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UK Authorities Destroy Guardian's Hard Drives

429 points by spurgu 13y ago

noir_lord 13y ago
I'm going to take out a subscription to the Guardian. At this point they are the only newspaper that seems to have the balls to tell the thugs from Whitehall to go and fuck themselves. This stuff is absolutely insane, We didn't behave like this when the IRA was setting bombs off on a regular basis and shooting up the landscape. It's always been obvious that the land grabs for power had little to do with actual terrorism. Pick up that can.
- JonnieCache 13y ago
  The very least we can all do is whitelist them on our adblockers.
  - dmix 13y ago
    Or send regards to Alan Rusbridger Twitter for standing up to them https://twitter.com/arusbridger https://twitter.com/arusbridger
    - Terretta 13y ago
      What, and get added to his 3 hops surveillance circle? http://killerapps.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/07/17/3_degrees_of_separation_is_enough_to_have_you_watched_by_the_nsa http://killerapps.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/07/17/3_degre... Heh.
      - dmix 13y ago
        The very definition of "chilling speech" at work.
      - jacquesm 13y ago
        Gladly.
      - Shish2k 13y ago
        Sure; time spent investigating me is time spent not investigating somebody important :P
      - johnyzee 13y ago
        The NSA should just go full monty and make it 'six degrees of separation'[1]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_separation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_separation
      - jlgreco 13y ago
        Consider yourself three-hopped already.
    - foobarqux 13y ago
      How much did he actually stand up though? The UK gov told him to destroy source material and presumably stop publishing. He said "okay", will have no more involvement in the story, thereby removing risk to himself and instead will let someone else take the heat. All the while he gets to pretend he is a courageous reporter, standing up to power, when the only person really doing that is Greenwald.
- arethuza 13y ago
  I'm not sure I would pick the Troubles as an example of good behaviour by the UK government. Not that long ago we had within the UK: - Large scale arrests and imprisonment without trial - "internment" - Massacres of innocent civilians by British Army soldiers - Bloody Sunday - Officially supported interrogation techniques that bordered on torture - the "Five techniques" - Innocent people forced into admitting that they committed terrorist acts, convicted and given long jail sentences - the Guildford Four
  - zimpenfish 13y ago
    Not just bordering on torture, actually called torture by the ECHR in 1976 (although downgraded to "inhuman and degrading" on appeal in 1978.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Demetrius http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Demetrius Not our finest hour, really.
    - corin_ 13y ago
      If something is called torture and on appeal they decided that they were wrong then surely that is the definition of "bordering on torture"?
      - zimpenfish 13y ago
        I'd say "inhuman and degrading" is more than "bordering on torture" but it's a fair point.
  - arcadeparade 13y ago
    Also this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin_and_Monaghan_bombings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin_and_Monaghan_bombings The British Army helped unionist terrorists bomb Ireland.
  - anon1385 13y ago
    You forgot the UK government helping loyalists commit assassinations: http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/dec/12/pat-finucane-army-loyalist-gunmen http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/dec/12/pat-finucane-army-...
- JulianMorrison 13y ago
  Nah, we behaved worse, but only to Irish people, so the privileged English public and press felt free to ignore it. What's new is that now the public (and the press) is "the enemy".
  - walshemj 13y ago
    You know that the IRA hung more IRA men than the British did after the Irish War of Independence. A lot of the really nasty atrocities on both sides in the Civil war where hushed up until relatively recently.
- ewood 13y ago
  It would be great if many more people use a subscription as a form of support. The Guardian has been making a loss for a number of years now and the next logical step to silence them would be to put financial pressure on them. Now would be the perfect time for the Guardian to launch a web subscription level (they only seem to do print + IPad sub atm.)
  - andor 13y ago
    The "Digital Edition" is browser-based: http://subscribe.theguardian.com/ http://subscribe.theguardian.com/
- earnubs 13y ago
  The IRA were actually murdering people in Northern Ireland, not just "shooting up the landscape", and as already pointed out "we" behaved worse, in addition we had a level of privacy invasion at NI borders and within NI borders the rest of the UK and Ireland have, even now, no experience of. You don't get a full pat down when you visit Marks & Spencer, you don't walk to school with a soldier looking at you down the barrel of a rifle.
- venus 13y ago
  > Pick up that can. Funny you quote HL2. It's a quite subversive game. I only recently had the chance to play the HL1 expansion packs - yay being a mac gamer - and they struck me as having a quite anti-authority message, too. It's only recently that it occurred to me that HL2 brainwashed a generation of gamers into believing that photography drones were naturally the enemy. Very interesting.
  - noir_lord 13y ago
    Not sure I would agree with "brainwashed" as that is a little strong and dystopian authoritarianism is a common trope in games and sci-fi. I think where HL2 sets itself apart is that it thoroughly builds out the world and details in it so that you get a slight (very slight) feeling of what it would be like to exist in that world. On that level I regard its value as a work of art to be greater than its value as a game (though both are high).
spodek 13y ago
From the article: "forcing a newspaper’s editor into exile over a report it doesn’t like sounds like a story from the 18th century reign of King George III, not of a supposed 21st century democracy." Sadly, as an American, I have to point out that the main impetus seems to be coming from this side of the Atlantic this time and both places' governing bodies seem to be complicit and stepping on the gas. Citizens overcame the tyranny last time. Let's hope we can do it again this time. On another note: The government itself is showing either it has something to hide, in which case it's showing that it's lying to us, or they have nothing to hide, in which case here's your answer to "What's the problem if you have nothing to hide?"
- meddlepal 13y ago
  The citizenry will not overcome the tyranny because most of the citizens are either (1) unaware of how the power effects them (2) do not understand it.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - careersuicide 13y ago
    I think it's actually worse than that. Obviously I have only anecdotal evidence, but as far as I can tell, a large minority (maybe even a small majority) of people support what the NSA has been doing. They don't necessarily understand the technical details, but they completely understand the implications and consequences and they explicitly approve. When I go outside of my usual online and real life social circles the attitude about government surveillance is shockingly complicit. I'm starting to believe the only way to change this isn't to get people outraged or make them understand the effects of pervasive surveillance on freedom. The solution is to instead make it clear just how ineffective it is at its stated purpose of keeping us all safe.
