High Court Rules Detention of David Miranda Was Lawful 169
Alain Williams writes with news that last year's detention of David Miranda and seizure of files destined for Glenn Greenwald has been ruled lawful. From the article: "The nine-hour detention ... of an ex-Guardian journalist's partner has been ruled lawful. ... At the High Court, Mr Miranda claimed his detention under anti-terrorism laws was unlawful and breached human rights. But judges said it was a 'proportionate measure in the circumstances' and in the interests of national security. ... In his ruling, Lord Justice Laws said: 'The claimant was not a journalist; the stolen GCHQ intelligence material he was carrying was not "journalistic material," or if it was, only in the weakest sense.'"
Naturally, an appeal is planned.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
"Lord Justice Laws" (Score:3, Interesting)
Is that a bit of editorializing? Surely someone's title & name aren't really, legally, "Lord Justice Laws." If so, I'd be genuinely worried that such an individual has gone off on a serious power trip.
Re:Stolen GCHQ technical data... (Score:4, Interesting)
A far better plan is to generate several thousand encryption keys based on simple dictionary words and well known phrases. Encrypt the real data with one of them, and a load of bestiality pix, articles about idiots who work for the government, gay porn, and asian cooking recipes, encrypted each file with a different key, and sent the correct key to the destination.
Since you can't refuse to give them the key in the UK, you hand them a randomized list of all the keys with no indication as to which maps to which. Let them enjoy the sorting.
Re:Sort of Weird (Score:5, Interesting)
Uhm, no - there are no "fundamental" human rights, the very idea is a bullshit concept.
Well, in the view of the authors of the US Declaration of Independence, there are 3 "inalienable" human rights: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. I think we can equate "inalienable" with "fundamental".
However, it's noteworthy that despite these high words, the USA is very big on the death penalty, which would seem to indicate that the right to life isn't so inalienable after all.
Maybe I am missing something (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Of course it's "lawful" (Score:5, Interesting)
BTW, how did they know it was GCHQ docs? Did he confess? or Were they unencrypted and GCHQ attested?
That is one of many oddities in the report.
Numbers 11 and 12 of the judgement [judiciary.gov.uk](pdf) are the most telling. In the days before he was detained, the Security Service wrote, among other things "there is a substantial risk that David MIRANDA holds material which would be severely damaging to UK national security interests." Less than 24 hours before the airport incident they wrote this: "We assess that MIRANDA is knowingly carrying material, the release of which would endanger people’s lives. Additionally the disclosure, or threat of disclosure, is designed to influence a government, and is made for the purpose of promoting a political or ideological cause. This therefore falls within the definition of terrorism and as such we request that the subject is examined under Schedule 7."
So what, exactly, does that bolded bit mean? The security services HAS ACTUAL KNOWLEDGE (not suspicion) that Mr Miranda was knowingly carrying the material. Think hard about that. They told the court that they knew the actual content of the conversation he had inside Mr Greenwald's home hours before he left. So yeah, that is a thing to think about. The bugs in that home are awful.
Now, as this is slashdot we can pontificate about how something being "made for the purpose of promoting a political or ideological cause" equates to terrorism, but that is current UK law that they need to deal with.
There is also this one in 72, that shows the justices are really out of touch: "I accept that the Schedule 7 stop constituted an indirect interference with press freedom, though no such interference was asserted by the claimant at the time." So basically the justices expected a foreign citizen (Brazilian) to properly cite the UK legal code while being locked in a room by thugs. Seriously guys?!
Overall their reasoning is frustrating but correct. If Schedule 7 applies (which it seems to) then EVERYTHING under the law applies. Even though they could have done the job in 10 minutes, the law doesn't require any kind of speed. It says the stop can last for 9 hours "for the purpose of satisfying himself ... an examining officer may [list of actions]". As long as the examining officer was "satisfying himself" (13-year-old-giggle) during that time the entire 9 hours can legally be used. It was obviously intentional that he used the full time. There is no doubt that he was trying to send a message by using the maximum time allowed, but short of declaring perjury against the investigators the court is going to accept each investigator was busy "satisfying himself" rather than punishing the guy. Unless they have some hard proof of their mental state at the time, it would be exceedingly hard to discredit their sworn statement.
Are they lying in their sworn statement about "satisfying himself"? Very likely, as it was atypical, most workers have a vague idea of the law and just follow broad training. A junior official is unlikely to ever follow along the strict edge of law, with timings down to the minute, following bullet-point by bullet-point down the law, and so it appears to be a calculated attack by legal experts. Can you PROVE it was an attack and not "satisfying himself"? Probably not without a smoking-gun document being leaked by the government.