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Comment by rolux | Hacker News Reader

Agree. But, FWIW, Alan Rusbridger, the author of the article, explains in the comments that in this case, this would not be legal, as the conversations he is quoting from took place after he had agreed to keep names off the record.

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It's not a matter of legality, it's a matter of keeping your word. He says as much in a comment.

http://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-permalink/26170409

Agreed.

Perhaps another good journalist could score a one-up on this one? That aside, it doesn't seem coherent that the owner of the laptop containing the sensitive materials would voluntarily agree to conceal the names of the agents, and at the same time let their machine/drives be destroyed by the same sleuths (crooks?).

Seems fishy, but then what is not given the circumstances.

"Off the record" is not an actual legal thing.

Off the record is privilege given from the journalist to the person speaking.

Since journalists have showed willingness to go to jail but to protect their sources they take things such as these very seriously.

When the bastards make the rules at whim, there is nothing to be gained from playing by those same rules.

A journalist who violates conditions of 'off-the-record' is not going to be a journalist for much longer, because nobody will tell him anything. The 'bastards' who made the rules, in this case, are the journalists themselves.

I'd guess that the gain for Mr. Rusbridger is that he retains his privilege to be able to quote from similarly absurd conversations with government officials in the future.

That rule is actually made by journalists, not governments.

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