Abstract
‘The cumulative effect of this global media coverage will make our job far, far harder for years to come … We've seen terrorist groups in the Middle East, in Afghanistan and elsewhere in south Asia discussing the [Snowden] revelations in specific terms in terms of the communications packages that they use, the communications packages that they wish to move to …’
Sir Ian Lobban, director of GCHQ, at the Parliament Intelligence and Security Committee
‘The intelligence agencies were saved from true catastrophe by only one thing: the fact that Snowden didn't dump the material on to the web, but handed it instead to journalists. Together with The New York Times and Washington Post, we have worked carefully and responsibly (in consultation with governments and agencies) to disclose a small proportion of what he leaked.’
Guardian leader
‘We have always argued that a line needs to be drawn between the civil liberties we treasure and the interests of national security. We believe The Guardian, with lethal irresponsibility, has crossed that line by printing tens of thousands of words describing the secret techniques used to monitor terrorists.’
Daily Mail leader
‘It is not The Guardian that should be the target of his fury — and he [Sir John Sawyers, MI6 chief] knows it. The disaster was waiting to happen, the inevitable result of America giving hundreds of thousands of people — including private contractors to the NSA such as Snowden — access to the most sensitive material.’
Dominic Lawson, in The Sunday Times