The disgraceful judges of Britain’s High Court – who have gone along with torture, extraordinary rendition, every single argument for mass surveillance and hiding information from the public, and even secret courts – have ruled that it was lawful for the Home Office to detain David Miranda, a journalist as information he was carrying might in some undefined way, and if communicated to them, aid “terrorists”.
Despite the entire industry, both private and governmental, devoted to whipping up fear, it is plain to pretty well everyone by now that terrorism is about the most unlikely way for you to die. A car accident is many hundreds of times more likely. Even drowning in your own bath is more likely. Where is the massive industry of suppression against baths?
I had dinner inside the Ecuadorian Embassy on Sunday with Julian Assange, who I am happy to say is as fit and well as possible in circumstances of confinement. Amongst those present was Jesselyn Radack, attorney for, among others, Edward Snowden. Last week on entering the UK she was pulled over by immigration and interrogated about her clients. The supposed “immigration officer” already knew who are Jesselyn Radack’s clients. He insisted aggressively on referring repeatedly to Chelsea Manning as a criminal, to which Jesselyn quietly replied that he was a political prisoner. But even were we to accept the “immigration officer’s” assertion, the fact that an attorney defends those facing criminal charges is neither new nor until now considered reprehensible and illegitimate.
As various states slide towards totalitarianism, a defining factor is that their populations really don’t notice. Well, I have noticed. Have you?
Hello Craig, good to see you again. Yes, I’ve noticed.
Hi Clark,
sent email to you ask whether it is possible to get the twitter feed working and tweet this one. Can you help?
I’ll check my e-mail.
http://www.vineyardsaker.blogspot.mx/2014/02/creeping-fascism-or-maybe-its-just-me.html?m=1
Yes but you only the violence in society also needs addressing. We are so stupid that what is seen on our screens is inherent in our lives. We are what we consume.
For me is a worry.
And we see ‘terrorism’ continually redefined. In the US the push is to make it mean doing harm to a company’s profits (by say exposing aminal abuse).
Its now clear that facilitating copyright infringement (ie Pirate Bay etc) is also now considered terrorism by the ‘security’ services. We are in a more and more explicit state of corporate capitalism and to keep it going more and more totalitarians measures are needed.
We are all terrorists.
Craig, I’ve replied by e-mail.
The truth is bad news in the new world
Yes we did notice. An outrage. If they can treat a human rights lawyer like this, what chance do the rest of us stand?
On the previous thread.
~~~
Mary 18 Feb, 2014 – 2:48 pm
Mrs May’s bastards this time.
Heathrow Customs Agent Interrogates Snowden Lawyer
‘Why Have You Gone to Russia Three Times in Two Months?’
By Kevin Gosztola
February 17 2014 “Information Clearing House – “Firedoglake” – A lawyer who represents National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden and has spoken on his behalf numerous times was detained while going through customs at Heathrow airport in London.
Jesselyn Radack told Firedoglake she was directed to a specific Heathrow Border Force agent. He “didn’t seem interested” in her passport. She was then subjected to “very hostile questioning.”
As Radack recalled, she was asked why she was here. “To see friends,” she answered. “Who will you be seeing?” She answered, “A group called Sam Adams Associates.”
The agent wanted to know who was in the group. “Ray McGovern, Annie Machon, Thomas Drake, Craig Murray,” she answered. She said she is part of the group as well.
“Where will you meet?” Radack answered, “At the Ecuadorian Embassy.” Then, the agent asked, “With Julian Assange?” Radack said yes.
/..
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37666.htm
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Mary 18 Feb, 2014 – 9:50 pm
Hear the account of Edward Snowden’s lawyer, Jesselyn Radack, of her treatment at Heathrow on Sunday by the ‘Border Force’. The banality of their bizarre questioning completely unnerved her. Shocking and disgusting. For the record, the interrogation was not done in our name Jesselyn.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Attorney for Edward Snowden Interrogated at U.K. Airport, Placed on “Inhibited Persons List”
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/2/18/attorney_for_edward_snowden_interrogated_at?autostart=true&get_clicky_key=suggested_next_story
I noticed that totalitarian groups, including cults, will hide behind ‘sacred cows’, such as feminists and sodomites in the example of the Western ‘democracies’; whilst all the time advocating equality,as though it were liberating, they practice absolute control.
With no true democratic feedback, the system will not be in equilibrium; and therefore will suffer a positive feedback catastrophe.
Noticed. Thought I was going mad, for a bit. Immensely grateful to have found a few others who’ve noticed, too, and either speak out or try to find alternatives.
JimmyGyro, while I agree with the first point you make to some extent, I object to your use of the pejorative term “sodomites”. What anyone does with their own body is their own business; please keep out of others’ private lives – same for you, same for GCHQ.
Very good point on positive feedback.
Noticed. As others have observed, the terrorists have won. Their aim is to overthrow democracy. Democracy, or its not-terribly-convincing simulacrum here, has obligingly overthrown itself. And the megacorps are loving it.
SAL the GAL, yes, I’ve been doubting my sanity too. Trying to discuss the matter with my real-world friends leads to hostile responses, and they attempt to make me shut up.
It’s the same here in this comment section. Certain contributors, notable by their absence so far today, aggressively ridicule any other commenter who expresses such an opinion. It would be easy to assume that they have a mission to suppress such opinions, but my real-world experience suggests widespread denial as another possible cause.