    - GVIrish 13y ago
      I disagree, if you make clear how ineffective these surveillance measures are, the natural response for the powers that be is that they need MORE power. "See, if we were able to arrest anyone who spoke about terrorism online or by phone, we could've prevented this attack." "If only we were allowed to jail anyone indefinitely we could've disrupted this sleeper cell." If anything, this is how this whole power grab got started in the first place. "If we could spy on everyone we could've stopped 9/11."
nwh 13y ago
Can't imagine how this went down in person. Group of police turn up and tell you that they're going to destroy all your working media. How would you even go about authenticating such a ridiculous claim? It's like they've never heard of off-site backups.
- einhverfr 13y ago
  I don't think getting rid of data was the point.
- jacquesm 13y ago
  Think of this as 'sending a message'. It's backfiring spectacularly but the intended goal was evidently not the destruction of data, they can't be that stupid.
- Terretta 13y ago
  In all seriousness, though, reading about the smashed MacBook Pro has me reviewing our Chubb business operations and equipment insurance. It excludes acts of terrorism and terrorism related activity. If jackboots show up demanding to physically demolish servers in any of our dozen datacenters around the world, claiming Section 7 or Patriot Act, will our insurance replace them? A government's categorization of data as terror related could quickly put a cloud provider out hundreds of thousands or millions (mass video storage is expensive) in unrecoverable costs. We're covered for business continuity if the DMCA or SOPA troops show up and make off with servers like with Mega. But looks like we're not covered if the insurance company can prove a government called the destruction terror related. Ugh.
  - nwh 13y ago
    If the iTunes agreement contains a clause about not using it to make nuclear weapons (it does), you can be sure as anything most insurance policies are void if you lose things to government action. I had a flick through mine some time ago, the only ones I can remember are falling spacecraft and floods.
- hahainternet 13y ago
jacquesm 13y ago
The Guardian has been (together with the Scotsman by the way) a source of inspiration over the last decade or more. To see them intimidated like this by thugs that could have walked right out of something by Bulgakov or even Kafka is a sobering prospect. It translates into: the free press is now classed an enemy of the state and equates to terrorism. I've lived in Poland before the iron curtain came down, in the years when Jaruzelski ruled the country and when Solidarnosc was just beginning to form, the free press was classed an enemy of the state there as well. Mere posession of an illegal book or paper could get you into a lot of trouble. The state sanctioned media were extremely circumspect in their reporting of what was going on in Gdansk and Gdynia but word trickled out and slowly Polish people everywhere started to see light at the end of the tunnel. Reagan, the Afghan war and Gorbachev all played a part in the fall of the Soviet Union. But Poland and especially Solidarity, Wałęsa and Popiełuszko deserve a good chunk of the credit too. A not so visible part of all of this is that the free press in Poland (called the samizdat) spread not only books but also 10's of thousands of copies of the underground newspaper Solidarnosc, many of which were read by multiple people, passed from hand to hand to trusted friends. These were the only counterweight to state media (newspaper, radio, television) and the contrast between the two was stark. I wonder if the Solidarity movement would have gotten off the ground as well as it did and whether Poland would have made the early move to freedom without such a free press (and in some cases it wasn't even a press but simply hand-copying or re-typing!). It is the only historical change that I have had the privilege of observing at very close quarters, so my experience is limited. But a free press to me is a must have, it is as important as having a system of government, and to have a free press we must have journalists and newspapers that are free to operate. Otherwise one of these days we'll have to resort to underground presses like in the days of communism in Poland, press freedom is very important no matter who governs you, and government officials intimidating the press is a very bad sign. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samizdat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samizdat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarity_%28Polish_trade_union%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarity_%28Polish_trade_unio... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerzy_Popie%C5%82uszko http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerzy_Popie%C5%82uszko
- arethuza 13y ago
  In David Hoffman's excellent book "The Dead Hand: Reagan, Gorbachev and the Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race" he describes how Reagan and John Paul II came up with a plan that saw the smuggling of large quantities of office equipment (photocopies, faxes etc.) into Poland. This Time article gives some details: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,159069,00.html http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,159069,00.h... I love the idea of subverting a regime by supplying communication tools!
frank_boyd 13y ago
Don't be fooled, events like this one will have their repercussions.
- kaidajekri 13y ago
  I truly hope so, but who for and what are they likely to be? When many people in the UK read what the tabloid media writes, without questioning it or taking biases into account, if the events are even reported at all. An uninformed electorate is a dangerous thing.
rokusho 13y ago
Can someone remind me, since when did "journalist" become synonymous with "terrorist" again?
- jacquesm 13y ago
  Probably around the time that journalists decided they would write what they think rather than what they are told to write. Journalist is a risky profession, even when you're not going into some warzone.
- scotty79 13y ago
  Since Assange I guess...
lifeisstillgood 13y ago
To subscribe to the Guardian : http://subscribe.theguardian.com/ http://subscribe.theguardian.com/ To send Alan Rusbridger an email of support: alan.rusbridger@theguardian.com I'm drafting an email here http://blog.mikadosoftware.com/2013/08/20/supporting-a-free-press-by-paying-for-it/ http://blog.mikadosoftware.com/2013/08/20/supporting-a-free-... but send something - a few people standing up are worth supporting.
- foobarqux 13y ago
  Please don't do that. As I described in another comment Rusbridger didn't do anything courageous, quite the opposite.
  - lifeisstillgood 13y ago
    I'm struggling with this - he is the editor, he supports his reporters when they are harrassed, he throws an idiotic government move into sharp relief, he is still pumping out page one stories when the rest of the press think "Prince says baby son is rascal" is news. We are not living in 80's Poland, or 30's Russia, or modern Iran / Syria. So on the spectrum of courage-shown-by-news-editors he is never going to choose between his family and his editorial page, but he is doing better than all the rest of his peers - and we sorely need it.
    - foobarqux 13y ago
