According to a recent article from the Associated Press, a White House spokesman said recently that he had a hard time imagining a scenario in which the United States government would ever order the hard drive destruction of a news outlet’s computers. The statement followed the story that the British government had threatened shut down of The Guardian newspaper if it did not destroy leaked National Security Agency documents last year.
The newspaper’s data was destroyed approximately one month after The Guardian and other media outlets published information leaked by a former NSA contractor, Edward Snowden, the article stated. The report revealed that the agency was collecting the phone records and personal information of people not suspected of crimes.
The newspaper editors spent three hours destroying the hard drives of the computers that contained the documents. They used drills, angle grinders, and, later, a degausser that would forever render the data unreadable. British government officials supervised these activities. Recent information revealed that the White House knew about the order to destroy the hard drives. However, the U.S. government denied any involvement in that order.
Most companies will never destroy their computer hard drives. However, this story illustrates how important data destruction is as a matter of security. And it’s because of the importance of data security that Phiston Technologies has introduced and patented new data destruction technologies. These new data destruction technologies meet NSA’s own guidelines for data destruction. For more information about our products, contact us.
