British Spies Take ‘Zoolander’ Approach to Cracking Down on Leaks

With the decision to detain David Miranda, the partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, at Heathrow airport in London over the weekend, the British government demonstrated just how determined it is recover files leaked by Edward Snowden. Here’s something else they’ve made clear: They have no idea how to do it. In an astounding turn ...

By , an assistant editor and staff writer at Foreign Policy from 2013-2019.
580288_130820_zoo12.gif
580288_130820_zoo12.gif

With the decision to detain David Miranda, the partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, at Heathrow airport in London over the weekend, the British government demonstrated just how determined it is recover files leaked by Edward Snowden.

Here’s something else they’ve made clear: They have no idea how to do it.

In an astounding turn of events, the British government apparently sent two technicians from the GCHQ —  the British answer to the NSA — to the Guardian‘s office to destroy hard drives that the agency believed contained leaked files — files that were of course stored elsewhere online and could hardly be destroyed by smashing a few computers. The Guardian has more color on the bizarre episode, which took place after the government threatened legal action against the paper:

On Saturday 20 July, in a deserted basement of the Guardian’s King’s Cross offices, a senior editor and a Guardian computer expert used angle grinders and other household tools to pulverise the hard drives and memory chips on which the encrypted files had been stored.

As they worked, they were watched intently by technicians from the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) who took notes and photographs, but who left empty-handed.

As Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger wrote on Monday, “it felt like a peculiarly pointless piece of symbolism that understood nothing about the digital age.”

Call it the Zoolander strategy of leak-enforcement.

Here’s how we imagine the encounter at the Guardian‘s office went down.

 

Just remember, GCHQ, the files are in the computer. 

Elias Groll was an assistant editor and staff writer at Foreign Policy from 2013-2019.
Twitter: @eliasgroll

More from Foreign Policy

Children are hooked up to IV drips on the stairs at a children's hospital in Beijing.
Children are hooked up to IV drips on the stairs at a children's hospital in Beijing.

Chinese Hospitals Are Housing Another Deadly Outbreak

Authorities are covering up the spread of antibiotic-resistant pneumonia.

Henry Kissinger during an interview in Washington in August 1980.
Henry Kissinger during an interview in Washington in August 1980.

Henry Kissinger, Colossus on the World Stage

The late statesman was a master of realpolitik—whom some regarded as a war criminal.

A Ukrainian soldier in helmet and fatigues holds a cell phone and looks up at the night sky as an explosion lights up the horizon behind him.
A Ukrainian soldier in helmet and fatigues holds a cell phone and looks up at the night sky as an explosion lights up the horizon behind him.

The West’s False Choice in Ukraine

The crossroads is not between war and compromise, but between victory and defeat.

Illustrated portraits of Reps. MIke Gallagher, right, and Raja Krishnamoorthi
Illustrated portraits of Reps. MIke Gallagher, right, and Raja Krishnamoorthi

The Masterminds

Washington wants to get tough on China, and the leaders of the House China Committee are in the driver’s seat.