The worsening journalistic disgrace at Wired

Computer Science Corporation aka, "CSC" is a major government contractor for IT services. What better way to sell more overpriced crap to the government than to foment a climate of panic around the Wikileaks issue. A problem that CSC no doubt has the perfect multi million dollar enterprise "solution" for.

In other words Mark Rasch has a likely significant and surely direct financial interest in making news coverage about Manning as sensationalistic as humanly possible.

Manning is in a cell getting the worst possible treatment for God's sake.

The damage has been done, however, anyone who cares can sign this petition "Stop the Inhumane Treatment of Bradley Manning" (it's a blog post with a petition, to be more precise): http://my.firedoglake.com/blog/2010/12/23/bradley-manning-sp...

That would be interesting, particularly if the chat logs were "leaked" to Wikileaks. Would they still publish the logs, even if the logs meant life imprisonment for Bradley Manning? Would that then be a breach of trust between Wikileaks and Manning?

Anyway, besides all my ridiculous speculation and getting ahead of things; The title is in no way an exaggeration, and Poulson should think rather hard about what he's going to do about it.

How does the release of the full transcript solve either of these problems?

Heard there's a measured, mature critique I should respond to. Will look for it tomorrow when I'm back from vacation.

But after that, The Washington Post's Ellen Nakashima quoted from the chat logs and included several parts that (a) Wired had withheld but (b) were not about personal matters or national security secrets; see this analysis here of what was disclosed by the Post, Wired and others. (Nakashima and the Post refuse even to say whether they possess all the chat logs. When I asked Nakashima several months ago, she referred my inquiry to a corporate spokeswoman, who then told me: "We don't discuss the details of our newsgathering." But I focus here on Poulsen because of his central role in these events, his long-standing relationships with the key parties, and the fact that -- unlike the Post, which obviously has nothing to do with journalism -- I actually expect better of Wired).

Is Greenwald saying that the Washington Post "has nothing to do with journalism"?

As in, what the WaPo does is not journalism?

<snark>But am I to understand that the beef here is that wired is _not_ publishing something that others think they should? So now not only do we need a world with no secrets, we also need a world where the mob can demand that others publish whatever we ask?

I know the counter-response will be something like "but they made statements for which we have no support and the chat logs could either prove or refute those statements"

To that response, all I have to offer is that there is an active criminal investigation, not carried out in the press or the mob but by due process, and that news sources all the time say things from anonymous sources and such. I don't like it when they do, but I don't think demanding that every news source that uses an anonymous source release their name is very realistic either.

I understand that this is an emotionally-charged issue. And folks want to know. But you can rest assured that it will all eventually come out. If that's not fast enough for you, then perhaps a little more patience might help.

This whole thing -- the subsequent events to WL and Manning's arrest, including the title of the article here, has the air of a bunch of assholes kicking around folks just to keep their emotions stirred up and readership levels high. It's become the chatty, gossipy topic-of-the-week. If you can't find a juicy enough Wikileaks story, then run a story about the story that doesn't exist. What did they say about cable news during the Monica Lewinsky scandal? It's all Monica, all the time. Wikileaks makes folks crazy, and I have a feeling various news outlets are going to be yanking our chain with this for some time to come. There's money in it, no matter what angle you use.</snark>

Feel free to correct me if I've missed something.

In my opinion, every media outlet has been complicit in helping the U.S. powers that be try to discredit Wikileaks and distract from the contents of the leaks. Not to mention hiding corruption.

Wikileaks has done a great job at showing the world how much those in power don't care about anything but their own power (and their "conspiracy network"). But all I'm seeing is the same apathetic and head-in-the-sand response from the general population to reality.

EDIT: downvoting doesn't bother me, but absent comment I have no idea what part of it you disagreed with...

It seems to me that Greenwald is assuming his own conclusion here, that the chat logs provide evidence of Manning's innocence. They could, of course; and I imagine that Manning's Lawyer will subpoena them for just that reason: if he can not get them from Wired, then he can get them from Lamo or the FBI. (Lamo apparently says the FBI took his computer with the logs on them, but until he says so under oath that doesn't mean a thing.)

There are alternative possibilities, which Greenwald does not address, that could well justify Wired's withholding other parts of the chat logs and still maintaining a high standard of journalistic ethics.

First: the possibility that the logs contain more evidence of Manning's or Assange's guilt. Lamo makes statements to multiple journalistic sources such as the NYT and Washington Post as well as to Wired; so whether Poulsen reports his remarks first or not, the fact that such allegations are being made is a matter of public record. Poulsen neither confirms nor denies Lamo's allegations with reference to the chat logs. Greenwald argues that he should, as Lamo's accusations amount to prosecuting Manning and Assange in public. However, accusations without evidence are just talk. If Poulsen releases the transcripts, many will see the contents as conclusive evidence, whether they support or undermine Lamo's assertions, or even if they are ambiguous. That could make a fair trial for Assange impossible, if indeed he is charged. It could also amount to conducting Manning's (military) trial in public in a way that undermines his rights.

