14 DAY TRIAL // These past few days have been full of events that made me go through a number of feelings, varying from mildly upset, to outraged, to angry.
And that’s because I’m an idealist at heart. I believe in the complete freedom of the press, I believe in the freedom of speech and I also believe everyone has a right to complete privacy. Of course, I’m not naïve enough to actually think any of these notions exists 100 per cent in the world we live in.
But what has happened in the past few days in the United Kingdom has crossed a lot of lines that shouldn’t have been crossed.
For one, the partner of Glenn Greenwald was detained in London under anti-terrorism legislation, allowing the Home Office to question him for nine hours as he was passing through the airport on his way to Brazil. Of course, authorities are entitled to using such legislation if they truly consider someone has such intentions.
It is clear, however, that there was no way David Miranda could have qualified as such a man and the actions of the UK authorities can’t be viewed as anything other than an effort to intimidate Greenwald and get him to stop from publishing information from the leaked NSA documents given to him by Edward Snowden.
Instead of being asked whom he wanted to bomb or what he wanted to do in the UK, Miranda was asked for passwords to his phone and computer, devices that supposedly contained the NSA documents meant for Greenwald.
This obviously begs the question, “What are they really afraid of?” What kind of documents do they think Greenwald has that they’d do just about anything to get their hands on them?
Of course, Greenwald’s logical reaction of was to promise he would focus his efforts on publishing information on the British ties with the NSA and the surveillance programs run by the GCHQ. In other words, the UK has just become a target of future leaks after they chose to target someone close to him.
The Guardian and the Symbolic Gesture
Another thing that happened over the past few days was the destruction of the hard drives belonging to The Guardian after the GCHQ demanded for them to hand over the NSA documents in their possession.
The decision to smash the hardware came from The Guardian's editors and it holds a symbolic meaning since the only other alternative was to hand over Snowden’s NSA documents to the authorities. This would, of course, have meant that The Guardian’s editors might as well resign from the media since it went against everything the press stood for – particularly bringing the truth to light.
The action not only puts the British authorities and the Prime Minister in a bad light, but it was also pointless.
They went to so much trouble, sending GCHQ agents to The Guardian and calling up the newspaper’s editor trying to convince him to hand over the documents, as if the files Snowden leaked were stolen from a cabinet in the NSA’s basements and not a server.
As the newspaper admitted, they have other copies abroad, which is obviously logical. I’m amazed that in the digital era someone actually thought that destroying some hard drive would solve an issue and prevent future leaks.
However, aside from the UK making a fool of itself and managing to threaten individual liberties by detaining Miranda and the freedom of the press by having The Guardian’s hard drives destroyed, the issue stresses once more that governments from all over the world think the media should simply comply to their desires at all costs.
Twice in just as many days, the UK managed to act against the media – once indirectly by detaining Greenwald’s partner and once directly by putting The Guardian into a tight spot.
As someone who believes the truth must be brought to light when privacy is violated with no reason and when loopholes in legislature allow intelligence agencies and governments to overreach, I can honestly say I am eager to see what the next leaks will be, since I’m sure more are to follow.
More specifically, I want to see what documents Greenwald holds in his possession to have the US and UK twitching so hard.