[S.T.D.]

Alan Rusbridger, editor of The Guardian, wrote on Monday about an unsettling encounter with "security experts" from the U.K.'s GCHQ intelligence agency.

According to Rusbridger, "a very senior government official" contacted him about two months ago demanding the surrender or destruction of all materials in the publication's possession relating to the surveillance operations uncovered by Edward Snowden.

About a month later, Rusbridger recalls receiving a phone call "from the centre of government" in which he was told, "You've had your fun. Now we want the stuff back." He goes on to explain:

There followed further meetings with shadowy Whitehall figures. The demand was the same: hand the Snowden material back or destroy it. I explained that we could not research and report on this subject if we complied with this request. The man from Whitehall looked mystified. "You've had your debate. There's no need to write any more."

During one meeting, Rusbridger explained to an official that if the British government were to take legal steps in order to roadblock the paper's reporting, the work could simply be done outside of the country. That's when things took a disturbing turn:

The man was unmoved. And so one of the more bizarre moments in the Guardian's long history occurred – with two GCHQ security experts overseeing the destruction of hard drives in the Guardian's basement just to make sure there was nothing in the mangled bits of metal which could possibly be of any interest to passing Chinese agents. "We can call off the black helicopters," joked one as we swept up the remains of a MacBook Pro.

Despite this apparent attempt at intimidation, as well as the previously reported nine-hour detention of Glenn Greenwald's partner David Miranda at London's Heathrow airport, Rusbridger explained that The Guardian "will continue to do patient, painstaking reporting on the Snowden documents, we just won't do it in London."

Greenwald has been similarly undeterred by recent events. Following the detention of Miranda under the controversial schedule 7 portion of Britain's Terrorism Act, Greenwald stated, "I will be far more aggressive in my reporting from now. I am going to publish many more documents. I am going to publish things on England too. I have many documents on England's spy system. I think they will be sorry for what they did."

[Beerinkol]

What the shit. How are they justifying this? Are they not bothering anymore? Did the rule of law just silently end?

[Ifroham4]

When you can make the laws, you can't break them

[NeroASERCH]

"There are two types of people who laugh at the law: those who break it and those who make it."
Terry Pratchett, Night Watch.

(I like quoting Night Watch, and Terry in general. Always something relevant there)
(Strange how many upvotes this got. Seriously, read the Discworld novels. They're full of interesting observations like this).

[9mm_fan]

"Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations." - George Orwell

[Fegasderty]

I can't believe they detained greenwald's partner. Haven't they listened to Mark Twain lately? Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.

[softy54534]

Don't underestimate the stupidity of a government that's spent almost $5 million to surveil a bail jumper.

[Slonopotam845]

"You've had your debate. There's no need to write any more."

It isn't up to the government to decide when the press has reported "enough" on any given story. That flies in the face of every principle of free speech and free press that our laws are founded on.
Fuck these fascists who are trying to turn our free societies towards the very kind of repressive authoritarian systems we once opposed. It's as if the fall of the USSR has taken away the example of "evil empire" that motivated our governments not to adopt these same policies and behaviors.

[S.T.D.]

The whole "You've had your debate" quote seemed like satire until I read this little article. It was not...
You sort of get the feeling that public debates are just the new opiate of the masses. If they just pretend to listen and then do whatever they wanted from the start, then there's a real democratic problem.

[Beerinkol]

Six months ago this comment would have been met with a bunch of negativity and tinfoil hat comments... That's the sad part. People just want to look the other way if it threatens their perspective on not only politics, but reality

[Ifroham4]

No the sad part is that I saw and heard these exact same quotes when as a student, I participated in my university's first official online discussion forum. The really sad part is that they came from the student association when they were repeatedly criticised. We are raising a generation of intellectuals to view criticism or debate as simply something to be endured and then ignored.

[tgs]

I came across the exact same thing as a student from the guild of students (What the University of Birmingham called the students union). The exact quote was 'The guild is in favour of free speech for all students as long as it's sanctioned by the guild.'
Not a trace awareness of the irony from them.

[NeroASERCH]

Six months ago this comment would have been met with a bunch of negativity and tinfoil hat comments... That's the sad part. People just want to look the other way if it threatens their perspective on not only politics, but reality

I would've been one of the tinfoil hat commenters... this whole crisis has made western governments a lot less trustworthy to me.

[brraverishhh]

The crisis was nothing other than becoming aware of what they worked so desperately to hide for decades. This was not 9/11, as most would point to, allow me to quote Zbigniew brzezinski from 1970, the former national security advisor to jimmy carter. "The technotronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities. ”
This was well planned out, and all of this is now in fruition.

[9mm_fan]

What wasn't planned was that people would submit themselves their most personal info and details of their everyday lives on social networks.

[Fegasderty]

I don't care that the government knows where I work or who my friends are, or how I feel about the various sports teams I follow. That's pretty much all I ever put on the internet.
What bothers me is that they have copies of all my communications with those friends. I'm not doing anything wrong, I have nothing to hide, but I have the expectation of privacy and I don't like that everything I say in digital format or over the phone is being recorded and could potentially be used against me in the future. I have zero doubt that I've said things that, when taken out of context, could be presented in a way to make me look nefarious.
As a result, I now find myself watching what I say. My speech has been chilled. Even more disturbing, I find myself much more hesitant to engage in any kind of political activism. If I were to get politically involved and step on the wrong toes, who knows what might "suddenly pop up" that could ruin my life and make sure I can't change the status quo.
And that's why I'm so opposed to all this dragnet spying. I'm not a bad guy doing bad things, but just the fact that it exists is enough to keep me, and I'm sure many others, from exercising our rights to their fullest.

[softy54534]

Yep. I don't use marijuana and like to talk about nuclear power, but just having mentioned those words (marijuana and nuclear) flags me for the NSA dragnet. They have already proven they are spying on and sending goons to rough up people in the US, like the couple where one was searching for backpacks while the other was searching for pressure cookers (oops, probably got myself set up for a shakedown tonight for mentioning those two together).

[S.T.D.]

"You've had your debate. There's no need to write any more."

Debating, protesting... all the non-violent stuff really. That's why they were all sold to us as these great democratizing forces of change... because they don't actually change anything without the threat of force behind them. They are great for creating a dialogue, for motivating the masses and getting us together but once we're together... we've got to do more than just talk about the problem or hold signs at a sit in. We've got to be willing to act.

[Beerinkol]

And now the inherent purpose of the second amendment can be clearly seen as but one undeniable safeguard against oppression of the citizenry by force or threat of force by the state. Self defense is a human right, and 2A is but one incarnation of that natural right (and a robust one at that, no matter how continuously is is attacked and damaged).
But look at popular reddit conversation post-"scary shooting tragedies" and you can see how to many people allow ignorance and fear to rule them, and still just don't get it when it comes to consistency in valuing and protecting natural rights.
An armed society is a lot harder to oppress. This is why 2A was drafted and continues to be necessary to a free state now more than ever. And this is also why governments will arm foreign factions that align more closely to their trade interests. This is also the reason why domestic enemies of the constitution on the state and federal level continually seek to assault 2A in the name of imagined "safety."

[tgs]

serious question: i don't really get this way of thinking, do you really think having a couple of assault rifle in your locker would save you from the coming of the fourth reich? i mean, they already send riot squad to arrest unarmed marijuana users, if they really decide to swith to a full dystopian military regime i don't think they would be even slightly worried about some wannabe gordon freeman