LONDON, Janurary 31, 2014- On Saturday 20 July 2013, from the basement of the Guardian’s office in Kings Cross, London, watched by two Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ: British spy agency) technicians, Guardian staff destroyed hard drives and memory cards, which stored encrypted files leaked by NSA whistle blower Edward Snowden. This is the first time footage of the event has been released.

Editors and journalists were ordered to destroy all computers and peripheral devices which could have stored Snowden data. However, it is doubtful that this information is lost forever with today’s modern technology.

The video is certainly surreal. Sending chills down the spines of all who watch it, viewers are left wondering, ‘Have we lost?”

Government agents have literally entered the basement of a news publication and forced them to destroy evidence of the world’s greatest predatory threat to human rights.

The Guardian is starting a quasi awareness campaign with the release of this footage named #TheSnowdenFiles.