‘Guardian’ Threatened With Closure Over Snowden Leaks, Conference Told

[Hissyspit]

Source: Irish Times

‘Guardian’ threatened with closure over Snowden leaks, conference told

Deputy editor details extent to which intelligence agencies tried to stop newspaper’s disclosures

Ronan McGreevy

The Guardian newspaper was threatened with closure by the British government over the Edward Snowden spying affair, the Radiodays Europe conference has been told.

The paper’s deputy editor Paul Johnson said Britain’s intelligence agencies visited them and told them they would be closed if they persisted in printing Snowden’s revelations of mass surveillance involving the National Security Agency (NSA) in the United States and the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in the UK. Mr Snowden is now in Russia, where he has temporary asylum. He is wanted by the US authorities on espionage charges.

He has been responsible for one of the biggest intelligence leaks of all time, using his access to data systems to reveal the extent to which British and US agencies were spying on ordinary citizens and world leaders including German chancellor Angela Merkel.

Intense scrutiny

Speaking at the Conference Centre Dublin (CCD), Mr Johnson said the Snowden material was much more difficult to work on than the WikiLeaks tapes because of the intense scrutiny the newspaper was subjected to by the British intelligence services.

Read more: http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/uk/guardian-threatened-with-closure-over-snowden-leaks-conference-told-1.1738203

[Blue_Tires]

1. Sounds like an everyday bullshit empty threat

assuming that Johnson is telling the truth...

[Hissyspit]

2. Your rationalization is noted.

Thank you.

[Blue_Tires]

3. I'm just saying...

when governments or people in power make 'shutdown' threats to newspapers, they usually talk to someone higher on the totem pole than a goddamned deputy editor...

Nevermind the fact that the Guardian has a flair for the occasional embellishment in recent months...Clearly it WAS bullshit since last I checked, the Guardian site is still up and running and publishing documents...And now that I think about it, has there ever been an instance in recent memory of the British Gov't "shutting down" a major newspaper?

And just for the record, how exactly did that conversation go? Was it one of those "we can make life difficult for you" -type of veiled threats, or was there a specific "if you continue to publish we will close your doors" -type of statement?? And what good would it have done to shut down the paper anyway? Greenwald just would have taken all the documents to his next job and published them there...

And you're welcome, by the way...I apologize for actually trying to think this story through instead of accepting what is said at face value...It's called "having a fucking brain"...

[Hissyspit]

5. Oh, I thought it through.

[psiman]

6. Tell me about it

The more, shall we say, hysterical types around here don't seem to get the "having a fucking brain" business.

It's pretty embarrassing to watch the gullibles run around freaking out over nothing.

Actually it's kind of funny, too, but mostly embarrassing.

[Hissyspit]

20. What the fuck are talking about?

If you are accusing me of being gullible you are on absurdly thin ice.

[George II]

10. Since you're being so insulting, obscene, and literal...

....what's wrong with YOUR "brain"?

So they talked to the "newspaper". Which page - the front page, gossip page, editorial page, maybe the funnies?

And by the way, I suppose you missed THIS nugget from the article, which proves the headline totally false!

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.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. Blue_Tires was the one being insulting and obscene

with

And you're welcome, by the way...I apologize for actually trying to think this story through instead of accepting what is said at face value...It's called "having a fucking brain"...

and psiman with

Tell me about it

The more, shall we say, hysterical types around here don't seem to get the "having a fucking brain" business.

It's pretty embarrassing to watch the gullibles run around freaking out over nothing.

Actually it's kind of funny, too, but mostly embarrassing.

Insulting to lots of DUers.

"So they talked to the "newspaper". Which page - the front page, gossip page, editorial page, maybe the funnies? "

Look, you're not going to get your point across by pretending not to know a common use of the word 'newspaper'.

As for the update - that wasn't visible to either Blue_Tires or hissyspit, and neither commented on it, so it's irrelevant. Blue_Tires arrogantly implied he 'has a brain' while hissyspit doesn't, while getting things wrong. And psiman just decided to insult many DUers.

[George II]

14. I didn't realize that you were using those guys' terms, that's my fault, sorry. But...

...as far as the update, I don't see one. The Irish Times article, which is the link posted, doesn't show an update. When everyone made their comments the quote that I used from the article was already there.

