The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World's Most Wanted Man (19 page)

The upshot was a personal visit from Cameron’s most lofty emissary, the cabinet secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood. This top official had advised three prime ministers and three chancellors. Assured, urbane and intelligent, Oxford- and Harvard-educated Heywood was used to having his own way.

In a 2012 profile, the
Mirror
had dubbed Heywood ‘the most powerful unelected figure in Britain … and you will never have heard of him.’ Heywood lived in some style in Clapham, south London, it reported (he was building a wine cellar and a gym). Nick Pearce, the former head of Downing Street’s policy unit, told the
Mirror
jokingly: ‘If we had a written constitution in this country, it would have to say something like, “Not withstanding the fact that Jeremy Heywood will always be at the centre of power, we are free and equal citizens.” ’

There was an unhappy precedent for using cabinet secretaries on these sorts of missions. In 1986, the then prime minister Margaret Thatcher dispatched Sir Robert Armstrong all the way to Australia, in a vain legal attempt to quell intelligence agency leaks. MI5 were seeking to halt the publication of
Spycatcher
, a memoir by disgruntled former MI5 officer Peter Wright. In it, Wright alleged that MI5’s former director general Sir Roger Hollis had been a Soviet spy, and that MI5 had ‘bugged
and burgled’ its way across London, and eavesdropped on Commonwealth conferences. There were echoes here of GCHQ’s bugging of the G20.

Thatcher’s move was a debacle. Armstrong was ridiculed in the witness box, not least for his smug phrase that civil servants were sometimes ‘economical with the truth’. Wright’s memoir sold hundreds of thousands of copies worldwide on the back of the publicity.

At 8.30am on Friday 21 June, Heywood arrived at the
Guardian
’s Kings Place office. ‘He was clearly quite irritated,’ Johnson says. The prime minister, the deputy PM Nick Clegg, the foreign secretary William Hague, the attorney general and ‘others in government’ were all ‘deeply concerned’, said Sir Jeremy. (The reference to attorney general Dominic Grieve was deliberate; it was he who would decide any Official Secrets Act prosecution.)

Heywood wanted reassurances that locations of troops in Afghanistan wouldn’t be revealed, or ‘our agents undercover’. ‘Absolutely,’ Rusbridger agreed. The government was ‘grateful’ to the
Guardian
for the reasonable way it had behaved so far, Heywood conceded. But further publication could help paedophiles and endanger MI5 agents.

The editor said the
Guardian
’s surveillance revelations were dominating the news agenda in the US and had sparked a huge debate. Everyone was concerned, from Al Gore to Glenn Beck; from Mitt Romney to the American Civil Liberties Union. Tim Berners-Lee, the founder of the internet, and Jim Sensenbrenner, the congressman who drew up the Patriot Act, were also supportive. Even President Obama had said he welcomed the debate.

‘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 deal: 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.

Two weeks passed, with the
Guardian
continuing to publish. For those in the bunker it was a demanding and stressful period. They couldn’t talk to friends or colleagues, only to those in the circle of trust. Then on Friday 12 July, Heywood reappeared, accompanied by Craig Oliver, who was wearing a pink striped shirt. Their message was that the
Guardian
must hand the GCHQ files back; the mood in government seemed to be hardening, although scarcely more well-informed. ‘We are
pretty aware of what you have got,’ said Sir Jeremy. ‘We believe you have about 30 to 40 documents. We are worried about their security.’

Rusbridger said: ‘You do realise there is a copy [of the documents] in America?’ Heywood: ‘We can do this nicely or we can go to law.’ Then Rusbridger suggested an apparent compromise: that GCHQ could send technical experts to the
Guardian
to advise staff how the material could be handled securely. And possibly, in due course, destroyed. He made it clear that the
Guardian
didn’t intend to hand the files over. ‘We are still working on them,’ he said. Heywood and Oliver said they would think about this over the weekend, but they wanted Rusbridger to reconsider his refusal to hand the stuff back.

Three evenings later, Rusbridger was having a quiet beer in the Crown, a Victorian pub in nearby Islington. A text arrived from Oliver, the premier’s press secretary. Had the editor set up a meeting with Oliver Robbins, Cameron’s deputy national security adviser?

‘JH [Heywood] is concerned you have not agreed the meeting he suggested.’

Rusbridger was nonplussed. He texted back: ‘About security measures?’

Oliver: ‘About handing the material back.’

Rusbridger: ‘I thought he suggested meeting about security measures?’

Oliver: ‘No. He is very clear. The meeting is about getting the material back.’

It appeared that over the weekend something had
changed. Rusbridger told the press secretary there hadn’t been a deal to return the Snowden files.

Oliver was blunt: ‘You’ve had your fun. Now it’s time to hand the files back.’

Rusbridger replied: ‘We are obviously talking about different meetings. That’s not what we agreed. If you’ve changed your mind that’s fine.’

Oliver then went for the big stick: ‘If you won’t return it we will have to talk to “other people” this evening …’

The conversation left Rusbridger amazed. Since the first Snowden story six weeks earlier Downing Street had treated the leak non-urgently – often taking days to respond. It was bureaucratic delay verging on sloth. Now it wanted a resolution within hours. ‘We just sat up and thought “Oh my God”,’ one insider said. It was possible the security services had detected an imminent threat from an enemy power. Or the securocrats had grown exasperated. Or Cameron had given a languid order to deal with it.

The next morning, Robbins called. Aged 38, Robbins had enjoyed a sharp vertical rise – Oxford, the Treasury, principal private secretary to Tony Blair, director of intelligence in the Cabinet Office. Robbins announced it ‘was all over’. Ministers needed urgent assurances Snowden’s files had been ‘destroyed’. He said GCHQ technicians also wanted to inspect the files to ascertain their ‘journey’: to see if a third party had intercepted them.

Rusbridger repeated: ‘This doesn’t make sense. It’s in US hands. We will go on reporting from the US. You
are going to lose any sense of control over the conditions. You’re not going to have this chat with US news organisations.’

Rusbridger then asked, ‘Are you saying explicitly, if we don’t do this you will close us down?’