"I don't accept at all the quite popular argument that the press is responsible for the monarchy's recent troubles. The monarchy's responsible for the monarchy's recent troubles. To blame the press is the old thing of blaming the messenger for the message."
-Anthony Holden
In the continuing wacky saga of Edward Snowden's embarrassing leaks about the NSA's mass-spy program, the United States has decided to fire back albeit in a petty and ineffective way. Since they can't touch Snowden who is safely tucked away in Russian asylum for at least a year, they have decided to target the Guardian and Glenn Greenwald, the UK-based newspaper and its journalist to which Snowden leaked the NSA documents to and whom would reveal them to the world.
Several weeks ago, UK authorities "threatened legal action" against the Guardian if the documents received from Snowden were not destroyed or given over to the authorities. Government officials went into the basement of the newspaper's building with Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger and watched the computers holding the files be physically pulverized. Of course, it's probably worth mentioning that since we have the internet these days, the files were not only located on these computers and are safely stored elsewhere, making these anti-free media actions pointless in addition to authoritarian. Although there is no evidence I've seen that the United States forced the UK authorities to engage in this intimidation, the other recent action taken against the Guardian seem to suggest it's likely.
This was the act of having British authorities take Greenwald's partner David Miranda into custody using schedule 7 of the 2000 Terrorism Act. Although the act was not actually applicable to Miranda, he was held for 9 hours and had all of his electronics confiscated and searched despite there never being any suggestion that he was involved in any form of terrorism or planning to help terrorists. The sad fact here is that even if he did hold information the state wouldn't like revealed, the act provided no legal cover to hold or search him. As Miranda is a Brazilian citizen, Brazil's government was understandably annoyed with this treatment of one of their people.
Washington has claimed they were not responsible for this detainment but this has been somewhat contradicted by a Reuters report which has stated that a US security official said "that one of the main purposes of the British government's detention and questioning of Miranda was to send a message to recipients of Snowden's materials, including the Guardian, that the British government was serious about trying to shut down the leaks." If US officials are stating what the reasons for the forced custody were then it seems likely they were involved in deciding to do it, especially because Snowden's embarrassing leak was about the United States surveillance program, not Britain's. A quick look back at the undiplomatic treatment given to Bolivian president Evo Morales by Washington's European allies also demonstrates that the US can force its friendly satellites to behave quite shamefully when it perceives it to be in the interests of Washington.
However, what this report really seemed to remind me of is how petty US presidents are capable of acting when they feel embarrassed. It seems unlikely that Obama was unaware of these operations and the tantrums he's been throwing in regards to Russia's decision to grant Snowden temporary asylum shows that he's taking this very personally. George W. Bush also once had such a moment where he felt attacking the spouse of a political opponent was just what the doctor ordered. Like David Miranda was harassed because of the journalistic actions of his partner, I remember one Valerie Plame being illegally ousted as a CIA agent to the media because her husband, Joe Wilson, reported something embarrassing to the Bush administration. This was that the Iraq-buying-yellowcake-uranium-from-Niger story that had been drummed up to support war with Iraq was pure fiction. Emperor Palpatine's clone-brother Dick Cheney would blame it on his Chief of Staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who would officially take the fall but be promptly pardoned by Bush to avoid any jail time because the rule of law is funny that way.
Although harassing a guy at an airport for nine hours and confiscating his gear out of spite is perhaps not as serious as risking the life and ruining the career of a CIA asset, it is simply a matter of degree and both actions result from the same motive; government desire for secrecy from the press, that irritatingly persistent fourth pillar of democracy.
Somewhat ironically, the NSA's actions that the Guardian reported on are even more threatening to journalistic freedom than these blatant attempts at intimidation. The NSA's ability to record all communications on phones and email will open all journalists everywhere to blackmail and the threat of having their informants revealed which could discredit them as people that sources feel safe anonymously confiding information to.. Simply put, the NSA's powers and freedom must be scaled back if that fourth pillar of democracy isn't to crumble, leaving the public totally helpless without a place for whistleblowers to blow.
And this is not strictly a US issue that doesn't affect Canadians. It's worth noting that the report produced by retired judge Robert Decary suggests that there may have been illegal spying on Canadians by Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC). Let's make it clear that CSEC's mandate makes it totally forbidden to spy on Canadian citizens. However, the actual legal language surrounding what CSEC is able to do is unfortunately kind of ambiguous and really needs to be updated. Write to your local MP's that we take our privacy seriously in Canada and we need to be assured that we are not being arbitrarily spied upon by those whose jobs are paid for with our taxes. Saying you have nothing to hide from your government is just not a good enough answer. Journalists and people in or attempting to be in positions of authority often do have things to hide that would leave them open to undemocratic blackmail when only a small number of government agents know of it.
