Guardian and Snowden: Alan Rusbridger knocks MPs' questions out of the park – but he may be dismayed by police action

And Ben Emmerson, who has been the UN's leading voice on counter-terrorism and human rights since 2011, said in a Guardian article: “It is the role of a free press to hold governments to account, and yet there have even been outrageous suggestions from some Conservative MPs that the Guardian should face a criminal investigation. It has been disheartening to see some tabloids giving prominence to this nonsense."

Index on Censorship also sent a letter to the committee chairman, Keith Vaz, defending the publication of the Snowden files, saying: “The Guardian has also lived up to the responsibility of a free press to reveal facts and issues of interest to the public. A British newspaper should be able to report on these issues without fear of retribution. But comments made by politicians and the security services made have led many round the world to question Britain’s commitment to press freedom.”

As it was, Rusbridger needed no help. He neatly knocked out of the park the easy questions from the Labour and Lib Dem MPs who supported him and made the Tory MP Michael Ellis, a man who seems to have been born angry, appear almost ludicrous in his questioning.

Ellis almost got close to making a serious point when he asked if the Guardian had paid for David Miranda, the partner of the journalist Glenn Greenwald, to transport 58,000 files across Europe. Of course the answer was “yes” but then Ellis turned it into a treasury question by asking if this was a legitimate business expense, and if this was the case, was the Inland Revenue funding the Guardian’s breaching of the Official Secrets Act.

More seriously, Rusbridger was unable to say whether there was a current police investigation into him or the Guardian. He may have been dismayed by the answers from the witness who followed him. Cressida Dick, an assistant commissioner at Scotland Yard, said police were still investigating the material seized from Miranda at Heathrow airport and there was a possibility that some people may have committed offences. He added that they would take action if there were related complaints.

The angry Ellis may well be one of the complainants, given that he accused the Guardian of breaching national security and committing an offence by transporting secrets across national borders.

Rusbridger had previously said that the actions of officials in Whitehall and Westminster had been designed to intimidate the Guardian. Prosecution could be seen as the most severe form of intimidation. Slightly more reassuring for the editor was Dick’s comments that public interest would be taken into account before any charges were levelled.

At start of the hearing the Vaz appeared almost McCarthyite with a bizarre question.

Vaz: "Some of the criticism against you and the Guardian have been very very personal. You and I were both born outside this country, but I love this country. Do you love this country?"

Rusbridger: "We live in a democracy and most of the people working on this story are British people who have families in this country, who love this country. I'm slightly surprised to be asked the question but yes, we are patriots and one of the things we are patriotic about is the nature of democracy, the nature of a free press and the fact that one can in this country discuss and report these things."

Vaz: "So the reason why you've done this has not been to damage the country, it is to help the country understand what is going on as far as surveillance is concerned?"

Rusbridger: "I think there are countries, and they're not generally democracies, where the press are not free to write about these things and where the security services do tell editors what to write, and where politicians do censor newspapers. That's not the country that we live in, in Britain, that's not the country that America is and one of the things I love about this country is that we have that freedom to write, and report, and to think and we have some privacy, and those are the concerns which need to be balanced against national security, which no one is underestimating. And I can speak for the entire Guardian staff who live in this country that they want to be secure too."

A relieved Vaz shed himself of his tough guy image: "Thank you so much, that's very clear."

Rusbridger defended the publication of the Snowden files, as he has done from the start, by saying they have caused a legitimate debate about the role of the security services and surveillance. He said that if the Guardian had not printed the stories then someone else would: “There is not an editor on earth who having been offered the story would have sent it back.”

He continued: "In terms of the broader debate, I can't think of a story in recent times that has ricocheted around the world like this has and which has been more broadly debated in parliaments, in courts and amongst NGOs.

"The roll call of people who have said there needs to be a debate about this includes three presidents of the United States, two vice-presidents, generals, the security chiefs in the US [who] are all saying this is a debate that in retrospect we had to have."

During an hour-long session in front of the home affairs select committee, Rusbridger also:

• Said the Guardian had consulted government officials and intelligence agencies – including the FBI, GCHQ, the White House and the Cabinet Office – on more than 100 occasions before the publication of stories.
• Said the D-Notice committee, which flags the potential damage a story might cause to national security, had said that nothing published by the Guardian had put British lives at risk.
• Argued that news organisations that had published stories from the Snowden files had performed a public service and highlighted the weakness of the scrutiny of agencies such as GCHQ and the NSA. "It's self-evident," he said. "If the president of the US calls a review of everything to do with this and that information only came to light via newspapers, then newspapers have done something oversight failed to do."
• Asked why parliament had not demanded to know how 850,000 people had been given access to the GCHQ top-secret files taken by Snowden, who was a private security contractor.

Rusbridger said the Guardian had been put under the kind of pressure to stop publishing stories that would have been inconceivable in other countries.

"They include prior restraint, they include a senior Whitehall official coming to see me to say: 'There has been enough debate now'. They include asking for the destruction of our disks. They include MPs calling for the police to prosecute the editor. So there are things that are inconceivable in the US.”

However he did promise restraint in publishing stories that were not in the national interest, saying the files were not a “bran tub” for journalists. One of the reasons could be, as he admitted, that since the American Glenn Greenwald left the newspaper they had lost contact with Snowden.