I'm not a lawyer. Neither are you probably. But when Greenwald (eventually) admits that he was actually carrying confidential files, it's pretty much good enough for me.

I have very little trust in govt's. My initial reaction was 100% against the government. But having read a little of the details of Greenwald and Miranda, I'm starting to have as little trust in them as I have in the government.

When this broke it was definitely along the lines of "Miranda has nothing to do with this story. The government are intimidating me through my partner". That has quickly been shown to be a a complete lie. Miranda was working with Greenwald, his flights were being paid by The Guardian, he was blatantly involved.

I don't like what the govt are doing. I do think they abuse powers and that should be a worry for every citizen. I think that they'll have some judge declare whatever they've done legal. But I think The Guardian have pretty much set this situation up and are milking it for all it's worth, so my interest in the case is rapidly disappearing.

It's become a case of political and legal football. TBH I want both sides to lose because neither of them are worthy of support.

I think you've misunderstood. The Guardian have frankly confirmed that they have taken copies of the files that were on the computer. They didn't want to hand the computer over because they want to protect their source and so the deal to destroy it was no more than the solution to that impasse. Not some weird belief that if they destroy the computer they destroy the files.

rlLouise Mensch gets owned on twitterrl

I didn't ask about this case in particular. I have already understood your position on the matter. What I was asking you was at what point is it ok for someone to be in possession of confidential files? You state your distrust of the government, so you obviously don't believe that they will come clean about any indiscretions, so it will have to take for somebody to break rank and give a journalist some information whether it is rightly in said persons possession in the first place or not.

I can't understand your position on the matter. You seem to be in support of the release of information, but against the persons releasing or in possession of the information. Miranda was possibly in possession of information similar to the information that informed everyone that the government is spying on us. Why therefore do you believe "He was correctly detained and the information seized"?

Did the computer have their sources holiday photos and a "If found please return to..." label on it ?

I support Greenwald's exposure of the UK and US govt's widespread surveillance of virtually the whole world.

I support Snowden's actions in revealing that to the media. I support the Russian Govt telling the the US to do one when they requested they extradite him.

I support the free movement of Greenwald's family and friends throughout the world when they have nothing to do with the story. But I don't support Greenwald's blatant lie that Miranda was an innocent victim of Govt intimidation when Miranda was blatantly working on the story.

If Miranda was taking confidential files through a UK airport then he also took those files through a German airport and was going to take them through the airport in Brazil. I can't understand why they flew through London. I can't understand why Greenwald could claim that Miranda wasn't involved in the case when he knew he was. I can't understand why he'd carry confidential files throughout the world's airports when he knew there was a chance he'd get busted.

I think that Greenwald has been given a career making scoop with the Snowden files. I suspect that success has gone to his head and he's gone from breaking a great story to try and make stories. I think he screwed this one up big time.

I'm happy with that.

Still not sure the police had the jurisdiction though.

It was also to protect the paper from legal action, which was the threat from government if they didn't destroy it.

They feared any legal action would result in what I mentioned in my previous post, that is it would allow the government to exercise prior-restraint and effectively gag them from using anything on the disc.

The fact the threat of legal action went away once the disc was destroyed suggests to me it [iwas[/i a pointless exercise that fooled no one except Louise Mensch and Dan Hodges.

Not that I've heard, but one of the counsel in the case told the court that it
"contains in the view of the police highly sensitive material, the disclosure of which would be gravely injurious to public safety" and " material the unauthorised disclosure of which would endanger national security of the UK and put lives at risk."

So, to put it neutrally, it is "possible" that Miranda was carrying stolen information, that endangers UK national security and that if it fell into the wrong hands, could put lives at risk.

Do you suppose they could be entirely making that up, and it is equally likely that it was just holiday photos?

We will never know, for the computer in question has been smashed to smithereens and right now lies on the floor in a corner of David Camerons office, which is peeving him a little because it looks to him as though the monitor used to be a tad bigger than the one he uses and he's just a bit ticked off that the lacky that he sent to The Guardian didn't have the sense to not put the hammer through the monitor screen but instead bring it back as a token prize for his liege.

Well actually Greenwald admitted it almost immediately, and Scotland Yard subsequently confirmed it: "tens of thousands of highly classified UK documents". So yes, it's true, now matter how many times you deny it.

So much so, having examined the data in part they have already launched a criminal investigation. "Initial examination of material seized has identified highly sensitive material, the disclosure of which could put lives at risk. As a result the Counter Terrorism Command has today begun a criminal investigation."

In the meantime, Miranda, the poor hard-done-to innocent petal, has won a limited injunction preventing the police from using the seized data in said criminal investigation, but as they can continue to examine it "for the purposes of national security", that means very little.

No, you will never know. I'm perfectly satisfied that it contained stolen data.

Unless you are going to claim that no-one can "ever know" unless they examine the data personally? In which case we may as well all abandon a discussion forum, since whether the computer was smashed up or it wasn't, the chances of any of us seeing for ourselves are the same (nil).

So much so that, once they'd used-up their nine hours and apparently come up with nothing to charge him with, they let the guy continue his journey to Brazil.