Members of Parliament Demand Explanation For Detention of David Miranda 321
megla writes "Yesterday Slashdot covered reports that David Miranda, the partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald was detained. Now, various MPs and other public figures have expressed their unease over the detention and demanded justification for the incident from the police. Meanwhile, Glenn Greenwald has threatened to be more aggressive with his reporting regarding the UK secret services and to release more documents about their activities, Brazil has stated that it expects no repeat of the incident, and one of the MPs involved in passing the anti-terrorism legislation used for the detention has said: 'those of us who were part of passing this legislation certainly would not have expected it to be used in a case of this kind.'"
Would not have expected? (Score:5, Insightful)
Are they idiots, or do they think we are idiots? If a law can be abused, it will be abused. No exceptions.
Re:Would not have expected? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Would not have expected? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nah, they probably weren't using their brains either.
Never put down to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
Law used to have public debate before being passed. Laws created behind closed doors then rushed through voting will always have bad side effects.
Re:Would not have expected? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nah, they probably weren't using their brains either.
Never put down to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
Law used to have public debate before being passed. Laws created behind closed doors then rushed through voting will always have bad side effects.
Except you always reverse that when it comes to government, then it is usually malice disguised as stupidity. If they didn't have to worry about reelection they wouldn't even bother with the disguise of stupidity.
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Please, they don't bear guises of stupidity. They they pretend to be "doing the right thing". I think you're seriously overestimating the competence of lawmakers here.
Re:Would not have expected? (Score:5, Insightful)
The reps who passed this should be tossed out either way. The law needs to go either way.
Re:Would not have expected? (Score:4, Insightful)
Absolutely! When people get drawn into debates over whether a bad act is deliberate malice or just stupidity, the bad acts end up both unpunished and, more importantly, uncorrected. Corrupt organizations love to see the debate become focused on whether there's deliberate intent before any serious efforts to fix the problem even get started. Saying we can't fix the problems until we decide the question of the individual's motives is a great way to never fix the problem. It's the same trick when the subordinate says they were just following orders and the superior says their orders were misinterpreted. The real solution is to discipline both of them the same way as if these 'defenses' had never been uttered.
Re:Would not have expected? (Score:4, Insightful)
The trouble is..once a law actually gets passed it is virtually impossible to modify the 'bad' out of it, much less repeal the whole things if it is found to be repugnant.
That's why, especially these days...It is BEST be very suspicious and hyper-critical of any new laws or legislation that comes up. Regardless of malice, or unforeseen, unintended consequences.....if you let it get passed, it will be damned near impossible to fix or remove it.
Re:Would not have expected? (Score:5, Interesting)
Before a law becomes a law, it was known as a bill
I am interested to know how many of you guys actually spend time to review the myriad of bills that are awaiting to be passed in the parliament/congress, and/or state-level legislatures/senates ?
Isn't it a little bit too late complaining about "malicious" laws while none of us paid any attention to them when they were still bills ?
Well, in the case of the USAPATRIOT act, it was introduced on Tuesday, passed the House on Wednesday, then passed the Senate on Thursday, then signed by the President on Friday. It is 363 pages long. Numerous congressmen have admitted to not having read it before voting for it (and let's face it, they probably never read through the whole thing after passing it either). As for the rest of us... frankly I'm not sure how quickly the congressional record was actually available back in 2001. Anyone know? Would it have been immediately available to the public as soon as it was introduced? Put online somewhere maybe? Or would it be done at the end of the day? Perhaps the end of the week after it had already been signed into law? This is something I really want to know. In any case, even if it were available to the public instantly and a it was read through by an amazing speed reading legal scholar, their letter of objection to their congressman probably wouldn't have gotten there in time.
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The ends justify the means. This is how laws like this are passed.
