‘We are hoping you will take the same view as Obama. It’s a good debate,’ said Rusbridger.
Heywood responded: ‘You have had your debate. Debate is raging. You don’t need to publish any more articles. We can’t have a drip drip drip of this material into the public domain.’
He left the threat of legal action against the Guardian open. He said it was now up to the attorney general and the police to decide whether to take things ‘further’. ‘You are in possession of stolen property,’ he emphasised.
Rusbridger explained that British action would be futile. Snowden’s material now existed in several non-British jurisdictions. Had he heard of Glenn Greenwald? Greenwald lived in Brazil. If the Guardian were restrained, Greenwald would certainly resign and carry on publishing. Heywood: ‘The PM worries a lot more about the Guardian than an American blogger. You should be flattered the PM thinks you are important.’
The Guardian was now a target for foreign powers, he went on. It might be penetrated by Chinese agents. Or Russians. ‘Do you know how many Chinese agents are on your staff?’ He gestured at the modern flats visible from the window across muggy Regent’s Canal. The Guardian sits at a busy crossroads: in one direction King’s Cross and St Pancras stations, between them an old goods yard, soon to be Google’s new European HQ. On the canal are barges, coots and moorhens. Heywood pointed at the flats opposite and remarked, ‘I wonder where our guys are?’ It was impossible to tell if he was joking.
Behind the scenes, a lot of people were apparently furious with the Guardian. And willing to take extreme steps. ‘What do you know about Snowden anyway? A lot of people in government believe you should be closed down, and that the Chinese are behind this.’
Rusbridger responded that this top-secret GCHQ material was already shared with… well, thousands of Americans. It wasn’t, after all, the Guardian that had sprung a leak but GCHQ’s transatlantic partners. Heywood rolled his eyes, signalling ‘Tell me about it.’ But he insisted that the UK’s own vetting procedures were rigorous. ‘It isn’t in the public interest to be writing about this. All this stuff is scrutinised by parliament. We are asking you to curb your enthusiasms.’
Rusbridger reminded Sir Jeremy politely of the basic principles of press freedom. He pointed out that 40 years earlier similar arguments had raged over the New York Times and the Pentagon Papers. US officials asserted it was the job of Congress to debate the conduct of the Vietnam war, not the Fourth Estate. The Times had published anyway. ‘Do you think now it was wrong to publish?’ Rusbridger asked the mandarin.
The encounter was inconclusive. For the government, it proved that the Guardian was obdurate. For the Guardian, it showed that the government was willing to bully behind the scenes, to try and shut down debate. Heywood’s charges – you are helping paedophiles and so on – were by their nature unprovable. And as was later to become plain, the British government was not in fact at all keen to use its draconian legal powers. The reason, presumably, was simple: they feared Snowden and Greenwald had some kind of nuclear insurance policy. If HMG called in the police, maybe every single sensitive document would be spilled out online, WikiLeaks-style.
Oliver Robbins later hinted at the government’s thinking in a witness statement, saying ‘so long as the newspaper showed cooperation, engagement was the best strategy.’ In return for the Guardian having a dialogue about a forthcoming story, the two men offered a high-level briefing. After that briefing, the Guardian published the TEMPORA story with a few modifications.
It went live on the Guardian’s website at 5.28pm. The reaction was instant. There was a rolling wave of public indignation. One comment read: ‘Who gave them [GCHQ] permission to spy on us and hand our private information to a foreign power without our consent?’
Nick Hopkins, the Guardian’s investigations editor, had liaison with the intelligence agencies as one of his regular tasks. After the TEMPORA disclosures, Hopkins suggested a peace meeting with a GCHQ official to clear the air. He replied: ‘I would rather gouge my eyes out than be seen with you.’ Hopkins responded: ‘If you do that you won’t be able to read our next scoop.’ Another GCHQ staffer suggested – with tongue in cheek – that he should consider emigration to Australia.
The journalists feared that their paper’s continued reporting might come under some serious legal strain. ‘I thought at some point this story is going to get impossible for us,’ Rusbridger says. Some footwork was required.
In 2010 the Guardian had successfully partnered with the New York Times, and other international titles including Germany’s Der Spiegel, to report on the WikiLeaks leak of classified US diplomatic cables and war-logs.
There were similar advantages to collaboration now, particularly with US partners. The Guardian could take advantage of first-amendment protection. And, if necessary, offshore its entire reporting operation to New York where most stories were already being written under Gibson’s deft stewardship.
Rusbridger got in touch with Paul Steiger, founder of the independent news website ProPublica. It was a good fit. The non-profit ProPublica had a reputation for rigour; its newsroom had won two Pulitzers. A small selection of edited documents was sent off to him, heavily encrypted, via FedEx. This simple low-tech method proved inconspicuous, and perfectly safe. ProPublica’s technology reporter Jeff Larson joined the bunker in London. A computer science graduate, Larson knew his stuff. Using diagrams, he could explain the NSA’s complex data-mining programs – no mean feat.
Rusbridger had been in dialogue with Jill Abramson, the executive editor of the New York Times. Rusbriger had known her predecessor Bill Keller, and was on friendly terms with Abramson. The conversation was a strange one. In theory the Times and the Guardian were rivals. The Guardian had, in effect, just carried out a major US land-grab, raiding deep into traditional Times territory by publishing a series of high-profile national security scoops. To its credit, the Times had followed up the NSA story and produced some notable work of its own.
Would the Times be prepared to partner with the Guardian on the Snowden files? Rusbridger told Abramson bluntly that this was extremely hot material. There were no guarantees the Times would ever be able to look at it. There would be strict conditions around their use. ‘The temperature [here in the UK] is rising,’ he said. As with the collaboration over Wikileaks, both sides could benefit from the deaclass="underline" the Times got the thumb drive; the Guardian got the first amendment. Abramson agreed.
What would Snowden make of this arrangement? It was unlikely he would be pleased. Snowden had repeatedly inveighed against the New York Times. The paper, he felt, was perfidious, too close to US power.
The alternative, however, was worse. The Guardian was in a tight spot; at any moment police could charge up the stairs and seize Snowden’s material. Inevitably, experts would then carry out detailed forensic tests on the hard drive. The result could conceivably strengthen the ongoing US criminal investigation against Snowden, their source.