Last year The Guardian ran a series of scoops about the extent of mass surveillance by the security services here and in the USA. Anne McElvoy talks to the journalist Luke Harding about the inside story on the whistle-blower Edward Snowden and what motivated him to commit one of the biggest intelligence leaks in history. The former director of GCHQ, Sir David Omand, fears the leaks have done untold damage and endangered state security. Claims that America hacked the phone of the German Chancellor Angela Merkel caused uproar in Germany, and the journalist Annette Dittert argues that the memory of the Stasi's spying machine is still raw. There has been little outcry among the British public and the philosopher Alain de Botton explores the nature of news and the 'noise' it generates.