Do you know what the problem is with the ends justify the means? It assumes that you can predict the future. And in complex cases involving millions of human beings, you generally can't. This is why smart people depend on principles instead. They know they can't predict the future, but they can learn from the past. Throwing out the principles of detention only upon reasonable suspicion, not being forced to self incriminate, and the ability to
Re:Would not have expected? (Score:4, Insightful)
Are they idiots, or do they think we are idiots? If a law can be abused, it will be abused. No exceptions.
Are they idiots? No. Do they think we're idiots? You'd have to be an idiot if you didn't realize every politician on the planet thinks we are all idiots.
Re:Would not have expected? (Score:5, Informative)
Are they idiots? No. Do they think we're idiots? You'd have to be an idiot if you didn't realize every politician on the planet thinks we are all idiots.
And they're mostly right.
Re:Would not have expected? (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually they only need to make a brief study of rhetoric and logic to be able to fool people that lack similar training. Why do you think Socrates was against the Sophists? Why do you think Socrates stated that all members of society needed to be trained in Philosophy?
Alternatively, why do you think that Government has removed Rhetoric and Logic from public schools? It makes it a one sided fight.
System may be working? (Score:5, Insightful)
If a law can be abused, it will be abused. No exceptions.
True, but as you say that is true for all laws and we certainly cannot have a society without laws so this is a problem we will always have to deal with. So this is not something stupid: this is the first signs of the system hopefully working as it should. An abuse of the law has been brought to light and now those responsible need to be held to account for it with appropriate sanctions, i.e. not just a slap on the knuckles for something as serious as this appears to be. Lets keep our fingers crossed and hope that the system works.
Re:System may be working? (Score:5, Informative)
An abuse of the law has been brought to light and now those responsible need to be held to account for it with appropriate sanctions, i.e. not just a slap on the knuckles for something as serious as this appears to be.
Appropriate sanctions being jail time for the kidnapping of this man. The most you're actually going to see is a censure, and we'll be lucky if we get that.
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Laws used to have public debate and input before being put up for vote.
This seems to happen less and less often these days, with predictable results.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:System may be working? (Score:5, Insightful)
If understanding a law requires 'considerable legal training', then it's a bad law. How can Joe Public know whether they're breaking a law if they can't understand it?
Re:System may be working? (Score:5, Insightful)
If understanding a law requires 'considerable legal training', then it's a bad law. How can Joe Public know whether they're breaking a law if they can't understand it?
Joe Public is not meant to understand the law. Joe Public is just meant to stay afraid of the police so he is controllable.
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If understanding a law requires 'considerable legal training', then it's a bad law. How can Joe Public know whether they're breaking a law if they can't understand it?
Bad from our perspective, good from theirs. It makes sense for power hungry politicians to have as many ways to persecute enemies, real or imaginary, as possible. A huge set of arbitrary, ambiguous laws which the powers that be can or not apply to individuals is all they want, because with them everyone is guilty of something and then it's just a matter of choosing who to silence and how to best silence them given the set of laws that can be applied to his "case".
I don't know about the US or the UK, but her
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In the original democracy of Athens, they had a stone wall in the center of the Agora (the marketplace) on which were printed *all* the laws which governed Athens, so that no citizen could claim to be unaware of them (if you couldn't read, you got a slave to read it to you etc). Hardly practical these days but indicative of the solution: we need a reduction in laws such that the average person *can* theoretically be familiar with most of them, or at least those which affect their lives. We need laws free of
Re:System may be working? (Score:5, Insightful)
Joe Public is free to consult an attorney before embarking on some action he's unsure about.
So every morning when he wakes up, he has to call a lawyer and ask whether he's breaking any new laws?
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:System may be working? (Score:4, Funny)
...Because Obama really does write laws for the United Kingdom.
You do know that there are countries outside of the USA, right?
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But the Obama promised us that it would change. Your argument is invalid and you're a racist.
this happened in england, unless obama has started wareing a dress drinking tea and become an old queen you post is offtopic
Re:System may be working? (Score:5, Insightful)
But the Obama promised us that it would change. Your argument is invalid and you're a racist.
Obama doesn't dictate what the UK government does.
