "brought to bear"

jacalata 13y ago
He wasn't detained until he was on the return leg of the trip being paid for by the guardian, so the detainment can't really be the reason they paid for it.

wissler 13y ago

The reason to downvote you is not because your rationale is necessarily "illogical", but because 1) it's speculation, and 2) it's better to spend your speculative effort defending and supporting the good guys than the bad guys.

jusben1369 13y ago
I come to HN to read views that make me uncomfortable and push my pre-existing assumptions. I started off pretty negative on Snowden but have changed my views over time based on the strength of arguments I've seen here by those who think very differently from me. I'd never downvote something that was genuine and earnest no matter how disagreeable.
- wissler 13y ago
  So, it's good to think differently than you and challenge your pre-existing assumptions, but just not regarding when to downvote? ;)
  - jusben1369 13y ago
    I see what you did there! :)
    - wissler 13y ago
      Consistency across scales of abstraction, amazingly rare...

fleitz 13y ago

What does this have to do with terrorism? How is the release of classified US information a terrorist threat to the UK? Keep in mind the statute is for terrorism... Not your doing things we don't like to our friends.

jeremysmyth 13y ago
It was also classified UK information--there's a lot of stuff about GCHQ activity and the UK's tapping of backbones in and out of British territory in Greenwald's material.

zeteo 13y ago

Yes, there is a logic to it. It shows very clearly that governments around the world are using anti-terrorism laws as a blank warrant to do whatever they please (particularly to foreigners). If the detention authority extends to someone who interacts with someone who interviewed someone accused of exposing an anti-terrorist program, there are very few things left outside its reach indeed.