The Failed Pacifist

LA Times Passed on Domestic Spying Story

ABC News is reporting that Mark Klein, the AT&T technician who blew the whistle on the company's apparent cooperation with the NSA's domestic spying program, first took the story to the Los Angeles Times, where it was rejected by then-editor Dean Baquet, who is now the Washington Bureau Chief for the New York Times and who claims "government pressure played no role in my decision not to run the story." However, Klein doesn't seem to think that's the case.

Eventually, Klein says he decided to take his documents to the Los Angeles Times, to blow the whistle on what he calls "an illegal and Orwellian project." But after working for two months with LA Times reporter Joe Menn, Klein says he was told the story had been killed at the request of then-Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte and then-director of the NSA Gen. Michael Hayden.

via Romenesko

posted by Doran @ 9:56 AM