No, hang on, he does. The UK government even goes to war when the US commands it to. Mind you that was partially down to the Christian nut-job war-criminal Blair and his Christian fundamentalist agenda.
Re:System may be working? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure the U.S. is putting pressure on the Brits to gag Greenwald. This sounds like a typical NSA operation.
It's ineffective though. All the UK government is doing is drawing attention to how subservient to the NSA they are and provoking Greenwald for no reason whatsoever.
Re:System may be working? (Score:5, Informative)
Miranda was stopped at the airport, presumably under the terms of Terrorism Act 2000 [legislation.gov.uk] Schedule 7: "Ports and Border Controls"(on page 108)
"Power to stop, question and detain
2.—(1) An examining ocer 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).
(2) This paragraph applies to a person if—
(a) he is at a port or in the border area, and
(b) the examining ocer believes that the person’s presence at the port or in the area is connected with his entering or leaving Great Britain or Northern Ireland.
(3) This paragraph also applies to a person on a ship or aircraft which has arrived in Great Britain or Northern Ireland.
(4) An examining ocer may exercise his powers under this paragraph whether or not he has grounds for suspecting that a person falls within section 40(1)(b)."(emphasis mine)
The law actually says, explicitly, that the powers of border detention can be exercised without meeting any standard of suspicion, 'reasonable' or otherwise. If that wasn't designed to be abused, I'm not sure what would qualify, it overtly allows up to 9 hours detention on any grounds whatsoever, or none. ('section 40(1)(b)' defines a 'terrorist')
FOIA US Embassy (Score:2)
This garbage is no different than the no-fly threats against the President of Bolivia.
Re:System may be working? (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, under the "Examining Officers under the Terrorism Act 2000 Code of Practice" Code-of-Practice-for-Examin1.pdf:
This means that one has to submit to full search of electronic stuff (decrypting where necessary), but questioning about stuff clearly irrelevant to terrorism need not be answered.
If Miranda was largely questioned about irrelevant stuff to use up the 9 hours, than that's something to take up with ECHR as abuse.
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But - also remember that the law specifically allows the detainee to be deprived of a lawyer who can properly advise them of the limits of the law and the limit to which they must comply (lawfully). Which means: inevitable abuse and overreaching by those imposing the powers and detainees not knowing where they stand and having no recourse to proper independent advice.
The law is written so abuse can happen.
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Re:System may be working? (Score:4, Interesting)
Although it may very well have been designed to be abused, there's also a slightly more benign (insofar as evils being on a grade) explanation; covering asses.
Let's say all the suspicion is "didn't smell right" - not a particularly reasonable suspicion. Now say it turns out the person they detained had nefarious plans. They wouldn't want to start out any case by saying they didn't have reasonable suspicion with a law saying that they must have one. At best it damages their case, at worst it undermines it entirely. Politicians drawing up the laws similarly don't want to be responsible for having to let people go just because "didn't smell right" was not acceptable.
It leads to abuse, and that could easily have been foreseen, but that in itself may not have been the driving force.
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Although it may very well have been designed to be abused, there's also a slightly more benign (insofar as evils being on a grade) explanation; covering asses.
Let's say all the suspicion is "didn't smell right" - not a particularly reasonable suspicion. Now say it turns out the person they detained had nefarious plans. They wouldn't want to start out any case by saying they didn't have reasonable suspicion with a law saying that they must have one. At best it damages their case, at worst it undermines it entirely. Politicians drawing up the laws similarly don't want to be responsible for having to let people go just because "didn't smell right" was not acceptable.
It leads to abuse, and that could easily have been foreseen, but that in itself may not have been the driving force.
The very situation you describe is abuse!
The reason it's illegal to arrest someone without due cause is because that is abuse - if you do not have due cause, you are arresting them based on prejudice (actual use of the word, pre-judging somebody based on an irrelevant detail e.g. "they smell wrong").
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Re:System may be working? (Score:5, Funny)
anyone else find it a little ironic that a man named miranda was stopped and stripped of his rights??
