Monday, August 19, 2013

US government goes after journalist Glenn Greenwald

This is obviously a rather profound escalation of their attacks on the news-gathering process and journalism. It's bad enough to prosecute and imprison sources. It's worse still to imprison journalists who report the truth. But to start detaining the family members and loved ones of journalists is simply despotic. Even the Mafia had ethical rules against targeting the family members of people they felt threatened by. But the UK puppets and their owners in the US national security state obviously are unconstrained by even those minimal scruples.
If the UK and US governments believe that tactics like this are going to deter or intimidate us in any way from continuing to report aggressively on what these documents reveal, they are beyond deluded. If anything, it will have only the opposite effect: to embolden us even further. Beyond that, every time the US and UK governments show their true character to the world - when they prevent the Bolivian President's plane from flying safely home, when they threaten journalists with prosecution, when they engage in behavior like what they did today - all they do is helpfully underscore why it's so dangerous to allow them to exercise vast, unchecked spying power in the dark.


 That's from Glenn Greenwald's "Detaining my partner was a failed attempt at intimidation" (Guardian).  The journalist's partner, David Miranda, was held at London's Heathrow airport for nine hours when he was just supposed to be arriving there from Berlin before catching a flight to Rio de Janeiro.  He was held for all that time under Schedule 7 of the British Terrorism Act 2000.  How was he able to be held?  The US government has put Glenn and his partner on a watch list that they've shared with allied countries.

Glenn made the list because he's a terrorist -- as defined by the White House.  In Barack's world, the act of telling the truth makes you a terrorist and Glenn broke many NSA stories.

Yes, we're talking about Ed Snowden.



 Ed Snowden is an American citizen and whistle-blower who had been employed by the CIA and by the NSA before leaving government employment for the more lucrative world of contracting.  At the time he blew the whistle, he was working for Booz Allen Hamilton doing NSA work.  Glenn Greenwald (Guardian) had the first scoop (and many that followed) on Snowden's revelations that the US government was spying on American citizens, keeping the data on every phone call made in the United States (and in Europe as well) while also spying on internet use via PRISM and Tempora.  US Senator Bernie Sanders decried the fact that a "secret court order" had been used to collect information on American citizens "whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing."  Sanders went on to say, "That is not what democracy is about.  That is not what freedom is about. [. . .] While we must aggressively pursue international terrorists and all of those who would do us harm, we must do it in a way that protects the Constitution and civil liberties which make us proud to be Americans."  The immediate response of the White House, as Dan Roberts and Spencer Ackerman (Guardian) reported,  was to insist that there was nothing unusual and to get creaky and compromised Senator Dianne Feinstein to insist, in her best Third Reich voice, "People want to keep the homeland safe."  The spin included statements from Barack himself.   Anita Kumar (McClatchy Newspapers) reports, "Obama described the uproar this week over the programs as “hype” and sought to ensure Americans that Big Brother is not watching their every move."  Josh Richman (San Jose Mercury News) quoted Barack insisting that "we have established a process and a procedure that the American people should feel comfortable about."  Apparently not feeling the gratitude, the New York Times editorial board weighed in on the White House efforts at spin, noting that "the Obama administration issued the same platitude it has offered every time President Obama has been caught overreaching in the use of his powers: Terrorists are a real menace and you should just trust us to deal with them because we have internal mechanisms (that we are not going to tell you about) to make sure we do not violate your rights."  Former US President Jimmy Carter told CNN, "I think that the secrecy that has been surrounding this invasion of privacy has been excessive, so I think that the bringing of it to the public notice has probably been, in the long term, beneficial."

The more Barack attempted to defend the spying, the more ridiculous he came off.  Mike Masnick (TechDirt) reviewed Barack's appearance on The Charlie Rose Show and observed of the 'explanations' offered, "None of that actually explains why this program is necessary. If there's a phone number that the NSA or the FBI gets that is of interest, then they should be able to get a warrant or a court order and request information on that number from the telcos. None of that means they should be able to hoover up everything."  As US House Rep John Conyers noted, "But I maintain that the Fourth Amendment to be free from unreasonable search and seizure to mean that this mega data collected in such a super aggregated fashion can amount to a Fourth Amendment violation before you do anything else.  You've already violated the law, as far as I am concerned."  Barack couldn't deal with that reality but did insist, in the middle of June, that this was an opportunity for "a national conversation."  He's always calling for that because, when it doesn't happen, he can blame the nation.  It's so much easier to call for "a national conversation" than for he himself to get honest with the American people. And if Barack really believes this has kicked off "a national conversation" then demonizing Ed Snowden is a really strange way to say "thank you."


