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The Guardian's Deputy Editor Claims the UK Government Threatened To Shut The Paper Down
Submitted by Mike Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
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…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.
- Paul Johnson, deputy editor of The Guardian
As if you didn’t already recognize the serious threat to press freedom in the UK following authorities holding Glenn Greenwald’s partner David Miranda for eight hours under “terrorism” laws as he transferred through London’s Heathrow airport. It’s not just the traditional press at risk in the UK either, the government is hard at work censoring the internet itself via ridiculous filters.
Now we find out from the Irish Times that:
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 Statesand 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.
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.
Mr Johnson revealed that a senior civil servant had told the paper’s editor, Alan Rusbridger, that the “prime minister, the deputy prime minister, the foreign secretary, the home secretary and the attorney general have got a problem with you”.
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.
Full article here.
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This is old news.
Yeah, but this time it has been revised by the ministryh of truth and offered up with a chocolate bar! Double plus good.. yummay!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451
Bradbury's lifelong passion with books began at an early age. As a frequent visitor to his local libraries in the 1920s and 1930s, he recalls being disappointed because they did not stock popular science fiction novels, like those of H. G. Wells, because, at the time, they were not deemed literary enough. Between this and learning about the destruction of the Library of Alexandria,[20] a great impression was made on the young man about the vulnerability of books to censure and destruction. Later as a teenager, Bradbury was horrified by the Nazi book burnings[21] and later Joseph Stalin's campaign of political repression, the "Great Purge", in which writers and poets, among many others, were arrested and often executed.[22]
After the 1945 conclusion of World War II shortly after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the United States focused its concern on the Soviet atomic bomb project and the expansion of communism. The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)—formed in 1938 to investigate American citizens and organizations suspected of having communist ties—held hearings in 1947 to investigate alleged communist influence in Hollywood movie-making. These hearings resulted in the blacklisting of the so-called "Hollywood Ten",[23] a group of influential screenwriters and directors. This governmental interference in the affairs of artists and creative types greatly angered Bradbury.[24] Bitter and concerned about the workings of his government, a late 1949 nighttime encounter with an overzealous police officer would inspire Bradbury to write "The Pedestrian", a short story which would go on to become "The Fireman" and then Fahrenheit 451. The rise of Senator Joseph McCarthy's hearings hostile to accused communists starting in 1950, would only deepen Bradbury's contempt over government overreach.[25][26]
The same year HUAC began investigating Hollywood is often considered the beginning of the Cold War, as in March 1947, the Truman Doctrine was announced. By about 1950, the Cold War was in full swing and the American public's fear of atomic warfare and communist influence was at a feverish level. The stage was set for Bradbury to write the dramatic nuclear holocaust ending of Fahrenheit 451, exemplifying the type of scenario feared by many Americans of the time.[27]
Bradbury's early life witnessed the Golden Age of Radio while the transition to the Golden Age of Television began right around the time he started to work on the stories that would eventually lead to Fahrenheit 451. Bradbury saw these forms of media as a threat to the reading of books, indeed as a threat to society, because they can act as a distraction from important affairs. This contempt for mass media and technology would express itself through Mildred and her friends and is an important theme in the book.[28]
It is time for the Scots to once and for all sever ties with the Queen.
Better than getting "suicided".
Suicided? By one of those non-existent threats the NSA claims to have stopped?
It seems the US and UK Governments didn't get the memo that the War on Terror has been considered a fraud by its citizens for years now. They still seem to be operating under the assumption that if their News Services repeat the mantra, that it indeed is true, but it is not.
I don't know about that...I know plenty of Rush and Hannity listeners that still fear the alCIAda bogeyman.
this is really old news
Let me emphasize one paragraph of what I wrote above, because it literally can't be emphasized enough (just replace the then radio-TV transition with a TV/Cable-to-Internet/Tablet-"Smart" phone transition:
"Bradbury's early life witnessed the Golden Age of Radio while the transition to the Golden Age of Television began right around the time he started to work on the stories that would eventually lead to Fahrenheit 451. Bradbury saw the FORMS OF MEDIA as a threat to the reading of books, indeed ad'S ,THREAT TO SOCIETY, because THEY CAN ACT AS A DISTRACTION FROM IMPORTANT AFFAIRS. This contempt for mass media and technology would express itself through Mildred and her friends and is an important theme in the book."[28]
To our knowledge there is no "intermediary" when reading a book (analog.)
We do know for a fact that scientist have created the technology to read thoughts...and that "thought police" is not just a concept anymore.
