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My father, an East German now living in the UK, was saying the other day that he sees parallels between the rise of the Stasi in the 1950's onwards and the UK government's behaviour over the last two decades. I'm inclined to believe him.

The legal system was pretty much the first thing to fall there as well as the criminalisation of literally everything. We have so much legislation now that deals with criminalising people that people don't have a chance if they get in trouble even for something trivial.

There's a difference between "seeing parallels" and the UK being anywhere close to East Germany.

Miranda was carrying classified files relating to UK intelligence gathering out of the country. You would have been stopped at the border for that at any point in the last 100 years. Almost any country in the world would do that.

I would question how many would then have a court system of the calibre of England and Wales' to allow the individual to appeal against it. The courts have repeatedly struck down bits of government anti-terror legislation, S44 being the most notorious.

"Miranda was carrying classified files relating to UK intelligence gathering out of the country."

He was carrying them on a flight between Berlin and Rio de Janeiro, and was detained while in transit at Heathrow. Your comment that he was taking files "out of the country", while barely technically correct, is highly misleading. He didn't steal them in the UK and try to smuggle them out of the country; the files already existed outside the UK. In fact, they were stolen from an NSA site in the US by Edward Snowden.

The point of "seeing parallels" is that it seems to be moving in that direction with no stopping barrier in sight.

Neither UK nor USA nor Europe are currently oppressive dictatorships. However, dissent is already punished without much appeal or protection available to those punished. Laura Poitras, Jacob Appelbaum as first who come into mind in this mind context.

Powerful anti-terrorist measures are appropriate against guy with bomb in backpack planning to kill thousands people tomorrow. They are not appropriate against occupy members essentially guilty of sitting on a side walk.

Similarly, strong anti hacking measures are appropriate for those who just store millions. They are not appropriate against journalists who humiliated powerful companies.

Twisting non-infractions of political opponents into "terrorist acts" is what is happening here. That is essentially little suppression apparatus being build and used, just not being powerful enough yet.

The more of it is build, the harder it is to stop next growth.

I don't think he/she is referring to Miranda, but GCHQ's arbitrary espionage on citizens, interception of communications, etc., borderline legal, if not illegal. Although the Miranda detention is the story here, the real story is the NSA/GCHQ massive surveillance revelation.
For the moment...

Agree with your middle point however there are other laws in which he could have been stopped under which relate directly to the crime. Terrorism laws were picked selectively because they can hold suspects longer. This is the problem - everything looks like a target when a gun is handed to powerful people. This power was no accident either.

The courts are inconsistent in general. There is no law of the land any more -- it's down to the prosecutor's opinion unless it is trial by Jury. Consider the post-riot sentencing system that appeared to process suspects overnight without a fair trial. Many people were issued criminal charges and a prison term for civil issues that would have usually resulted in a fine or community service.

"You would have been stopped at the border for that at any point in the last 100 years."

Comparing an action that occurs in our world today to a same action occurring 100 years ago does not invalidate the parallel being drawn because you are not accounting for the world being completely different.

As I see it, the technology advancements over that 100 year period have created a world that's much more sensitive to any encroachment in freedoms. So that same action can and, I believe, does align well to establish the parallel being drawn.

Since when has the UK started to classify files of other intelligent services?

Beyond being a bit bureaucratic to classify files of other nations, but what does it mean if Sweden classify files created and kept the Norway government. Can it be used to jail Norwegian citizens if they travel to or from Sweden?

>There's a difference between "seeing parallels" and the UK being anywhere close to East Germany.

Give it time.

I agree that there are parallels. I also think, that even when the Stasi was (still) worse than that what is done by the US and the UK ... a start is made and the so often proclaimed "Freedom" of the western nations is undermined more and more. There was also a news that according to a worldwide Liberty organization, the US is now ranking below Romania as much as I remember when it comes to freedom of the press.
Trivial? He was carrying stolen state secrets.

He was inconvenienced for a few hours.

Lets not go overboard here!

To be honest though, the UK has been beyond laughable for a few years on this now.

During the great Icelandic banking crisis, the UK government used anti-terrorism laws to seize assets held by Icelandic banks. I quipped at the time that maybe they were worried about the assets being used to buy lumber for longships from Norway and wealthy bankers going a-Viking again. They might furthermore give the folks up in Orkney ideas and what then? Lose Caithness and Sutherland? That's an existential threat there....

If it was legal to use anti-terrorism laws in that case against a foreign entity far removed from any real terrorist activity (moreso than, say, the British-owned HSBC), then it is hard to see how antiterrorism laws wouldn't be perfectly legal here or anywhere else. Maybe they can start arresting people for drinking tea suspiciously.

> During the great Icelandic banking crisis, the UK government used anti-terrorism laws to seize assets held by Icelandic banks.

