ProPublica and The New York Times explained their decisions to publish stories about the U.S. and British government’s defeating the encryption of information on the Internet the public thought was private. The publications said they thought the public interest in revealing the news outweighed government arguments to hold back the sensitive information. The Guardian, The New York Times and ProPublica formed a partnership to publish the stories based on documents from Edward Snowden, the former CIA contractor, now living in Russia.
“The government insists it has put in place checks and balances to limit misuses of this technology. But the question of whether they are effective is far from resolved and is an issue that can only be debated by the people and their elected representatives if the basic facts are revealed,” wrote Stephen Engelberg and Richard Tofel, ProPublica, September 5, 2013.
Times’s Executive Editor Jill Abramson said their decision to run the story was not an “angushed one.” She said, “Our default position is to inform the public. Publishing information in the public service is our mission in our democracy.”(The New York Times, September 6, 2013, by Margaret Sullivan)