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posted by LaminatorX on Thursday March 27 2014, @05:55PM   Printer-friendly
from the Fourth-Estate-Eviction dept.

einar writes:

Irish Times has an article quoting Guardian deputy editor, Paul Johnson, that the Guardian was threatened to be closed by the British government. According to Johnson, the Snowden leak was the most difficult story the Guardian has ever done.

As a reminder, the newspaper was walking a tightrope keeping the balance between giving in where necessary and defending the freedom of press in a country where this right is rather weak. During the Snowden leaks, even PCs were destroyed in the presence of GCHQ agents. All in the name of national security.

From the article:

Mr Johnson said the whole attitude in the UK was that national security trumped press freedom and that the newspaper should not publish a word. This was in contrast to the US, where the Snowden revelations had led to a debate about how far intelligence agencies should go to protect the state.

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Thursday March 27 2014, @06:16PM

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday March 27 2014, @06:16PM (#22152)

    While we're taught from birth that Western nations are paragons of freedom, it turns out they're really no better than Latin American dictatorships.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 27 2014, @06:26PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 27 2014, @06:26PM (#22156)
      If this had been a Latin American dictatorship (Venezuela, for example), the articles WOULDN'T have run, and those who tried would have been disappeared. But they did run. So yes, while not perfect, they certainly are "better" in terms of press freedom.
      • (Score: 5, Funny) by sjames on Thursday March 27 2014, @09:45PM

        by sjames (2882) on Thursday March 27 2014, @09:45PM (#22254) Journal

        That's OK, the governments of the west are hard at work to correct that. They beg our indulgence, they haven't had as much practice, but they'll have that corrected in no time.

      • (Score: 1) by Nr_9 on Thursday March 27 2014, @09:58PM

        by Nr_9 (2947) on Thursday March 27 2014, @09:58PM (#22258)

        "Dictatorship" seems to have changed meaning since the last time I checked the dictionary.

        And this view of Latin America is severely outdated.

        "Insightful" indeed...

        • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Nr_9 on Thursday March 27 2014, @10:07PM

          by Nr_9 (2947) on Thursday March 27 2014, @10:07PM (#22262)

          Sorry for the earlier post, I didn't notice that the Latin American dictatorship part was a reference to the earlier post.

          Still, calling every country that is on the US Government shitlist "dictatorships" even when they are clearly not (Venezuela, Russia, Iran), while ignoring the valuable allies/hereditary theocracies in the Middle East seems a tad bit problematic to me.

          They might be authoritarian, they might be dysfunctional, they might be weak democracies. But they are not dictatorships.

        • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday March 28 2014, @01:29PM

          by Grishnakh (2831) on Friday March 28 2014, @01:29PM (#22499)

          And this view of Latin America is severely outdated.

          I never said I was referring to present-day countries; I was intentionally referring to the infamous Latin American dictatorships from decades ago.

          • (Score: 1) by Nr_9 on Saturday March 29 2014, @12:59PM

            by Nr_9 (2947) on Saturday March 29 2014, @12:59PM (#22880)

            I was referring to the AC comment replying to you.

            Your comment is perfectly clear and makes a valuable point.

  • (Score: 5, Funny) by skullz on Thursday March 27 2014, @06:16PM

    by skullz (2532) on Thursday March 27 2014, @06:16PM (#22153)

    Yeah, 'Merica! Less bad!

    *eagle soars in background*

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Thursday March 27 2014, @06:18PM

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Thursday March 27 2014, @06:18PM (#22154) Journal

    Misleading headline wnd write-up.
     
    From the Article:
      He has since contacted The Irish Times to state that he meant to convey that the British Government would close down its coverage of the Snowden leaks, rather than the newspaper itself.

     
    In fact, the whole point of this new story is to clarify that fact...

    • (Score: 5, Funny) by DeathMonkey on Thursday March 27 2014, @06:23PM

      by DeathMonkey (1380) on Thursday March 27 2014, @06:23PM (#22155) Journal

      For the record it is still a travesty.
       
