To think journalism isn't terrorism.

[NicholasTeakozy]

David Miranda, the partner of Glen Greenwald, the Grauniad journo who interviewed Ed Snowden and has exposed what the US and UK are doing to our online privacy, was detained for the maximum 9 hours, seemingly for being the partner of a shit stirrer. Apparently now journos are the new terrorists. Look how many are killed around the world and how many are hounded in the 'free world' just for doing their job. Discusting (sic)

They kind of rhyme. And The Daily Mail is indeed a big threat to civilised society...
Married to a newspaper and magazine editor. Don't think she is a terrorist. Will check later.

Not what the Act was originally intended for at all. Heads should roll over this, somebody high up in govt must have got wind of this detainee.

Yes, I heard this on the radio earlier and was horrified - 9 hrs, no right to a lawyer and it is a criminal offence not to answer police questions during that time...scary stuff!

I am actually quite horrified about this. Targetting the friends and families of journalists is what despots do. Smacks of intimidation.

And the silence within the other press orgs is deafening. I would have thought they would have been screaming about this

I agree, but my sympathy for the journalist's boyfriend was reduced by my annoyance by the BBC bringing out alleged rapist who won't face the music Assange as some sort of defender of civil liberties. What about the rights of the woman who said he raped her? That man should not be given any air time.

There has been intimidation going on since at least 9/11. The news of this is not surprising even though I don't think Snowden's 'revelations' themselves were particularly surprising. There is a 'scoop of the millenium' story which practically all journalists know about or have guessed at but which no major news companies want to touch because it would expose a level of criminality and complicity that we like to pretend doesn't exist in our 'free and democratic' society.

Could you be more specific Mimishimi?

I was really ashamed to be British today.

RT is reporting that government officials have forced the Guardian to destroy hard drives containing information pertaining to NSA/GCHQ leaks.

Agents destroyed the laptop of Alan Rusbridger and other hard devices , story

This is like something out of Nazi Germany rather than 21st century Britain, unbelieveable if it wasn't so horribly true.

really shocking and has the hallmarks of a police state. I'm not totally surprised that this sort of thing happens, I'm just amazed that they were so cack-handed about it. Surely it must have occurred to someone at Scotland Yard and presumably someone quite senior gave them the order to do this that the media would get hold of this too....

Interesting article by Annie Machon regarding freedom in Britain. Namely we don't have any, we're heading towards a police state. Detaining Miranda and forcing the Guardian to destroy hard drives is designed to intimidate journalists and whistleblowers. The destruction of hard drives is both comical and worrying, because either the government doesn't understand how computers and journalism works, or that they do and they did it out of pure spite.