UK High Court Gives OK To Investigation of Data Siezed From David Miranda 165
cold fjord writes with this snippet from The Guardian: "The high court has granted the Metropolitan police extended powers to investigate whether crimes related to terrorism and breaches of the Official Secrets Act have been committed following the seizure of data at Heathrow from David Miranda... At a hearing ... lawyers for Miranda said they had agreed to the terms of wider police powers to investigate a hard drive and memory sticks containing encrypted material that were seized on 18 August. Previously the inspection had been conducted on the narrower grounds of national security. Following the court ruling, the police will now be allowed to examine the material to investigate whether a crime of 'communication of material to an enemy' has been committed as well as possible crimes of communication of material about members of the military and intelligence services that could be useful to terrorists." Related:
Reader hazeii writes "The BBC are reporting that the files seized from David Miranda (as a potential terrorist — see the earlier Slashdot story) 'endanger agents' lives.' Given that Miranda (and other Guardian journalists) seem to have been exceedingly careful not to release anything that could actually damage national security, and that the source of this information is a 'senior cabinet adviser,' one wonders what exactly the point of this 'news' is."
Double or quits (Score:5, Interesting)
They're playing double-or-quits, raising the threat to the Guardian in an effort to suppress further reporting. This law is under examination for MET's extreme over use of it, so MET pushes for even broader use of it.
That works on the Daily Mail, who are chicken shit scared. But the other non-Murdoch newspapers are expanding their reporting. So this isn't working. BBC was threatened with DA notices, and even they're reporting more about these leaks.
If you're not aware of it, MET is the police agency that gets GCHQ data feeds. It's the secret conduit by which GCHQ targets people for police prosecutions. Any evidence GCHQ provides is heard in court in secret, is not seen by the defendant, and cannot be challenged because it isn't revealed.
The argument for this is that is protects NSA intelligence gathering methods. Methods that are now public courtesy of Snowden and is clearly illegal mass surveillance. So they're covering up crimes of a foreign spying agency and their accomplices in GCHQ.
Mass surveillance is not legal, is does not matter whether it is GCHQ for NSA or STASI for KGC.
Re:No political activism? (Score:5, Interesting)
What did OWS achieve? Is or was that achievement compatible to the achievements of the 60's and 70's in the US?
I know there were other political activism periods in other countries but I'm not intently familiar with them. So let's see, in the 1960's, we saw the activism pass civil rights legislation (regardless of if you agree with it, was pretty significant) and in the 1970's, we saw protests that changed how parties selected presidential candidates, we saw the ending of the Vietnam war largely because of political activism, we saw some bad changes too like free speech zones being created to contain the Vietnam war protesters on college campuses that were instituted at political conventions in the 1980's by the democratic nations convention (DNC).
I must be missing something here because I do not see the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protests achieving anything other then turning some parks into a camp ground for a while and irritating the locals to the point they sent the police in to remove them. Even if we look at other recent political activism, we find them largely ineffective for the most part. Abortion activist, whether pro choice or pro life seem to irritate people more then anything. Laws regarding abortions are passed by the same people who supported them for years. Gun rights and gun bashers in modern times are about the same, the largely liberal states seem perfectly fine with taking your gun rights while the more conservative states seem to be perfectly fine with encouraging you to carry loaded weapons (concealed carry laws). About the only political movement that has been largely successful is the gay marriage and they fought their battles in the schools training little kids to be tolerant and accepting of them and in the courts instead of political activism on the streets (I guess they notices the "We're here and queer and in your face" approach was hurting them more then helping). Perhaps the old activism isn't people setting out complaining but in finding compassionate judges willing to construe the constitution in your favor and politicians willing to ignore the will of the people who pass laws by referendum and refuse to defend them in courts.
Re:No political activism? (Score:5, Interesting)
What did OWS achieve?
It brought popular recognition to the idea that we don't have a democracy because the richest 1% are running the country.
We can thank the Canadian left for coming down here and showing us how to do it.
