ABSTRACT
On 11 September 2001, NBC News presenter Tom Brokaw told his audience, 'There has been a declaration of war by terrorists on the United States'. The next day President George W. Bush turned the phrase around, declaring that the US was now fighting a war on terror, thereby elevating himself to the position of wartime president. Seemingly motivated by the Snowden leaks, the Cabinet Office asked the Law Commission for 'an effective and coherent legal response to unauthorised disclosures'. Given the strident support of sections of the media, it would have suited the Conservative government that the Law Commission, established as an independent body, proposed even more draconian legislation to clamp down on free speech. In their championing being tough on terrorism and stoking fear in the community, many in the right-wing media had handed the government a legal stick with which to beat them. And in the poetry that sometimes passes for justice, beat them they did.
