1.56pm BST

Revelations from documents Edward Snowden shared with the Guardian have fuelled debate about government surveillance activities in both the UK and US. Since June, hundreds of stories have been published by a team of reporters around the globe.

In order to address reader comments and questions about how the Guardian has reported these stories, Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger and Guardian US editor Janine Gibson will be answering reader questions within this live blog Monday 26 August from 10amET/3pmBST.

You can submit your questions ahead of time in the comments under this post or by using the hashtag #mynsaquestion on Twitter. Clarity is our main criteria in selecting quality questions with the time allotted.

Question:

Jay Sames (@JaySames) #myNSAquestion NSA story is bigger than jealousies btwn journos. Will it bring more coop. btwn independents? But how will they communicate?

Answer:

Alan Rusbridger: The story is much bigger, as you say. It’s already bringing cooperation - see the collaboration between the Guardian, NYT and ProPublica. I would also like to see much more joint collaboration between news organisations on how to deal with the problem of securely communicating with sources - and each other. I see some signs that this is beginning to happen - also involving academics and technology experts.

Question:

Kevin Dooley (@kevindooleyirl) Are there any institutional limits that you’ve set on the reporters working this story? If so, can you offer any details? #myNSAquestion

Answer:

Janine Gibson: We run stringent public interest tests against revealing top secret material and we are careful to make the distinction between ‘interesting to the public’ and ‘in the public interest’. Beyond that we make some redactions to sensitive material on a case by case basis - these are usually either specific operational details or individuals’ names

Question:

Michael J. Collymore (@MCollymore124) #myNSAquestion will anyone do a story about the #NSA over reaches in the past. The agency admitted in '75 that it was spying illegally in

Answer:

Alan Rusbridger: It feels like we’ve written a fair amount about this. The best recent piece I have read is by James Bamford in the current New York Review of Books. It’s a fantastic primer for anyone wanting the full background on all this, and incredibly persuasive on why the Snowden material a) tells us stuff we didn’t know before; and b) matters

Question:

The Rancid Honeytrap (@RancidTarzie) Do you still meet regularly with officials from The White House and The NSA per your June interview with Charlie Rose? #myNSAquestion.

Answer:

Janine Gibson: Our process is the same as it has been from the first Verizon story. We contact the NSA/DNI/White House in advance of publication and tell them what we’re planning to do in enough detail so that they can raise any specific national security concerns and/or comment on the issues raised by the story.

Question:

Phil Edwards (@PhilMEdwards) Would The Guardian have been willing to hand #NSAfiles copy to authorities if there hadn't been threat of prior restraint? #myNSAquestion

Answer:

Alan Rusbridger: We had not yet decided what eventually to do with the original material at the point the Government asked us to return it or destroy it.

Question:

Kevin Dooley (@kevindooleyirl) Given the volume of documents and the rate of disclosure, how long do you expect the reporting process to last? #myNSAquestion

Answer:

Janine Gibson: I wish I knew the answer to this. We will carry on reporting as long as we think there are stories in the public interest. It may be that they don’t all involve publishing top secret material, of course

Question:

Silver Surfer (@RobPulseNews) #myNSAquestion Where are the hard drive remnants that were destroyed? - they are not seen in the @guardian photo @arusbridger @janinegibson

Answer:

Alan Rusbridger: They are in a cardboard box in the Guardian basement. Janine Gibson: ...in London. We don't have a basement in New York.

Question:

Max Quaye (@writingtofly) #myNSAquestion What is The Guardian's relationship with WikiLeaks like now, and how is WikiLeaks involved with the NSA documents?

Answer:

Janine Gibson: There’s rarely one Guardian relationship with anyone. It’s an organisation with hundreds of independently-minded journalists. But we are not working with Wikileaks on the NSA documents.

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Some more answers from #myNSAquestion:

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The Rancid Honeytrap (@RancidTarzie) Why has the Guardian suppressed so many of the PRISM slides when questions persist on the question of direct access? #myNSAquestion.

Answer:

Janine Gibson: There are 40-odd slides in the Prism presentation. Relatively few of them are about how it works. Many are about specific operations. We published the ones which shed the most light on the program - the Washington Post chose the same slides to publish.

Question:

Marcus (@THEREALMACTOS) #mynsaquestion how do you decide the order and or timing of the documents you release?

Answer:

Janine Gibson: We are broadly looking for stories that explain the new capabilities of the surveillance agencies. Our stories have focused on what they can do (scale, capacity, blanket orders), whether they are doing it with sufficient oversight and restriction (secret court, warrantless surveillance, domestic collection) and how they are doing it (relationships with tech companies). We determine what to publish by whether it’s necessary to stand up the story and whether the story is important. As to the order - we publish stories when we think they’re solid and ready to be published.

Question:

Kevin Dooley (@kevindooleyirl) If there was any gesture of intimidation in the US (like we’ve seen in London), would you sit on that info for any reason? #myNSAquestion

Answer:

Janine Gibson: Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. The US attorney general said on June 6 that journalists would not be prosecuted for doing their job. But as Alan showed by entering into a partnership with the NYT and Pro Publica on the GCHQ documents, the Guardian prioritises making sure the story is told.

