Keith Devens .com

"Covered up" implies a concerted conspiracy, which is at best inflammatory and at worst libellous. "Ignored" or "didn't bother reporting" are better. And last time I looked, Italian law was nothing like US law, so the situation there is poor substance for the argument for or against the NSA phonetaps.

"Covered up" implies a concerted conspiracy, which is at best inflammatory and at worst libellous.

Ok, modified.

After reflection, 'ignored', which is basically what I changed the post text to, isn't completely right either, since there were parts of the story, if their information is accurate, that were essentially covered up with selective reporting:

The Associated Press version of the story did not disclose that the men planned to target the U.S. Nor did it report that the evidence against the suspects was gathered via a wiretapping surveillance operation.

Furthermore, only one American newspaper, the Philadelphia Inquirer, is known to have published the story that the AP distributed. It ran on page A-6 under the headline "Italy Charges 3 Algerians." The Inquirer report also made no mention of the plot to target the U.S. - although foreign publications included this information in the headlines and lead sentences of their stories. Nor did it advise readers that domestic wiretaps played a key role in nabbing the suspected terrorists.

You're absolutely right, of course, to point out that "covered up" implies an agenda. Given the above, I'm not sure that's an unwise implication to make.

That's much better.