British officials storm offices of the Guardian and smash hard drives containing information provided by Edward Snowden. Seriously?

Courtesy of the Chicago Tribune:

 The British authorities forced the Guardian newspaper to destroy material leaked by Edward Snowden, its editor has revealed, calling it a "pointless" move that would not prevent further reporting on U.S. and British surveillance programs. 

In a column on Tuesday, Alan Rusbridger said he had received a call from a government official a month ago who told him: "You've had your fun. Now we want the stuff back." 

The paper had been threatened with legal action if it did not comply. Later, two "security experts" from the secretive Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) had visited the paper's London offices and watched as computer hard drives containing Snowden material were reduced to mangled bits of metal. 

Asked by the BBC who he thought was behind those events, Rusbridger said he had "got the sense there was an active conversation" involving government departments, intelligence agencies and the prime minister's Downing Street office. 

Downing Street and GCHQ declined to comment. 

Rusbridger said the "bizarre" episode and the detention at London's Heathrow airport on Sunday of the partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald showed press freedom was under threat in Britain.

The detention of his partner by British officials has so angered Greenwald that he responded by saying this:

I will be far more aggressive in my reporting from now. I am going to publish many more documents. I am going to publish things on England too. I have many documents on England’s spy system. I think they will be sorry for what they did. [...] They wanted to intimidate our journalism, to show that they have power and will not remain passive but will attack us more intensely if we continue publishing their secrets.

Greenwald has said in the past that only a portion of the Snowden documents have been released so far, it would seem that there might be some that Greenwald was not originally planning to release that might see the light of day in response to these actions.

Good job England!

I have to admit that I am at a loss as to understanding what in the hell the British government is thinking. They HAD to have known that destroying those hard drives would do nothing to stop the leaks, and that detaining Greenwald's partner would only piss him off.

All they have done is to play into the hands of those who are painting Snowden as a whistle blower and the governments attempting to silence him as Nazi like regimes trying to protect their egregious crimes against their citizens.

Perhaps Britain should have taken a page from the Americans who, instead of attacking Snowden or trying to keep the leaks from occurring, released documents confirming the existence of Area 51,  had the CIA admit that they were the masterminds behind Iran's 1953 coup, and had the President buy a new dog.

THAT is how you get a story off the front page.