Who are they trying to impress?
UK authorities are striking back against Greenwald in a peculiarly symbolic way, which is guaranteed to fail. First they raided the offices of the Guardian, confiscating and smashing all the physical storage elements they could find; then they interrogated Greenwald's "wife" or "husband" or whatever you're supposed to call it, and forced him/her/it to divulge passwords for all of his/her/its social media.

Everyone knows that computerized information can be copied, and everyone who handles important computerized information keeps multiple backups. It's automatic and habitual, and in fact it's required by law for businesses. This is true of ordinary office memos, and doubly true for critical info. These assumptions and routines were true of paper a hundred years ago, long before computers were imagined, so it's not even a "futuristic" technical matter.

Also, everyone knows that NSA and GCHQ monitor everything, so why bother to pry the passwords out of this Miranda character? Greenwald and Miranda understand even more specifically than the rest of us that the authorities already have the passwords for everything interesting.

Is GCHQ so stupid that it doesn't understand the whole point of Snowden's leak? Do they believe their own lies? Do they still think the public believes their lies? Possible, but unlikely.

Latest story: UK government thinks the Guardian refused to hand over some of these meaningless pieces of plastic, and is preparing to get even more violent to recover all of its meaningless pieces of plastic. Again: the Guardian knows the plastic is meaningless. All serious computer users know the plastic is meaningless.

You're not fooling the targets, you're not fooling the informed public. You're only turning more and more people into hardened enemies. Radicalizing lots of folks who weren't really paying attention before. Is that what you want? Maybe it is.

= = = = =

A bit later: applying Polistra's Law of Inferred Intent. Ignore verbal shit emitted by authorities, look for consequences and infer that these consequences were the desired result.

We have one immediate consequence. New Zealand's parliament has narrowly passed a law 'normalizing' what NZ's own spy agency has been doing.

"The new amendment bill gives the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) – New Zealand’s version of the NSA – powers to support the New Zealand police, Defense Force and the Security Intelligence Service."

This 'normalizing' isn't necessary. GCSB will continue monitoring everything anyway, because intel agencies don't use laws.

NZ public should be looking closely at their MPs. Clearly a narrow majority of MPs noticed what happens to people and nations who don't submit to official rape, and decided to submit. 61 gutless MPs, 59 gutsy ones. Support the gutsy ones.
  ¶ 3:30 AM