British Members of Parliament will grill the editor-in-chief of the Guardian newspaper in December for publishing intelligence disclosures by the ex-US intelligence agency contractor Edward Snowden.
According to lawmakers, leaks about the activities of the UK’s GCHQ snooping agency and its collaboration with the US National Security Agency have compromised national security.
The British publication has been charged of endangering national security by publishing data about US and UK mass surveillance programmes disclosed by Snowden.
The publication, however, countered allegations by saying that its move has opened up a debate regarding official secrecy, privacy and freedom of speech.
In August, the newspaper partnered with the New York Times to allow the US access to some of the documents leaked by Snowden, after the UK government demanded the newspaper to surrender files of GCHQ in its possession.
At that time, the Guardian believed that the collaboration would allow the revealing of mass snooping by keeping the Snowden-leaked documents on GCHQ out of government’s reach.
Recently, the web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee called for a "full and frank" debate over the surveillance by NSA and its British counterpart and alleged the move had damaged online security by cracking massive digital encryption used by millions of citizens to protect their data.
Currently residing in Russia, Snowden has been offered temporary refuge in the country as he is trying to avoid prosecution in the US.
