UK Parliament Makes A Mockery Of Itself Interrogating Guardian Editor
from the sad dept
The UK Parliament is presenting itself as a complete joke. Rather than looking into controlling the GCHQ (the UK's equivalent to the NSA), it has instead held a hearing to interrogate and threaten Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger for actually reporting on the Snowden leak documents and revealing the widespread abuses of the intelligence community. The hearing included the insulting and ridiculous question: "do you love this country?"Committee chair, Keith Vaz: Some of the criticisms against you and the Guardian have been very, very personal. You and I were both born outside this country, but I love this country. Do you love this country?Perhaps equally ridiculous: after UK Prime Minister David Cameron ordered the destruction of Guardian hard drives, urged the Parliament to start this very investigation and flat out threatened news publications for reporting on government abuse, folks in Parliament have the gall to suggest that it's Rusbridger who broke the law in sharing some of the Snowden docs with the NY Times? Maybe if Cameron hadn't done everything he could to try to stifle a free UK press, the Guardian wouldn't have felt the need to share documents with a competitor.
Alan Rusbridger: We live in a democracy and most of the people working on this story are British people who have families in this country, who love this country. I'm slightly surprised to be asked the question but, yes, we are patriots and one of the things we are patriotic about is the nature of democracy, the nature of a free press and the fact that one can, in this country, discuss and report these things.
Conservative MP Michael Ellis: Mr Rusbridger, you authorised files stolen by [National Security Agency contractor Edward] Snowden which contained the names of intelligence staff to be communicated elsewhere. Yes or no?And from there it took a turn to the bizarre as Ellis started talking about how Rusbridger might reveal that GCHQ agents were gay. I'm not kidding.
Rusbridger: Well I think I've already dealt with that.
Ellis: Well if you could just answer the question.
Rusbridger: I think it's been known for six months that these documents contained names and that I shared them with the New York Times.
Ellis: Do you accept that that is a criminal offence under section 58(a) of the Terrorism Act, 2000?
Rusbridger: You may be a lawyer, Mr Ellis, I'm not.
Ellis: Secret and top-secret documents. And do you accept that the information contained personal information that could lead to the identity even of the sexual orientation of persons working within GCHQ?There was much more in the hearing, with multiple UK members of parliament making statements that suggest that they are ignorant of a variety of things, including how encryption works and the nature of a free and open press.
Rusbridger: The sexual orientation thing is completely new to me. If you could explain how we've done that then I'd be most interested.
Ellis: In part, from your own newspaper on 2 August, which is still available online, because you refer to the fact that GCHQ has its own Pride group for staff and I suggest to you that the data contained within the 58,000 documents also contained data that allowed your newspaper to report that information. It is therefore information now that is not any longer protected under the laws and that jeopardises those individuals, does it not?
Rusbridger: You've completely lost me Mr Ellis. There are gay members of GCHQ, is that a surprise?
Ellis: It's not amusing Mr Rusbridger. They shouldn't be outed by you and your newspaper.
[Brief inaudible exchange in which both men are talking]
Rusbridger: The notion of the existence of a Pride group within GCHQ, actually if you go to the Stonewall website you can find the same information there. I fail to see how that outs a single member of GCHQ.
Ellis: You said it was news to you, so you know about the Stonewall website, so it's not news to you. It was in your newspaper. What about the fact that GCHQ organised trips to Disneyland in Paris, that's also been printed in your newspaper, does that mean if you knew that, information including the family details of members of GCHQ is also within the 58,000 documents – the security of which you have seriously jeopardised?
Rusbridger: Again, your references are lost to me. The fact that there was a family outing from GCHQ to Disneyland … [CUT OFF]
But, really, just the fact that they're spending time investigating Rusbridger in the first place, rather than looking more closely at what the GCHQ is doing, makes a complete mockery of the UK Parliament.
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Filed Under: alan rusbridger, free press, gchq, journalism, keith vaz, michael ellis, surveillance, uk, uk parliament
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Relief
I suspect a lot more countries are also afflicted with politicians of this type.
It seems as if politics is a giant otherworldly magnet that attracts the idiots, the greedy, the spineless sellouts, and others of that ilk.
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Re: Relief
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Re: Relief
Powerhunger hits the people who are unable to recognize their part of responsibility for failures. It often takes a strange worldview of sorts and lack of moral boundaries in areas most others would agonize over.
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Keith Vaz, hate that guy.
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Re: Keith Vaz, hate that guy.
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"fucknugget" ... hmmm
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I would have said
"Do you love this country? "
My answer: "If didn't love this country, I wouldn't be a journalist in a country with a free press."
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Re:
Or they can stop their shameful kowtowing.
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Not Exactly News
http://www.startingoutguide.org.uk/diversitychampions/gchq-government-communications-headquarters/
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It's time to end this insanity on both sides of the pond.
That this investigation in going in this direction tells you someone's nuts are in the grinder and they want out of it by finding a scape goat.
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Edward Snowden is not the story here.
