Tag Team Politics: Obama & Cameron vs. the Press

Dear Mr. President,

The war on whistleblowers has been in full swing for years: Kiriakou’s in prison, Drake’s selling Apple computers for a living, Bradley Manning’s been in military prisons for the past 3 years and will probably spend the rest of his life there, and Edward Snowden had to ask Russia for asylum to keep from being dragged back to the U.S. and thrown in the gulag along with the others. WikiLeaks is boxed in and Julian Assange is cornered in the Ecuadorean embassy in London. The war on reporters got exposed recently when we learned that AP and Fox News phones—and certain of their reporters’—were being tapped, and last month a federal appeals court decided that the 1^st Amendment no longer applies to reporters so James Risen of the NYT will no doubt spend time in the clink for refusing to reveal the source of a leak. But today the war on the press took a nasty turn when David Miranda was detained at Heathrow as he was changing planes on his way home to Rio from Germany. Sure he’s Glenn Greenwald’s partner and sure, he was staying with Laura Poitras in Berlin, but really, a terrorist? The UK’s Terrorism Act of 2000 permits authorities at airports and ports to detain someone for up to 9 hours without charges or a lawyer present while they’re questioned. I know, this was the UK, not the U.S., but it has the heavy hand print of the U.S. all over it, a clear act of intimidation—if you can’t get the target, harass their family and loved ones. Miranda’s not a reporter or whistleblower; there was no probable cause and he was questioned not about terrorism but about NSA’s surveillance. According to Greenwald’s article today, almost no one is held for the maximum 9 hours—but Miranda was—all that time incommunicado even though Guardian lawyers and Brazil’s ambassador to the UK were trying to intervene (Greenwald’s connections). Miranda’s laptop, memory sticks CDs and cell phone were confiscated, no doubt to search for Snowden files, but chances of finding any are just about nil since Snowden taught both Greenwald and Poitras how to keep their communications and files out of the NSA’s hands. The Security State is shedding all pretense at obeying the law. “We’re above the law,” they seem to be saying, :the law is what we say it is.” The war on terror continues to seep across borders even into the homeland but the terrorist threats are no longer abroad; they’re right here at home in the form of whistleblowers and journalists and those who believe in democracy.