Targeting independent journalists and leakers has become a major preoccupation for Empire enforcers to keep the unwashed masses (aka the hoi polloi) in ignorance.
You should not be surprised because you should know what Western states like the United States and the United Kingdom have become in the world today – hit squads for a transnational elite, the global 1%. They have no allegiance, they have no care for legality, and they have no real legitimacy. And what’s more, they know it. It’s about power, which is an end not a means to an end.