The story is the gross invasion of innocent people's privacy by the US and UK intelligence services. We must not get distracted by the idiocy of apologists.
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The problem with that is, of course, that opposed to its citizens the government has no right to self-preservation.
It's supposed to serve the people, not reign over them. That's what being a republic is about. And even a constitutional monarchy is basically a republic.
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The government despises the concept of individual freedom because it is then impossible for them to control people. So, they institute mandatory programs which affect people on a large scale, such as the intrusion of security theater at airports and sporting events, and legislate laws under the false pretense of protection, tolerance and equality in order to infringe upon people's rights. The goal is forced assimilation into a controlled collective from which the state means to exercise authority.
"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual." - Thomas Jefferson
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Politicians playing politics...
The committee chair (Keith Vaz, Labour) was pushing for quotes to show the oversight system needed looking into; Labour don't want more oversight, they just want the oversight committee chair to have to be from Labour.
Michael Ellis and the other Conservative went on the attack; trying to get Rusbriger to admit to breaking the law - even though at least one of them is a lawyer and should understand the subtleties involved. And Keith Vaz had to cut them off a bit, as it was clear they were talking mostly-nonsense in order to get a quote.
The only one really asking about surveillance was the Lib Dem (Julian Huppert) but even he seemed to mostly be focussed on praising the Guardian (which endorsed the Lib Dems at the last general election).
But that's Select Committees for you; it seems the more attention they have the more party-political they get.
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Has Anyone Really Been Far Even as Decided to Use Even Go Want to do Look More Like?
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According to this article, The Guardian has only published 1% of around 58,000 documents thus far. Quite incredible.
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Why does the NSA have GCHQ data?
The NSA could be using this secret data to manipulate GCHQ staff to provide information to the NSA that the UK government doesn't want to share.
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Why does GCHQ hate Britain?
You might have a few fellow apologist traitors in power, go cling to your Eric Honeker power figures.
YOU ARE STILL TRAITORS.
Your job is to protect the democracy from foreign spies, AND YOU CATASTROPHICALLY FAILED! How can you have ever handed any intercept over knowing it could potentially be full of political INTEL that could be used against Britain???
Once you let the power structure be run by the foreign power, you've lost control. That is what we have now. A lot of apologists defending SPYING ON THEIR OWN COUNTRY!
That was your work, there in GCHQ, that is what YOU did.
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GCHQ Gay Pride group
Ellis thinks that 'outing' GCHQ gays is leverage against them. But these aren't GCHQ files, they're NSA files that Snowden leaked.
So Ellis is admitting that NSA has leverage over GCHQ!
"Ellis: Secret and top-secret documents. And do you accept that the information contained personal information that could lead to the identity even of the sexual orientation of persons working within GCHQ?
....because you refer to the fact that GCHQ has its own Pride group for staff and I suggest to you that the data contained within the 58,000 documents also contained data that allowed your newspaper to report that information. It is therefore information now that is not any longer protected under the laws and that jeopardises those individuals, does it not?"
BUT THE SNOWDEN LEAKS ARE NOT UK LEAKS AT ALL. They are *NSA* leaks.
If Ellis is right and the Snowden docs show potentially damaging leverage, then NSA *had* that leverage!
Did GCHQ not even protect its own staff from foreign coercion???
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Interesting, NSA leverages porn surfing
Reading the rebuttal for NSA talking points, it mentions something I hadn't read. That the NSA used porn surfing history as leverage against people (including some Americans).
Care to 'fess up Vaz?
Do you love your country Vaz? Which country is that Vaz?
/disgust
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On the "outing" of GCHQ members...
An interesting response to those questions would have been:
If there were a secretly gay member of GCHQ, wouldn't they pose an unacceptable blackmail risk, thus disqualifying them from having a clearance at all?
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"Yes, but she seems to be pursuing a restraining order."
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Stopped reading there. That ignorant and reactionary moron's name is all I need to know that whatever's said will be full of crap. If he's the chair of the committee, it's worse than useless.
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I think Mr Rusbridger did very well, I was impressed. I agree that people like Mr Ellis made a total arse of himself. On the other hand I think Dr Julian Huppert asked some very good questions about how Mr Rusbridger thinks the system should actually work and whether he has any advice for the committee.
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Britain is a great nation with a glorious history. Are we really going to throw all that down the pan for a few pieces of silver to our Judas politicians? For the children? Because we're afraid of imaginary threats even though we're historically resilient and bloody good at dealing with real ones?
It's time we called these people to account. Let's all write to our MPs to make it plain that they won't be getting our vote in the next election for as long as this shameful display of grovelling obeisance to Uncle Sam continues.
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It's not useful to ask them useless questions, though.
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Time for this World to rise up and cast off the chains !
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To be or not to be.. Gay
I don´t care if the GCHQ are gay or not, but I do care about having a DEMOCRACY that is built by the people, for the people, and NOT by or for some government spy agency.
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Re: To be or not to be.. Gay
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