Journalist working on NSA spying story held at Heathrow under UK terror law

Raumarik · 21 Aug 2013 at 12:23

Blown out of all proportion, yes they need to check why he was stopped and what this legislation was used and whether it was correct to do so, but there are tens of thousands of people who have been stopped like this in the past and newspapers couldn't have given two hoots.

It's only getting it's air time due to the tenuous links to Snowden and the fact the guy is a journalist, nothing more. It's journalists kicking up a fuss for journalists yet they've happily ignored it for over a decade when it's been the ordinary citizens being stopped who had no terrorist connections.

WillyNelson · 21 Aug 2013 at 12:32

xibinim said:
Ordering the Guardian to destroy the hard drives

The Guardian were asked to either return or destroy the files. They felt that to hand them over would be a betrayal of their source so chose to destroy them instead. Their destruction was supervised by GCHQ to ensure they did it properly.

The Guardian's actions weren't compelled by the government, they undertook the task by their own choice.

doodah · 21 Aug 2013 at 12:48

Ah OK my bad, thanks for the clarification.

xdcx · 21 Aug 2013 at 17:13

Halfmad said:
Blown out of all proportion, yes they need to check why he was stopped and what this legislation was used and whether it was correct to do so, but there are tens of thousands of people who have been stopped like this in the past and newspapers couldn't have given two hoots.

It's only getting it's air time due to the tenuous links to Snowden and the fact the guy is a journalist, nothing more. It's journalists kicking up a fuss for journalists yet they've happily ignored it for over a decade when it's been the ordinary citizens being stopped who had no terrorist connections.

Read the stats though. The hugely vast majority stopped are sent on their way in a very short period of time with no items confiscated. This guy was kept for the whole allowable 9 hours (which is apparently extremely rare) plus they kept all of his things. It's obvious this wasn't the routine stop that drunk muppet boarding a flight to Ibiza, I think he might be a terrorist scenario. Blown out of proportion, maybe. But there is obviously something majorly untoward here.