The Guardian is partnering with The New York Times to release some of the documents leaked by Edward Snowden. In a statement, The Guardian says it is looking to the US and its First Amendment protections as the UK government steps up attempts to curtail its reporting. "In a climate of intense pressure from the UK government, The Guardian decided to bring in a US partner to work on the GCHQ documents provided by Edward Snowden. We are working in partnership with the NYT and others to continue reporting these stories," it says.

Earlier this week, UK police detained journalist Glenn Greenwald's partner David Miranda, who was carrying encrypted documents related to Snowden's leaks, at Heathrow airport for nine hours. Soon after, The Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger revealed that the government had forced his paper to destroy hard drives after failing to seize information from Snowden. That order was later found to have apparently come from the office of David Cameron. Earlier today, confusion arose over whether The Independent had published a leak from Snowden, with Snowden blaming the "harmful" leak on the government itself.

The US government has put its weight behind the hunt for Edward Snowden, but legal protections for traditional journalists make it harder to stop an article from seeing print. The deal, however, will also shield all parties by moving UK materials to the US and leaving NSA documents in the hands of the British Guardian. As mentioned above, the Times will be given access to documents concerning Britain's GCHQ surveillance programs, but Greenwald has stated that he is still working on new NSA articles for publication soon.