      Maybe he does more than some of his peers but the qualities you describe hardly meet the bare minimum of what the public should expect from an editor. And, while exceedingly few, there are reporters who are head and shoulders above Rudsbridger and who report in service to the public at great harm to themselves and their family, Greenwald being an example at hand. But no one asked Rudsbridger to sacrifice his family nor was he at risk to. As an editor he should have demanded a court order before destroying source material. He should not now pretend he is a courageous government-defying reporter when he has minimized risk to himself.
      - 13y ago
shocks 13y ago
All this tells me is that our government are doing worse things we don't even know about yet, and they're doing everything they can to keep it quiet.
mjburgess 13y ago
All this Gaurdian praise neglects the fact that they have had all of their exclusives handed to them over the past few years, from WikiLeaks to Snowden... and for no good reason other than that's who it was given to last time. If papers such as the independent, etc. had been given this information, im sure there professionalism would have been the same or higher. Outside of handed-on-a-platter reporting, the Guardian has massively cocked up in the past (leading to the arrest of sources, etc.).
- mcv 13y ago
  That doesn't change the fact that the Guardian is standing up for press freedom, and they're doing it very well. I'm sure there are other newspapers that would have done the same, but that in no way lessens what the Guardian is doing.
- knotty66 13y ago
  All the other UK papers (and the BBC) have barely even REPORTED on any of these issues, exclusives or not. To look at those papers you wouldn't suspect something of this magnitude is even going on.
  - mjburgess 13y ago
    Does that have more to do with the G. pushing it as a "unique selling point"? I dont know what the press landscape would look like if the indie/etc. had been given the exclusives, but I suspect it would be the same in reverse. Journalists are particularly cynical people constantly chasing after anything that will get their by-lines in front of faces.. i dont think we're looking at a paper which has suddenly found its 21st C. political morals, but rather a paper that has suddenly found whistle-blowers queuing up at their door.
  - anon1385 13y ago
    They were 'requested' not to report it by the government: http://order-order.com/2013/06/08/d-notice-june-7-2013/ http://order-order.com/2013/06/08/d-notice-june-7-2013/
mcv 13y ago
Thugs. That's the first thing in my mind. The UK government employs thugs to intimidate people and destroy property. This kind of subject makes it really hard not to Godwin the thread right away., because you know what other government used thugs to intimidate and destroy.
- GotAnyMegadeth 13y ago
  Most of them?
- epo 13y ago
  The American government?
Shish2k 13y ago
This seems like the digital equivalent of adding skulls to your officer's caps -- how have these guys not realised that they're the baddies yet? ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1VxaMEjRU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1VxaMEjRU ) edit: less-copyright-blocked link: http://www.snotr.com/video/3167/Are_we_the_baddies http://www.snotr.com/video/3167/Are_we_the_baddies
- vonmoltke 13y ago
  So the Queen's Royal Lancers[1] and the USMC Recon Battalions[2] are baddies as well? How about the dozens of other units that used it? I'm not saying this action by the British government isn't troubling, but there is no single symbol of being "the baddies". [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen%27s_Royal_Lancers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen%27s_Royal_Lancers [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Marine_Corps_Reconnaissance_Battalions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Marine_Corps_Reco...
  - walshemj 13y ago
    The use of skull and death motif goes back the Napoleonic wars with Brunswick Hussars. Hitler and the Nazis where very good at nicking their imagery - I suspect Hindus are still at bit pissed off over the swastika
    - vonmoltke 13y ago
      Actually, it goes all the way back to the War of Austrian Succession and Prussian Husaren-Regiment Nr. 5. As a long-time student of history I get very annoyed when Nazi symbology is presented as something they invented, particularly when used to demonstrate that we should have known they were evil to begin with. They ripped all their shit off from someone else, and some of it is only viewed as evil today because of them.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
Shish2k 13y ago
I know that wikileaks' "torrent the encrypted archive, have the decryption key on a dead man's switch" approach didn't exactly work as intended, but it's starting to seem like a relatively good option again IMO :S
- hack37 13y ago
  I don't really know why do you say it has not really worked. Has anybody been killed ? There is a reason they call it dead man's switch.
  - Shish2k 13y ago
    It worked fairly well, just not as intended (Unless I'm mis-remembering, the intention was to keep the key secret while wikileaks released small amounts of info at a time)
- jacquesm 13y ago
  It's worked just fine so far, Assange's hide-out still hasn't been stormed and he's safer where he is than Snowden.
  - ash 13y ago
    How do you know Assange's hide-out is safer than Snowden's? It's also interesting that Snowden likely has more freedom. At least he can move around Russia, while Assange is stuck inside a room. (security vs freedom)
TomGullen 13y ago
I am starting to seriously despair at the state of the UK.
- kamjam 13y ago
  Me too. But don't be fooled into thinking anything different would have happened elsewhere, this definitely would have happened in the US, and I doubt he would even have been allowed a lawyer and most likely held indefinitely. And we have already seen Europe close off their airspace to the Bolivian presidential plane due to suspicions Snowden was on board.
ash 13y ago
It's unfortunate Guardian didn't force the government go to court over this. It would increase publicity.
- randallu 13y ago
  Maybe they already did? Seems like the current government have introduced secret courts recently... http://www.theguardian.com/law/2013/jun/14/what-are-secret-courts http://www.theguardian.com/law/2013/jun/14/what-are-secret-c... Also the Guardian hasn't stopped printing these stories in the UK or online. They've been staffing up in New York (including Nick Davies who brought down much of Rupert Murdoch's print empire last year and crucially prevented newscorp from buying the rest of bskyb). It's interesting to me that the US has a better low-level legal framework for a free press, but it's not plain sailing at all (i.e.: the nytimes and washington post "asked dad" before looking at wikileaks files; judith miller and now james risen have no shield laws).
  - ash 13y ago
    Maybe they did. But the man who was contacted by UK officials about destroying the data, Alan Rusbridger, didn't say they went to court. He said (in reply to a comment) he doesn't see the need for it: AlanC said: If you meekly give into their demands without insisting that they take you to court then you've as good as admitted that they can do whatever they like as far as the UK press is concerned. ... Alan Rusbridger replied: Play out the scenario for me in which fighting this case in court would have enabled us to do a better job of reporting the Snowden documents. I'm not sure I quite see it... http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/19/david-miranda-schedule7-danger-reporters http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/19/david-m...
Andrenid 13y ago
