UK gov asked NYT to destroy Snowden material

The British government asked the New York Times to destroy copies of NSA documents leaked by former contractor Edward Snowden–specifically, "anything related to the operations of the U.S. spy agency and its British partner, Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ)," reports Reuters today.

"The British request, made to Times executive editor Jill Abramson by a senior official at the British Embassy in Washington D.C., was greeted by Abramson with silence, according to the sources."

Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger says his organization destroyed all of the Snowden documents they'd received, under extreme pressure from the UK government. Those same documents evidently made their way to the NYT and ProPublica.

[Reuters]