Last month, technicians from GCHQ, the UK electronic surveillance agency, stood over journalists from The Guardian newspaper to make sure that they destroyed a computer containing files leaked to them by Edward Snowden, the former contractor to the US National Security Agency. This week, the British police abused anti-terror legislation to detain David Miranda, the partner of Glenn Greenwald, a Guardian journalist, and seize his files. Coming up next: officials from the NSA and GCHQ bang their heads against a brick wall in frustration at having allowed Mr Snowden to abscond with their secrets. It would be as effective, and legal.
Having started from a strong moral position, with Mr Snowden’s decision not to face the consequences of his action but to waltz off, first to Hong Kong and then to Russia, the US and UK authorities are steadily undermining it. The UK government is behaving like a regime that does not want its citizens and media to know or to question what is being done in their name.
Meanwhile, the US government assures us that the NSA does not gather data on Americans’ emails and phone calls except by mistake. Well, thanks for that, but speaking as a non-American, non-terrorist – a slice of the Venn diagram that comprises 95 per cent of the world’s population – it’s little comfort.