Strzok Case Looks at Privacy versus Politics

By Walter Pincus

Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist Walter Pincus is a contributing senior national security columnist for The Cipher Brief. He spent forty years at The Washington Post, writing on topics that ranged from nuclear weapons to politics. He is the author of Blown to Hell: America's Deadly Betrayal of the Marshall Islanders. Pincus won an Emmy in 1981 and was the recipient of the Arthur Ross Award from the American Academy for Diplomacy in 2010.  He was also a team member for a Pulitzer Prize in 2002 and the George Polk Award in 1978.  

OPINION — The alleged Privacy Act violation by Trump administration officials in publicly disclosing former FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok’s personal text messages without his permission as described in his lawsuit filed last Tuesday in U.S. Federal District Court in the District of Columbia could present a major new problem for the White House.

Although most news reports focused on Strzok’s claim that his firing was political and he wants reinstatement, the Privacy Act element deserves greater attention.

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