As much as the UK government would probably love being confused for the US government, at least the visit to the Guardian and detainment of Miranda were both done by the UK.

And given how the UK government loves nothing more than to be the lapdog of the US, I have no doubts it was done entirely voluntarily.

Eagerly even, as an opportunity to show off just how extra exceedingly loyal minions they are.

Frankly, I have little doubt that the UK government participates so eagerly that just occasionally some of their US counterparts must be a little bit embarrassed on their behalf over seeing their total lack of self respect in trying to impress.

Except you know, in that case the person actually did have classified documents of an allied nation on a thumbdrive on them.

Which you know - is still illegal to have. Though it's funny how the Guardian thoroughly underreported that fact.

When I last checked, in the US, it's actually not illegal for someone without a clearance to possess classified material. This is why newspapers can print unredacted classified documents and not immediately go to jail.

It is, however illegal for someone with a clearance to mishandle classified material. "Mishandling" includes "Permitting access to classified material to non-cleared personnel.". If you mishandle classified material you may be reprimanded, have your clearance revoked, be fined, or go to jail for a very long time.

It's also illegal to traffic it across international borders, which is why what foreign spies do is prosecutable. Which is the exact thing they were doing.

Exactly my thought. Making me embarrassed to a singel fact that I live in UK, as that happened.

Good point, but the Greenwald-Snowden case is a little different. We all know the identities of the informants. The issue with the harassment of Miranda has nothing to do with espionage, it's just heavy handed.

In the case of the Chinese hackers, they were spying on reporters to discover their sources.

What they appeared to be looking for were the names of people who might have provided information to Mr. Barboza.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/31/technology/chinese-hackers...

AFAIK we don't have evidence of similar US spying for the purpose of blackmail, harassment, etc. because my concern is whether the NSA might use its sources for those ends.

The destruction of the Guardian's laptops was about ensuring they didn't get stolen by someone else - if you read the story at the time, the spooks actually wanted the Guardian to hand the laptops over but Guardian refused and destruction was a mutually agreed way out.

Miranda's detainment, confiscation of the memory sticks etc was to be expected - as far as the UK Government is concerned he's carry stolen state secrets.

What I don't really understand is why he flew through London carrying them, I believe Madrid has more routes to South American - I wonder if he was routed so he would be picked up for massive publicity.