UK Govt threatened Guardian UK with prior restraint, forced to destroy its hard drives & NSA files

[Luminous Animal]

David Miranda, schedule 7 and the danger that all reporters now face

During one of these meetings I asked directly whether the government would move to close down the Guardian's reporting through a legal route – by going to court to force the surrender of the material on which we were working. The official confirmed that, in the absence of handover or destruction, this was indeed the government's intention. Prior restraint, near impossible in the US, was now explicitly and imminently on the table in the UK. But my experience over WikiLeaks – the thumb drive and the first amendment – had already prepared me for this moment. I explained to the man from Whitehall about the nature of international collaborations and the way in which, these days, media organisations could take advantage of the most permissive legal environments. Bluntly, we did not have to do our reporting from London. Already most of the NSA stories were being reported and edited out of New York. And had it occurred to him that Greenwald lived in Brazil?

The man was unmoved. And so one of the more bizarre moments in the Guardian's long history occurred – with two GCHQ security experts overseeing the destruction of hard drives in the Guardian's basement just to make sure there was nothing in the mangled bits of metal which could possibly be of any interest to passing Chinese agents. "We can call off the black helicopters," joked one as we swept up the remains of a MacBook Pro.

Whitehall was satisfied, but it felt like a peculiarly pointless piece of symbolism that understood nothing about the digital age. We will continue to do patient, painstaking reporting on the Snowden documents, we just won't do it in London. The seizure of Miranda's laptop, phones, hard drives and camera will similarly have no effect on Greenwald's work.

The state that is building such a formidable apparatus of surveillance will do its best to prevent journalists from reporting on it. Most journalists can see that. But I wonder how many have truly understood the absolute threat to journalism implicit in the idea of total surveillance, when or if it comes – and, increasingly, it looks like "when".

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/19/david-miranda-schedule7-danger-reporters?CMP=twt_gu

[pscot]

1. Actually, it looks like "when" is "now".

[Luminous Animal]

2. I am actually horrified by this story.

[Luminous Animal]

3. Kick.

[WillyT]

4. HUGE K & R !!!

[Catherina]

5. This article is as clear as it can get unless people are waiting for graphic confirmation

Concerned subjects/citizens are getting the message just as clearly

Example from the comments:

I very much am in disagreement with what has happened here. That said, make no mistake, this is not just about 'reporters' and there is great danger in just letting it be about 'reporters'. With feinstein yammering about who is a 'journalist' there is a danger in people rising up just to 'protect journalists' while forgetting that ALL of us are entitled to the SAME free speech. Then there was some whackjob named sekulow on glenn the shill beck, ginning up crap about 'hate speech' and how the UN needs to take over the internet, when the only 'hate' speech he's worried about is people finally catching onto the zionist israeli scams.
This issue must be about preserving ALL our speech even speech we don't agree with. And of course there is no 'terrorism' involved in revealing the fact the government and all it's cronies have been stripping our privacy and rights (while people have been too selfish and stupid to bother noticing).

Free speech must be maintained for ALL of us, not just 'reporters', so while we care about this abuse, make sure you are not just supporting 'reporters' rights, but speak up for your OWN....

Our constitution guarantees us few rights in comparison to other nations where education, healthcare, water etc are enshrined as rights. Hate me, slander me, curse me, I don't give a fuck, but I'm not giving up one of the few rights we have.

[Th1onein]

6. Who was it accusing us of having our "hair on fire"? You would be an idiot if your hair weren't on

fire, after reading this. FFS, what do they have to hide that is worth showing their hand like this? The fucking scenery is being taken down very quickly now.

[Luminous Animal]

9. Interesting that the NSA supporters haven't contributed a peep.

[bananas]

7. Remember Katherine Gun?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katharine_Gun

Katharine Teresa Gun (born Katharine Teresa
Harwood in 1974) is a former British [1]translator for
Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), a
British intelligence agency. In 2003, she became
publicly known for leaking top-secret information to
the press concerning illegal activities by the United
States of America in their push for the 2003 invasion
of Iraq .

snip

[Luminous Animal]

8. Ooh thanks for the reminder!

[idwiyo]

10. K&R