The problem of course is that none of this goes "recognized" (meaning it is hidden from us or we are "not told" that this is in fact an active a program. Perhaps of universal scope, scale and size I might add.)
As a consequence we cannot have a discussion of the moral and political implications of such "surveillance" and...when married to modern media and it's homocidal intent..., now is as good as time as ever to start talking.
Once the tanks roll out of their staging bases these matters only become harder to open up.
"Prohibition A", by Mike Hockney
A drone is a terror weapon. The US government has been taken over by terrorists. The US military is the hands of terrorist aristocrats. This terrorist minority is heavilly dependent on technology.
If only they would. Polls show the referendum will fail and that is a shame. Scare tactics by Englnad's elites rulers, corporations and media have worked to supress independence votes.
And yet, would we deny that our society perspectives are not considerably informed and determined by the media heads who write the news and make the films that we all have grown up with? Do we not see the "in your face" manipulation of facts and perception today and what effects it has on people everywhere. This is much of what we rail against here on ZH. No, we do not want to outlaw speech of any kind, but on the other hand, political correctness prevents us from even pointing out the biases fed directly into our bloodstream every day. I think the term is subversion. We battle the fact that most humans are very easy to manipulate, and when combined with the force that majority can apply to everyone through the power of democracy, we have allowed them to put a gun to our head (while insisting we disarm ourselves). Lets just keep teaching "Rules For Radicals" in our schools, and see the result.....Obama?
political correctness is oft a form of reverse censorship forcing change and constraints on unaware people to their long term detriment - we were not meant to be globally homogenised, nor even homogenised by continent
Montag would have found this familiar. I read all these dystopias as a kid...I never thought we would ignore Orwell and his peers' warnings...his name was James Boyd...
Is it possible all the real men, the fighters, were killed off in various wars leaving only the weak willed cattle genotype behind to breed?
From an Empire that bestrode the world to a nation that is routinely strip mined of labor and assets via taxation to OPENLY import a 3rd world welfare class that lives better than they do on their dime?
What kind of a people tolerate this? Well, besides the English, Americans, and the West in general...
Frankly, I've had a gutfull of bailing them out, making exceptions via our "special relationship", and coming to their rescue, despite the shit they've heaped on us over the years. They're such pathetic symps that they can't trust themselves with steak knives. We had to give them our guns to arm their home guard at the start of WW 2. We got stuck with the Fed to help bail them out of their war debt in the 1920s, a monarchical war they sought. They spread their diseased central banking crap to us to enjoy via Rothschild and his familiars. They variously want to suck us into their globalist elitism and Cecil Rhodes even fancied that they should reclaim us as a part of the empire. What arrogant bullshit. Read G. Edward Griffith and Pat Buchanan for a clue.
While they were looking for communists, the true "Un-Americans," were being voted and appointed into power.
This is old news.
That makes it invalid?
These fuckers in the mainstream media need to be lined up and shot. These leftest creeps think that the lives of countless inocents are less important than their rights to detroy a national security blanket that is actually working. Shoot them and when your at it torture them for a bit just to let them know what it feels like.
you sir, are a Nazi fuck.
Ironic you use the murder of innocents as your talking point. Problem is you are not cerebral enough to get the connection.
How can you call a worthless piece of shit like that 'Sir'?
You mean, how can you call a worthless sock-puppet like that 'Sir?'
An almost three year old account with only 22 posts starting exactly a month ago today.
http://www.zerohedge.com/search/user_comments?name=Bindar+Dundat
C'mon, spooks, surely your boyz can game us better than this?
Fuckin' amateurs!
Comments seem way too over the top. Like MDBs drunk uncle or something.
pods
You sir obviously think the press is innocent. mmmm...not strong on common sense are you?
No.
I see....so as long as you feel you're 'secure', you don't care how it's done? That's full-retard triple stamped no erasies.
A stereotypical Brown-shirt mentality. Lets hope you're never at the levers of population control.
Bindar
Let's review. Violence bad, peace good.
Get it?
OK you guys win. I might have overstated my hate for the press just a tiny ity bit. I just wanted to see who was directly involved with the press here at ZH and now I have a list......whohaha my job here is done so who said I was an amateur.
I will stand down on the shooting part but a little torture wouldn't be out of line would it? Get over your selves presstitutes. You can dish it out but taking shit and abuse is not your forte.
"Do not look for fish amongst the treetops."
I still can't understand why HM govt. did not apply a 'D' notice to the Guardian to stop
the publication of Snowden's disclosures.They could have easily have stopped them
without anyone knowing they had done it.
Never waste a good crisis!
