Germany Criticizes U.K. Over Handling of the Guardian

[bemildred]

German officials sternly criticized the U.K. for its handling of the Guardian over the newspaper's coverage of the U.S. surveillance scandal.

"I want to make clear for the government that the freedom of press and the protection of sources is a great good for us," said Steffen Seibert, spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel. "I think a scenario as currently discussed in the U.K. is hardly conceivable over here," he said on Wednesday at a government news conference.

The comments refer to a widening dispute between the British government and the Guardian, which has reported on the U.S. surveillance scandal, as part of which authorities detained the partner of a Guardian journalist at Heathrow Airport earlier this week.

"The way in which the authorities have detained David Miranda at the London Heathrow Airport is not acceptable," Markus Loening, the human rights commissioner for the German government, said in an interview with newspaper Berliner Zeitung.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323665504579026693687837178.html
(Warning: Paywall)

[Cooley Hurd]

1. When Germany tells you you're being an Authoritarian...

...you'd better listen. They've been there. THEY know!