So Canning and Greenwald Don’t See Eye-to-Eye

4 Comments

1. 

   Oui on August 20, 2013 at 6:56 pm

   .

   Snowden NSA files: US and UK at odds over security tactics as row escalates

   (Guardian) – The White House distanced itself from Britain’s handling of the leaked NSA documents when representatives said it would be difficult to imagine the US authorities following the example of Whitehall in demanding the destruction of media hard drives.

   The White House – which on Monday had already distanced Washington over the detention of David Miranda – intervened for the second time in 24 hours after the Guardian revealed that senior Whitehall figures had demanded the destruction or surrender of hard drives containing some of the secret files leaked by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden.

   White House on destruction of hard drives

   The White House responded sceptically to the report of the destruction. Asked at his daily briefing on Tuesday whether President Obama’s administration would enter a US media company and destroy media hard drives– even to protect national security – the White House spokesman, Josh Earnest, said: “That’s very difficult to imagine a scenario in which that would be appropriate.”

   The intervention by the White House came after the British government embarked on an aggressive offensive to justify the treatment at Heathrow of the partner of the Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald.

   Theresa May, the home secretary, confirmed that she was given advance notice of Miranda’s detention as she praised the police action on the grounds that he possessed sensitive documents that could help terrorists and “lead to a loss of lives”.

   But May received a setback when the former Tory prisons minister Crispin Blunt criticised the use of terrorism legislation to detain Miranda, who was held for nine hours at Heathrow on Sunday under schedule seven of the 2000 Terrorism Act. This allows police to detain people at ports and airports even if they are not acting suspiciously. Blunt told Channel 4 News: “Using terrorism powers for something that doesn’t appear to be a terrorism issue brings the whole remit of the laws passed by parliament to address terrorism into disrepute.”

   Heathrow terror detention was to ‘protect national security’

   Nick Pickles, director of privacy and civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch, said: `This is a direct attack on freedom of the press and a chilling reminder that our anti-terror laws are in desperate need of reform.

   ‘Whoever took the decision to have David Miranda arrested and detained should be named and held publicly accountable for this flagrant abuse of anti-terrorism laws.

   ‘The law David Miranda was detained under provides powers to deal with those suspected of involvement with acts of terrorism, not a licence to interrogate those with knowledge of the activity of journalists.`If a foreign government detained the partner of a British journalist, we would rightly be up in arms.

   ‘Anti-terror laws have been abused for too long, undermine basic democratic principles and put huge unchecked power in the hands of security officials. ‘Parliament must demand substantial reform that does not allow this kind of episode to ever again stain Britain’s reputation.’

   ‘National security’

   A statement issued by the Home Office, following the detention of Mr Miranda claimed police were acting in the interests of “public and national security”. “The government and the police have a duty to protect the public and our national security,” the spokesman said.

   • 

     Don Durito on August 20, 2013 at 7:33 pm

     “Using terrorism powers for something that doesn’t appear to be a terrorism issue brings the whole remit of the laws passed by parliament to address terrorism into disrepute.”

     Exactly. To put it more bluntly, it makes those laws out to be nothing more than a sick joke. I suspect that more than a few of us who thought the US and UK were rather oppressive back in the 1980s view what has happened in the intervening years with disgust and horror.

     • 

       Shaun Appleby on August 20, 2013 at 9:23 pm

       At the motivation in enacting these laws in the first instance; if the ambiguity was unintentional then the exercise of these laws in this case is inexcusable. In the absence of official inquiry, however, we can only assume the worst; that these laws are intended to overturn centuries of hard won legal protections for ordinary citizens.

       We are a tuppence worth of difference away from abandoning habeas corpus and presumption of innocence. Once that is hollowed out the slippery slope down is well known.

2. 

   paul canning on August 25, 2013 at 11:41 pm

   Only just saw this.

   harsh criticism for Greenwald’s pro-Iraq War stance

   Huh? I don’t mention Iraq in the post. I think you’re getting me mixed up with someone else.

   Why don’t you address my argument in the last block, headed ‘here’s the problem’?

   it is <strike>difficult</strike&gt impossible to explain how the left would manage policing and security, let alone how we would reform them, when the atmosphere is dominated by falsehoods and lies. How can you reform something which is thought to be terminally broken and which people are being led to believe cannot be managed by the people – us – through a democratic system?

   I end with this quote

   the minute we concede the “government as them” argument, we’ve lost WAY more than our privacy. We’ve lost the democratic ball game.

   I am getting it together to post a postscript but one thing is a thread throughout all the criticism – the failure to address the points in that last block – when they are central to my argument.

   Rather, critics get lost in the long grass around specific points around GG’s writing or around GG’s personality. (On the latter, it’s not a ‘distraction’ when we’re being asked to judge any sources claims. If it were anyone else with form as a liar …)

   Or critics just say I must be a Security State plant …

   I also find the failure to address African American critics truly suspect. This isn’t just you btw.