Their only goal was to show the Guardian that they are only as free as the Government wants them to be. They know they can't put the Snowden genie back in the b

Their only goal was to show the Guardian that they are only as free as the Government wants them to be. They know they can't put the Snowden genie back in the bottle, but they can certainly scare the next Snowden into shutting up before he goes public. Once you accept that we (the U.S. or the U.K.) no longer live in a free society (from the Gov't's perspective) all of their actions make complete sense.