British Newspaper Has Advantages in Battle With Government Over Secrets

By: Steven Erlanger | New York Times

Alan Rusbridger, the mop-haired, soft-spoken editor of The Guardian newspaper, finds himself in a shadowy battle with the British government over purloined secrets that the government will have a hard time winning in the Internet age.

The Guardian, which leans left and used to see itself as the voice of Britain’s socially conscious middle class, has struck a more combative tone in the last few years. It was deeply involved in publishing the WikiLeaks material and with that organization’s impresario, Julian Assange, and now Glenn Greenwald and t Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked classifed information to Glenn Greenwald, a blogger for The Guardian.