UK govt. seeks to erase Snowden’s leaked doc’s held by New York Times

The British government has asked the New York Times to destroy “highly classified” documents leaked by US National Security Agency (NSA) whistle-blower Edward Snowden that reveal operations of two US and UK spy agencies.

A senior official at the British Embassy in Washington DC made the request to Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson on Friday.

Alan Rusbridger, editor of The Guardian, said the US newspaper met the government’s demands with silence and it took British authorities “more than three weeks before anyone from the British government contacted the New York Times.”

The British paper had earlier its hard drives containing Snowden’s material destroyed by the British intelligence officers. The paper later said it has shared the documents with the American paper to ensure their continued publication.

Oliver Robbins, deputy national security adviser for intelligence, security and resilience in Britain’s cabinet office ministry, spoke of the government’s concern at a hearing in the UK High Court.

He said that it is “highly likely” that the 58,000 classified UK documents could reveal the identities of UK intelligence officers abroad as well as the techniques used in counter-terror operations.

“It would cause real harm to the work of the UK’s national security and intelligence agencies if an intelligence officer were to have his or her identity disclosed on anything other than an authorized and limited basis,” Robbins said.

The documents reveal the operations of the NSA and its British counterpart, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).

Detective Superintendent Caroline Goode, acting as head of Scotland Yard’s Snowden-related investigation, speaking at the hearing, said the hard drive contains around 60 gigabytes of data, “of which only 20 have been accessed to date,” adding they “are highly classified in nature, to the highest level.”