THE NEWSPAPER THAT PUT BRITAIN’S SPIES IN DANGER
THE charge sheet against the Guardian, from the Snowden theft to Miranda’s arrest:
June 7: The Guardian publishes story by reporter Glenn Greenwald that the US National Security Agency used a surveillance programme called Prism to collect details about emails, phone records and web activity from firms including Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Skype.
June 8: It reveals GCHQ, the UK listening post, compiled 197 intelligence dossiers from Prism in a single year – fuelling claims spies were attempting to bypass British law.
June 9: Edward Snowden, a former CIA IT contractor, is named as source of the leaks after downloading thousands of files from NSA computers.
June 10: Foreign Secretary William Hague says suggestions that spies acted illegally were ‘baseless’.
June 17: Guardian reports that UK agents snooped on foreign politicians during the G20 summit in London in 2009.
June 22: It reveals GCHQ has been scooping up private data from fibre-optic cables.
June/July: Officials demand the ‘return or destruction’ of the documents by Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger.
July 20: GCHQ IT workers destroy several computers at the Guardian’s offices.
August 18: David Miranda, 28, Mr Greenwald’s boyfriend, is questioned by police. He was carrying 58,000 documents relating to UK national security.
August 19: Greenwald says England ‘will be sorry’ for detaining his boyfriend.
August 22: Police start investigation into intelligence files obtained by the Guardian after Mr Miranda’s arrest.
August 31: Oliver Robbins, the Cabinet Office’s deputy national security adviser, says British agents have been moved because Greenwald and Miranda may have put their lives at risk.
October 8: MI5 directorgeneral Andrew Parker claims the leaks in the Guardian stories about surveillance techniques had given terrorists the ‘gift they need to evade us and strike at will’.
October 9: Mr Rusbridger insists the paper has been careful not to publish information that would aid extremists. He vows to publish further revelations.