14 DAY TRIAL // There seems to be a conflict between the things the British PM says. On one hand, he touts the UK is a free country where newspapers are free to publish whatever they want, but on the other, he threatens to take measures to kill off any further reporting on the topic of NSA leaks.
“We live in a free country so newspapers are free to publish what they want,” Cameron said in front of the House of Commons on Monday. However, what the Guardian has published in the past several months has made the UK “less safe,” he says, as the BBC reports.
“I don’t want to have to use injunctions or D-Notices or other tougher measures. I think it’s much better to appeal to newspapers’ sense of social responsibility. But if they don’t demonstrate some social responsibility it would be very difficult for government to stand back and not to act,” Cameron threatened.
In the past few months, revelations regarding the NSA and GCHQ have made the front page of newspapers around the world, thanks to leaked documents of Edward Snowden. Several publications have had a front-row sit to the entire scandal, including The Guardian.
The British publication has already been bullied by the local authorities. As the government demanded they hand over the documents regarding the GCHQ that they had in their possession or have their hard drives destroyed, The Guardian’s editors chose the latter, mainly in a symbolic move, since the documents are also stored in other locations, out of the authorities’ reach.
Following the incident, the Guardian made a deal with the New York Times so they could publish the reports regarding the British intelligence agency since the American newspaper is protected by laws and is basically unreachable to the authorities.
That didn’t stop the UK from asking the NYT for the files and to stop publishing reports, something they’ve refused to do.