Raising the psychological stakes
The detention for more than nine hours of David Miranda at Heathrow Airport under terror laws ,and the confiscation of all his electronic devices raises the climate of hysteria and speeds up the race toward a police state in Britain and the United States. David Miranda is a Brazilian citizen and the partner of Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who has worked with Edward Snowden in helping to bring NSA abuses of power to light.
Miranda’s detention, evidently carried out at the behest of the US government , is yet another attempt to raise the psychological stakes for anybody contemplating an act of rebellion: if you are in anyway involved with somebody who denounces the excesses of their government—and who knows, soon perhaps even if you are known to be sympathetic to such people—take note: your life will be made hell.
And it will be made hell not because what you might have done might be a crime, but simply because the government will twist the law in every way possible and apply it at its maximum level to make your life miserable, in just the same way that a traffic cop can pull you over and then proceed to examine your vehicle inch by inch until they find some minor infraction they can use as an excuse to impose a fine—except of course, that much more is at stake here.
Forget about the legal guarantees the US Constitution supposedly offers via the Whistleblower’s Protection Act: all it takes is to redefine what you have done as an act of terrorism, despite all the evidence to the contrary, for you to be exempt from the law. If you reveal anything at all about what the state is up to, your life will be destroyed, and you will either have to seek exile, or be prepared to spend a long time in a federal prison. Even if your acts have brought to light one of the most important debates facing us in the future, and you are more deserving of a Nobel Peace Prize than persecution, this will count for nothing.
But beyond what you have done, the state can also make the lives of those who have anything to do with you a misery as well. You could be the email provider that the accused used, or a competitor that offered a similar service , or a journalist who interviewed him or her, or someone investigating the legal implications of similar cases: from this point on, your life is going to be hell. Every time you cross a border you will questioned far beyond anything reasonable, supposing of course that the authorities do not immediately apply terror legislation directly to you, later apologizing for the “unfortunate error”.
And if the authorities really decide to have a go, they could look into your taxes, or put your license plate into the system so that the police stop you every time you go out. How about refusing your kids entry to university, or delaying your tax return, or maybe just confiscating your property, or breaking into your office and destroying your hard drives…
The state can make your life miserable for… for what? For blowing the whistle, for helping a whistle blower, for writing about what a whistleblower has done, for knowing the person who wrote about the whistleblower, for publicly expressing support for a whistleblower?Remember, they can read all the things we write on social networks… In short, we have reached the point where you are either with the authorities, and do what you are told, or you are against them, and must face the consequences.
David Miranda might have done many things, but simply “working with a journalist” does not qualify him for being singled out at an airport as a potential terrorist, despite what some irresponsible individuals might say. David Miranda was not, in any way imaginable collaborating with, helping, or supporting a terrorist group or enemy of the United States, unless of course you define an enemy of the United States as anybody who does not agree with its government’s determined efforts to set up a police state. Laws, anti-terrorism or otherwise, are not made to be twisted and abused.
Our laws are not there to be used to hassle and bully people who according to the authorities “deserve it”. Our laws are not there to be used to apply psychological pressure to those who resist certain activities of our governments, because resistance to the government, at times, and within a democracy, is a fundamental right.
The way things are going, soon all we will be able to do is quote Niemöller, until that is declared subversive too. To be honest, I am beginning to wonder just who the terrorists really are…