This is an oft-repeated distortion of the truth. The UK government did not seize any assets but, rather made a freezing order to prevent UK depositors' money being transferred from an Icelandic banks' UK-based subsidiary to Iceland (it was clear at the time that the Icelandic government intended to use - "steal" is probably a better word - foreign depositors' money to ensure that Icelandic depositors didn't lose out).

The freezing order was enacted under section 2 of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, on the basis that HM Treasury believed that "action to the detriment of the United Kingdom’s economy (or part of it) has been or is likely to be taken" by the Icelandic government. Critics of the UK governments' actions disingenuously refer to it as "anti-terrorism" legislation, conveniently ignoring the "Crime and Security" part of the Act's name. The freezing order was exercised correctly, appropriately and proportionally.

A fuller discussion of the topic can be found at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7142487

David Miranda was found to be carrying tens of thousands of classified UK intelligence documents. I think he's lucky to have been allowed to go free, and not arrested for espionage. I suspect that the authorities felt a little sorry for him, given that he'd clearly been exploited by Greenwald.

>David Miranda was found to be carrying tens of thousands of classified UK intelligence documents.

Was he, though? I mean, we all "know" he was carrying secret documents, but have they ever proven that? If the files are encrypted and they can't crack it to prove what those documents were, then we don't know anything. For all we know (and unless there are news reports I haven't seen), Miranda/Greenwald/Poitras could have encrypted a million pictures of Rick Astley, deliberately to see if they could pull the government into abusing it's power.

Common misconception. It's a law that relates to any crime, terrorism is just the primary focus.
Ant-terrorism laws have been used by local councils to spy on parents to make sure they lived at addresses they say they lived at for the purpose of primary school (5-10years of age) applications.

Anti-terror laws have been used way beyond their original intentions for a long time in the UK. In this case the original proponent of the legislation has come out and said excactly that.

Will it change anything? Nope.

Legislation introduced during 2012 limited the circumstances under which councils could use RIPA powers [1] and required judicial approval for the exercise of those powers [2].

[1]: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2012/1500/article/2/made

[2]: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2012/9/part/2/chapter/2/...

There's been a change since the late 90s away from practising barristers being MPs. It used to be that barristers would be in court in the morning, see problems with legislation, and go to Westminster in the afternoon to fix them.

Now of course the media, and parties that never had many barristers in them, demand MPs work "full time" - which means there is far less legal expertise available in drafting and scrutinising legislation.

That's why things like the Terrorism Act happen. The name gets politicians to vote for it, but the contents is overlooked and full of powers that are not scoped to terrorism investigations.

I dispute that RIPA is actually an "anti-terror" law in any way aside from popular description.
OT: I suddenly wish for a GreaseMonkey script which would replace all instances of the word “terrorist” with “viking”. I feel this would make the world a better place, somehow.
>> "According to documents made public during Miranda’s civil suit, police determined that he was subject to the anti-terror law because he was[...] promoting a “political or ideological cause.”"

I understand they had other 'terrorism' related reasons for detaining him (which I don't agree with), but the fact that someone can be detained simply for promoting a political or ideological cause is a disgrace. I'm sure it's there to stop extremist preachers but it's way to broad and sounds like it could be used to stop a hell of a lot of non-terrorists.

So harassing and silencing "extremist" preachers would be... fine? Is this OK?

A Christian street preacher was arrested and locked in a cell for telling a passer-by that homosexuality is a sin in the eyes of God.[1]

Is the law too broad only when it hits someone whose cause you care about?

And how do we decide which opinions are "extremist" or may serve as justification for detention? Hey, maybe we could have courts rule on that.

[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/7668448/Christian-p...

Promoting a political or ideological cause is the corner stone of exercising democratic rights if it is not done by violent means. If that is a reason for detention, then you are no longer in a democracy.
You snipped a quite important part there: > ...knowingly carrying material, the release of which would endanger people’s lives”...
The 'political or ideological cause' qualification has come up before, in relation to british people fighting in syria: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/10/orwell-...
That applies to every politician (bringing home a kitchen knife set from the store, if the "dangerous material" part of the statement is significant).
The full text of the judgement is at [1]. An interesting read.

Apart from the political and human-rights implications, what I find most interesting is how the police knew what Miranda was actually carrying. Paragraph 11 of the judgement quotes a police document (written before Minranda was stopped) justifying his detention:

"We strongly assess that MIRANDA is carrying items which will assist in GREENWALD releasing more of the NSA and GCHQ material we judge to be in GREENWALD’s possession. Open source research details the relationship between POITRAS, GREENWALD and SNOWDEN which corroborates our assessment as to the likelihood that GREENWALD has access to the protectively marked material SNOWDEN possesses. Our main objectives against David MIRANDA are to understand the nature of any material he is carrying, mitigate the risks to national security that this material poses..."

Which reads like supposition to me. Based on open source research? Please.

