14 DAY TRIAL // In a move that could easily be classified as an attack to the media, namely The Guardian’s hard drives destruction as an alternative to handing over Edward Snowden’s NSA documents, the United States is doing its best to distance itself from the issue.
Not only are they trying to put some space between the issue and the United States, but they’ve responded with surprise to the matter.
Asked whether the Obama administration would enter a US media company and destroy media hard drives to protect national security, the White House spokesperson said it would be very difficult to imagine such a scenario in which that would be appropriate, The Guardian reports.
The question came, of course, after the US admitted to being informed of the British authorities’ intention of detaining David Miranda, the partner of journalist Glenn Greenwald who is one of the few to have had access to documents from Edward Snowden.
Regarding this latter issue, even UK politicians and high-ranking officials have expressed their displeasure with the actions taken by the Home Office and particularly the act they invoked as the reason to detain Miranda.
“What schedule 7 allows an examining officer to do is to question somebody in order to determine whether he is somebody who is preparing, instigating or commissioning terrorism. Plainly Mr. Miranda is not such a person,” said Lord Falconer of Thoroton, a man who helped introduce this very act.
Other politicians have also expressed similar opinions, as well as in regards to the events that took place with The Guardian’s hard drives.
For instance, British Labour Party member Yvette Cooper asked the Parliament’s intelligence watchdog to investigate the role of the Prime Minister in the affair after The Guardian’s Alan Rusbridger mentioned that the order had most likely come from David Cameron’s office after having some previous phone conversations regarding handing over the NSA data.