@Clark
Pejorative or not, it is what they do.
Further, the State has given them fostering rights, facilitated by the secret family courts; so it is not so much a ‘private’ concern, as you suggest, but more of a secret deal.
Ba’al Zevul 12:08 pm
No, terrorist groups have not had their demands addressed. The accusation that terrorist groups wished to overthrow democracy was attributed to them, or at least selectively amplified, by political spokespersons and the corporate media.
JimmyGiro 12:21 pm, you refer to “them”. You could well be referring to me. Please don’t alienate your allies. Divide and Rule is deadly.
Oh yes, noticed.
I’ve also noticed that no one seems to care. The silence in response to the shocking Snowden revelations is deafening. Essentially, by not protesting against it, the people have signalled to the elites their tacit acceptance.
Is there anything they won’t accept?
Although, having said all that, I don’t accept it, but have no idea what to do about it.
‘No, terrorist groups have not had their demands addressed. The accusation that terrorist groups wished to overthrow democracy was attributed to them, or at least selectively amplified, by political spokespersons and the corporate media.’
I dispute that. Terrorism is simply asymmetric warfare. The intention is to amplify limited means of physical coercion by psychological means. At the outset of the (granted, bogus) War on Terror, we were still able to point to our superior democratic and humanitarian principles, and maybe win a few hearts and minds in the countries concerned. If we attempt to do that now, we are very rightly laughed at. That’s because we’ve abandoned the principles in favour of winning the war. In the process we’ve lost the war. Example: separate and draconian legislation on terrorists. There is nothing a terrorist can do that is not adequately covered by pre-existing legislation. Whether he does it to cause terror or to steal a pensioner’s handbag is immaterial, as regards the perceived requirement for different legislation.
This is off topic but he is part of the UK surveillance society after all and will eventually head it.
What a pillock. Cavorting with these creatures. Will be visiting/toadying around the Bahrainis or does he leave that part of the arms selling op to the younger brother?
Prince Charles Joins Sword Dance In Saudi
Wearing a long flowing robe and headdress, the Prince of Wales takes part in a ceremony celebrating the country’s culture.
http://news.sky.com/story/1213951/prince-charles-joins-sword-dance-in-saudi
Totally cringe making.
Ba’al Zevul, 12:38 pm, I agree that terrorism is asymmetric warfare, but, I repeat, such groups have not had their grievances addressed. Illegal Israeli settlement into Palestine continues to proliferate, “Western” military forces continue their activities in the Middle East, drone strikes continue, etc., etc.
Dispatches
On the UK’s Equating of Journalism with Terrorism
By Glenn Greenwald 19 Feb 2014,
(updated below)
As my colleague Ryan Deveraux reports, a lower U.K. court this morning, as long expected, upheld the legality of the nine-hour detention of my partner, David Miranda, at Heathrow Airport last August, even as it acknowledged that the detention was “an indirect interference with press freedom”. For good measure, the court also refused permission to appeal (though permission can still be granted by the appellate court). David was detained and interrogated under the Terrorism Act of 2000.
The UK Government expressly argued that the release of the Snowden documents (which the free world calls “award-winning journalism“) is actually tantamount to “terrorism”, the same theory now being used by the Egyptian military regime to prosecute Al Jazeera journalists as terrorists. Congratulations to the UK government on the illustrious company it is once again keeping. British officials have also repeatedly threatened criminal prosecution of everyone involved in this reporting, including Guardian journalists and editors.
/..
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/19/uks-equating-journalism-terrorism-designed-conceal-gchq/
It appears we were warned in 1968 by futurist Arthur C Clarke in his 2001 Space Odyssey. The totalistic monolith of terror has reached into the very heart of truth and justice spreading a corruption affecting humanity and destined to transmute human evolution.
2001 sowed a seed of dangerous perfidy that can only lead to disaster crucially evident now, today, in the hiatus of nuclear powers.
Perhaps only a ‘star child’ can save us from extinction.
Mary, the Saudi aristocracy are not subhuman “creatures”, and what matters about Prince Charles is not that he dances with them, but to what use he puts any influence thereby gained with them.
Yes, Clark, granted, but tangential. My view is that terrorism and the activities of the US in the ME – or of Israel in the Occupied Territories – are symbiotic entities – each knowingly feeds on the other(1). Grievances are addressed by both with bombs and bullets. We are now in a state of moral equivalence with the entities we demonise. Which is what they wanted.
(1) And where would Israel’s massive military aid handouts from the US be without the combined loathing of its neighbours to call on?
Ba’al Zevul, 1:07 pm, I think clarification of the meaning of “we” is needed, as in “we‘ve lost the war” and “We are now in a state of moral equivalence”.
But yes, aggression feeds aggression. This is another example of positive feedback. Aggression promotes fear, and fear helps to propel security states towards totalitarianism, the subjects of this thread.
We: The democratic formerly Christian West. Sorry.
…which is not to minimise the increasing tendency of the EU’s central members to see Israel for what it really is, and impose sanctions…
Ba’al Zevul, 1:26 pm, no apology necessary; I struggle with that term “we” myself! It creeps into my comments, and I have to rewrite them before they’re clear enough to post.
“I have no idea what to do about it.”
I recommend agitating in your community and on the streets.
Hanging around here endlessly bickering with a handful of people for 13 pages of comments is probably not any way to challenge the powers that be.