Washington Post Calls for the NSA Leaks Published in Its Own Pages To Be Stopped
Was it really less than a month ago that the Washington Post joined The Guardian in publishing Edward Snowden's revelations about NSA spying on the American public and the world at large? Why, yes. Yes it was. In fact, the Post updated and expanded its revelations just this past weekend, with the slides illustrating the Prism data-collection program updated June 29. But, from the land of cognitive dissonance, the Washington Post editorial board says these NSA leaks must stop!
In an editorial dated yesterday, the Washington Post editorial board wrote:
THE COSTS of the Edward Snowden affair continue to mount for the Obama administration — though so far the visible damage is primarily political, rather than national security-related. On Monday, President Obama and Secretary of State John F. Kerry struggled to respond to new allegations, leaked by Mr. Snowden to the German magazine Der Spiegel, that the National Security Agency (NSA) has bugged European Union offices in Washington and New York. If true — and Mr. Obama did not offer a denial — the revelation could complicate the incipient U.S.-E.U. free-trade talks and further sour Europeans' once-soaring regard for Mr. Obama. Governments and their intelligence services, aware that allies often spy on each other, may be less perturbed. …
In fact, the first U.S. priority should be to prevent Mr. Snowden from leaking information that harms efforts to fight terrorism and conduct legitimate intelligence operations. Documents published so far by news organizations have shed useful light on some NSA programs and raised questions that deserve debate, such as whether a government agency should build a database of Americans' phone records. But Mr. Snowden is reported to have stolen many more documents, encrypted copies of which may have been given to allies such as the WikiLeaks organization.
Do the members of the editorial board not read their own newspaper? Or is this jealousy now that the Post is no longer a favored conduit for the whistleblower's leaks? Either way, it's … bizarre.
H/T Jack Shafer
