Phantom Parrot

So, on your computers today,

go up to the case dashboard.

I'm going to go to process,

end of process, it says, add new evidence to the case.

I'm going to choose that one.

Is everybody okay?

You still may see locate source

but that's because the evidence will be located on the phone.

Lawmakers don't understand technology.

That's what we do.

We help them understand technology

to be able to use in our cases.

Because my job, and I wear this bracelet, not as a joke,

"Bring The Truth To Light."

I don't care, good guy, bad guys,

I think we're all good guys in the field.

Yeah, there's some different tactics used by both sides.

But I'm telling you I'm on the side of,

if they didn't do it, they didn't do it,

if they did it, they did it.

The National Institute for Standards of Technology Guidelines

that say that we have to be minimally invasive,

it doesn't say you can't be invasive.

It says, you need to be minimally invasive.

We need to be minimally invasive to someone's rights.

We shouldn't have to overlook data

that's proven to be known good data,

because of how we go to collect it.

There's evidence of a crime that exists sitting right there,

right there,

and I can't use it yet.

I'm telling you, it's that time.

It's that time that we help everybody understand

what this information means,

and what it could mean to us as law enforcement solving crime.

Terrorism Bill, Secondary Hearing.

The question will be now read a second time.

Thank you, Mr. Secretary Strong.

Hear, hear.

- Madam Speaker, despite the hope in 1974,

that the need for counterterrorist legislation would be short lived,

2,000 people have died in the United Kingdom

as a result of Irish and international terrorism,

and thousands more have been injured.

We will have handed the terrorists the victory which they seek,

if we descend to their level

and undermine the essential freedoms and rule of law,

which are the bedrock of our democracy.

The Terrorism Bill is therefore about protecting,

not threatening fundamental rights.

This bill provides the police special powers

to enable them to prevent and investigate a special category of crime.

These powers include enhanced power to arrest and detain suspects,

to stop and search vehicles and pedestrians,

and to examine people passing through the ports.

The exam is now being recorded.

I just need to read a few things to you.

You've been detained under Paragraph 6, Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act,

so I can question you to determine whether you appear to be a person

who is or has been concerned in the commission,

preparation, or instigation of acts of terrorism.

Whilst you are detained for this purpose,

the questions are put to you and your

response will be recorded on this device

to safeguard all parties present during the examination,

and ensure complies with the requirements of the Code of Practice.

Do you have any objection to this interview being tape recorded?

No objections at all.

Now, we have the first of a series of urgent,

short, direct addresses.

We're delighted to have Muhammad Rabbani,

Director of CAGE,

who's going to talk about the insidious development

of Schedule 7 powers

to stop and search and hold people at airports, train stations,

and the UK's border surveillance.

Muhammad?

Good morning, everyone.

Imagine you're stopped

at the borders by the police who are there.

Your devices can be taken off you.

If you're asked for your password, and you're also threatened

that if you do not hand over your password,

you could end up in prison for three months,

would you give your passwords?

I hope the answer would be no.

That was exactly what I decided at that point.

I landed from Doha, Heathrow Airport,

and the police, after questioning me, took my devices.

And they asked me, "Give us your passwords."

Under Schedule 7 to the Terrorism Act 2000,

the government passed laws that are very broad.

They impact on anyone who has a concern

for protecting confidential data.

You have no right to remain silent.

You have no right to say "no comment,"

or defer an answer.

You must answer every question that is posed to you.

I had been stopped previously coming back into the UK,

the police have taken my devices in the past,

they've asked for my password, and I actually refused.

On those occasions, it didn't lead to an arrest.

On this occasion,

I was arrested.

Do you want to start by introducing yourself?

My name is Ryan Gallagher, I'm an investigative reporter.

I focus on technology, government, national security,

and different techniques hackers and

governments are using to collect data.

- You published a story about Muhammad Rabbani.

How did you kind of come to that story?

Well, I've looked before at the

Schedule 7 Power and the Terrorism Act,

and, I had known reporters who had been detained under this power,

people in the human rights community

who had also been detained under it.

It wasn't just being used to go after like suspected terrorists.

They were using it to go after people who were just involved in work

that the authorities didn't approve of.

Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act is a power

that police or security services can use at airports,

or any other entry into the country.

They can do a strip search, they can take biometric data,

they can take fingerprints, confiscate your belongings,

interrogate you for a period of up to about six hours.

In a normal situation, they would

need a warrant to get that information.

But under this power, at the border, they don't need any of that.

And they just decide, you know, this person, I'm gonna stop this person.

One of my former colleagues, Glenn Greenwald,

his partner, David Miranda, was stopped at Heathrow Airport,

and detained under Schedule 7.

This was really a show of force by the British government

to try and sort of intimidate reporters

who were revealing controversial information

about the British government's,

and the American government's massive surveillance programs

that the general public had no idea were even operating.

So, of course, when Rabbani contacted me,

I was automatically just interested to

learn more about what had happened,

given his work in the field of activism,

and how they would use the power to target him.

CAGE was formed in 2003

in response to the torture that was taking place in Guantanamo Bay.

Its message was really simple;

charge these men or release them.

But don't torture them.

It's going to take about five minutes to even connect, watch.

I'm going to call him, he's going to call me back...

Actually, let me just...

Salaam Aleikum.

May the peace and blessings of Allah be with you too.

Wow, we connected first time, Sheikh.

First time, I didn't do once...

I have with me, Brother Anwar.

He says when he was in Doha, he met you.

I believe we did, he came to the camp.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was in the car with your lawyer.

For clarity, camp here means the tent.

Yes, the tent, our Bedouin tent.

- Yeah, we don't wanna do... Misconstrue...

Tell me this - is my understanding correct?

If I was in a no-fly zone or no-fly list or not welcome to the country,

they would not have given me the ticket

or the visa.

- So the visa was approved by the French?

Yes.

Inshallah, it's a good sign.

You know my flight, right, so

-Yes, we do. I should let you know that

I have arrived, right?

- Yes, please. - And then we'll go from there.

If I'm not out within a reasonable time

then you can...

- Yeah, we'll make inquiries after that. Yeah.

I'll just update you on where we are with the interview schedule,

and also the publication date and time.

So, Thursday is the day when we publish the documents,

and the names of the perpetrators.

Inshallah, nothing will go wrong.

Yes, yes, God willing, God willing.

We plan for the worst and hope for the good.

Yeah, excellent. Okay, sheikh.

You cannot be a good investigator

if you do not understand and use technology.

I have seen how we have changed.

When I started,

I started with cloned pagers and tapping pay phones.

Now, everything that we do involves this.

This is the fabric of our life.

You cannot investigate anyone or anything without this.

Suspects, predators, what have you,

are going to do whatever they can

to escape detection and evade.

How do we investigate it?

How do we access that data to protect the innocent?

We'd need a specific forensic tool

to break that encryption