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Pay Your Tax or we Take Your Children – LEEDS CITY COUNCIL

GUARDIAN OFFICES RAIDED COMPUTER FILES STOLEN AND DESTROYED UNPRECEDENTED AND SINISTER UK GOVERNMENT ARE A LAW UNTO THEMSELVES.

Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) operates like NSA. They work cooperatively. They’re out-of-control rogue agencies.

They spy on their own populations. They do it globally. They conduct espionage. They collect enormous amounts of personal information. They do it illegally.

Obama wages war on freedom. He targets whistleblowers and investigative journalists exposing government wrongdoing. So does Britain. It equates doing so with terrorism.

London’s Guardian is threatened. Its offices were raided. Hard drive stored information was destroyed. Its editor, Alan Rusbridger, was warned. Cease and desist or else.

He asked if steps would be taken “to close down the Guardian’s reporting through a legal route – by going to court to force the surrender of the material on which we were working.”

“The official confirmed that, in the absence of handover or destruction, this was indeed the government’s intentions.”

It was “one of the more bizarre moments in the Guardian’s long history,” he said. It was likely the most chilling.

Two GCHQ security experts oversaw the destruction of Guardian hard drives. They checked to be sure nothing but “mangled bits of metal” remained.

Whitehall was satisfied. Freedom in Britain sustained another body blow. It’s fast disappearing like in America. Both nations are more police states than democracies.

They mock virtually all democratic principles. They govern lawlessly. They do it ruthlessly. Sweeping surveillance is official policy. So is suppressing information about government wrongdoing.

Journalists involved in exposing it are threatened. Guardian disclosures fall under parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee’s remit.

It reinforces government claims about compromising national security. When good journalism is equated with doing it, freedom dies.

Guardian contributors are targeted for doing their job. Doing so amounts to state censorship. Warnings about prosecutions and imprisonments follow.

Free expression is the most important of all rights. Without it, all others at risk. On the bogus pretext of fighting terrorism, America and Britain want none of their lawless activities exposed.

On August 18, UK authorities detained Glenn Greenwald’s partner, David Miranda, at Heathrow Airport.

He was held incommunicado for nine hours. He was denied legal counsel. A counterterrorism law pretext was used to do so.

He was in transit from Berlin to Rio de Janeriro. He threatened no one. He violated no laws. It didn’t matter.

His laptop, cell phone, camera, memory sticks, DVDs and game consoles were confiscated. It was done lawlessly. Police states operate this way.

London’s Observer said Miranda was detained “for promoting ‘political’ causes.” His detention shone “new light on the Metropolitan police’s explanation for invoking terrorism powers – a decision critics have called draconian.”

London’s Mirror headlined “David Miranda detention shows UK is becoming a police state.” Targeting him “shows just how determined the security services are to get the upper hand.”

“Big Brother isn’t just watching you. He knows which plane you’re on, where you’re traveling, and he’s in close contact with Big Daddy across the water in Washington.”

It “illustrates the general point that we are now living in a security state.”

“Historically, the national interest has always been what’s good for the government, not what’s right for the people.”

PAY YOUR TAXES OR WE TAKE YOUR CHILD VIDEO

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