[nwp90]

I don't think there's any indication that they actually thought destroying the hard drives would stop anything; seems more likely that:

1) They didn't want anyone else to get access to the material that the Guardian had but would not end up publishing;

2) The rules said that that's what they had to do, so they did it;

3) That's all they could do on "their patch", so CYA;

4) A little intimidation would never go amiss, surely...

[viraptor]

Also, there was always a possibility that the guys in the guardian slipped somewhere. Didn't have a copy of all the files, some password/key was stored only on that drive, note/edited information that's easy to forget was only on that drive, etc.

Backups are hard - if there was even a slight chance that they destroyed the only copy of something, why not go ahead with it? They're not that stupid.

[youngtaff]

I see the drives being destroyed as a compromise i.e. spooks wanted them, Guardian refused, so a they agreed to destroy them instead.

I sense the Guardian piece doesn't tell the whole story.

[joezydeco]

5) Now if the Guardian is seen in possession of this material, would that constitute lying to the authorities?