Security State Britain

[Clinton Huxley]

Looks like the Guardian was leaned on to hand back the Snowden material, threatened with legal proceedings and eventually had to agree to the charade of two GCHQ security agents going to the Guardian's offices to smash up a MacBook Pro so that "chinese agents" couldn't, potentially, hack it. The Guardian explained that it would report most of the Snowden revelations out of New York, there being no "prior restraint" in the USA and that Whitehall's intervention was a bit of a farce. Seems the powers that be learned nothing from the Spycatcher case.

Security State Britain - paranoid AND incompetent AND behind the times.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... -reporters

And so one of the more bizarre moments in the Guardian's long history occurred – with two GCHQ security experts overseeing the destruction of hard drives in the Guardian's basement just to make sure there was nothing in the mangled bits of metal which could possibly be of any interest to passing Chinese agents. "We can call off the black helicopters," joked one as we swept up the remains of a MacBook Pro.

[cronus]

Did they destroy the entire laptops? seems wasteful....and to think the country is broke too.

[Jason]

They destroyed the hard drive, although some reports indicate that the spacebar may have been taken to a secure location.

[DaveDodo007]

I wouldn't worry too much as there are still reality shows and soaps on the TV so nothing to see here. We are becoming a Nation of sheep.

[Mysturji]

Looks like the Guardian was leaned on to hand back the Snowden material, threatened with legal proceedings and eventually had to agree to the charade of two GCHQ security agents going to the Guardian's offices to smash up a MacBook Pro so that "chinese agents" couldn't, potentially, hack it. The Guardian explained that it would report most of the Snowden revelations out of New York, there being no "prior restraint" in the USA and that Whitehall's intervention was a bit of a farce. Seems the powers that be learned nothing from the Spycatcher case.

Security State Britain - paranoid AND incompetent AND behind the times.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... -reporters

And so one of the more bizarre moments in the Guardian's long history occurred – with two GCHQ security experts overseeing the destruction of hard drives in the Guardian's basement just to make sure there was nothing in the mangled bits of metal which could possibly be of any interest to passing Chinese agents. "We can call off the black helicopters," joked one as we swept up the remains of a MacBook Pro.

Because of course, these being "secrets" they are uncopyable.

[Audley Strange]

The media in this country have shown themselves to be as useless, self serving and corrupt as the politicians. I want news not political opinion and pop culture gossip. So I'll get angry about it when the start imprisoning actual journalists.

[Cormac]

Did they destroy the entire laptops? seems wasteful....and to think the country is broke too.

...strange, because their usual method consists of leaving the laptop on the tube, or on a park bench...

[Clinton Huxley]

They're doing it because they have a duty to "protect the public". Not "cover their own backsides" or "build their own sordid little intelligence empires", or "toady to the yanks", no Sir!