Search This Blog

Tuesday 20 August 2013

UK ordered Guardian to destroy hard drives in effort to stop Snowden revelations





UK authorities reportedly raided the Guardian’s office in London to destroy hard drives in an effort to stop future publications of leaks from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.


Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger revealed in a Monday article posted on the British newspaper's website that intelligence officials from the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) told him that he would either have to hand over all the classified documents or have the newspaper’s hard drives destroyed.

After more talks, two "security experts" from GCHQ - the British version of the National Security Agency - visited the Guardian’s London offices.

Rusbridger wrote that the government officials then watched as computers, which contained classified information passed on by Snowden, were physically destroyed in one of the newspaper building’s basements.

"We can call off the black helicopters," Rusbridger said one of the officials joked.

Another source familiar with the event confirmed to Reuters that Guardian employees destroyed the computers as UK officials observed.

During negotiations with the government, Rusbridger said that the newspaper could not fulfill its journalistic duty if it satisfied the authorities’ requests.

But GCHQ reportedly responded by telling the Guardian that it had already sparked the debate, which was enough. read more


Related:
UK detains Greenwald’s partner under Terrorism Act, confiscates electronics
WikiLeaks posts 400 gigabytes of encrypted ‘insurance’ data online
You Won’t BELIEVE What’s Going On with Government Spying
Global security threat analyst says Global Governments are no longer in control


   

No comments:

Post a Comment

Your comment will be read by a moderator first before publication.
Thank you!