Which tells you everything you need to know about the authenticity of 'Snowden'. We have been drip-fed only 1% of Snowden's alleged cache ... and even that 1% has been redacted and cleared by the governments concerned.
Snowden, The Guardian, Greenwald, Omidyar.... more questions
http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2014/02/14/bfp-exclusive-former-cia-offi...
Greenwald and Co. are very important...just ask them.
From Sibel back in December:
Bingo
You seem to be forgetting who owns The Guardian.
Very good question...and of course "begs the question" what is the. guardian hiding?
These are massive "enterprises" and obviously you don't get that big unless something "no one is suppose to know about"(but everyone does) is going on.
Maybe they brought it up again cause we're thinking of doing it in the US.
Since The Guardian has seen fit to censor all my comments on the MH370 (of a technical nature, nothing of any insulting nature was involved) my only sentiment is:
WHO GIVES A FLYING FUCK?
Living in a police state is not immediately apparent until one finds their neck under the oppressors boot.
I wasn't aware I was required to have papers.
Only in the bottom of your cage.
Rumor has it they'll be passing out Zig-Zags soon.
... Potential Black Flag developing...King Abdul has appointed a new Second in Line for the Crown, replacing the USSA's current choice and Obamao visits Saudi Arabia today....How interesting it would be should Saudi Arabia(Israel) "Arrest/Assasinate" Obamao. Would the USSA initiate a Military Rescue? Would any of USSA's friends come to Obamao's Aid? Would the USSA form a Gay, African American, EBT Armed Forces Division to `Free`Obamao?
Yeah.....keep an eye on that for us.
GZG..."The enemy of my enemy is my friend"
You can always trust an Arab.
Yeah, "he skipped Ukraine."
Going with "he power players" instead of the place where war might begin.
There still is no war yet but if you can fly into Kabul you can fly into Kiev.
What products of real value does this tiny island produce that warrants the vast natural resources the rest of the world currently sends them?
Tick tock motherfuckers...
(my condolences to the productive worker in the U.K., why they haven't started hanging the cunts in their "leadership" yet is beyond me...)
I could say the same for my very own USA regarding the hanging of cunts..
Definitely no shortages in the west. considering the current cost of "leadership" (salaries and benefits of management), it's pretty clear to me where cuts can be made to get both economies going again...
"Full faith and credit" bitchez... (i.e. no faith=no more credit)
What products of real value does this tiny island produce...
Well, there used to be wool!
Schoolboys.
They produce an increasing number of news bunnies.
That accent lends gravitas.
pods
Like Mick Jagger and his Schoolboy Blues?
Stray Cat Blues
Milfs for porn sites?
Not to paint everybody with the same brush, and perhaps the few hundred folks I've worked with are the exception.... but ... but I gotta say near 100 percent of the Brits and including Scots I spoke with when i worked there (from 07 to 12 -basically through the heart of the financial collapse ) looked at me like I had 3 heads when I tried to explain the risks in the western financial system I mean like unbelievably out of touch - cognitive dissonance in the extreme.
Even today, the Brits I work with have no concept of what is hanging over our heads, they tell stories of people stealing the man hole covers and idiots cutting and stealing the copper cables that power the trains - while still energized mind you - but they cannot seem to connect the dots at all, at all!! I'm often left dumbstruck by their carry on attitude...... man you thought americans are sheep...... not even qualified to carry british wool from my experience. They really take that stiff upper lip thing seriously....
Ahead...into the buzzsaw!
Also, in my own experience, the Brits have an outstanding understanding of Material Sciences and Aero-propulsions.
Finally, dispite their occasional shortcomings, they have well-defined and innate ability to organize government and collect taxes; and have done so effectively since about 1066 AD. The commonwealth of nations represents about 14% of earth's landmass to which they can, through trade expropriate all the natural resources they'd require.
Occidental Mortal - back me up on this or correct me where I'm wrong.
"What products of real value does this tiny island produce"
The best aero engines in the world (Rolls Royce)
The best sensors, probes and other hardware for CNC machines in the world (Renishaw)
The internet (Tim Berners Lee)
The best chip architecture (ARM)
Some of the greatest building architecture (Rogers et al)
Land Rovers
Great movies (Harry Potter series, Skyfall, Children of Men, Gravity, and so on)
Banksy!
Want me to go on....?
dogging
Fuck the UK..... They are one big primary player anyways and everybody knows now.
Lets get it on.....
Actually its the multi-trillionaire Windsors. The UK residents are already beat down socialist caste serfs, jumping for coin on demand. Our future.