We all did, but we were exercising our right to remain silent.
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You hope that the same system that allows police murder will prevent police theft and 9 hours of interrogation?
The UK police have done far worse and got away with it.
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An abuse of the law has been brought to light and now those responsible need to simply say "terrorism" and the government will roll over.
FTFY.
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[..] and one of the MPs involved in passing the anti-terrorism legislation used for the detention has said: 'those of us who were part of passing this legislation certainly would not have expected it to be used in a case of this kind.'
This, even in the slim chance that is the truth, is absolutely no excuse. They should at least try to act responsible by cleaning after their own mess.
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Are they idiots, or do they think we are idiots? If a law can be abused, it will be abused. No exceptions.
They are idiots because they believed that police powers would be only used for the purpose they intended. Now the idiots have given the thugs these extra powers they will never be revoked and the thugs will start begging for even more powers to harass the innocent.
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Are they idiots, or do they think we are idiots? If a law can be abused, it will be abused. No exceptions.
See, this is the point most people miss - you only know when a law, any law, is abused when someone who cares whether it has been abused knows about it. Until that point you could detain, beat, torture anyone you want. That this doesn't happen more often speaks well of a society and those who are in place to serve and protect it.
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See, this is the point most people miss - you only know when a law, any law, is abused when someone who cares whether it has been abused knows about it
I guarantee you, every traveler who has been detained against his will knows and cares about it.
That this doesn't happen more often speaks well of a society and those who are in place to serve and protect it.
No, what would speak well of society is when every abuse of rights gets the same degree of outrage we see today.
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That this doesn't happen more often speaks well of a society and those who are in place to serve and protect it.
Either that or we just don't know about it because it happens to people that are undesirable that don't get much sympathy in the media.
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"You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered." -- Lyndon B. Johnson
Re:Would not have expected? (Score:4, Insightful)
> Are they idiots, or do they think we are idiots?
Both. You do realize the answer is not mutually exclusive, right? :-(
Government is an _extension_ of the people. If the people are too smegging lazy to demand accountability from their elected officials because they are too busy watching (un)reality TV then the people are 50% to blame.
Hysterical Quote from Legislator (Score:5, Insightful)
one of the MPs involved in passing the anti-terrorism legislation used for the detention has said: 'those of us who were part of passing this legislation certainly would not have expected it to be used in a case of this kind.'"
Of course you weren't: In fact, you weren't thinking about the potential for abuse at all when you passed this bill because even though you were warned by civil libertarians before the passage of the bill that such abuse was not only likely but inevitable, you were more afraid of the quivering masses of voters you believed would spend the next decade hiding under their sofas waiting for the end of the world to worry about such pleasantries. "This is war!" you told us, at the time.
Choke, now, on your own lack of foresight.
When the human race eventually gets around to causing its own extinction it will undoubtedly be caused by a total lack of foresight.
Re:Hysterical Quote from Legislator (Score:5, Insightful)
Even better:
Ms Cooper said the situation must be "investigated and clarified urgently", adding: "The public support for these powers must not be endangered by a perception of misuse."
So, it's the public perception that's an issue here, not the misuse of powers. Interesting Ms Cooper, interesting. Do you have anything else to add?
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In politics, it seems like perception is everything. Politicians don't care about substance, but they care about looking like they care about substance. They don't actually want to do anything for fear of what they did negatively impacting their PR but they also don't want to be seen as do-nothings. In other words, in politics, it's all about the spin.
So this politician is just fearing that the spin will "go wrong" since that's what politicians care about. Meanwhile, the rest of us don't care about the
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Perception doesn't seem to be everything. It IS everything
As someone told me once, politics or ars politica, is the art of negotiation. I would venture a guess that when negotiating something that's not directly "yours" i.e. on behalf of someone else (the people) perception is king. If you can fool your oponent into perceiving something as you would like it to be, you have much more leverage than if you don't. Lather, rinse and repeat and you have politicians choosing their words very very carefully, with t
Re:Hysterical Quote from Legislator (Score:4, Insightful)
You've misread her statement.