Now that they basically consider journalism to be terrorism, if I subscribe to The Guardian am I "funding terrorism"? I've gone from angry, to completely and utterly 'defeated'. I think I agree with Groklaw where the only way to win, is not to play. Get off the net and go bush. Take up golf (I hate golf). No idea. It's like being back in school being beaten up by the bullies for being a geek, no words can make it stop, nothing I say or do will make a difference.
- kamjam 13y ago
  I wonder if you will make it onto a(nother) watch list, in much the same way as anyone making a donation to Wikileaks?
- hahainternet 13y ago
  > Now that they basically consider journalism to be terrorism, if I subscribe to The Guardian am I "funding terrorism"? Jesus christ could we cut down on the hyperbole a LITTLE?
  - enko 13y ago
    I know you think you're being very clever, with your disingenuous "A LITTLE", but ironically it really is only a little hyperbole in the grandparent comment. For fuck's sake, partners of journalists in the UK are being intimidated by the government. If I was the journalist I'd be very hesitant to travel at all. This is in bloody england, remember, the progenitor of everything we think about when we think "the west". Open your eyes. Look how far things have come. This is not about LOLPOINTS™ on the internet, this is actually getting pretty damn real, and people are worried.
    - hahainternet 13y ago
      If you think that equating journalism with terrorism is only slight hyperbole then you have no place in reasonable discussion. It is excessive hyperbole that helps nobody and serves only to polarise discussions. In reality the statements so far indicate that they stopped Miranda in order to determine if he was carrying information likely to be of use to terrorists. This seems to be an illegitimate use of the powers, which we'll find out soon. That is a reasonable take on the matters, not 'JOURNALISM NOW IS TERRORISM!!!!!'
solistice 13y ago
It might be worth checking out the killed journalist meter by Reporters without Borders. https://en.rsf.org/press-freedom-barometer-journalists-killed.html?annee=2013 https://en.rsf.org/press-freedom-barometer-journalists-kille... They may not even provide the most throughout look on these things, but they seem to cover most incidents regarding persecution of journalists.
harshreality 13y ago
What is this trying to accomplish? Did they really think the Guardian has the only copy of that data? They couldn't really believe that, could they, after the Guardian pretty much explicitly told them it wasn't true. So they're just government thugs playing whack-a-mole? Confiscate some usb sticks here, smash some Guardian storage devices there... If they can't ask the Guardian to overwrite the drives a few times and expect the Guardian to comply with that, what good does physically destroying the drives do? The Guardian could download the encrypted data from some (backup) cloud storage location and have it back in an hour.
- dorfsmay 13y ago
  I agree, this seems to be all for show. The first thing that came through my mind when I read the title was "offsite backup". Makes even stranger really...
- nullc 13y ago
  > What is this trying to accomplish? Did they really think the Guardian has the only copy of that data? Of course not. The idea was to frighten people who haven't been obedient and to create a lot of costs to reduce the profitability of running stories on unwelcome subjects.
  - jccc 13y ago
    "One U.S. security official told Reuters that one of the main purposes of the British government's detention and questioning of Miranda" [note: using a clear abuse of a terrorism law] "was to send a message to recipients of Snowden's materials, including the Guardian, that the British government was serious about trying to shut down the leaks." http://ca.news.yahoo.com/britain-forced-guardian-destroy-copy-snowden-material-222933670.html http://ca.news.yahoo.com/britain-forced-guardian-destroy-cop... Whenever anyone asks this kind of question, please give them citations.
unz 13y ago
David Cameron is going to have answer about this at the next election. He should be trembling in his boots.
- gmac 13y ago
  Well, maybe, but the Guardian's circulation is only about 200,000, and I doubt more than 1% of its readers would have voted for Cameron anyway. (Or was that heavy irony?).
- randallu 13y ago
  He didn't even win the last election, when he was running against a widely despised incumbent. I hope Milliband can wake up in time.
randallu 13y ago
To why they didn't go to court: @dansabbagh "Reason Gdn destroyed the computers was to avoid a lengthy legal UK battle that wld have prevented more reporting of Snowden files." https://twitter.com/dansabbagh/status/369794535464767488 https://twitter.com/dansabbagh/status/369794535464767488
- foobarqux 13y ago
  How would it have prevented more reporting of Snowden files? Rudsbridger said the US division will continue publishing. In another comment in the Guardian Rudsbridger mentioned only the potential liability, not the impact to reporting.
  - legutierr 13y ago
    Perhaps if the issue was brought to the courts the Guardian may have become subject to a court order (let's say, a gag order), which even if violated in the US could have lead the Guardian to be in contempt. I think in this case a small retreat was more effective than a direct confrontation.
sailfast 13y ago
This title is completely misleading and paints the government here in a false light. It is clear to me from the original article that the GCHQ staff were ensuring that hard drives ALREADY slated for destruction by the Guardian were complying with their required destruction process for classified information. They were not destroying hard drives owned by a private corporation without their consent or seizing hard drives. I know it is tempting to read only one side of a story and jump on reactionary headlines, but let's try to continue giving benefit of the doubt to both parties like rational humans.
- paradoja 13y ago
  I don't think it is. It seems pretty clear you misunderstood. As posted in another comment, this Tweet shows that The Guardian destroyed the hard drives at the government's behest: https://twitter.com/dansabbagh/status/369794535464767488 https://twitter.com/dansabbagh/status/369794535464767488
  - kbenson 13y ago
    This is all very unclear to me. There's quite a bit indignation here which may be clouding people's rational assessment of the situation. The Guardian has clear motive to play up any interaction like this with the government. That doesn't mean they would, but I'm not going to suspend critical assessment of the situation just because it plays to be beliefs. The ratio of verified information to editorializing rants is very low here, at the moment.
- mcintyre1994 13y ago
  Hmm, I don't think that's entirely true - supposedly they were told "You've had your debate. There's no need to write any more." and "You've had your fun. Now we want the stuff back." Those quotes suggest they didn't intent on destroying their computers with a copy of the data they were working on.
mindstab 13y ago
So how we we achieve political change? As Charlie Stross points out, some very wrong has hijacked our political system: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/12/invaders-from-mars.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/12/invaders...
cenhyperion 13y ago
Am I the only one that finds this part more Orwellian than any of the actual leaks? To me there's a fundamental difference (though I hate both) between collecting data, and attacking people who politically disagree with you and attempting to destroy data you don't like. Book burnings general don't end well for the party in power.
orestmayski 13y ago
'God Bless' the Guardian..

