Reactions are heating up surrounding the dramatic actions of the British government revealed in the last two days—specifically the Sunday detention of reporter Glenn Greenwald's partner David Miranda at Heathrow airport, and Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger's revelation that GCHQ intelligence agents destroyed the newspaper's hard drives in an attempt to block more reporting on National Security Agency (NSA) leaks.

The Guardian has rounded up many of the day's events in a liveblog. Here are some of the highlights:

Guardian Diplomatic Editor Julian Borger has described exactly how the destruction of the hard drives took place. "A senior editor and a Guardian computer expert used angle grinders and other household tools to pulverize the hard drives and memory chips on which the encrypted files had been stored," wrote Borger. "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."

The UK Home Office has responded to numerous inquiries about Miranda's detention this morning. The reason for interrogating Miranda for nine hours? Stopping terrorism. In an official statement, the Home Office said, "The government and the police have a duty to protect the public and our national security. If the police believe that an individual is in possession of highly sensitive stolen information that would help terrorism, then they should act and the law provides them with a framework to do that. Those who oppose this sort of action need to think about what they are condoning."

Later in the day, Home Secretary Teresa May gave a radio interview in which she echoed that sentiment. Greenwald's partner was detained to "protect the public," she explained:

"I think one of the prime duties of government is actually to protect the public, and I think it is absolutely right that if the police believe somebody is in possession of highly sensitive stolen information that could help terrorists, that could risk lives, lead to a potential loss of life, that the police are able to act. And that's what the law enables them to do."

Ministers had advance knowledge that Miranda's detention was going to happen, but sources have emphasized to the Guardian that they didn't direct it. A Conservative MP who has criticized the detention, David Davis, said that this effectively means the ministers "approved it by implication." Home Secretary May rejected that inference.

The official reason for destroying The Guardian's hard drives is also related to public safety. The thinking was that the newspaper could have been hacked, and the secret information could have been acquired by those who would do harm to the nation.

Conservative MP Mark Pritchard made this argument explicit when interviewed on a BBC radio show today. "The question I would have put to The Guardian is how confident are they in their own IT systems that their systems are not being hacked by serious organized crime who may exchange this material to terrorists for other things."

Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger said he understood concerns about terrorism but that "a balance must be struck."

Rusbridger believes the prime minister's office was directly involved, and sources at Downing Street have confirmed to The Guardian that Prime Minister David Cameron himself approved an attempt to get The Guardian to hand over its material.

David Miranda is taking legal action against the Home Office. The Guardian is "supportive" of the action, but Miranda is taking it on his own.

Op-eds criticizing Miranda's detention have been published by various newspapers. Many suggest the UK needs to seriously reconsider the anti-terror laws that allow such detentions. "It could have been you or me," read a headline in The Daily Mirror, along with an editorial that read in part:

If he had been seized by security services in Moscow or Tehran, ministers would be accusing foreign powers of taking liberties. This happened in London, so it is our government with questions to answer. Suspicion is growing that the establishment, including "securocrats" who want to be free to bug and tap without scrutiny, are intimidating journalists in the hope of evading public accountability.

Guardian editor Rusbridger gave more detail about the destruction of his newspaper's hard drives containing leaked material from NSA contractor Edward Snowden in two interviews. The decision went "straight to Number 10," that is, the prime minister's office, Rusbridger maintained.

"It was quite explicit," he said. "We had to destroy it or give it back to them. What they wanted [was] for us to give it back to them. I explained that there were other copies, not within the UK, and I did not really see the point of destroying one copy. But because we had other copies I was happy to destroy a copy in London."

It was The Guardian itself that destroyed the hard drives in its London office.

As to why he didn't decide to take the fight to court, Rusbridger says it wasn't worth the hassle. "It could have taken a year," he said, and the material would have been handed over to the courts anyways. It was better to transfer all the reporting to the US, he added.