Snowden Writer's Partner Begins Legal Action Over UK Detention

[Hissyspit]

Source: Reuters

Snowden writer's partner begins legal action over UK detention

LONDON | Tue Aug 20, 2013 8:36am EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - David Miranda, the partner of a journalist who has written reports based on leaks by Edward Snowden, has begun legal action to stop the British authorities inspecting data they seized from him, his lawyer said on Tuesday.

Miranda's lawyer Gwendolen Morgan said her client was seeking a judicial review of the legal basis for his detention at London's Heathrow airport on Sunday under anti-terrorism laws and wanted assurances from the authorities that property seized from him would not be examined before this.

"We've sought undertakings that there will be no inspection, copying, disclosure, transfer or interference in any other way with our client's data pending determination of his judicial review," Morgan told Reuters. "We're waiting to hear back this afternoon from both the defendants. Failing that we will be left with no option but to issue urgent proceedings in the High Court tomorrow."

She said the "letter before action" had been sent to London's police chief and the Home Secretary. It also demanded that they detail whether Miranda's data had already been passed on to anyone else, and if so, who that was and why.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE97J0FX20130820

[Autumn]

1. This intrigues me.

I'm reasonably sure that any data has been gone through with a fine tooth comb. And I would think Glenn knows that too. Interesting. I wonder where this is going. rec

[MADem]

2. I think the horse has already left that barn.

Some bells can't be unrung.

[totodeinhere]

10. But if they can get a positive outcome from the courts it will be a moral victory and

if Greenwald is indicted as rumor has it he might they probably could not use any evidence seized from Miranda in court against Greenwald.

[MADem]

12. Good luck with that, is all I have to say.

British law is quite different from American law. They don't have that free-wheeling, power to the people, "Damn you, I know my rights" attitude that we see in USA. That Official Secrets Act, as an example, is nothing to sneeze at, and that kind of structure is typical of their way of doing things.

And then, there's the question of "pace." They don't sweat that "speedy trial" business, either. Assange had a lovely vacation at an English estate while he waited over a year and a half for his case to meander through the courts, and when they finally ruled against him, he decamped to Knightsbridge.

Also, what's inadmissable in UK isn't controlling in USA, so that approach is unlikely to fly.

[msanthrope]

3. Yeah, Gwendolen--let us know what answers you get. nt

[JackRiddler]

6. Yay, let's be sarcastic about tyranny!

[msanthrope]

9. If it was tyranny, there would be no lawyer to mock.

[JackRiddler]

15. In that case, there was almost never a tyranny.

Guess what, they had lawyers in the Soviet Union, too. Modern tyrannies often maintain a facade of rule of law. There are also systems, like the United States, where rule of law still operates in many spheres while others have been exempted (examples of the latter include the "national security" state, "too big to fail" banks, "terrorism" and the drug war).

For example, when the NSA collects and stores every phone call and every e-mail and then lies to everyone about it including under oath, making a joke of this "constitution," it is still possible for blind supporters of authoritarianism (like yourself as long as the president is a "D&quot to claim that hey, it's all LEGAL. They passed laws and made interpretations that make it so. Hooray!

Tyranny is an arbitrary power that gets to mock mere laws and lawyers and due process and all the bullshit you are also laughing at.

Fine work for the team!

[FarrenH]

4. While they probably have inspected the data

This may be to prevent the cracking of data that is encrypted and not yet cracked, or to make such inspection after a court order an actionable offense, or to render any revelation of data thus acquired (even just personally embarrassing stuff like, say, his partner's taste in porn) for the purposes of intimidation an actionable offense.

[wtmusic]

5. Miranda's encrypted data will never be "cracked".

"As shown above, even with a supercomputer, it would take 1 billion billion years to crack the 128-bit AES key using brute force attack. This is more than the age of the universe (13.75 billion years). If one were to assume that a computing system existed that could recover a DES key in a second, it would still take that same machine approximately 149 trillion years to crack a 128-bit AES key."

http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1279619

[FarrenH]

19. Fair enough

You're assuming he's using 128-bit AES encryption though. As someone who has used much less secure encryption for large volumes of data simply because it was "good enough" for my purposes and faster to encrypt and unencrypt than more secure encryption tools, I can't help wondering whether the same might be true for a lot of other people.

[wtmusic]

20. Snowden is using AES-256

or at least that's what the header of his files reads.

[struggle4progress]

7. "I have many documents about England's espionage system" - G. Greenwald

[struggle4progress]

8. "... Mr. Miranda was in Berlin to deliver documents related to Mr. Greenwald’s investigation

into government surveillance to Ms. Poitras, Mr. Greenwald said. Ms. Poitras, in turn, gave Mr. Miranda different documents to pass to Mr. Greenwald ..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/19/world/europe/britain-detains-partner-of-reporter-tied-to-leaks.html?_r=0

[mike_c]

11. "Snowden writer's partner....?"

What a ridiculous headline. None of the primary parties were named, except by association with someone who was not directly involved, but whom the authorities want to keep attention focused upon. Sheesh.

[ConcernedCanuk]

18. " What a ridiculous headline" - well ya gotta admit

.
.
.

It sure ain't the first one!

and won't be the last.

CC

[muriel_volestrangler]

21. Snowden is far more widely known than Greenwald

DU has been a centre of messenger-shooting, so Greenwald has been made a central part of the story here. Most of the world have just read the articles, whoever writes them, and thought about the NSA. Snowden, being the one who copied the information, and travelled the world, and eventually got into Russia. Greenwald is not well known. So Reuters, writing for a general audience, rather than a Greenwald-hating one, says "Snowden writer".

[mike_c]

22. yep, I understand...

...but in doing so they simply perpetuate the problem and magnify the ridiculousness. The article is not about Edward Snowden. It's only tangentially about Glenn Greenwald. I think it's a terrible headline. How about "Snowden accuser signs immigration bill?" Or "Olympic security tight in Snowden asylum?"

[muriel_volestrangler]

23. No, I don't think you do understand

Reuters is an international news agency, that writes its stories for a worldwide general audience. The one generally recognised person in the whole affair is Snowden (Obama is more removed still from the detention). "NSA story writer's partner" would be longer still. "Miranda Begins Legal Action Over UK Detention" only means something to someone who's read the most recent stories; "Greenwald's Partner Begins Legal Action Over UK Detention" would be fine for DU, because people make threads about Greenwald all the time here. 'Greenwald' in a Guardian headline works reasonably, because a lot of Guardian readers will have noticed Greenwald's name, or read the stories about 'how we got the scoop'. But for general readers, 'Snowden' is a reference most who have followed the news from Reuters, or other sources, will get.

There is, however, no 'problem' that the headline perpetuates.

[hinterlandg]

13. Maybe Too Late

I wouldn't be surprised if the British authorities already know what was on the laptop, memory sticks and DVDs in David Miranda's possession.

[JackRiddler]

16. Of course they know.

These "stolen" documents came from them or their allies at NSA.

[The Stranger]

17. DO IT TODAY!

Don't wait to go to the High Court tomorrow.

FILE IT TODAY!