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Some more answers from #myNSAquestion:

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Felix Bond (@inkbluemarina) Do ordinary citizens need to consider solutions like TOR in circumventing espionage? Increased R&D in P2P encryption needed? #myNSAquestion

Answer:

Alan Rusbridger: Edward Snowden himself said the following in his Q&A with readers in June “Encryption works. Properly implemented strong crypto systems are one of the few things that you can rely on.”

Question:

David Rankin (@davidrankin) Why did the Guardian wait so long to tell us GCHQ made them destroy hard drives? How was it not of immediate public interest? #myNSAquestion

Answer:

Alan Rusbridger: We had a) operational reasons and b) journalistic reasons, which will become plain one day. But I agree that it was important that readers should know - which is why I wrote about it at at a moment when it seemed especially relevant.

Question:

Mike Norris (@the_gadgeteur) @GuardianUS Thoughts/actions moving forward after hard drive destruction scandal? #myNSAquestion

Answer:

Alan Rusbridger: Well, to keep on reporting. It doesn’t make life any easier, but that’s the aim.

Question:

Anthony Friend (@Anthony_Friend) What extent has The Guard in succeeding to make itself part of the story been to the detriment of its journalistic standards? #myNSAquestion

Answer:

Alan Rusbridger: Well, we didn’t set out to make ourselves part of the story, but guess it was inevitable once threats of law started happening. Don’t quite see how this is to the detriment of our journalistic standards?

Question:

Dave Harding (@davehrdng) @arusbridger How does Gdian reconcile using 1st amndmnt rights to publish from US and support of Leveson regulation in the UK #myNSAquestion

Answer:

Alan Rusbridger: All UK news organisations support some form of independent/self regulation along similar lines to that recommended by Leveson - though we’re still discussing the best way to implement it in practice. The debate has got pretty arcane because of the Government’s proposed use of a royal charter. But if you want a take on where the Guardian stands try http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/17/leveson-vote-cause-hyperventilating-editorial or http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/24/need-reform-free-press-time-openness

Question:

Adam Hosker (@Adam_Hosker) The Government asking you for the NSA data, was a reasonable request not an order? #myNSAquestion for @arusbridger

Answer:

Alan Rusbridger: We had a reasonable conversation to start with. There were clearly factions within Whitehall/Westminster, with some people in the background who would have liked to go in harder on the Guardian at a much earlier date. But once there was an explicit threat to go to law something changed..

Question:

Beyourownreason (@beyourownreason) @guardian Why did you redact some of the programs names? #myNSAquestion #Dancingoasis #Oakstar #Blarney #RampartT #PRISM

Answer:

Janine Gibson: We redact details if they aren't core to the story or if there’s a risk of disclosing too much specific operational detail or exposure to an individual.

Question:

Jason Gulledge (@ramdac) #myNSAquestion do you trust "the cloud?" Are you working with other journalist orgs to work on open source tools you all can use?

Answer:

Alan Rusbridger: Reading these documents doesn’t cncourage faith in the Cloud. We are very open to working with other news orgs to find new tools to enable reporters to have confidential conversations with sources…

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Some more answers from #myNSAquestion:

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Jeremy Duns (@jeremyduns) #mynsaquestion Snowden claimed UK govt leaked to Independent, and Greenwald reported it as fact - without any evidence. Isn't that worrying?

Answer:

Alan Rusbridger: Did he? Not here, he didn’t

Question:

John R. Ewing (@jackewingjr) #myNSAquestion Are you taking any precautions to prevent US/UK government tampering/stealing with the documents?

Answer:

Alan Rusbridger: Yes. And many of them are now with the NYT.

Question:

John R. Ewing (@jackewingjr) #myNSAquestion Is the Guardian assisting Mr. Miranda in his legal battle against the UK government?

Answer:

Alan Rusbridger: Yes we are

Mike Mozart (@JeepersMedia) Do you believe that your @guardian offices are bugged? If they would bug embassies, news outlets would be a no-brainer. #mynsaquestion

Answer:

Janine Gibson: If they are, I feel very sorry for anyone who has to monitor those listening devices.

Question:

zeroheadroom (@zeroheadroom) #mynsaquestion Have your reporters been visited/ harassed by the authorities? I presume the intimidation is there

Answer:

Janine Gibson: I don’t imagine the NSA are thrilled by the stories we’ve been running, but the US operation hasn't been interfered with at all.

From Facebook:

Question: Given the pressure that the UK gov't has been applying (an actually that's the source of another question - what other pressure are they applying that we may not know about) on the Guardian newspaper, is there a point where you might decide that enough is enough and that you would not pursue coverage of these very important stories anymore?

Answer:

Alan Rusbridger: Hope not: as I wrote in my piece last week we intend to go on reporting.

Question: Are you sure that Snowden is the real deal? He first flees to China, and then to Russia. Has it ever occurred to you that he's playing you for fools?

Answer:

Janine Gibson: We spent time establishing that Edward Snowden was who he said he was - a contractor for NSA - and that the material he had was genuine. I can see how he would be playing us for fools if his revelations were fake, but they aren’t.

From Google+

Question: What privacy rights do Britons already have either from Europe or our own law that we can use to draw a line, like the 4th amendment in the US?

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