      But...Our chief weapon is accuracy...accuracy and facts...facts and accuracy.... Our two weapons are facts and accuracy...and the truth.... Our *three* weapons are facts, accuracy, and the truth...and an almost fanatical devotion to honesty.... Our *four*...no... *Amongst* our weapons.... Amongst our weaponry...are such elements as facts, accuracy.... I'll come in again.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by dotdotdot on Thursday March 27 2014, @06:34PM

      by dotdotdot (858) on Thursday March 27 2014, @06:34PM (#22159)

      The sentence you quoted is buried in the middle of the article. The headline was intentionally vague. The picture caption implies Guardian as a whole. The very first sentence states as much also.

      So it seems to me that the whole point of the story is for The Irish Times to sell ads.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by HiThere on Thursday March 27 2014, @07:36PM

      by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Thursday March 27 2014, @07:36PM (#22191) Journal

      If someone tells you he's been threatened, and then after you have made this public he calls you up to say "it wasn't really that bad", which do you believe?

      --
      Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by MrGuy on Thursday March 27 2014, @07:47PM

      by MrGuy (1007) on Thursday March 27 2014, @07:47PM (#22200)

      No, no, no, don't misunderstand us, friends! We didn't threaten to close a major outlet of the independent press. We simply threatened to CENSOR a major outlet of the independent press because we didn't like what they were going to say! Totally different! We'd only close threaten to close them down if they didn't voluntarily allow us to censor them.

  • (Score: 1) by tniemi on Thursday March 27 2014, @06:42PM

    by tniemi (1639) on Thursday March 27 2014, @06:42PM (#22163)

    I wonder if this was one of the reasons Greenwald jumped to then-yet-unnamed Intercept [firstlook.org].

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 27 2014, @06:54PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 27 2014, @06:54PM (#22165)

    How do leaks about the NSA spying on everyone threaten the national security of the UK?

    Especially when it's long been known that the NSA spies on everyone and Snowden is just making it more "in your face".

    Even The Guardian itself published about it before: http://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/may/23/duncanca mpbell.markhonigsbaum [theguardian.com]

    Plenty more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/503224.stm [bbc.co.uk]
    http://cryptome.org/echelon-baby.htm [cryptome.org]
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON#History [wikipedia.org]

    On a vaguely related note see also this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/BUGGER [bbc.co.uk]

    Imagine all these bunch using tax money to spy on everyone and not really protecting anyone but themselves.

    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by hybristic on Thursday March 27 2014, @07:01PM

      by hybristic (10) on Thursday March 27 2014, @07:01PM (#22172) Journal

      Because the Snowden leaks show GCHQ works hand in hand with the NSA and has spied on its own people. You can't let people know you are watching them, that's how terrorist attack happen or something like that.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Angry Jesus on Thursday March 27 2014, @10:30PM

        by Angry Jesus (182) on Thursday March 27 2014, @10:30PM (#22276)

        One day, hopefully soon, we will look back on this ridiculous hysteria over the pipsqueak threat of terrorism the same way we look back at the ridiculous hysteria above satanic ritual abuse. [slate.com]

      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by anubi on Friday March 28 2014, @02:30AM

        by anubi (2828) on Friday March 28 2014, @02:30AM (#22354) Journal

        If the Guardian won't be allowed to print it, maybe Al Jazerra can?
         

        --
        "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 27 2014, @08:08PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 27 2014, @08:08PM (#22211)

    Far from the nefarious overtones in the summary, leak or no leak that is standard operating procedure [wikipedia.org] when you have hard drives with classified material on them. In the US there are MIL standards for doing it, and I'm sure it is similar in the UK.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Pav on Friday March 28 2014, @03:27AM

    by Pav (114) on Friday March 28 2014, @03:27AM (#22372)

    In the USA "freedom of speech" is the right to speak, and the right to lie. Sometimes I think the British have a better balance - Murdoch is forced to tap phones in Britain because he can't just import the "Fox formula" ie. flatout lying - he'd be sued for defamation. Consequently the British have a greater respect for facts (or so it seems from afar), and certain British media brands garner far more respect worldwide than anything from the USA eg. BBC, Guardian etc... not so much the Daily Mail, although certain US journalists certainly do excellent work and are their own brands.

    Still, this is the dark side of that policy. I hope the British media jump on this and punish the politicians.