14 DAY TRIAL // UK authorities are still trying to spin the abusive detainment of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald's partner David Miranda as a national security issue.
In their latest misdirection attempt, authorities claim that Miranda was carrying with him on a piece of paper a password that could be used to decrypt one of the files he also had on his possession.
The idea seems to be to portray Miranda and Greenwald as having poor security practices which could be abused by terrorists or foreign powers.
This has been the angle the UK government has been shooting for when it ordered The Guardian to destroy all the documents it had from Edward Snowden.
Greenwald, however, shot back by explaining that there is no single password to decrypt any of the encrypted files that contain the Snowden documents.
"Anyone claiming that David Miranda was carrying a password that allowed access to documents is lying. UK itself says they can't access them," he tweeted.
The authorities claim that Miranda was carrying some 58,000 documents that "could" be dangerous in the wrong hands. However, even with the alleged password, they have only been able to retrieve 75 of those documents.
In fact, the authorities testified that the encrypted files were "extremely difficult to access." This is why the GCHQ, the British equivalent of the NSA, is being employed by the Scotland Yard to help decrypt the files. It's unclear whether the irony of the GCHQ having to break into its own files is lost on them or not.
"The government's accusation that we have been irresponsible with the security measures we took with the materials with which we are working are negated by their own admission that they have been unable to obtain access to virtually any of the documents they seized from Mr Miranda because, in the government's words, those materials are ‘heavily encrypted'," Greenwald added in a statement.