As far as she's concerned, there has not been any misuse (even though they're admitting they know nothing about the specifics of this case), therefore any perception of such would be unwarranted and must be avoided.
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Choke on your own lack of foresight. Any "rage" coming from establish political entities is nothing more than pandering with absolutely no intentions of righting these wrongs. Just like how the left in the US howled with anger at the Patriot Act who are now tight lipped since it has become a tool of the Obama administration. The right will be no different if they take power in the next election. They'll cry foul today and abuse the law tomorrow.
We will be bogged
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Faux outrage for faux news... Don't believe any of this crap. It's all a big show
Are you an agent provocateur? Which agency do you work for? If it is all a big show, what is the truth? Stop trying to distract everyone from the scandal. Either tell us what you know or shut the hell up. In case you cannot read the summary, we are talking about the unlawful detention of a journalist and the theft of their property without any probable cause. All of this happened to intimidate the other journalist.
"Privacy" (Score:3)
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Nobody was bashing a law, only the misuse of that law to avoid transparency.
The point that CohibaVancouver was making is that the authorities continue to use the "privacy" excuse even after the individuals involved have spoken out publicly. It's just another way of saying "no comment".
Reuters lies (Score:2, Informative)
Greenwald has not threatened to be more aggressive with his reporting regarding the UK secret services and to release more documents about their activities. Reuters made that up out of whole cloth, go read his actual words.
Re:Reuters lies (Score:5, Informative)
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. [theguardian.com]
Sounds like a pretty accurate interpretation of his statement to me.
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If you are going to do something anyway then threatening to do that thing doesn't carry much weight. Just publish the dam stuff and be done with it.
Re:Reuters lies (Score:5, Insightful)
Just publish the dam stuff and be done with it.
They are intentionally selectively releasing the data in order to catch the government in more lies. First the government says "we don't monitor Americans". Then the media releases proof that they do. Then the government says "OK, we do monitor, but we have oversight". Then the media releases proof the oversight is non-existent. This is more powerful than indiscriminately releasing it all at once, because it shows how willing the government is to lie about what it does.
I expect the remainder of the files to be released once all the lies that can be proven false are done with.
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Greenwald has not threatened to be more aggressive with his reporting regarding the UK secret services and to release more documents about their activities. Reuters made that up out of whole cloth, go read his actual words.
Apparently ACs can lie as well. Greenwald not only said he will be more aggressive, but more or less directly threatened the UK.
Snowden leak journalist: Britain will 'regret' detaining partner at airport [nbcnews.com]
"I will be more aggressive in my reporting from now,” he told reporters in Portuguese at Rio de Janeiro’s airport where he met his boyfriend David Miranda who had flown from London to Brazil.
"I have many more documents to report on, including ones about the UK, where I'll now focus more," he said. "It'll backfire. I think they'll come to regret it."
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No, expecting not to be detained is how it should be.
When did it become so normal for everyone to just dismiss these things is "well what did they expect would happen if they did something completely legal that someone doesn't like"?
Can't wait ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't wait to hear how someone is going to justify use of terror laws to detain and question the partner of a journalist.
From what I've seen of the news coverage of this, this is pretty egregious and probably somewhat indefensible.
This is just more over-reach by government agencies who think they can do anything they want -- and quite possibly in response to a direct request from the US to put pressure on the journalist involved.
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So, the only way to get our representatives to take note of civil rights abuses is to have them affect a protected class. I wonder how I get myself classified as a journalist?
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Ideally, directly apply all of the laws they pass to them and their families first and see if they get it.
That they're now acting like it's a shock this law could be abused ... well, that's either posturing, or evidence they weren't listening.
But taking the partner of a journalist and detaining and interviewing based on terrorism laws should be blatant enough to make them notice -- they s
Re:Can't wait ... (Score:5, Funny)
So, the only way to get our representatives to take note of civil rights abuses is to have them affect a protected class. I wonder how I get myself classified as a journalist?
