Britain's Guardian newspaper, behind the recent revelations by whistleblower Edward Snowden, has partnered with the US' New York Times for more coverage over the surveillance expose.
The US newspaper will be given access to some of the sensitive cache of documents leaked by National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Snowden in an attempt to counter demands from the UK government to hand over files on British spy agency GCHQ, which the Guardian had in its possession.
"In a climate of intense pressure from the UK government, the Guardian decided to bring in a US partner to work on the GCHQ documents provided by Edward Snowden. We are working in partnership with the NYT and others to continue reporting these stories," the Guardian said in a statement.
Journalists in America are protected by the first amendment which guarantees free speech and in practice prevents the state seeking pre-publication injunctions or "prior restraint".
It is intended that the collaboration with the New York Times will allow the Guardian to continue exposing mass surveillance by putting the Snowden documents on GCHQ beyond UK government's reach.
Snowden is aware of the arrangement.
The collaboration echoes that of the partnership forged in 2010 between the Guardian, the New York Times and German newspaper Der Spiegel, in relation to WikiLeaks' release of US military and diplomatic documents.
The US surveillance scandal broke in early June when the Guardian revealed the US was collecting telephone records of millions of American citizens.
Since then the newspaper has exposed mass surveillance of Facebook, Google, Microsoft, eavesdropping by GCHQ on foreign politicians at G20 summits in London and the secret operation codenamed Tempora, involving mass interception of cable traffic.
It also emerged that a controversial US surveillance programme sweeping internet usage data had 700 snooping servers installed at 150 locations around the world, including one in India.
