Media Attention on NSA Leaker's Girlfriend Questioned

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It didn't take long after Edward Snowden outed himself as the leaker of the National Security Agency's top-secret surveillance programs for the press to identify his girlfriend, 28-year-old Lindsay Mills, a ballerina, pole dancer and acrobat from Maryland who lived with Snowden in Hawaii.

Like most young people in 2013, Mills was active online, with Twitter and Instagram accounts and a since-deleted blog called L's Journey, which have been a treasure trove of information for the media, who've been publishing items from them, including photos she'd posted that sometimes showed her scantily-clad. That's led some to question whether all the reporting about Mills -- with "pole-dancing" often appearing prominently -- is appropriate.

A more newsworthy item that's been published, however, is the final entry in Mills' blog, from last Friday (June 7th), before she took the blog down. Called "Adrift," Mills writes in it, in part:

"You can probably understand why I'll be refraining from blog posts for awhile. My world has opened and closed all at once. Leaving me lost at sea without a compass. At the moment all I can feel is alone. And for the first time in my life I feel strong enough to be on my own. Though I never imagined my hand would be so forced. As I type this on my tear-streaked keyboard I'm reflecting on all the faces that have graced my path. The ones I laughed with. The ones I've held. The one I've grown to love the most. And the ones I never got to bid adieu. But sometimes life doesn't afford proper goodbyes."