14 DAY TRIAL // Spies like to live in secrecy, they don’t want anyone else to know what they’re doing. Having another person know one of their most guarded secrets is worse enough, but having the whole world know what they’re doing must be terrible for them.
Well, that much was obvious when Lord Carlile of Berriew, a former British terrorist watchdog, came out and said that publishing the top secret documents Edward Snowden leaked is a criminal act.
And this is how the freedom of the press dies, a little more each day.
He goes as far as warn that disclosing such information about the NSA’s and GCHQ’s secret surveillance methods has given away precious information about how terrorists are caught and put people in danger.
Of course, that’s not something we haven’t heard before, since it’s basically the same tune the NSA has been singing, with very little evidence to back up the statements.
Even worse for press freedom, Carlile doesn’t seem to believe there was enough damage done to the image of the United Kingdom when David Miranda, the partner and assistant of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, was detained in the Heathrow airport in August, but suggests he should have been arrested instead and an investigation should have been launched.
So far, the reports have only indicated how the intelligence community has been overstepping its boundaries by spying on innocent people everywhere or important allies of the United States, with very little regard of what was right and what was wrong. Using the fight against terrorism as the latest boogie man seems to be getting old, and less and less people actually believe what they have to say anymore or when intelligence officials come out and deny the latest allegations.
But that doesn’t stop Carlile to say that The Guardian should be investigated for criminal acts for publishing information that has put the spotlight on the secretive world of the intelligence community.