The Guardian, the stridently liberal and anti-American British newspaper whose correspondent Glenn Greenwald has reams of documents from NSA leaker Edward Snowden, will be working with the New York Times to publish further stories about the information.
Snowden originally did not go to the Times out of fear that it would cooperate with the United States government; instead, he went to the Guardian and Greenwald. Now, according to BuzzFeed, Times reporter Scott Shane will be working on stories that will be jointly published with the Guardian.
The Guardian released a statement saying that it was partnering with the Times because of “intense pressure from the UK government.” The newspaper explains that ”the arrangement was made when the Guardian was faced with demands from the UK government to hand over the GCHQ files it had in its possession.” (The United Kingdom has substantially stricter press laws than the United States.)
It’s unknown how, exactly, the Times has come into possession of the files, but BuzzFeed speculates that a Times employee or someone else personally transported the files on digital storage across a border, much in the same way David Miranda, Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald’s partner, attempted to bring documents into the U.K. on encrypted thumb drives (Miranda was held for nine hours by British authorities and the drives were confiscated).