Of all the side stories spinning off of the Snowden saga,
yesterday’s report that U.K. “security experts” invaded the offices of the
Guardian newspaper and destroyed computer hard drives in an attempt to stop any
further revelations has to be one of the most mind boggling.
The
security experts were from GCHQ intelligence agency, which had earlier demanded
that the paper’s editor either hand over all Snowden related materials or
destroy the files. When the editor refused, the agency sent in the so-called experts
to physically smash the hard drives of the newspaper’s computers.
There’s
so much wrong in this single event it’s hard to know where to begin. The first
issue is the embarrassingly thuggish approach taken by a government agency.
It’s like a scene pulled from the script of a bad mafia movie. “You want I
should break his thumbs, Boss?” “Not yet. Just bust up the computers. We’ll
save the fun stuff for another time.” What sly and sophisticated tactic will
the government try next? A dead fish wrapped in newspaper? Cutting off the head
of the editor’s pet hamster and putting it in his bed?
The
second part of this PR disaster is the apparent ignorance displayed by the
security experts regarding current data storage capabilities. Smashing hard
drives to stop further security leaks is like smashing a TV set to stop the
broadcast of a television show. It’s as if the U.K.’s security experts were
frozen in 1995 and just thawed out yesterday.
All
of this brilliance comes from an agency in charge of the country’s most
important secrets. And in our country, Obama has the nerve to scoff at people
concerned about the possible abuse of blanket surveillance.
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