British newspaper The Independent has an exclusive story today on new documents, leaked by Edward Snowden, that Britain runs a Middle East internet surveillance base. “The station is able to tap into and extract data from the underwater fibre-optic cables passing through the region.” The Independent did not want to reveal the precise location of the station “but information on its activities was contained in the leaked documents obtained from the NSA by Edward Snowden.”

As far as we have been informed by Snowden, he has been working exclusively only with The Guardian and the Washington Post. So, how did The Independent get Snowden’s material? The Independent, which does not identify its source, writes, “The disclosure comes as the Metropolitan Police announced it was launching a terrorism investigation into material found on the computer of David Miranda, the Brazilian partner of The Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald – who is at the centre of the Snowden controversy.

Scotland Yard said material examined so far from the computer of Mr Miranda was ‘highly sensitive’, the disclosure of which ‘could put lives at risk’.”

This might be a hint that Scotland Yard itself had provided some of Miranda’s material, which has so far not been published by The Guardian, to The Independent. As Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who wrote  most of the stories about Edward Snowden’s leaks for The Guardian, writes, Snowden has denied meanwhile having provided any material to The Independent. Greenwald argues that “right as the UK government is trying to tell a court that there are serious dangers to the public safety from these documents, there suddenly appears exactly the type of disclosure the UK government wants but that has never happened before.”

The story is becoming more bizarre by the day. The British media have so far more or less kept silent about the NSA-GCHQ surveillance scandal revealed by Snowden and Greenwald. According to The Independent, the British government fears that Greenwald could attempt to release damaging information. In that context, Grennwald’s threat after his partner’s detention at Heathrow airport,  “I will be far more aggressive in my reporting from now. I am going to publish many more documents. I have many more documents on England’s spy system. I think  they will be sorry for what they did,” wasn’t helpful. We want to be informed, not retaliate.

23 August 2013 @ 5:25 pm.

Last modified August 23, 2013.