The Washington Post is today carrying a story containing a statement of denial from the NSA that it ever targeted Princess Diana's communications. The statement reads,

The 39 NSA-originated and NSA-controlled documents referenced in a response to a Freedom of Information Act request in 1998 only contained references to the Princess, and she was never the communicant.

NSA did not target Princess Diana's communications. Furthermore, NSA has cooperated with the investigations into this tragic incident to the full extent of the law."

This is strange, because the agency admitted to holding at least 1056 pages of classified data about Diana back in 1998. The communications were said to need classification in order to protect  "sources and methods" of US Intelligence gathering. It was widely reported back then, that such intelligence was gathered using the highly secretive Echelon eavesdropping system.

The official report, due for publication on Thursday, is likely to confirm the original story that her death was an accident.