You know, when I read that story I immediately thought "oh boy, now they're going to say Snowden leaks 'hurt them' because they uncovered military operations",

You know, when I read that story I immediately thought "oh boy, now they're going to say Snowden leaks 'hurt them' because they uncovered military operations", or something along those lines. So if it's coming straight from the UK government, I could see why they'd want to blame Snowden for that, and make him lose favor with the public. If this is why they did it, I could even see US "advising" them on following the same model to destroy his image, just like they did with Manning and Assange (and where somewhat successful in that, I'd say).