Now it's up to us. If you don't like the idea of owing $50,000 or $100,000 in non-dischargeable college loans, or paying twice as much for health care as they do anywhere else in the world and still going bankrupt, or having the Republicans attack your Social Security retirement benefits, or shutting down government services with sequesters, or spending trillions in wars like the one in Iraq, or losing your constitutional rights to free speech and freedom from arbitrary searches, or working in minimum-wage, non-union jobs that don't pay enough to live on, then you have to do something about it.
It took the conservatives 30 years to destroy the country (starting from Ronald Reagan's presidency). It's going to take a long time to bring it back. Maybe we never will. It's not easy fighting billionaires. But maybe we will.
Re:Should be prosecuted for negligence... (Score:5, Interesting)
You would not believe how common something like that is. In fact, most offices will have at least one if not more desks with most of the passwords to not only the computers but banking and other sites written down somewhere and placed within easy access to the user. Generally, they are taped to the side of one of the desk drawers (because sticky notes on the side of the monitor is so unsafe) or printed on a paper shoved under the desk mat.
The problem is that good passwords are hard to remember and unique passwords make it even more difficult when you use them once or twice in a blue moon. Another problem is that competence is not always a requirement for some jobs. At most sites I administrate, we have a master folder located in one of the CEO's offices in a locked file Cabinet or safe. We pick the top dog's offices because they are watched pretty well by other employees (to see if the boss is around) and usually locked then they are out of the office. I once found the master folder containing everyone's passwords to log into all the system, everyone's email, most of the password protected websites used for business (excluding the banking which is kept elsewhere for security reasons) and all the databases on location just sitting at the receptionist desk because the telephone guy needed information to log into the PBX. I guess whoever got the file out didn't think of just getting the information needed and copying it. Instead, they handed him the entire folder and when he left, he gave it to the receptionist on the way out who left it sitting one the desk for two or three days before asking someone what to do with it. That someone replied to ask me when she saw me next.
It doesn't matter if it is encrypted data, or whatever. If the person hasn't been trained to understand the concept of security or the purpose of keeping the information private/secrete/secure, they will likely do something extremely stupid with the passwords sooner or later.
Democracy doomed? (Score:5, Interesting)
Democracy only works if those in power are committed to its preservation. Important policies and actions need to be discussed and public opinion allowed to influence final decisions. There is ample evidence that the U.S. and some other older democracies no longer really want their people involved in important decision making. They need to pay lip service to the concept. However, a combination of lies, secrecy and manipulation (partly by politicians themselves and partly by well funded PACs) ensure informed participation from the general population is next to impossible.
"Democracy" and "human rights" in these countries will no doubt remain for a long time as key justifications for very undemocratic foreign policies, but are well on the way to being dead in any meaningful sense.
Re:No political activism? (Score:4, Interesting)
You should revisit this a bit. The national guard was routinely called out to break up protests. the police routinely unleashed attack dogs on them, they used high pressure fire hoses and instead of spraying pepper spray, they lobbed military grade tear gas into crowds. Ever hear the song "4 dead in Ohio"? It's about the result of one of these attempts to break a protest up where the national guard shit and killed 4 students at Kent state University. Cameras were routinely broken and taken from journalists, about the only thing in this comment that is literally true would be the taking of the phones and the reporting.
Not really, the government just called the protesters hippies and commies, draft doggers, and drug crazed lunatics and the public generally accepted the abuse of them on those grounds. When they would go to arrest a protester, they would walk up to them and start beating them with a baton and force them to the ground while handcuffing them. This often happened after tear gas was used unsuccessfully to disperse crowds. People were maimed, injured and even killed in these protests and the public largely saw it as "they had it coming" for not following the cops directions. That is a difference between then and now. Another difference is they had a cohesive message. This message was to end a war, to treat people of color and women the same as white men. Ask a dozen OWS what their grievances was and you got a dozen different answers with most of them appearing ridiculous.