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I don't think there's any indication that they actually thought destroying the hard drives would stop anything; seems more likely that: 1) They didn't want any
by nwp90 13y ago
I don't think there's any indication that they actually thought destroying the hard drives would stop anything; seems more likely that:
1) They didn't want anyone else to get access to the material that the Guardian had but would not end up publishing;
2) The rules said that that's what they had to do, so they did it;
3) That's all they could do on "their patch", so CYA;
4) A little intimidation would never go amiss, surely...
- viraptor 13y agoAlso, there was always a possibility that the guys in the guardian slipped somewhere. Didn't have a copy of all the files, some password/key was stored only on that drive, note/edited information that's easy to forget was only on that drive, etc. Backups are hard - if there was even a slight chance that they destroyed the only copy of something, why not go ahead with it? They're not that stupid.
- joezydeco 13y ago5) Now if the Guardian is seen in possession of this material, would that constitute lying to the authorities?
- youngtaff 13y agoI see the drives being destroyed as a compromise i.e. spooks wanted them, Guardian refused, so a they agreed to destroy them instead. I sense the Guardian piece doesn't tell the whole story.