Oh stop fussing. Innocent people have nothing to worry about.
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I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that we (USA) put him on the watch list just to screw with him. I'd be willing to bet a few more folks in his circle of friends are on the same list.
Re:Can't wait ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Laura Poitras, who also received the Snowden leaks, has had this exact experience. Her 2006 film, "My Country, My Country", about Iraqis living under American occupation earned her a spot on the terrorist watch list. Since 2006, she's been detained at the border around 40 times [democracynow.org].
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I'm somewhat heartened that you've been posting the same kinds of comments for years and have recently started to attract serious mod points. Keep up the good work.
Re:Can't wait ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Thanks for noticing. This may be more due to slashdot's demographics changing than a shift in public sentiment, but who knows. Personally I get more gratification from rebutting authoritarians than racking up mod points. I've noticed fewer of those, fwiw.
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It's never just the politicians. They can't rule without a populace willing to submit to that rule. If Americans were truly interested in freedom and rights, the streets would already be filled with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
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NSA and friends are playing by their own ugly rules, which serve noone but them. The "Bourne" series is looking ever more realistic. We should consider ourselves fortunate that they choose to keep to the laws that they had put in place, and don't just shoot on sight anyone they don't like. Will we look back on this as the beginning of something very much worse? First they came for the journalists, and we said nothing ...
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well, apparently Miranda's trip was covered by the Guardian and he was bringing some of the stolen Snowden docs to and from Poitras in Germany. this is according to the NYT, quoting Greenwald himself.
so it's not like he was on vacation and getting harassed merely because his partner was embarrassing the US or something. ferrying stolen classified documents through the UK is likely to get you detained if they know what's going on.
likewise, Greenwald brags that some of the docs he got from Snowden includes in
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That's what happens (Score:4, Insightful)
That's what happens when you write legislation with a specific problem in mind that you want a nice knee-jerk reaction for. Then people point out the issues or possible abuses and you say "but that's not what this is for". Dumbass, it's not what you wanted that matters, it's what you actually wrote down and made into law that counts.
What about his rights? (Score:2, Funny)
Did anyone read David Miranda's rights before they arrested him?
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Did anyone read David Miranda's rights before they arrested him?
this happened in england so no miranda rights they may have some other equivalent IANAL and most certainly not a British lawyer or soliciter or whatever they are called there.
Slashdot I am Disappoint (Score:3)
22 comments and not one joke about his Miranda Rights?
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Perhaps because there are no "Miranda Rights" in Britain?
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You would let that get in the way of a perfectly good pun? ;)
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22 comments and not one joke about his Miranda Rights?
Last I checked, Miranda Rights are a US thing, not a UK thing. I would also not be surprised if Miranda rights were limited at the US Border. I think you are required by law to answer certain specific questions about your origin and destination, and probably about your personal effects as well.
If you can't squash them, square them (Score:2)
I can't answer that until I speak to my lawyer (Score:4, Insightful)
Did he spend the entire 7 hours saying, "I don't know how to answer that question until I speak to my lawyer"?
In the U.S., you could do that.
Unless the interrogators violate the Constitution, and they would never do such a thing.
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Under this, and several other pieces of legislation, he is not allowed access to a lawyer.
Re:I can't answer that until I speak to my lawyer (Score:5, Insightful)
Worse than that
Under these laws in the uk and the ones they were modeled after in the us. Once you're declared a terrorist you have no rights.
You're now back to the days even before the magna-carta, the foundation for all pro citizen law in the western world. Where the king, or in this case the state, declares you guilty. And you cannot prove yourself otherwise.
Re:I can't answer that until I speak to my lawyer (Score:5, Interesting)
Under the law, he is not entitled to an attorney. Furthermore, if he refuses to answer a question, under this law, it is a crime. The law is currently being challenged in the EU courts.
