The government’s statement claims possession of the documents by Mr Miranda, Mr Greenwald and the Guardian posed a threat to national security, particularly because Mr Miranda was carrying a password alongside a range of electronic devices on which classified documents were stored…. Oliver Robbins… said….

The information that has been accessed consists entirely of misappropriated material in the form of approximately 58,000 highly classified UK intelligence documents… the disclosure of this information would cause harm to UK national security… among the unencrypted documents… was a piece of paper that included the password for decrypting one of the encypted files on the external hard drive recovered from the claimant… a sign of very poor information security practice…. Even if the claimant were to undertake not to publish or disclose the information that has been detained, the claimant and his associates have demonstrated very poor judgement in their security arrangements with respect to the material rendering the appropriation of the material, or at least access to it by other, non-State actors, a real possibility.