429 points by spurgu 13y ago

I'm going to take out a subscription to the Guardian. At this point they are the only newspaper that seems to have the balls to tell the thugs from Whitehall to go and fuck themselves. This stuff is absolutely insane, We didn't behave like this when the IRA was setting bombs off on a regular basis and shooting up the landscape. It's always been obvious that the land grabs for power had little to do with actual terrorism. Pick up that can.

JonnieCache 13y ago
The very least we can all do is whitelist them on our adblockers.
- dmix 13y ago
  Or send regards to Alan Rusbridger Twitter for standing up to them https://twitter.com/arusbridger https://twitter.com/arusbridger
  - Terretta 13y ago
    What, and get added to his 3 hops surveillance circle? http://killerapps.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/07/17/3_degrees_of_separation_is_enough_to_have_you_watched_by_the_nsa http://killerapps.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/07/17/3_degre... Heh.
    - dmix 13y ago
      The very definition of "chilling speech" at work.
    - jacquesm 13y ago
      Gladly.
    - Shish2k 13y ago
      Sure; time spent investigating me is time spent not investigating somebody important :P
    - johnyzee 13y ago
      The NSA should just go full monty and make it 'six degrees of separation'[1]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_separation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_separation
    - jlgreco 13y ago
      Consider yourself three-hopped already.
  - foobarqux 13y ago
    How much did he actually stand up though? The UK gov told him to destroy source material and presumably stop publishing. He said "okay", will have no more involvement in the story, thereby removing risk to himself and instead will let someone else take the heat. All the while he gets to pretend he is a courageous reporter, standing up to power, when the only person really doing that is Greenwald.
arethuza 13y ago
I'm not sure I would pick the Troubles as an example of good behaviour by the UK government. Not that long ago we had within the UK: - Large scale arrests and imprisonment without trial - "internment" - Massacres of innocent civilians by British Army soldiers - Bloody Sunday - Officially supported interrogation techniques that bordered on torture - the "Five techniques" - Innocent people forced into admitting that they committed terrorist acts, convicted and given long jail sentences - the Guildford Four
- zimpenfish 13y ago
  Not just bordering on torture, actually called torture by the ECHR in 1976 (although downgraded to "inhuman and degrading" on appeal in 1978.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Demetrius http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Demetrius Not our finest hour, really.
  - corin_ 13y ago
    If something is called torture and on appeal they decided that they were wrong then surely that is the definition of "bordering on torture"?
    - zimpenfish 13y ago
      I'd say "inhuman and degrading" is more than "bordering on torture" but it's a fair point.
- arcadeparade 13y ago
  Also this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin_and_Monaghan_bombings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin_and_Monaghan_bombings The British Army helped unionist terrorists bomb Ireland.
- anon1385 13y ago
  You forgot the UK government helping loyalists commit assassinations: http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/dec/12/pat-finucane-army-loyalist-gunmen http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/dec/12/pat-finucane-army-...
JulianMorrison 13y ago
Nah, we behaved worse, but only to Irish people, so the privileged English public and press felt free to ignore it. What's new is that now the public (and the press) is "the enemy".
- walshemj 13y ago
  You know that the IRA hung more IRA men than the British did after the Irish War of Independence. A lot of the really nasty atrocities on both sides in the Civil war where hushed up until relatively recently.
ewood 13y ago
It would be great if many more people use a subscription as a form of support. The Guardian has been making a loss for a number of years now and the next logical step to silence them would be to put financial pressure on them. Now would be the perfect time for the Guardian to launch a web subscription level (they only seem to do print + IPad sub atm.)
- andor 13y ago
  The "Digital Edition" is browser-based: http://subscribe.theguardian.com/ http://subscribe.theguardian.com/
earnubs 13y ago
The IRA were actually murdering people in Northern Ireland, not just "shooting up the landscape", and as already pointed out "we" behaved worse, in addition we had a level of privacy invasion at NI borders and within NI borders the rest of the UK and Ireland have, even now, no experience of. You don't get a full pat down when you visit Marks & Spencer, you don't walk to school with a soldier looking at you down the barrel of a rifle.
venus 13y ago
> Pick up that can. Funny you quote HL2. It's a quite subversive game. I only recently had the chance to play the HL1 expansion packs - yay being a mac gamer - and they struck me as having a quite anti-authority message, too. It's only recently that it occurred to me that HL2 brainwashed a generation of gamers into believing that photography drones were naturally the enemy. Very interesting.
- noir_lord 13y ago
  Not sure I would agree with "brainwashed" as that is a little strong and dystopian authoritarianism is a common trope in games and sci-fi. I think where HL2 sets itself apart is that it thoroughly builds out the world and details in it so that you get a slight (very slight) feeling of what it would be like to exist in that world. On that level I regard its value as a work of art to be greater than its value as a game (though both are high).

spodek 13y ago

From the article: "forcing a newspaper’s editor into exile over a report it doesn’t like sounds like a story from the 18th century reign of King George III, not of a supposed 21st century democracy." Sadly, as an American, I have to point out that the main impetus seems to be coming from this side of the Atlantic this time and both places' governing bodies seem to be complicit and stepping on the gas. Citizens overcame the tyranny last time. Let's hope we can do it again this time. On another note: The government itself is showing either it has something to hide, in which case it's showing that it's lying to us, or they have nothing to hide, in which case here's your answer to "What's the problem if you have nothing to hide?"

meddlepal 13y ago
The citizenry will not overcome the tyranny because most of the citizens are either (1) unaware of how the power effects them (2) do not understand it.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- careersuicide 13y ago
  I think it's actually worse than that. Obviously I have only anecdotal evidence, but as far as I can tell, a large minority (maybe even a small majority) of people support what the NSA has been doing. They don't necessarily understand the technical details, but they completely understand the implications and consequences and they explicitly approve. When I go outside of my usual online and real life social circles the attitude about government surveillance is shockingly complicit. I'm starting to believe the only way to change this isn't to get people outraged or make them understand the effects of pervasive surveillance on freedom. The solution is to instead make it clear just how ineffective it is at its stated purpose of keeping us all safe.
  - GVIrish 13y ago
    I disagree, if you make clear how ineffective these surveillance measures are, the natural response for the powers that be is that they need MORE power. "See, if we were able to arrest anyone who spoke about terrorism online or by phone, we could've prevented this attack." "If only we were allowed to jail anyone indefinitely we could've disrupted this sleeper cell." If anything, this is how this whole power grab got started in the first place. "If we could spy on everyone we could've stopped 9/11."

