Emails Contradict Administration Claims on Guardian Laptop Destruction

And it's still bizarre the gov't put so much emphasis on that event, given the fact that they must have known that the destroyed data was never the only existing copy.

The only reasonable explanation for this seems to be a strategy of intimidation.

"...They were thus celebrating something that imposed no impediment whatsoever on disclosure of these materials. As usual for the U.S. and U.K. security services, then, their behavior was as inept as it was thuggish."

So not only are they ready to pretty much break any laws they choose, for good measure they use thuggish intimidation as well, all the while being inept.

Lovely

Yep, we need more transparency and more backups of data apparently...preferably in multiple jurisdictions.

Silencing people never works in the long run, it sucks for the people that get trampled in the process tho.

My favorite part was pointing out the government redacts metadata in FOIA releases, on privacy grounds.

But our metadata has no protection.