A senior British government official demanded the destruction of files held by the Guardian newspaper related to the US National Security Agency’s mass monitoring of phone and internet use, the newspaper’s editor said.
Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian which this year revealed a mass surveillance programme by US authorities, wrote late last night that two months ago he was contacted by an official claiming to represent the views of the prime minister.
“There followed two meetings in which he demanded the return or destruction of all the material we were working on,” he said. “The tone was steely, if cordial, but there was an implicit threat that others within government and Whitehall favoured a far more draconian approach.”
Downing Street was not available for comment.
Mr. Rusbridger was writing after the partner of Glenn Greenwald, the reporter who interviewed Edward Snowden, the former contractor for the National Security Agency who exposed the programme, was detained at Heathrow for nine hours under the Terrorism Act.
The detention has been condemned by the Brazilian government while the Labour party has called for an inquiry into why terrorism powers were used.
In a comment piece for his newspaper, Mr Rusbridger said the official had said if the material was not handed over or destroyed, the government would try to stop the Guardian’s reporting through a legal route. He said two GCHQ security experts had tried to destroy hard drives at the newspaper.
The Guardian editor vowed to continue to do “patient, painstaking reporting” on the Snowden documents but said the reporting would not be done from London.
Mr Greenwald warned the government yesterday that he would expose its spying secrets, saying Britain would be “sorry” for the detention. In Brazil, where he met David Miranda, his partner, off a flight from London, he said the incident would make his reporting more aggressive.
Mr Miranda said he was quizzed about his “entire life” while detained at Heathrow on Sunday and had his mobile, laptop and other equipment confiscated.
In June, the Guardian published a series of stories by Mr Greenwald based on interviews with Mr Snowden. Mr Snowden has since found temporary asylum in Russia.
Mr Miranda was returning from visiting Laura Poitras, another journalist working on the story, in Berlin. The Guardian said it had paid for his flights but he was not an employee. It said it was “urgently seeking clarification from the authorities”.
On Sunday, Brazil said it had “grave concerns” about the detention of one of its citizens under the Terrorism Act.
Yvette Cooper, shadow home secretary, said any suggestion that terror powers were being misused must be investigated.
Keith Vaz, a Labour MP and chairman of the Commons home affairs committee, wrote to Scotland Yard asking for a “clarification” of its use of the act and also whether the act had been used “at the behest of another government”.
The Met said a 28-year-old man was detained at Heathrow at 8.05am on Sunday under Schedule 7 of the 2000 Terrorism Act. He was not arrested and was released at 5pm, it said.
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