nwh 13y ago

Can't imagine how this went down in person. Group of police turn up and tell you that they're going to destroy all your working media. How would you even go about authenticating such a ridiculous claim? It's like they've never heard of off-site backups.

einhverfr 13y ago
I don't think getting rid of data was the point.
jacquesm 13y ago
Think of this as 'sending a message'. It's backfiring spectacularly but the intended goal was evidently not the destruction of data, they can't be that stupid.
Terretta 13y ago
In all seriousness, though, reading about the smashed MacBook Pro has me reviewing our Chubb business operations and equipment insurance. It excludes acts of terrorism and terrorism related activity. If jackboots show up demanding to physically demolish servers in any of our dozen datacenters around the world, claiming Section 7 or Patriot Act, will our insurance replace them? A government's categorization of data as terror related could quickly put a cloud provider out hundreds of thousands or millions (mass video storage is expensive) in unrecoverable costs. We're covered for business continuity if the DMCA or SOPA troops show up and make off with servers like with Mega. But looks like we're not covered if the insurance company can prove a government called the destruction terror related. Ugh.
- nwh 13y ago
  If the iTunes agreement contains a clause about not using it to make nuclear weapons (it does), you can be sure as anything most insurance policies are void if you lose things to government action. I had a flick through mine some time ago, the only ones I can remember are falling spacecraft and floods.
hahainternet 13y ago

jacquesm 13y ago

The Guardian has been (together with the Scotsman by the way) a source of inspiration over the last decade or more. To see them intimidated like this by thugs that could have walked right out of something by Bulgakov or even Kafka is a sobering prospect. It translates into: the free press is now classed an enemy of the state and equates to terrorism. I've lived in Poland before the iron curtain came down, in the years when Jaruzelski ruled the country and when Solidarnosc was just beginning to form, the free press was classed an enemy of the state there as well. Mere posession of an illegal book or paper could get you into a lot of trouble. The state sanctioned media were extremely circumspect in their reporting of what was going on in Gdansk and Gdynia but word trickled out and slowly Polish people everywhere started to see light at the end of the tunnel. Reagan, the Afghan war and Gorbachev all played a part in the fall of the Soviet Union. But Poland and especially Solidarity, Wałęsa and Popiełuszko deserve a good chunk of the credit too. A not so visible part of all of this is that the free press in Poland (called the samizdat) spread not only books but also 10's of thousands of copies of the underground newspaper Solidarnosc, many of which were read by multiple people, passed from hand to hand to trusted friends. These were the only counterweight to state media (newspaper, radio, television) and the contrast between the two was stark. I wonder if the Solidarity movement would have gotten off the ground as well as it did and whether Poland would have made the early move to freedom without such a free press (and in some cases it wasn't even a press but simply hand-copying or re-typing!). It is the only historical change that I have had the privilege of observing at very close quarters, so my experience is limited. But a free press to me is a must have, it is as important as having a system of government, and to have a free press we must have journalists and newspapers that are free to operate. Otherwise one of these days we'll have to resort to underground presses like in the days of communism in Poland, press freedom is very important no matter who governs you, and government officials intimidating the press is a very bad sign. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samizdat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samizdat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarity_%28Polish_trade_union%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarity_%28Polish_trade_unio... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerzy_Popie%C5%82uszko http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerzy_Popie%C5%82uszko

arethuza 13y ago
In David Hoffman's excellent book "The Dead Hand: Reagan, Gorbachev and the Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race" he describes how Reagan and John Paul II came up with a plan that saw the smuggling of large quantities of office equipment (photocopies, faxes etc.) into Poland. This Time article gives some details: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,159069,00.html http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,159069,00.h... I love the idea of subverting a regime by supplying communication tools!

frank_boyd 13y ago

Don't be fooled, events like this one will have their repercussions.

kaidajekri 13y ago
I truly hope so, but who for and what are they likely to be? When many people in the UK read what the tabloid media writes, without questioning it or taking biases into account, if the events are even reported at all. An uninformed electorate is a dangerous thing.

rokusho 13y ago

Can someone remind me, since when did "journalist" become synonymous with "terrorist" again?

jacquesm 13y ago
Probably around the time that journalists decided they would write what they think rather than what they are told to write. Journalist is a risky profession, even when you're not going into some warzone.
scotty79 13y ago
Since Assange I guess...

lifeisstillgood 13y ago

To subscribe to the Guardian : http://subscribe.theguardian.com/ http://subscribe.theguardian.com/ To send Alan Rusbridger an email of support: alan.rusbridger@theguardian.com I'm drafting an email here http://blog.mikadosoftware.com/2013/08/20/supporting-a-free-press-by-paying-for-it/ http://blog.mikadosoftware.com/2013/08/20/supporting-a-free-... but send something - a few people standing up are worth supporting.

foobarqux 13y ago
Please don't do that. As I described in another comment Rusbridger didn't do anything courageous, quite the opposite.
- lifeisstillgood 13y ago
  I'm struggling with this - he is the editor, he supports his reporters when they are harrassed, he throws an idiotic government move into sharp relief, he is still pumping out page one stories when the rest of the press think "Prince says baby son is rascal" is news. We are not living in 80's Poland, or 30's Russia, or modern Iran / Syria. So on the spectrum of courage-shown-by-news-editors he is never going to choose between his family and his editorial page, but he is doing better than all the rest of his peers - and we sorely need it.
  - foobarqux 13y ago
    Maybe he does more than some of his peers but the qualities you describe hardly meet the bare minimum of what the public should expect from an editor. And, while exceedingly few, there are reporters who are head and shoulders above Rudsbridger and who report in service to the public at great harm to themselves and their family, Greenwald being an example at hand. But no one asked Rudsbridger to sacrifice his family nor was he at risk to. As an editor he should have demanded a court order before destroying source material. He should not now pretend he is a courageous government-defying reporter when he has minimized risk to himself.
    - 13y ago

shocks 13y ago

All this tells me is that our government are doing worse things we don't even know about yet, and they're doing everything they can to keep it quiet.

