To me, this all smacks of weakness. If they were not breaking the law (at least in spirit), they wouldn't fear journalists. If they were capable of preventing or at least showing the danger of the acts they claim to fight, they wouldn't fear journalists.
But because the danger is perhaps not as immediate or as severe as the political narrative might suggest, or because their intrusions into our privacy are not as necessary as they claim, their only true threat are people who can expose such.
Are you serious ? They don't consider journalists a threat but rather a source.
Many of the modern terrorist organisations I am sure are sending videos, hostage details etc to newspapers in order to promote themselves and their cause. Makes sense that agencies would target them.
I definitely believe that there should be laws against though. Surely in the process of looking for terrorists the agencies must be finding some interesting blackmail information.
Intelligence agencies like GCHQ have targeted journalists for years, mostly out of fear that they will miss any embarrassing strategic stories which embarrass their political masters. There are tons of pre-Internet scandals related to intelligence agencies wrong-doing being exposed by the media - especially in places like Northern Ireland during the Troubles. Look at the work of journalists like Peter Taylor, John Weir and stories like Murder on the Rock, Stevens Enquiry, Shoot to Kill, etc etc
The problem was that intelligence agencies never defined and acknowledged the difference between protecting from embarrassment when they got caught doing something wrong and protecting from security threats.
Comments
To me, this all smacks of weakness. If they were not breaking the law (at least in spirit), they wouldn't fear journalists. If they were capable of preventing or at least showing the danger of the acts they claim to fight, they wouldn't fear journalists.
But because the danger is perhaps not as immediate or as severe as the political narrative might suggest, or because their intrusions into our privacy are not as necessary as they claim, their only true threat are people who can expose such.
So if the government weren't doing anything wrong, it wouldn't have anything to hide? ;)
You know, that logic might actually work in this case.
Yes, the nothing-to-hide-nothing-to-fear logic is reversed. Governments should be transparent to their people, not the other way around.
They don't do it out of weakness, they do it for power and control.
They do it because they can and no consequences if they do.
Are you serious ? They don't consider journalists a threat but rather a source.
Many of the modern terrorist organisations I am sure are sending videos, hostage details etc to newspapers in order to promote themselves and their cause. Makes sense that agencies would target them.
I definitely believe that there should be laws against though. Surely in the process of looking for terrorists the agencies must be finding some interesting blackmail information.
Disagree.
Intelligence agencies like GCHQ have targeted journalists for years, mostly out of fear that they will miss any embarrassing strategic stories which embarrass their political masters. There are tons of pre-Internet scandals related to intelligence agencies wrong-doing being exposed by the media - especially in places like Northern Ireland during the Troubles. Look at the work of journalists like Peter Taylor, John Weir and stories like Murder on the Rock, Stevens Enquiry, Shoot to Kill, etc etc
The problem was that intelligence agencies never defined and acknowledged the difference between protecting from embarrassment when they got caught doing something wrong and protecting from security threats.