National Security (The Guardian)

Debate between Dominic Raab and Julian Smith

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Westminster Hall

[Julian Smith]

I agree that the NSA placed itself in a very odd situation.

The next step was to secure the documents and data, as there was a real fear that terrorists would seek to access that information by targeting The Guardian, and the Government had no confidence in the paper being able to protect the information it held. Unfortunately, the Government were not the only people making that assessment. The WikiLeaks hacker Jacob Appelbaum, who has worked with Glenn Greenwald, has tweeted repeatedly about the non-existent security under which Guardian editors held those files. Last week, he pointed out that laser microphones are routinely used as listening devices through windows and that The Guardian’s so-called secure room has floor-to-ceiling windows ideal for such remote listening by any interested foreign power or terror cell.

On 3 October, Mr Appelbaum tweeted:

“I’ve seen the horrible operational security at the Guardian over the last three years—it makes the New York Times look solid.”

And he scoffed:

“They shipped Top Secret documents by FedEX.”

Hackers have heavily implied on social media that they can access The Guardian’s US files.

[Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)]

I understand my hon. Friend’s points. He is thoughtful on such issues, so I carefully heed what he says. One issue I have never understood is that, for all the scaremongering about national security, if either Mr Miranda or The Guardian has impaired national security in any tangible way, why has nobody been charged?

[Julian Smith]

If my hon. Friend looks at the witness documents for the court case, he will see that charge may be likely, but I do not think it is appropriate to comment on that in this place.

The Guardian agreed to the Government’s request to destroy the data it held in its London office, but soon after it not only revealed the confidential discussions that took place with Her Majesty’s Government but advertised to the world that it had sent copies of the files, including information on GCHQ, to The New York Times in an article titled “Guardian partners with New York Times over Snowden GCHQ files.” In its various discussions with the Government during August, The Guardian did not reveal that it had made copies of the files and sent them overseas.

Today’s debate is not an argument to muzzle the press. As Oliver Robbins is at pains to point out in his witness statement, there has been significant sensitivity to the fact that The Guardian is a newspaper. Like the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), I am deeply uncomfortable that a left-of-centre axis is driving us toward press regulation. Newspapers should be free to report, and they should be punished under existing laws if they commit crimes.

The Guardian was right, having received the NSA files, to report on them in some way. If journalism—receiving and reporting on leaks—were all that The Guardian had done, Parliament and MI5 would not now be involved. Indeed, when the full tale of the damage done to British security is revealed, our Government might be criticised not for how much it interfered with a newspaper but for how much it trusted one.