[andrewheins]

"Oh my God," said Stewart Baker, former assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and before that the top lawyer at the National Security Agency. "That could allow people to imitate almost any company on the Net."

Does anyone else feel this line is more suited to a Hollywood movie than a Reuters release?

[Terretta]

I found it refreshing -- an official didn't try to downplay the issue. The reporter likely included the comment verbatim for that very reason, as in, "OMG, this is super serial."

[joshuahedlund]

No but I re-read that sentence three times because of how poorly it was written. I don't think I've ever read a news article where a quoted person's description bridged two facts with the phrase "and before that".

[oconnore]

<Exclamation>, said <identity and credentials>. "<Explanation>".

I don't see anything wrong with that.

[joshuahedlund]

Yes, that is standard. This is just redundant and sounds like a run-on:

<Exclamation>, said <identity and credentials and before that other credentials>. "<Explanation>".

[bradleyjg]

Stewart Baker blogs at http://volokh.com/author/stewart/ . Although I don't always agree with him, he is often quite thought provoking.