A chill over British press

A prime minister says a newspaper has damaged national security and calls for its editor to be brought before Parliament; his government tells the same paper there has been "enough" debate on an issue and sends its security officials into the paper's offices to smash discs containing journalistic material; lawmakers call for the editor's prosecution and accuse the paper of treason; the paper is forced to spirit its stories out of the country to ensure publication overseas.

This is Russia, right? Or Turkey.One of those countries that the Committee to Protect Journalists is always highlighting in its reports on press freedom violations. No, this is the United Kingdom.

The grilling this week by a House of Commons select committee of Guardian Editor Alan Rusbridger crystallized the problems of an independent press trying to serve the public interest in a country that lacks robust legal safeguards of press freedom.

Britain is home to a diverse and fiercely competitive press, but the climate for journalists, particularly those covering national security issues, began to grow chilly after the WikiLeaks revelations three years ago. The temperature plunged, however, in July, when the Guardian  started publishing stories based on classified material leaked to it by former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.

The leaks revealed the scale of surveillance of ordinary citizens by the NSA and Britain's Government Communications Headquarters, and their ability to store mountains of data for mining at leisure. The NSA alone stores five billion phone records a day, according to The Washington Post.

The pushback against the Guardian began immediately and the tone was set from the very top with Prime Minister David Cameron issuing veiled threats and exhorting the Guardian to show "social responsibility." He also urged MPs to question the paper, which they duly did on Tuesday as part of a broader investigation into counterterrorism by Parliament's home affairs select committee.

Some of the MPs seemed less concerned that their constituents were being spied on than that the Guardian had refused to take the government on trust and shut up. The hearings are supposed to investigate surveillance, but some members sought to turn the session into a trial of the Guardian.

The questioning, particularly from members of Cameron's Conservative Party, was intimidating and laced with innuendo that the paper had harmed "national security" and, in the opinion of one MP, even broken the law.

"It's not about what you published but about what you communicated," said Tory MP Mark Reckless, referring to the fact that the Guardian had shared the Snowden material with U.S. outlets The New York Times and ProPublica. Snowden himself gave material to The Washington Post.

Rusbridger has said many times that he shared the data because he feared an injunction in the U.K. could have gagged his paper. U.S. outlets, which are constitutionally protected against prior restraint by the First Amendment, would ensure that the Snowden stories were published.

In a clear attempt to intimidate journalists, at least two other MPs besides Reckless have said the paper has likely broken the law.

Rusbridger told the committee he had published only 1 percent of the more than 50,000 Snowden files and despite government bullying would continue to write stories critical of government spying.

"We're not going to be put off by intimidation, but nor are we going to behave recklessly," he said.

Indeed Rusbridger was at pains to assure his audience that the paper had not disclosed information that could harm intelligence operations or operatives. The paper consulted government and intelligence officials more than 100 times before publishing stories, he noted. He quoted Norman Baker, the British Home Office minister; a member of the U.S. Senate intelligence committee, who asked not to be named; a senior Obama administration official; and a senior Whitehall official all saying the paper's disclosures had not damaged national security. He said the information from Snowden was in safekeeping and had been given securely to the U.S. news organizations.

He said the Guardian had been put under pressures that were unheard of in many democracies.

"They include prior restraint; they include a senior Whitehall official coming to see me to say: 'There has been enough debate now'. They include asking for the destruction of our disks. They include MPs calling for the police to prosecute the editor. So there are things that are inconceivable in the U.S.

"I feel that some of this activity has been designed to intimidate the Guardian," he said.

At one point during the hearing, committee chairman Keith Vaz, asked Rusbridger if he loved his country.

"I'm slightly surprised to be asked the question, but yes, we are patriots and one of the things we are patriotic about is the nature of democracy, the nature of a free press, and the fact that one can in this country discuss and report these things," Rusbridger said.

The whole episode was chilling and in stark contrast to the treatment that Britain's three spy chiefs received when they appeared before another parliamentary committee last month. Most MPs did not probe assertions by the heads of GCHQ; MI5, Britain's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency; and MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service that focuses on foreign threats, that the Guardian had harmed national security.