mjburgess 13y ago

All this Gaurdian praise neglects the fact that they have had all of their exclusives handed to them over the past few years, from WikiLeaks to Snowden... and for no good reason other than that's who it was given to last time. If papers such as the independent, etc. had been given this information, im sure there professionalism would have been the same or higher. Outside of handed-on-a-platter reporting, the Guardian has massively cocked up in the past (leading to the arrest of sources, etc.).

mcv 13y ago
That doesn't change the fact that the Guardian is standing up for press freedom, and they're doing it very well. I'm sure there are other newspapers that would have done the same, but that in no way lessens what the Guardian is doing.
knotty66 13y ago
All the other UK papers (and the BBC) have barely even REPORTED on any of these issues, exclusives or not. To look at those papers you wouldn't suspect something of this magnitude is even going on.
- mjburgess 13y ago
  Does that have more to do with the G. pushing it as a "unique selling point"? I dont know what the press landscape would look like if the indie/etc. had been given the exclusives, but I suspect it would be the same in reverse. Journalists are particularly cynical people constantly chasing after anything that will get their by-lines in front of faces.. i dont think we're looking at a paper which has suddenly found its 21st C. political morals, but rather a paper that has suddenly found whistle-blowers queuing up at their door.
- anon1385 13y ago
  They were 'requested' not to report it by the government: http://order-order.com/2013/06/08/d-notice-june-7-2013/ http://order-order.com/2013/06/08/d-notice-june-7-2013/

mcv 13y ago

Thugs. That's the first thing in my mind. The UK government employs thugs to intimidate people and destroy property. This kind of subject makes it really hard not to Godwin the thread right away., because you know what other government used thugs to intimidate and destroy.

GotAnyMegadeth 13y ago
Most of them?
epo 13y ago
The American government?

Shish2k 13y ago

This seems like the digital equivalent of adding skulls to your officer's caps -- how have these guys not realised that they're the baddies yet? ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1VxaMEjRU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1VxaMEjRU ) edit: less-copyright-blocked link: http://www.snotr.com/video/3167/Are_we_the_baddies http://www.snotr.com/video/3167/Are_we_the_baddies

vonmoltke 13y ago
So the Queen's Royal Lancers[1] and the USMC Recon Battalions[2] are baddies as well? How about the dozens of other units that used it? I'm not saying this action by the British government isn't troubling, but there is no single symbol of being "the baddies". [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen%27s_Royal_Lancers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen%27s_Royal_Lancers [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Marine_Corps_Reconnaissance_Battalions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Marine_Corps_Reco...
- walshemj 13y ago
  The use of skull and death motif goes back the Napoleonic wars with Brunswick Hussars. Hitler and the Nazis where very good at nicking their imagery - I suspect Hindus are still at bit pissed off over the swastika
  - vonmoltke 13y ago
    Actually, it goes all the way back to the War of Austrian Succession and Prussian Husaren-Regiment Nr. 5. As a long-time student of history I get very annoyed when Nazi symbology is presented as something they invented, particularly when used to demonstrate that we should have known they were evil to begin with. They ripped all their shit off from someone else, and some of it is only viewed as evil today because of them.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

Shish2k 13y ago

I know that wikileaks' "torrent the encrypted archive, have the decryption key on a dead man's switch" approach didn't exactly work as intended, but it's starting to seem like a relatively good option again IMO :S

hack37 13y ago
I don't really know why do you say it has not really worked. Has anybody been killed ? There is a reason they call it dead man's switch.
- Shish2k 13y ago
  It worked fairly well, just not as intended (Unless I'm mis-remembering, the intention was to keep the key secret while wikileaks released small amounts of info at a time)
jacquesm 13y ago
It's worked just fine so far, Assange's hide-out still hasn't been stormed and he's safer where he is than Snowden.
- ash 13y ago
  How do you know Assange's hide-out is safer than Snowden's? It's also interesting that Snowden likely has more freedom. At least he can move around Russia, while Assange is stuck inside a room. (security vs freedom)

TomGullen 13y ago

I am starting to seriously despair at the state of the UK.

kamjam 13y ago
Me too. But don't be fooled into thinking anything different would have happened elsewhere, this definitely would have happened in the US, and I doubt he would even have been allowed a lawyer and most likely held indefinitely. And we have already seen Europe close off their airspace to the Bolivian presidential plane due to suspicions Snowden was on board.

ash 13y ago

It's unfortunate Guardian didn't force the government go to court over this. It would increase publicity.

randallu 13y ago
Maybe they already did? Seems like the current government have introduced secret courts recently... http://www.theguardian.com/law/2013/jun/14/what-are-secret-courts http://www.theguardian.com/law/2013/jun/14/what-are-secret-c... Also the Guardian hasn't stopped printing these stories in the UK or online. They've been staffing up in New York (including Nick Davies who brought down much of Rupert Murdoch's print empire last year and crucially prevented newscorp from buying the rest of bskyb). It's interesting to me that the US has a better low-level legal framework for a free press, but it's not plain sailing at all (i.e.: the nytimes and washington post "asked dad" before looking at wikileaks files; judith miller and now james risen have no shield laws).
- ash 13y ago
  Maybe they did. But the man who was contacted by UK officials about destroying the data, Alan Rusbridger, didn't say they went to court. He said (in reply to a comment) he doesn't see the need for it: AlanC said: If you meekly give into their demands without insisting that they take you to court then you've as good as admitted that they can do whatever they like as far as the UK press is concerned. ... Alan Rusbridger replied: Play out the scenario for me in which fighting this case in court would have enabled us to do a better job of reporting the Snowden documents. I'm not sure I quite see it... http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/19/david-miranda-schedule7-danger-reporters http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/19/david-m...