 Amnesty International issued the following:

UK: today's detention of a Guardian journalist's partner at Heathrow was unwarranted and unlawful

Posted: 18 August 2013
The Edward Snowden journalist Glenn Greenwald was clearly being targeted by the detention

The partner of a Guardian journalist who was detained earleir today while in transit at a London airport was clearly the victim of unwarranted revenge tactics, targeted for no more than who his partner is, Amnesty International said this evening.

David Michael Miranda - the partner of Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian journalist who analysed and published information on the documents concerning the USA’s unlawful surveillance programme released by Edward Snowden - was detained while in transit in Heathrow today.

He was held under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 for nearly nine hours - the point at which the authorities would have had to seek further authority to continue the detention. Many of his possessions were also confiscated.

Amnesty International’s Senior Director of International Law and Policy at Amnesty International Widney Brown said:

“It is utterly improbable that David Michael Miranda, a Brazilian national transiting through London, was detained at random, given the role his partner has played in revealing the truth about the unlawful nature of NSA surveillance.

“David’s detention was unlawful and inexcusable. He was detained under a law that violates any principle of fairness and his detention shows how the law can be abused for petty vindictive reasons.

“There is simply no basis for believing that David Michael Miranda presents any threat whatsoever to the UK government. The only possible intent behind this detention was to harass him and his partner, Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, for his role in analysing the data released by Edward Snowden.

“States cannot pass anti-terror acts and claim they are necessary to protect people from harm and then use them to retaliate against someone exercising his rights. By targeting Miranda and Greenwald, the UK authorities are also sending a message to other journalists that if they maintain their independence and report critically about governments, they too may be targeted.”

Background

Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 allows the police to detain anyone at the UK’s borders without any requirement to show probable cause and hold them for up to nine hours, without seeking further justification. The detainee must respond to any questions, regardless of whether a lawyer is present and there is no automatic provision of a lawyer. It is a criminal offence for the detainee to refuse to answer questions - regardless of the grounds for that refusal or otherwise fully cooperate with the police.

According to the advice published by the Association of Chief Police Officers’, Schedule 7 should only be used to counter terrorism and may not be used for any other purpose.

A similarly over-broad and vague section of the Terrorism Act 2000 which allowed stop and search without any grounds was held to be unlawful by the European Court of Human Rights in 2010. Section 44 - as it was known - violated Article 8 of the European Charter of Human Rights which protects privacy.


 Good for Amnesty for putting out the statement but this was not the UK acting on its own.  This is the White House convinced it can attack a journalist.  These are Nixonian tactics and the White House has long been out of control.

Instead of holding Barack accountable, the American press has for too long petted him and treated him as something special when he's just the latest of many crooks to occupy the White House.  He is a serial liar who has gotten away with that.

Right now journalist, feminist and human rights activist Gloria Steinem is planning to accept a Medal of 'Freedom' from this crook, that's how bad things are.  (See "Editorial: Little Gloria, hypocrisy at last")  She should throw it in his face.  And that was reality before the world learned that the White House's pursuit of reporters was even more vindictive and punitive than thought.

In a phone conversation with a White House friend this morning (which is when I learned of it -- if it's not about Iraq, I don't see breaking news on Sunday, sorry -- I work with the gang on Third most of the day, then try to have something of a personal life, then get back online to do the "Hejira" entry), after he was done chuckling, he would allow "if we did" put Glenn and his partner on some sort of terrorist list (which they did -- "if we did" is just to a word game), it was not because of what Glenn published but what they're afraid he'll publish next.

This White House has an enemies list, as did Nixon, as did LBJ.  What happened in London to David Miranda was horrible and shameful.  The White House should issue an immediate apology but instead will most likely put on a straight face and claim to have no idea what happened (as opposed to the glee and laughter I heard over the phone this morning).


Bonnie reminds that Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Your server, Barack" went up last night.  On this week's Law and Disorder Radio,  an hour long program that airs Monday mornings at 9:00 a.m. EST on WBAI and around the country throughout the week, hosted by attorneys Heidi Boghosian, Michael S. Smith and Michael Ratner (Center for Constitutional Rights) topics addressed include Lynne Stewart as the hosts speak with her attorney Jill Shellow-Levine, attorney Carl Messineo speaks about the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund's One Nation Under Surveillance and Heidi's  new book  Spying on Democracy: Government Surveillance, Corporate Power and Public Resistance.  

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