Threat to Journalism

Tuesday Update:   My new piece at The Nation with fresh Rusbridger quote. The Guardian with more details on the destruction of the laptop--and photo (left).  Plus: In an interview just now with the BBC,  money quote from him:  "Once you start conflating terrorism and journalism, as a country you are in trouble."  Here's a full summary of the entire interview, which I just listened to, don't miss.  Sample: "Rusbridger says he had to consider the time it would take to fight a legal case. During that time the material would have to be surrendered to the courts anyway. It could have taken a year. During that time the Guardian would not have been able to write about the material. It was better to transfer the reporting to the US, he says."

Also: round-up of Brit editorials on the Miranda detention, all critical.

Earlier: Jay Rosen on Twitter just called the revelations in this column, starting in the 9th paragraph, the most significant journalism news in a long time.  It's a piece just posted at The Guardian by its editor Alan Rusbridger.  He opens by recounting a famous WikiLeaks episode--as depicted in the upcoming feature movie--that he was involved in, and then moves on to the detention of Glenn Greenwald's partner Daivd Miranda at Heathrow yesterday--and then reveals what happened in his own dramatic dealings with the UK government in the past two months over the paper's Snowden reporting, smashing a laptop, and the perilous future of such reporting.  Read it and weep.

Plus David Miranda's first interview since Heathrow incident. 

“They were threatening me all the time and saying I would be put in jail if I didn’t co-operate,” said Miranda. “They treated me like I was a criminal or someone about to attack the UK … It was exhausting and frustrating, but I knew I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”...

“They got me to tell them the passwords for my computer and mobile phone,” Miranda said. “They said I was obliged to answer all their questions and used the words ‘prison’ and ‘station’ all the time.”

My book on Bradley Manning (with Kevin Gosztola) is the only one that covers the full story--from the leaks to current trial.  My new ebook on Kurt Vonnegut has just been published.