5.00pm GMT

Alan Rusbridger, the editor of the Guardian, appeared before the Commons home affairs committee this afternoon. Bernard Hogan-Howe and Cressida Dick of the Metropolitan police also appeared.

Here is a summary of the key events:

• Alan Rusbridger strongly defended the Guardian’s actions in publishing stories about mass surveillance based on documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. In every case bar one he consulted the DA Notice pre-publication censorship committee before publishing, he said. There was not an editor on earth who would not have published this material, he said, which was self-evidently in the public interest, as could be seen by the shocked reactions of governments around the world. All the copies of the files under the Guardian’s control are totally secure, he said.

• The Guardian editor said he considered some of the UK government’s actions towards the paper since publication as intimidatory – but said he would not be intimidated and would continue to publish such stories. By contrast, around the world politicians and security chiefs had said the debate raised by the Guardian’s stories was one worth having, and many reviews of legislation had been set in train – including in the US.

• Asked why he considered himself better placed than security chiefs to decide what should be kept secret, Rusbridger said he was not claiming to be better placed, but in the democracy he wanted to live in national security should not be a trump card.

• He denied that the Guardian had been “woefully irresponsible” in its management of the Snowden files. GCHQ and the police had not been able to decrypt the files they took from David Miranda, the partner of former Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald. The Guardian was more careful with this story than with any other, he said.

• No one has presented any evidence that any security agents have been put at risk owing to the Guardian’s Snowden stories, he said. The Guardian has published no names. Asked about sending documents including agents’ names overseas to the New York Times so it and the Guardian could work on the stories together, Rusbridger said he told the cabinet secretary he was doing this in July and the government never complained.

• He advised the committee to ask the head of MI5, Andrew Parker, when he appears before them soon, in what forum the security services can be meaningfully overseen, with a role for people who understand modern technology and understand “the broader interests of civil society”.

• Asked whether he loved Britain, Rusbridger said he did and said of Guardian staff: “Yes, we are patriots, and one of the things we are patriotic about is the nature of democracy, the nature of a free press”.

• Assistant Met commissioner Cressida Dick said the Met police investigation into material taken from Miranda might result in “some people” being found to have committed an offence. The police have to look at the material properly to decide that, she said.

• One of the aspects police were looking into was the alleged communication of agents’ names abroad – section 58(a) of the Terrorism Act – Dick said.