If I carry medical marihuana through an airport and get busted.

[riqster]

Then I broke the law. Never mind that I believe pot should be legal, or that medical marihuana is a beneficial and moral societal imperative. I am busted.

If I carry a gun through an airport, same deal. If I carried stolen documents exposing Jamie Dimon as the looting scum ball that he is, same deal.

And if I carry stolen NSA documents through an airport, same deal.

Regardless of how we personally view the motivations behind a criminal act, the cops are gonna treat it as a crime. And we should be smart enough to know it.

[NightWatcher]

1. if you carry pot, should you be held under terrorism statutes?

Way too easy

[riqster]

2. Oh, granted. Terrorism was bullshit.

But the simple thing to do would have been to mail the files and then travel through the airport without them.

Business people do this all the time, to protect information. Person travels by mode A, data by mode B.

In this environment, Greenwald had to know he was endangering his partner. Which he did. And then the Brits showed, once again, why V for Vendetta and 1984 were penned on that isle.

Stupid all around. The cops WILL use whatever tool they fancy to bust us. We have to be smarter than they are.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

3. You've accounted for the first 20 minutes of his detention

Can you explain the remaining 8 hours and 35 minutes? If he had USB memory sticks, and they were found to be encrypted, what's the reason to continue to hold him? You think you might get him to crack and give you the key? Do you just want to make life uncomfortable for him? Of do you want to "send a message", as has been reported?

[riqster]

4. As I already said, the cops' actions were bullshit.

But the carrying of illegal materials gave them the chance to act as they did.