Later, in paragraph 13:

"The claimant’s hand luggage was examined, and items retained which as I have said included encrypted storage devices. Mr Oliver Robbins, Deputy National Security Adviser for Intelligence, Security and Resilience in the Cabinet Office, indicates in his first witness statement (paragraph 6) that the encrypted data contained in the external hard drive taken from the claimant contains approximately 58,000 highly classified UK intelligence documents."

Which is a very definite statement. Either it's based on guesswork, in which case the best that could be said is that it is merely an opinion, or else they broke the encryption (TrueCrypt?). I can't find anything in the facts section of the judgement to indicate that Miranda disclosed what he was carrying, or surrendered passwords.

[1] http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/Resources/JCO/Documents/Judgment... [PDF]

What depresses me is the court's acceptance that this involved "'very pressing' issues of national security". The US courts are also far too cowed by executive assertions of "national security". As if there were a clear, bright line of demarcation between everyday ho-hum government data and secrets so critical that their revelation poses an existential danger to civilization itself.

In fact, none of the data released by Snowden is a danger to national security in any sense. The identity of spies has not been released. No passcodes to nuclear weapons have been revealed.

The courts ought to take responsibility to assess the legitimacy of executive privilege claims and make judgments based on the actual content being protected. But for whatever reason, they are afraid to do so.

That the identity of spies has not been released does not mean that that information was not in the files carried by Miranda.
Basically the anti-terrorism laws are the contemporary inquisition. You can use for anything in order to obtain any outcome.
Colour me unsurprised - the courts have long shown that if political embarrassment is an issue, they are completely supine.
Chips are down. Western nations have realised democracy is expensive. Instead of China turning more democratic, to compete, they have turned into China.
the UK has historically been an outlier when it comes to both press freedoms and anti-terror policies.

Yup. Don't forget Northern Ireland. They went heavy handed there. Did it work? Nope.

did I miss something or is Northern Ireland still part of the Union?
Well, this is pretty good proof that the "terrorism law" is wrongly formulated then, isn't it?
Does anybody know why they didn't just use PGP over the internet like Snowden supposedly did? He could have been caught holding onto a piece of paper with a 40 character fingerprint instead.
Are we sure that there were actual documents there? I thought that the UK authorities were under the impression that he might have GQHC (or whatever it is called) documents on his laptop.
Oh, well if it was legal, then it's all okay, right? I mean, of course the law is always right. The law is always right, right? Right?!

Oh god, the world is coming apart at the seams.

> David Miranda Detention Legal Under Terrorism Law

Nowadays, everything is "terrorism". It's funny, because before Bush, nobody knew that word. Nobody ever talked about such a thing. It was something that was talked about maybe once in every 5 years. Nowadays, you can't read the news 1 single day without something being labeled "terrorism". Yesterday, it was the Ukrainian gov't calling the people in the tents "terrorists".

It's become really easy to strike people down.

> Nowadays, everything is "terrorism". It's funny, because before Bush, nobody knew that word. Nobody ever talked about such a thing

Are you shitting me? Do you perhaps not realise the UK was bombed by the IRA for many many years? That 5 letter bombs were sent only the other week?

Oh right, Americans didn't talk about terrorism, therefore it didn't exist.

Gotcha.

>> "Nowadays, everything is "terrorism"."

This hasn't changed. Mandela was once (stupidly) thought a terrorist by the current British prime minister. People's definition of terrorism constantly changes. I'm sure there are many people in the Middle East that consider the US a terrorist. It's a ridiculous classification as it's far too vague.

Edit: does the person who down voted this feel like explaining why? I don't see how it doesn't add to the conversation.

Upvoted, I strongly agree. Sure there were many acts of terror committed in the past, but I remember we started using the label terrorist in my country after 9/11. We used to call people like IRA bombers, etc. zamachowiec (Polish for assassin, but covers suicide bombings and similar stuff), guerilla warriors, etc. but everyone suddenly became terrorist after the Towers fell.
> because before Bush, nobody knew that word

There were various terrorist operations in the 80ies that were in the news. I would find it probable that the word is more used/abused these days, but the statement above is factually incorrect.

It's funny, because before Bush, nobody knew that word. Nobody ever talked about such a thing.

Except for the IRA in the UK. You really need to read up on your modern UK history

David Miranda was detained under the Terrorism Act 2000, which was written and voted into law before George W Bush was elected President of the United States.
> Nobody ever talked about such a thing. It was something that was talked about maybe once in every 5 years.

Someone else already mentioned it but living in the UK, the IRA (and UDF) was something that was mentioned DAILY.

use of the word terrorist: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?year_start=1800&year_e...

bush just happened to make it more trendy. I hate the guy, but let's not contribute a word to his legacy.

We have form on this. We also used terror laws against the Icelandic government during the banking crash - http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aXjIA...