British Press Hails Wiretap Whistleblower

[kskiska]

A Year Later, World Press Debates Allegation That U.S. Spied on U.N. Diplomats

The story of British whistleblower Katharine Gun has always been bigger news in the international online media than in the U.S. press.

Gun is the former Chinese language translator for a British intelligence agency who last year leaked a top-secret e-mail sent by a U.S. official asking Britain to electronically bug members of the United Nations Security Council in the run-up to the war in Iraq.

The British newspaper, the Observer made headlines all over the world last March when it broke news of the e-mail, written by Frank Koza, an official at the National Security Agency, located at Fort Meade in Maryland. The Post and other U.S. outlets reported the story, but coverage in the U.S. was not nearly as extensive as in Great Britain.

After the British government launched an official investigation, Gun admitted she had leaked the memo in an effort to stop the war, which she thought was immoral. The British spy agency fired Gun in June, and prosecutors charged her with violating Britain's Official Secrets Act. But with her trial approaching, the government dropped the charges Wednesday, prompting another round of page one stories in the British press, as well as coverage in Singapore and Australia.

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8204-2004Feb26.html

[pippin]

1. have you noticed that whistle blowers are

always women? on both sides of the Atlantic?

[acmavm]

2. It's no big surprise the American media isn't covering this story. In fact

I'm a little surprised to see the Washington Post say this much about it. This was criminal behavior, and the Bush* administration was behind it. Anybody surprised? The only surprise is that they got caught because of one person of conscience. And the fact that they were so stupid to try to prosecute her amazes me. That's what really put the story in the public eye, the foreign public, not American.

What a great bunch of guys we have running things.

[KissMyAsscroft]

3. Every country taps every other country...

That's the way it has always been...doesn't make it right, but that's how it is.

[rman]

5. Saddam tapping WH?

I don't think so.
Some tap more then others.

[T_i_B]

4. Nope

The right wing side of the UK press is not at all enamoured of people giving away official secrets like this. At least not in today's editions.