Cameron Proves Greenwald Right

[emhs]

Let's enumerate how wrong this is:

1. This was done by the British for a slight against the American government.

2. This is against a member of the media, who are typically considered noncombatants in political conflicts.

3. It's really against a family member; doubly noncombatant.

4. The supposed slight is only the truthful announcement of a criminal act by the government in question.

5. This comes after the government recently argued that they could be trusted with such powers.

[k-mcgrady]

>> "1. This was done by the British for a slight against the American government."

Not true. He also exposed British spying through GCHQ.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk/gchq

>> "2. This is against a member of the media, who are typically considered noncombatants in political conflicts."

It was done against a member of the medias partner. He is not a journalist.

NB: I'm not defending any of what happened it's very clearly wrong.

[lhl]

So here's an interesting note on the UK Terrorism Act 2000 (available in a handy-dandy annotated form from the Legislative website: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/schedule/7/cross... )

(1) An examining officer may question a person to whom this paragraph applies for the purpose of determining whether he appears to be a person falling within section 40(1)(b).

...

(4) An examining officer may exercise his powers under this paragraph whether or not he has grounds for suspecting that a person falls within section 40(1)(b).

Italics mine, of course. One of many laws passed I suspect that makes what happened entirely legal (and all that much worse when you consider the implications). I think we need to disabuse ourselves of the ideas of "western liberal democracies" or "rule of law" protecting our liberties. What is happening now is the very definition of tyranny.

Maybe if enough people realize this is happening this can be changed? I suppose only time will tell.

[mpweiher]

Thank you David Cameron for demonstrating so clearly and unambiguously that "trust us" is not an acceptable answer.

[hipsters_unite]

I thought this current government couldn't sicken me further with its conduct in this ongoing fiasco; clearly I was wrong.

[marshray]

For those who don't follow US politics and editorial writers, Andrew Sullivan is kind of a big deal to Democrats and the self-identified "left".

If he's changed his mind on the Obama's fundamental credibility on the NSA domestic spying issue, it could suggest the beginnings of a sea change in establishment political thought.

[smsm42]

I believe it when I see it. Comparing what happened during Bush era and during Obama era, I have very low hopes to see any substantial non-partisan response (i.e. one that could hurt your own party members in the name of liberty) to government abuses from these quarters.

[dnautics]

he's kind of a big deal because he's a self-described libertarian-leaning small-c conservative that often produces missives in agreement with the Democratic party. Contrast this with the libertarian-leaning small-c conservative Ron Paul, who often worked in conjunction with left-democrats - but generally not the Democrats (such as Kucinich, Barney Frank), and who is thus NOT a big deal to Democrats. To a large extent, the fawning over Sullivan is a sort of a political expediency. Now that the capital D Democrats have seemingly lost Sullivan, I would not be surprised if his big-deal-ness will fade, as he dismissed again as just one of those smarmy libertarians.

[dodyg]

They grounded President of Bolivia's plane (http://elpais.com/elpais/2013/07/08/inenglish/1373297508_109...) out of 'suspicion of transporting Snowden'.

So a mere citizen is pretty much a kid's play.

[smsm42]

Well, I'd say "mere citizen" is worse. Spain owes nothing to Evo Morales. But the only reason why Prime Minister has his job and why he's not just a random Joe from the street is because citizens put him there and entrusted him with enormous power. Abusing this power against the very citizens who are supposed to be the source of it is much graver crime than disrespecting a foreign dignitary to whom you owe nothing, it strikes right at the heart of the whole concept of democratic society. If citizens become routinely abused by the government, why should they keep giving it their consent? And if government has no citizen's consent, what is it but a pure tyranny?

[LordHumungous]

Terrorism, criticizing the government, what's the difference?

[bencollier49]

I suspect that it was primarily an excuse to seize all his data. Perhaps they thought it would look less opportunistic if they held him for nine hours. With intimidation as a side-benefit.

[Patient0]

Blaming David Cameron personally for this seems a bit of a reach: at this stage is there anything that actually shows that David Cameron himself knew about and approved of the detainment? He could still claim he knew nothing about the events of the last 24 hours...

[rlpb]

I think it's perfectly reasonable. His stance is that abuses don't happen, and the law does not need to be written to protect us from abuses, since his government will [not abuse the law], and thus we should allow such abuses in the law as written. We all thought that was unrealistic at the time, but since this is his position, it is reasonable to attribute the consequences of his position to him also.

[vidarh]

He's in a bind here.

Either he didn't know, in which case he needs to explain how he can possibly continue to insist that the anti-terror powers are OK because they supposedly aren't abused, as well as how come UK security services are sufficiently out of political control to allow something like this to happen without his knowledge.

Or he knew, in which case he's personally demonstrated why these laws needs to be repealed.

In either case, blaming him and every other politician that continues to support these anti-terror provisions is exactly what we should do. But especially Cameron, as the person ultimately responsible for the current governments inaction on the subject.

[jarofgreen]

Maybe, but a bit irrelevant. He's the pm and even if he didn't know he has to accept responsibility for what happened and the laws that enabled this to happen. Cameron has been an enthusiastic supporter of these kinds of laws in the past, I suspect he will be in the future.

[mercurial]

You're right. By now, the UK government has probably setup a direct line between the White House and the UK security services.

[gall]

Does anyone have experience with corporate policies regarding the movement of data through airports? I'm curious about the prevalence of the wipe everything and repopulate the hard drive via sftp at destination approach.

[testbro]

Travis Goodspeed gave a talk at 29c3 about forensic-resistant thumbdrives [1]. The idea is that the host OS can be fingerprinted by the pattern of reads it makes; the drive can return different data or erase itself if it looks like it's being imaged (sequential block reads).

Of course, you'd have to package your DIY thumbstick pretty carefully (and pot the PCB) for this to not look suspicious.

[1] : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZtkANvDxZA

[contingencies]

Wiping properly is difficult. You would probably find it easier to simply purchase a disk at the destination (if you need bare metal performance), or use encrypted VMs for all work. Better yet, where at all possible, don't expect your people to move around, and allow them to work remotely from their chosen location. Good for the planet, good for (many technical) employees (most of the time), good for the security of corporate data.

[argumentum]

The tide of world opinion is slowly, but surely, turning :)

[mr_spothawk]

>"but surely"

let us hope.

[vzhang]

Duh.