英國要求《紐約時報》銷燬斯諾登泄密文件 美情報機構“黑色預算”被曝光

The British government has asked the New York Times to destroy copies of documents leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden related to the operations of the U.S. spy agency and its British partner, Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), people familiar with the matter said.

The British request, made to Times executive editor Jill Abramson by a senior official at the British Embassy in Washington D.C., was greeted by Abramson with silence, according to the sources. British officials indicated they intended to follow up on their request later with the Times, but never did, one of the sources said.

On Friday, in a public statement, Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian, said his newspaper, which had faced threats of possible legal action from British authorities, on July 20 had destroyed copies of leaked documents which it had received from Snowden.

Rusbridger said that two days later, on July 22, the Guardian informed British authorities that materials related to GCHQ had made their way to the New York Times and the independent investigative journalism group ProPublica.

Rusbridger said in his statement that it then took British authorities "more than three weeks before anyone from the British government contacted the New York Times.

"We understand the British Embassy in Washington met with the New York Times in mid-August - over three weeks after the Guardian's material was destroyed in London. To date, no-one has contacted ProPublica, and there has been two weeks of further silence towards the New York Times from the government," Rusbridger said.

Rusbridger added that, "This five week period in which nothing has happened tells a different story from the alarmist claims made" by the British government in a witness statement it submitted on Friday to a London court hearing regarding an investigation by British authorities into whether the handling of Snowden's leaks violated British anti-terrorism and official secrets laws.

A spokesman for the British Embassy in Washington told Reuters: "We are not going to get into the specifics about our efforts but it should come as no surprise if we approach a person who is in possession of some or all of this material."

The spokesman added: "We have presented a witness statement to the court in Britain which explains why we are trying to secure copies of over 58,000 stolen intelligence documents - to protect public safety and our national security."

A spokeswoman for the New York Times said the paper had no comment.

The British investigation was opened after authorities at London's Heathrow Airport earlier this month used an anti-terrorism law to detain David Miranda, the domestic partner of Glenn Greenwald, a Guardian writer who has met with Snowden and has played a lead role in writing about material the former NSA contractor leaked.

Miranda was held and questioned for nine hours before being allowed to resume his trip from Berlin to Rio de Janeiro, where he and Greenwald live. Greenwald has said that Miranda had carried Snowden related material from him in Brazil to Laura Poitras in Berlin, an American film-maker who has also met with Snowden, and that Miranda was carrying Snowden-related materials which Poitras gave to him back to Greenwald.

In her witness statement submitted to the British court on Friday, Detective Superintendent Caroline Goode, who said she was in charge of Scotland Yard's Snowden-related investigation, said that among materials officials had seized from Miranda while detaining him was an "external hard drive" containing data encrypted by a system called "True Crypt," which Goode said "renders the material extremely difficult to access."

Goode said the hard drive contained around 60 gigabytes of data, "of which only 20 have been accessed to date." She said that she had been advised that the hard drive contains "approximately 58,000 UK documents which are highly classified in nature, to the highest level."

Goode said the process to decode the material was complex and that "so far only 75 documents have been reconstructed since the property was initially received."

Goode also said that it was "likely" that Scotland Yard "is investigating a conspiracy with a global dimension. It is necessary to ascertain if this stolen, classified material has been disseminated to others in order to prevent further disclosure which would prove valuable to terrorists, thereby preventing further offences and protecting public safety."

She also said that "Disclosure of any information contained within those documents would be gravely injurious to UK interests, would directly put lives at risk and would pose a risk to public safety and diminish the ability to counter terrorism."綜合外國媒體8月30日報道，據知情人士透露，英國政府要求《紐約時報》銷燬愛德華•斯諾登提供的美情報機和英國政府通信總部(GCHQ）合作的行動內容副本。另一方面，《華盛頓郵報》披露了美國情報機構的“黑色預算”，數額驚人。

***英國要求《紐約時報》銷燬泄密文件

知情人稱，英國駐華盛頓大使館高級官員向《紐約時報》執行主編吉爾•艾布拉姆森提出了銷燬斯諾登提供的泄密文件副本的請求，但艾布拉姆森沒有迴應。

英國《衛報》編輯艾倫•拉斯布里傑30日發表公開聲明稱，《衛報》此前受到英當局採取法律行動的威脅，已於7月20日銷燬了從斯諾登處獲取的泄密文件副本。

他還指出，《衛報》7月22日通知英國當局，已經將與英國政府通信總部有關的資料轉交給《紐約時報》和獨立新聞調查集團Propublica。“據我們所知，英國駐華盛頓大使館在《衛報》銷燬文件3周後聯繫了《紐約時報》，不過他們目前還沒有聯繫ProPublica。”

拉斯布里傑說： “英國政府30日向倫敦法院提交了一份證人證言，這是英國當局發起的對持有斯諾登泄密文件是否違反英《反恐法》和《官方機密法》的調查。他們在這份證人證言裏聳人聽聞。然而這5周時間裏沒有發生任何事情，足以證明事實與之相反。”

英國駐華盛頓大使館一名發言人表示：“我們不會詳述對此採取的措施，但如果我們聯繫了部持有部分或全部文件的人，也沒什麼好奇怪的。我們已經向英國法庭提交了證人證言，解釋了我們爲什麼努力銷燬5.8萬份被竊情報的副本，我們是爲了保護公共安全和國家安全。”

《紐約時報》發言人表示對此不予置評。

***英警方截獲5.8萬份加密文件

本月早些時候，英國警方在倫敦希羅思機場拘留了格倫•格林沃爾德的伴侶戴維•米蘭達，格林沃爾德是《衛報》記者，在斯諾登泄密事件中扮演了重要角色。

米蘭達被拘留了長達9小時。據格林沃爾德曾透露，米蘭達被捕時正攜帶着幫他從柏林的勞拉•鮑伊特拉斯處帶回的斯諾登提供的文件。鮑伊特拉斯是一名美國電影製片人，曾經見過斯諾登，參與了對美國政府大規模監控項目的曝光。

卡羅琳•古德探長負責倫敦警察廳對斯諾登事件的調查。她在30日提交給法院的證人證言裏說，警方在拘留米蘭達時獲得的資料存儲在一個“外置硬盤驅動器”中，並進行過加密，難以讀取。

古德稱，硬盤空間大概是60GB，“只有20GB的數據已被讀取”。她還透露，硬盤中存儲了5.8萬份與英國相關的高度機密文件，但由於解碼過程複雜，目前只獲取了75份。

古德還說：“倫敦警察廳很可能正在調查一起全球層面的陰謀。必須查明這些被竊的機密文件是否散播到其他人手裏，以阻止恐怖分子進一步獲得可利用信息，從而保護公共安全。對這些信息的泄漏將嚴重損害英國利益，將生命置於危險之中，對公衆安全構成威脅，並削弱反恐能力。”

***美國情報機構“黑色預算”曝光

據英國廣播公司8月30日報道，《華盛頓郵報》根據斯諾登提供的文件披露了美國情報機構超大規模的“黑色預算”。16個情報機構的預算總和高達526億美元。

其中中央情報局（CIA）預算最高，達147億美元。自2004年以來，中情局的預算增長了50%以上。美國國家安全局（NSA）2013年申報的預算是108億美元，僅次於中情局。

美國此前從未對公衆公開過情報機構預算明細。《華盛頓郵報》公開了預算細節的圖表，但並沒有公佈全部文件。