<---- Windsor Corgi
The UKs GCHQ when it comes to breaking laws and generally being very evil makes the NSA look like a Sunday school Baptist organistion.
Most UK citizens are oblivious to this outrage probably because there's more important things on their minds like writing/replying to their 47th text of the day.
Lets not forget Porton Down, responsible for poisoning millions of Brits, who'd much rather send a 48th text than address the criminal insanity of their (s)elected politicians.
I did not know that Cameron was a Turk.
Brits are just america's bitch .. suk it up brits!!
You fail to understand that the elites have no national identity. Britain and America are both pawns in the grand game of Risk.
We are all the bitches of those who seek to rule us. The Brits have just been setting the pace for America for years. God Save The Queen!!! and bend over
The MSM are shills and pawns for the NWO.
Fuck the Nazi cunts.
Information about their murderous, thieving bullshit is endangering national security? How about the actions of those in charge, murdering and pillaging at home and around the world, I think that is far more detrimental to national security.
The brits are well trained by their media.
The only edgy thing that comes out of brit media is another crotch shot of Kate Middleton - that lucky William gets to bury his face there.
Or of course another round of Pippa's boobies - kinda small and not much there.
Britain’s intelligence agencies dont have the power to shut anybody down....who the fuck do these cock suckers think they are...government,judge and jury.
Yeh....to protect your democratic rights we have to take them away. Or should that be...to protect corrupt intelligence agencies, corrupt politicians and their funders...we have to take away all democratic rights...and especially that most basic freedom that signals democracy...freedom of the press.
So little hitler inside an intelligence agency self sucked himself too much and thought he was god.
When the elites get scared, they put on their thug jackboots.
Next Harry Reid pushes to close down ZH as it represents everything un-American. Just waiting for the sound bite.
I do not think Brits would even go on the streets to protect their freedom if gov in facts shuts down the paper.
The worm has definetely turned. The new iron curtain is closing, only we are behind it now.
The only purpose UK intelligence agencies serve nowdays is the protection of a few polticians, banksters, elites and to follow the orders of their US masters. They have NO interest in national secruity.
kina,
same as it ever was
The Western free press has been free only in name. The BBC has been propaganda for decades. The New York Times clears every story with the Pentagon and reported the false stories of Judith Miller about Iraqi WMDs that led to the illegal Iraq war. The New York Times steadfastly refuses to report the Snowden revelation that the US hands over raw intelligence on everyone including Americans to Israel without legal restrictions.
No US media would report Seymour Hersh's story that Obama lied about sarin gas in Iraq - that story was carried in the London Review of Books. No US media would report that Carter said that US is no longer a functioning democracy.
On a personal note, my account to post at the Guardian was recently shut down (actually pre-moderated which is effectively a shut down) when I was reporting on Western propaganda and was getting 100 to 500 recommendations a post.
All this talk of a vibrant, free press as necessary for a democracy is only a myth since the leader of Western governments is a fascist, police state.
The stunning implication of this passage is that NSA spying targets not only ordinary American citizens, but also Supreme Court justices, members of Congress and the White House itself. One could hardly ask for a more naked exposure of a police state.
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/09/13/surv-s13.html
The govt leaders thuggish response: "We are absolutely not secretly monitoring everyone's communications. If we are secretly monitoring everyone's communications it is for your own good. In either case, it is a secret and you have no right to ask about it. If you publish state secrets, you are a terrorist-loving traitor -- and you deserve torture, imprisonment and the death penalty."
land of the free...
NOW SHUT UP AND PROCEED YOU WORK OR I'LL CRACK THE WHIP ON YOU ALL!!!
Reading the comments here looks like the dis-info guys are here to control the message, ya know for national security /sarc.
Uk is now a EU vassal. they are toast.
poor bastards can't even hunt with their own dogs anymore.
have radical muzzies chopping up soldiers in broad daylight unchallenged.
full of Gypos and Romanians.
no petrol.
ugly women.
UK is lost, mate.
That's the way to go: blame the foreigners.
It must be those filthy EU bureaucrats who are stopping people at UK airports claiming terrorism suspicions, threatening to close newspapers who denounce state abuses and giving away UK's public property to their buddies for peanuts.
It can't possibly be the nepotistic, cronyist, class-obssessed, sociopathic British political elite stealing from their countrymen like there's no tomorrow, perfectly happy to see hundreds of Britions commiting suicide because the Department of Work and Pension keeps making "mistakes" and cutting people's meager welfare (oops!)
No, no, no - it can't be British assholes, it must be the EU ... somehow!