The headline is misleading, actually false, and it seems that most here missed that.

[muriel_volestrangler]

19. The timestamp on the article reads, for me

Thu, May 27, 2014, 17:21

and if you hover over that, it says "First published: Wed, Mar 26, 2014, 01:00"

(I'm in the UK, in the same time zone as the Irish Times, so I know that's GMT - I appreciate that others here won't be able to know for sure what times those refer to)

That timestamp for the update is 20 minutes before my post #9, and 11 minutes after psiman's. So none of those earlier posters saw the update (I did, but, since my point of posting was that I thought Blue_Tires was out of line with his 'having a fucking brain' remark, didn't bother talking about it).

[Blue_Tires]

22. But the newpaper is still in operation?

So what was the threat, then? I've never known spooks to casually make threats they weren't willing and able to instantly make good on...

Unless I'm misreading his comment, and the conversation went more like "OK, you guys can write all you want about 'X', but if we find out you're even thinking about writing anything related to 'Y' whatsoever, the Guardian will cease to exist, and some staffers will disappear..."

[cprise]

18. They shut down access to social networking during London riots.

They also re-worked the BBC's policies after the BBC took a stance against Blair's Iraq lies, making the governors of that network unable to defend it (and, hence, themselves) against allegations. Now, as sitting ducks, they do whatever the government says.

[marions ghost]

4. Another indicator

of how important Edward Snowden's courageous act was.

THANK YOU GUARDIAN--for your significant role in this.

----------

From the link:
"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.

“We were threatened that we would be closed down. We were accused of endangering national security and people’s lives. It left us in a very difficult position,” he said."

[psiman]

7. About Snowden's courageous act

You realise, I hope, that the international intelligence community was caught flat-footed by the Russian intervention in the Crimea. It appears the the Russians had developed effective measures to evade signals intelligence operations that until recently had been considered reliable and effective.

Either this is the biggest forking coincidence in the history of international relations, or some of your hero's 1.7 million stolen documents proved mighty useful to Putin and his gang of hard core killers.

[marions ghost]

8. Everything changes, of course

and it's all worth it --to get this country out from under continuous NSA surveillance. They are WAY out of control.

Also I don't buy that everyone is "flat-footed" about Crimea. But you go on and peddle that stuff. There are people who will believe you.

[truebrit71]

16. Umm..you know they were completely fucking surprised when the Berlin Wall came down too...

...you know....before Snowden was born...Incompetence in the intelligence community is not new...

[Pholus]

26. About the NSA's idiocy....

The NSA has been overpaid for years now thanks to the "OMG 9/11 payme" mentality.

But apparently not enough to do two things at once, however.

Maybe they should do their actual MISSION instead of becoming a domestic surveillance group with fancy control centers with whooshing starship door sounds.

I outgrew the need for whoosing starship doors when I was 12. I expect these "professionals" to do the same.

[George II]

11. All the hand wringing and gnashing of teeth....did anyone actually READ the Irish Times article?

"he meant to convey that the British Government would close down its coverage of the Snowden leaks, rather than the newspaper itself. "

HUGE difference!!!!!

[cprise]

17. I think you're misinterpreting the clarification

The full context of the story is that the UK gov't were threatening to shut down The Guardian's reporting on that subject.

And, really, its not a huge difference to shutting down the paper itself. Whether or not the remaining journalists go to work for other papers to keep reporting on the allowed subjects doesn't change the fact that the government has defined the outline editorial policy.

[marions ghost]

23. Exactly

To journalists this amounts to the worst kind of censorship. True government control of the media. Very threatening to freedom of the press.

[santamargarita]

12. RW Bullshit!

[Demeter]

15. Goes to show just how illegal and objectionable the NSA and GCHQ actions are

because if they were doing it within the law, they wouldn't care.

[marions ghost]

24. There are no laws that touch them

apparently. No restrictions.

We need the laws.

[struggle4progress]

21. You'd think The Guardian would publish such a threat, if and when received, as it would be news

[cprise]

25. They described having to destroy computer equipment

under government supervision, and having to move their Snowden leaks investigations abroad.