Andrenid 13y ago

Now that they basically consider journalism to be terrorism, if I subscribe to The Guardian am I "funding terrorism"? I've gone from angry, to completely and utterly 'defeated'. I think I agree with Groklaw where the only way to win, is not to play. Get off the net and go bush. Take up golf (I hate golf). No idea. It's like being back in school being beaten up by the bullies for being a geek, no words can make it stop, nothing I say or do will make a difference.

kamjam 13y ago
I wonder if you will make it onto a(nother) watch list, in much the same way as anyone making a donation to Wikileaks?
hahainternet 13y ago
> Now that they basically consider journalism to be terrorism, if I subscribe to The Guardian am I "funding terrorism"? Jesus christ could we cut down on the hyperbole a LITTLE?
- enko 13y ago
  I know you think you're being very clever, with your disingenuous "A LITTLE", but ironically it really is only a little hyperbole in the grandparent comment. For fuck's sake, partners of journalists in the UK are being intimidated by the government. If I was the journalist I'd be very hesitant to travel at all. This is in bloody england, remember, the progenitor of everything we think about when we think "the west". Open your eyes. Look how far things have come. This is not about LOLPOINTS™ on the internet, this is actually getting pretty damn real, and people are worried.
  - hahainternet 13y ago
    If you think that equating journalism with terrorism is only slight hyperbole then you have no place in reasonable discussion. It is excessive hyperbole that helps nobody and serves only to polarise discussions. In reality the statements so far indicate that they stopped Miranda in order to determine if he was carrying information likely to be of use to terrorists. This seems to be an illegitimate use of the powers, which we'll find out soon. That is a reasonable take on the matters, not 'JOURNALISM NOW IS TERRORISM!!!!!'

solistice 13y ago

It might be worth checking out the killed journalist meter by Reporters without Borders. https://en.rsf.org/press-freedom-barometer-journalists-killed.html?annee=2013 https://en.rsf.org/press-freedom-barometer-journalists-kille... They may not even provide the most throughout look on these things, but they seem to cover most incidents regarding persecution of journalists.

harshreality 13y ago

What is this trying to accomplish? Did they really think the Guardian has the only copy of that data? They couldn't really believe that, could they, after the Guardian pretty much explicitly told them it wasn't true. So they're just government thugs playing whack-a-mole? Confiscate some usb sticks here, smash some Guardian storage devices there... If they can't ask the Guardian to overwrite the drives a few times and expect the Guardian to comply with that, what good does physically destroying the drives do? The Guardian could download the encrypted data from some (backup) cloud storage location and have it back in an hour.

dorfsmay 13y ago
I agree, this seems to be all for show. The first thing that came through my mind when I read the title was "offsite backup". Makes even stranger really...
nullc 13y ago
> What is this trying to accomplish? Did they really think the Guardian has the only copy of that data? Of course not. The idea was to frighten people who haven't been obedient and to create a lot of costs to reduce the profitability of running stories on unwelcome subjects.
- jccc 13y ago
  "One U.S. security official told Reuters that one of the main purposes of the British government's detention and questioning of Miranda" [note: using a clear abuse of a terrorism law] "was to send a message to recipients of Snowden's materials, including the Guardian, that the British government was serious about trying to shut down the leaks." http://ca.news.yahoo.com/britain-forced-guardian-destroy-copy-snowden-material-222933670.html http://ca.news.yahoo.com/britain-forced-guardian-destroy-cop... Whenever anyone asks this kind of question, please give them citations.

unz 13y ago

David Cameron is going to have answer about this at the next election. He should be trembling in his boots.

gmac 13y ago
Well, maybe, but the Guardian's circulation is only about 200,000, and I doubt more than 1% of its readers would have voted for Cameron anyway. (Or was that heavy irony?).
randallu 13y ago
He didn't even win the last election, when he was running against a widely despised incumbent. I hope Milliband can wake up in time.

randallu 13y ago

To why they didn't go to court: @dansabbagh "Reason Gdn destroyed the computers was to avoid a lengthy legal UK battle that wld have prevented more reporting of Snowden files." https://twitter.com/dansabbagh/status/369794535464767488 https://twitter.com/dansabbagh/status/369794535464767488

foobarqux 13y ago
How would it have prevented more reporting of Snowden files? Rudsbridger said the US division will continue publishing. In another comment in the Guardian Rudsbridger mentioned only the potential liability, not the impact to reporting.
- legutierr 13y ago
  Perhaps if the issue was brought to the courts the Guardian may have become subject to a court order (let's say, a gag order), which even if violated in the US could have lead the Guardian to be in contempt. I think in this case a small retreat was more effective than a direct confrontation.

sailfast 13y ago

This title is completely misleading and paints the government here in a false light. It is clear to me from the original article that the GCHQ staff were ensuring that hard drives ALREADY slated for destruction by the Guardian were complying with their required destruction process for classified information. They were not destroying hard drives owned by a private corporation without their consent or seizing hard drives. I know it is tempting to read only one side of a story and jump on reactionary headlines, but let's try to continue giving benefit of the doubt to both parties like rational humans.

paradoja 13y ago
I don't think it is. It seems pretty clear you misunderstood. As posted in another comment, this Tweet shows that The Guardian destroyed the hard drives at the government's behest: https://twitter.com/dansabbagh/status/369794535464767488 https://twitter.com/dansabbagh/status/369794535464767488
- kbenson 13y ago
  This is all very unclear to me. There's quite a bit indignation here which may be clouding people's rational assessment of the situation. The Guardian has clear motive to play up any interaction like this with the government. That doesn't mean they would, but I'm not going to suspend critical assessment of the situation just because it plays to be beliefs. The ratio of verified information to editorializing rants is very low here, at the moment.
mcintyre1994 13y ago
Hmm, I don't think that's entirely true - supposedly they were told "You've had your debate. There's no need to write any more." and "You've had your fun. Now we want the stuff back." Those quotes suggest they didn't intent on destroying their computers with a copy of the data they were working on.

mindstab 13y ago

So how we we achieve political change? As Charlie Stross points out, some very wrong has hijacked our political system: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/12/invaders-from-mars.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/12/invaders...

cenhyperion 13y ago

Am I the only one that finds this part more Orwellian than any of the actual leaks? To me there's a fundamental difference (though I hate both) between collecting data, and attacking people who politically disagree with you and attempting to destroy data you don't like. Book burnings general don't end well for the party in power.

orestmayski 13y ago

'God Bless' the Guardian..