Last Friday, an anonymous editor working from an IP address assigned to the US Senate changed Edward Snowden’s Wikipedia entry from “dissident” to “traitor.”

It’s always possible that someone operating a computer from a US Senate IP address was just sloppy with security and allowed it to be used by someone with strong feelings about Edward Snowden.

If so, that person has been habitually sloppy for quite some time, because the same IP address and the same Wikipedia account has been making edits since February of this year.

Other edits include grammar correction of an entry for The Five People You Meet In Heaven, the addition of a credit for a 1967 redesign of San Francisco Polynesian bar the Tonga Room, and a minor edit to reflect that the double action magnum revolver Super Redhawk line by Ruger was still in production (among others).

The US government, from President Obama on down, purports to value whistleblowers and regard them as a critical check on government corruption.

The reality, of course, is quite different.  And now it appears that someone operating a computer with a Senate IP address has decided to declare Edward Snowden guilty of treason without benefit of a trial, and carry the war on whistleblowers to Wikipedia.

h/t Techdirt