UK Police Want to Secretly Arrest Journalists Who Report on Snowden’s NSA Leaks
Metropolitan Police claim an investigation into the possibility of
prosecuting journalists for their role in publishing secrets leaked by
Edward Snowden will be kept secret. The revelation that information
won’t be disclosed due to a “possibility of increased threat of
terrorist activity” follows the relentless demands for information from
journalists at The Intercept.
In 2013, Brazilian student David Miranda—partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald,
who was then at the centre of the Guardian’s disclosures about the
National Security Agency—was detained for 9 hours at Heathrow Airport
while transporting a batch of encrypted Snowden documents to assist
Greenwald’s reporting on the files.
Miranda was returning from Germany where he had met filmmaker Glenn Greenwald, who was involved in breaking revelations leaked by Edward Snowden. The leaks exposed the extent of mass online surveillance carried out by the U.S. National Security Agency and the U.K.’s monitoring operation, GCHQ.
After the airport seizure of digital material including a laptop, cell-phone, and memory sticks, the London Metropolitan Police opened a criminal investigation and posted a statement
on its website, describing the confiscated material as “highly
sensitive” and claiming the disclosure of it “could put lives at risk.”
At the time, in London’s High Court, lawyer Jonathan Laidlaw said,
“The disclosure of (the material) would be gravely injurious to public
safety and thus the police have now initiated a criminal
investigation.” He added, “…there is an absolutely compelling reason to
permit this investigation to continue.”
