Whitehall Today

[malignd at aol.com]

Really good article in the recent NY Times magazine about Snowden and his relationship with filmmaker Laura Poitras.



-----Original Message-----
From: David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
To: P-list <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wed, Aug 21, 2013 6:15 am
Subject: Whitehall Today


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/08/20/1232635/-Open-thread-for-night-owls-UK-suppression-of-NSA-Snowden-reporting-should-cause-a-shiver



A little over two months ago I was contacted by a very senior government official claiming to represent the views of the prime minister. There followed two meetings in which he demanded the return or destruction of all the material we were working on. The tone was steely, if cordial, but there was an implicit threat that others within government and Whitehall favoured a far more draconian approach.
The mood toughened just over a month ago, when I received a phone call from the centre of government telling me: “You’ve had your fun. Now we want the stuff back.” There followed further meetings with shadowy Whitehall figures. The demand was the same: hand the Snowden material back or destroy it. I explained that we could not research and report on this subject if we complied with this request. The man from Whitehall looked mystified. “You’ve had your debate. There’s no need to write any more.”

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