Guardian Threatened With Terrorism Charges for Reporting NSA Story
British police are investigating the staff of The Guardian newspaper to determine whether acts of journalism can be prosecuted as acts of terrorism.
British police are investigating the staff of The Guardian newspaper to determine whether acts of journalism can be prosecuted as acts of terrorism.
Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick said, “It appears possible once we look at the material that some people may have committed offenses. … We need to establish whether they have or they haven’t.”
As Reuters reports, this comes after members of Parliament accused Guardian Editor Alan Rusbridger of helping terrorists. The Guardian, with the assistance of former employee Glenn Greenwald, broke the story of mass surveillance by the American NSA and its British counterpart, the GCHQ.
Reuters:
Countering criticism by lawmakers, Rusbridger said more emphasis was being given to the Guardian’s decision to publish the leaks than to the fact they had been so easily obtained in the first place.
“We were told that 850,000 people … had access to the information that a 29-year-old in Hawaii who wasn’t even employed by the American government had access,” he said.
The British government has previously raided The Guardian’s offices and held Greenwald’s partner, David Miranda, for prolonged questioning under the pretext of counterterrorism. Threatening charges of terrorism smacks of media intimidation — there are more leaks yet to come, and the authorities would probably like to turn off the faucet. In the United States, the Justice Department is reportedly struggling with the problem that it can’t prosecute Julian Assange and not The New York Times and other media outlets, which also released classified information. Apparently in Britain, they’ve taken a different tack.
— Posted by Peter Z. Scheer
WAIT BEFORE YOU GO...This year, the ground feels uncertain — facts are buried and those in power are working to keep them hidden. Now more than ever, independent journalism must go beneath the surface.
At Truthdig, we don’t just report what's happening — we investigate how and why. We follow the threads others leave behind and uncover the forces shaping our future.
Your tax-deductible donation fuels journalism that asks harder questions and digs where others won’t.
Don’t settle for surface-level coverage.
Unearth what matters. Help dig deeper.
Donate now.
"Official Secrets," the new film about whistleblower Katherine Gun is largely accurate --- but this story is not over.
The whistleblower says do what Katharine Gun did in 2003. Gun is a former U.K. intelligence analyst who leaked information about the illegality of the Iraq War.
At this rate, we won’t have any allies soon.
The mere existence of a transcript of a phone conversation involving Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser (pictured), carries the potential for a Watergate-size scandal that would land on the Democrats.
The New York Times on Wednesday reported details about American counterterrorism officials' use of drone strikes in countries such as Yemen, as well as the working relationship between intelligence agencies in the U.S. and the U.K.
Documents published by The Intercept on Monday reveal that a British spy unit purported by officials to be focused on foreign intelligence and counterterrorism -- and notorious for using the “most controversial tactics of surveillance, online propaganda and deceit” -- is heavily focused on political groups and other domestic matters.
You need to be a supporter to comment.
There are currently no responses to this article.
Be the first to respond.