According to British authorities, Glenn Greenwald’s partner David Miranda was not only carrying 58,000 classified documents from the UK, he was also carrying the password for some of the files on a piece of paper.
Oliver Robbins, the deputy national security adviser for intelligence, security and resilience in the Cabinet Office, said in his 13-page submission: “The information that has been accessed consists entirely of misappropriated material in the form of approximately 58,000 highly classified UK intelligence documents.
“I can confirm that the disclosure of this information would cause harm to UK national security.
“Much of the material is encrypted. However, 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.
“The fact that … the claimant was carrying on his person a handwritten piece of paper containing the password for one of the encrypted files … is a sign of very poor information security practice.”
The Guardian paid for Miranda’s trip on which he was carrying these documents and the password.
An enormous weight named Greenwald is sinking that ship.