Two "security experts" from the British intelligence agency GCHQ have overseen the destruction of hard drives owned by The Guardian, the newspaper that has published leaked NSA documents describing the work of US and UK intelligence agencies.

The revelations are in a column published Monday afternoon by the newspaper's editor, Alan Rusbridger. In it, he describes the escalating concerns of the British government about the leaks given to The Guardian by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

The mood toughened just over a month ago, when I received a phone call from the center of government telling me: "You've had your fun. Now we want the stuff back." There followed further meetings with shadowy Whitehall figures. The demand was the same: hand the Snowden material back or destroy it. I explained that we could not research and report on this subject if we complied with this request. The man from Whitehall looked mystified. "You've had your debate. There's no need to write any more."

Rusbridger told him that The Guardian was perfectly capable of reporting on the NSA documents from outside of the United Kingdom. In fact, he noted, most of the NSA work was already being reported and edited out of New York; the lead reporter on the story, Glenn Greenwald, lives in Brazil.

The man was unmoved. And so one of the more bizarre moments in the Guardian's long history occurred—with two GCHQ security experts overseeing the destruction of hard drives in the Guardian's basement just to make sure there was nothing in the mangled bits of metal which could possibly be of any interest to passing Chinese agents. "We can call off the black helicopters," joked one as we swept up the remains of a MacBook Pro.

It isn't clear from the column when the destruction took place.

Another topic discussed by Rusbridger—and many other commentators Monday—is the weekend detention of David Miranda, the partner of Glenn Greenwald, the reporter who has written the most about the NSA leaks. Today, Greenwald told the AP that Miranda's trip to Berlin was an information exchange. Miranda was getting material from [Laura] Poitras for NSA-related articles and bringing them back to Greenwald in Brazil.

The British authorities confiscated a variety of electronic devices from Miranda, but Greenwald told Forbes that all files he was holding were encrypted: "Everything he had—for his personal use and everything else—was heavily encrypted, and I’m not worried at all that they can break that."



Miranda himself gave his first interview since being detained. He said he didn't even look at the files Poitras asked him to take to Greenwald. "They think I have a big connection," he said. "But I don't have a role. I don't look at documents. I don't even know if it was documents that I was carrying. It could have been for the movie that Laura [Poitras] is working on."

During nine hours of detention (the maximum allowed under UK law), Miranda was threatened with jail and prevented from calling Greenwald. He wasn't allowed to have an interpreter, even though he was uncomfortable speaking in English, which is a second language for him, he told The Guardian.

A White House spokesman told reporters today that the United States did not ask for Miranda to be detained, but acknowledged that the British government did tell the US the detention was going to happen ahead of time.

Miranda said he felt good being back in Brazil, a country he believes will protect his rights. "It's really good to be here," Miranda said in a telephone interview from his home in Rio de Janeiro, where he lives with Greenwald. "I felt the weight lift off my shoulders as soon I got back. Brazil feels very secure, very safe. I knew my country would protect me, and I believe in my husband and knew that he would do anything to help me."

As for Greenwald, he said the detention of his partner has motivated him to increase his reporting about surveillance in the UK.

"I’m going to publish many more things about England as well," said Greenwald. “I have many documents about the system of espionage of England, and now my focus will be there, too. I think they’ll come to regret what they’ve done."