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There should be a new law - UK Miranda Rights (Score:4, Funny)
I want to see a new law, named after him, which protects everyone's rights in the UK against such detention. That way everyone in the UK will be a beneficiary of this new "Miranda Rights" law. Of course, it should differ from the Miranda Rights in the US in fundamental ways so as to cause the most confusion possible. Especially in internet discussions.
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I want to see a new law, named after him, which protects everyone's rights in the UK against such detention. That way everyone in the UK will be a beneficiary of this new "Miranda Rights" law. Of course, it should differ from the Miranda Rights in the US in fundamental ways so as to cause the most confusion possible. Especially in internet discussions.
There should be a new law--"Miranda Rights"--but named after Carmen Miranda.
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There should be a new law--"Miranda Rights"--but named after Carmen Miranda.
Yes. they should be required to Carmen Mirandize everyone they arrest. A fruitful idea. My hat's off to you.
ps. Don't drive like my brother.
Miranda's rights (Score:2)
Sophist's choice (Score:5, Insightful)
bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
those of us who were part of passing this legislation certainly would not have expected it to be used in a case of this kind
Bullshit, fuck you, bullshit.
That is the biggest lie I have heard all week. This is exactly what this legislation is designed to do: Make it possible to utterly destroy the friends and family of anyone that dares speak out against the regime. Mr Miranda (how ironic is it that someone named Miranda had his rights so obviously trampled upon), is lucky to not have been secretly imprisoned. Everyone even remotely involved signing the order for his detainment should be jailed.
White House: US was given 'heads up' before David (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/2013/aug/19/glenn-greenwald-partner-detained-live-reaction [theguardian.com]
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I'm sure if this wasn't a white British journalist parliament would be equally outraged about illegal detention. Sure.
Erm, Guantanamo is in the US, and the UK has (in public, at least) asked for its closure.
David Miranda isn't white and British either. He's Brazilian.
Re:"Nine hours, eh?" -Gitmo detainee (Score:5, Insightful)
No, no it isn't. Guantanamo is in Cuba, and the only reason it's there is because the US pushed the Platt Ammendment [wikipedia.org] into the Cuban Constitution against their will.
The Cubans don't want them there, and they haven't cashed any of the checks for the 'rental'.
Guantanamo is actually a base the US keeps in Cuba against the will of the Cubans -- they view it as an occupation by a foreign government. It most certainly is not in the US -- they use it because it's outside of the US and they can argue that normal laws don't apply.
But don't pretend Guantanamo is physically on the US soil, or that the Cubans have any interest in keeping it there.
Re:Read the Followups (Score:5, Insightful)
Namely, from the follow-up article [nytimes.com]: "Mr. Miranda was in Berlin to deliver documents related to Mr. Greenwald’s investigation into government surveillance to Ms. Poitras, Mr. Greenwald said. Ms. Poitras, in turn, gave Mr. Miranda different documents to pass to Mr. Greenwald. Those documents, which were stored on encrypted thumb drives, were confiscated by airport security, Mr. Greenwald said. All of the documents came from the trove of materials provided to the two journalists by Mr. Snowden." In the helpful clarification from Wonkette [wonkette.com], "he was actively participating in transporting secret documents that were stolen, and which it is illegal for him to possess." On a trip paid for by The Guardian. So, maybe not quite as innocent a bystander as he initally makes it seem. But that was probably the point, and now British politicians are getting hammered for the abuse of power he baited them into. Well played!
Are you a complete idiot? All of this was known or guessed from the start. No one ever claimed he wasn't helping his journalist partner, the whole point is that even if all that you say is true, where is the connection to terrorism? You know, the direct association with terrorist acts that is required by the statute that he was detained under? It appears that all he was questioned about had to do with the Snowden affair. Even if you think Snowden was guilty of espionage, that is not terrorism! And helping to publish the leaked details, even if they are supposed to be secret, is not even remotely terrorism. It's pretty clear that the law in question was abused in order to send some kind of message, probably at the behest of the USA, despite the denials coming from Washington.