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Foul play is always a possibility, but it takes evidence to make it real. All we have now is a car crash, a reporter working on a story, and an email. There are lots of car crashes, and lots of reporters working on big stories--many on the same stories Hastings was pursuing.

We can't rule out foul play but I'm not ready, personally, to rule it in either. There's just not enough there.



Is it known what story he was pursuing?


The subject of his email was "FBI Investigation, re: NSA". Don't know if the investigation is the same as his big story, however.


Wonder if his notes could be found, I imagine they would have been cloud backed.


"I imagine they would have been cloud backed."

Of course they were; that's how the NSA found out.


@dllthomas

"Of course they were; that's how the NSA found out."

Right. Yet to our knowledge the NSA does not have delete privileges to the data centers, meaning that copies of his notes most likely still survive on either local or cloud based storage.


Yet to our knowledge, the NSA doesn't have read access... until they did a few weeks ago.


Depends on whether his e-mail was hosted by Google or not. ;)


Ask the NSA for a copy?


I wouldn't do that unless you have a really old car with no electronics to drive.


I believe Ben Smith said it was about Barrett Brown.




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