AS
-Anthony Holden
In the continuing wacky saga of Edward Snowden's embarrassing leaks about the NSA's mass-spy program, the United States has decided to fire back albeit in a petty and ineffective way. Since they can't touch Snowden who is safely tucked away in Russian asylum for at least a year, they have decided to target the Guardian and Glenn Greenwald, the UK-based newspaper and its journalist to which Snowden leaked the NSA documents to and whom would reveal them to the world.
Several weeks ago, UK authorities "threatened legal action" against the Guardian if the documents received from Snowden were not destroyed or given over to the authorities. Government officials went into the basement of the newspaper's building with Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger and watched the computers holding the files be physically pulverized. Of course, it's probably worth mentioning that since we have the internet these days, the files were not only located on these computers and are safely stored elsewhere, making these anti-free media actions pointless in addition to authoritarian. Although there is no evidence I've seen that the United States forced the UK authorities to engage in this intimidation, the other recent action taken against the Guardian seem to suggest it's likely.
This was the act of having British authorities take Greenwald's partner David Miranda into custody using schedule 7 of the 2000 Terrorism Act. Although the act was not actually applicable to Miranda, he was held for 9 hours and had all of his electronics confiscated and searched despite there never being any suggestion that he was involved in any form of terrorism or planning to help terrorists. The sad fact here is that even if he did hold information the state wouldn't like revealed, the act provided no legal cover to hold or search him. As Miranda is a Brazilian citizen, Brazil's government was understandably annoyed with this treatment of one of their people.
Washington has claimed they were not responsible for this detainment but this has been somewhat contradicted by a Reuters report which has stated that a US security official said "that one of the main purposes of the British government's detention and questioning of Miranda was to send a message to recipients of Snowden's materials, including the Guardian, that the British government was serious about trying to shut down the leaks." If US officials are stating what the reasons for the forced custody were then it seems likely they were involved in deciding to do it, especially because Snowden's embarrassing leak was about the United States surveillance program, not Britain's. A quick look back at the undiplomatic treatment given to Bolivian president Evo Morales by Washington's European allies also demonstrates that the US can force its friendly satellites to behave quite shamefully when it perceives it to be in the interests of Washington.
However, what this report really seemed to remind me of is how petty US presidents are capable of acting when they feel embarrassed. It seems unlikely that Obama was unaware of these operations and the tantrums he's been throwing in regards to Russia's decision to grant Snowden temporary asylum shows that he's taking this very personally. George W. Bush also once had such a moment where he felt attacking the spouse of a political opponent was just what the doctor ordered. Like David Miranda was harassed because of the journalistic actions of his partner, I remember one Valerie Plame being illegally ousted as a CIA agent to the media because her husband, Joe Wilson, reported something embarrassing to the Bush administration. This was that the Iraq-buying-yellowcake-uranium-from-Niger story that had been drummed up to support war with Iraq was pure fiction. Emperor Palpatine's clone-brother Dick Cheney would blame it on his Chief of Staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who would officially take the fall but be promptly pardoned by Bush to avoid any jail time because the rule of law is funny that way.
Although harassing a guy at an airport for nine hours and confiscating his gear out of spite is perhaps not as serious as risking the life and ruining the career of a CIA asset, it is simply a matter of degree and both actions result from the same motive; government desire for secrecy from the press, that irritatingly persistent fourth pillar of democracy.
Somewhat ironically, the NSA's actions that the Guardian reported on are even more threatening to journalistic freedom than these blatant attempts at intimidation. The NSA's ability to record all communications on phones and email will open all journalists everywhere to blackmail and the threat of having their informants revealed which could discredit them as people that sources feel safe anonymously confiding information to.. Simply put, the NSA's powers and freedom must be scaled back if that fourth pillar of democracy isn't to crumble, leaving the public totally helpless without a place for whistleblowers to blow.
And this is not strictly a US issue that doesn't affect Canadians. It's worth noting that the report produced by retired judge Robert Decary suggests that there may have been illegal spying on Canadians by Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC). Let's make it clear that CSEC's mandate makes it totally forbidden to spy on Canadian citizens. However, the actual legal language surrounding what CSEC is able to do is unfortunately kind of ambiguous and really needs to be updated. Write to your local MP's that we take our privacy seriously in Canada and we need to be assured that we are not being arbitrarily spied upon by those whose jobs are paid for with our taxes. Saying you have nothing to hide from your government is just not a good enough answer. Journalists and people in or attempting to be in positions of authority often do have things to hide that would leave them open to undemocratic blackmail when only a small number of government agents know of it.
AS
The NSA spying on Americans and citizens of other nations brings us one massive step closer to the dystopian social future Orwell warned us about in 1984. In my opinion Snowden is a hero, a courageous man who knew that the world needed to be aware of the grave peril posed by this kind of massive surveillance. As Canadians, we need to be on guard and make sure our own government does not initiate the same kind of invasive violations of our privacy.
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