Whatever the governments are hiding must be very important to someone. Wouldn't want the taxpayers to know where their jobs and tax money is going. Where is the democracy? What you say, it was destroyed when corporations captured global governments. That form of government was named fascism by Mussolini. Would he be proud now that it has gone global?
does anyfnbody read the guardian?
It needs a hot centerfold for most of us to read it.
The Guardian is one paper who has guts, the sniveling propaganda left and right wing spew2ing excuses for msm in North America should be shut down for kow towing to government and corporations.
Also very important is that The Guardian is funded by a trust and not by ads and is controlled by independent trustees rather than equity holders. Opinions as to the political positions of the trustees may vary but to me at least it is clear that they are committed to sustaining a highly professional news reporting organization that is independent of government and financial pressure. It is no wonder the British intelligence and political establishment go after the Guardian with such vitriol - they are one of the very few sources of the truth that cannot be compromised or controlled through the 'Good Old Boys' network.
The US and UK have turned into the old Soviet Union.
After the oligarchs collect enough wealth they'll let it go Soviet style (shortages and waiting in line)
It won't go "Soviet Style" for letting it go.
It will go "Soviet Styel" (and has been going) bit by bit as individuals figure out that production is penalized and idleness subsidized.
This, after all, is the foundation of the elite's power: "Something for nothing".
The problem is that they forget the other side of the transaction, "Nothing for something".
The inevitable and totally foreseeable and utterly unavoidable result is the production of less "somethings" - ergo 'Going Soviet".
And now the refrain, "Yes, we will all go down together..."
Delete
No, Mr Johnson, you weren't put in a very difficult position. You were given a choice. Stand up and be counted whatever the cost or roll over and never again see a free press in the UK.
And what did you do, you w*nker??
He published them.
Who's the w*nker, again?
Mr Johnson discovered that the only two words needed to be uttered by anybody in British Government -- whether elected or not -- are "National Security".
On the back of those words, all public debate ceases immediately, MSM Daily Slime goes into hiding and the government can virtually do what it pleases. Including getting a fully suckered Court to close down his newspaper, and probably imprison its Editor etc under the Official Secrets Act.
Given that Britain is an elected dictatorship without a proper Constitution, NOT an accountable democracy, this should not surprise anyone.
It has always been thus.
And it's getting worse as the criminal power-elite struggle to hold the line against the utter shambles it has made of running the country.
W*nkers
http://news.images.itv.com/image/file/301585/category_article_update_img...
The great thing about being a producer of propaganda is that is so easy to create the sensationalist bullshit necessary to boost sales.
Mr Johnson revealed that a senior civil servant had told the paper’s editor, Alan Rusbridger, that the “prime minister, the deputy prime minister, the foreign secretary, the home secretary and the attorney general have got a problem with you”.
Mr. Rusbridger replied that he wasn't suprised the aformentioned had a problem with him considering the dirt that NSA's spying has revealed about all of them and if they didn't shut their fat gobs he would put it all on the front page.
No further comment was was recieved by the Guardian from Govt. officials.
And then you woke up.
What's next? Polonium in his soup?
Well, that’s freedom for ya. Every British citizen who supports that government is now asking to be a slave.
Glenn Greenwald:
"Those with political and financial clout are routinely allowed to break the law with no legal repercussions whatsoever. Often they need not even exploit their access to superior lawyers because they don’t see the inside of a courtroom in the first place—not even when they get caught in the most egregious criminality. The criminal justice system is now almost exclusively reserved for ordinary Americans, who are routinely subjected to harsh punishments even for the pettiest of offenses." (27 October 2011)
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/4102:with-liberty-and-justice-for-some
Glenn Greenwald was a constitutional law litigator in New York, and at the time of this column was a Contributing Writer at Salon, where he wrote his daily political blog, Unclaimed Territory.
I wonder how long it will take for the average British citizen to realize that a government that so lightly licenses itself to abuse its citizens is a greater danger to them than any threat such a government would be capable of countering.
It appears Voldemort has taken over the Ministry.
Time to dump the information on the Internet. All of it.
And don't do the encrypted "we-hold-the-key-to-irrelevance" pony show that Assange did.
Lawless government makes a threat - shut up and expose.
Are Snowden and Greenwald really working against the status quo, or are they part of a propaganda operation designed to gently ease us into the boiling water (consenting to total surveillance)? The answer will come when/if they release the documents. As they continue to withhold them, it becomes more and more likely that they are working for the status quo.
When the Sheeple awake, how do you think they will raise any Army again? How can the Government be sure which way the Guns in Freemen's hands will Point. \
The Awakening is here. Trust is gone.