"A PECULIARLY pointless piece of symbolism that understood nothing about the digital age." So said Alan Rusbridger, editor of The Guardian, after revealing that UK security officials had smashed up hard drives at his newspaper's offices, believed to contain documentation of leaks by the fugitive US intelligence analyst Edward Snowden.
He wrote shortly after news arrived of the detention of David Miranda, partner of the Guardian journalist who broke Snowden's story, for 9 hours at Heathrow airport. His electronic devices were also confiscated.
As New Scientist went to press, details of these incidents were still emerging. But they are puzzling. The existence of offshore servers and encrypted backups makes the seizure of physical devices seem like posturing, akin to shutting the stable door after the horse has been cloned and shipped around the world. Rusbridger noted that his paper's investigation would continue – just not in London.
Good. Whether smashing up computers or snooping on calls and emails, the apparatus of state security needs more scrutiny, not less. And it's not just journalists who should care about that.
This article appeared in print under the headline "No smashing the system"
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