Initially the Metropolitan Police launched a probe into reporters who worked in close connection with Edward Snowden and subsequently made part of the secret data he had obtained publicly available in summer, 2013.
In December, 2013, Cressida Dick, Director-General of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, admitted that investigators had aimed to find out whether The Guardian reporters had broken the country's laws by exposing British surveillance operations in their publications.
However, very few details on the probe followed that statement in the following years; law enforcement declined to comment on the course of the investigation, saying that doing so would be "detrimental to national security." However, last July freedom-of-information laws obliging UK police to share information on their activities compelled them to confirm that their inquiry was not over.
So what is known about "Operation Curable" to date?
It is being conducted under the guidance of Mark Rowley, the head of the Specialist Operations directorate of the Metropolitan Police. In the 1990's, Rowley worked on a program to design covert police surveillance for the country's National Criminal Intelligence Service.
So far, it is unknown what the name "Operation Curable" actually means. According to media reports, Metropolitan Police usually pick the names randomly. Additionally, they should be "completely neutral so they will hopefully be totally unrelated to the case," the BBC reported.