As yet, there's no proof that Bradley Manning was 'Bradass87' or that he was the one conducting those conversations (vs someone else using his login, say), or that the logs are a true and unedited copy of actual chats. But the logs that are public already are being treated as the indisputable truth. That they are public makes it very difficult for Manning's lawyer to attack their admissibility as evidence: if he does so, many people will dismiss his arguments as lies. Just the fact that the public logs have the 'feel' of a real conversation is enough for many people to decide they're authentic, for the same reason that people often remember movies better than they do real history. Even if it can be shown that the chat logs are authentic records of conversations between Manning and Lamo, they are only evidence that Manning believed and said certain things to Lamo. As far as the logs talk about Assange, their legal value is that of hearsay evidence. But opponents of Assange will treat such hearsay remarks as proven facts (they're not even close), while his supporters will say none of it is admissible at all because it's hearsay (not true either). Regardless of which side Poulsen or anyone else is on, making that material public risks undermining justice.

Personally, I think it would have been better not to release any transcripts at all in order to avoid biasing a trial (either of Manning or of Assange, if he is charged later). Mind, that's very much a personal opinion. I'm also against police releasing mugshots or making people do perp walks because so many assume that criminal defendants must be guilty because they look bad. But suppose, for argument's sake, that there's so much evidence of Manning being the leaker that the facts are not really in question, and that's why Poulsen felt ethically justified in releasing partial transcripts.

This leads me towards the other possibility which might have led Poulsen to release only partial transcripts - the question of Manning's motivations. In the published logs he sounds like someone offended by the government's low ethical standards, unhappy in his job situation, and alternatively bragging and remorseful about the magnitude of the revelations. So his defense might go ahead on the basis of 'yes, he broke his oath and leaked all these documents, but he was young and idealistic and believed himself to be acting on a higher purpose, thus he's really only guilty of exercising very poor judgment.' But (in theory) if the unpublished logs include him having a bad day and going on an extended rant to the effect that 'bin Laden was right' or 'the American empire deserves to collapse' or something? Such sentiments are not unknown, and considering that members of Congress have already been calling for the kid's execution - although none of the charges against him carry the death penalty - if evidence of a 'bad' motivation comes before the public there's likely to be lynch mobs forming outside the camp where he's being held. More likely, there's an entirely different set of possible motivations.

[Quoting OP article] When I first wrote back in June about Wired's concealment of these chat logs, the excuses Poulsen gave were quickly proved to be false.

That's very much a matter of opinion. The parts that were not in Wired's original release which later appeared in the WaPo (orange and red text at the link above) all seem to me to have a bearing on these subjects. 'Sensitive information' could refer to the removal of Assange's name/identifying detail in some places, but mostly Wired's redactions seem to concern such personal matters as Manning's emotions, mental stability, and life situation, which might interpreted as damning or mitigating by different people. Greenwald says several parts are neither, but doesn't say which parts or (more importantly) why he thinks so.

The personal information here appears to show Manning as a troubled kid who turned to the army in search of the stability that was missing in his life, but became deeply disillusioned with the institution and country he served. It appears that the army had become disillusioned with Manning too, and that he was being discharged for an 'adjustment disorder.' What that means is uncertain, but there's been a lot of speculation to the effect that Manning was gay or had gender identity issues. That's a pretty contentious subject as far as it relates to the military (see the depth of feeling in the recent debate about repealing DADT) and the extent to which it could have affected Manning personally, and the extent to which any lack of stability on Manning's part would be his fault or that of the army's, are questions which could have a significant bearing on his sentence. And because the issue is very contentious, it tends to split opinion further among those already holding polarized opinions: if you think Manning's a bad person, then his personal hangups may compound his moral failings or be an unacceptable sympathy play; if you think he's a good person, then his personal hangups may be an additional justification for leaking the secrets of an unfairly discriminatory, or an unacceptable attempt to smear him as a sexual deviant.

It seems to me that Poulsen decided to publish those parts of the logs which showed Manning's access to, awareness of, and methods for leaking classified information. In other words, the published excerpts offer answers to the question of where multiple different leaks of military and diplomatic information came from (one single intelligence analyst tasked with cross-referencing army intel with that from other branches of government); whether the leaking was a deliberate act, or an accidental result of bureaucratic incompetence (deliberate, with understanding of content, likely publicity, and negative impact); and whether the allegations were credible (obviously the government intranet does not include a 'leak to public?' option, and the weak point was the CD-RW supposedly filled with Lady Gaga tunes (am I the only person who finds this detail bizarrely ironic?)). All this information is concerned with factual issues. Courts-martial have to establish proof beyond a reasonable doubt as do civilian courts, but they differ in terms of things like jury requirements, which may make it easier to deal with the publication of factual evidence than would be the case for a civilian trial. But while it may be easy to prove the acts occurred, mental state, criminal responsibility, and would be an appropriate sentence are much trickier questions. Because such matters are inherently subjective, the standards for evaluating them are different from those for establishing material fact, and there are different risks of potential bias.

My guess is that Wired's legal department (rather than Poulsen as an individual) would have gone through the transcripts marking different sections as factual or subjective, with lesser or greater possibilities of bias and thus legal liability for publication.

Here we have 2 of the 4 and possibly 3 of the four being government informants driving a miss-leading conclusion of the media story and using Wired as government mouthpiece..

I submit that wikileaks will not be charged by the US government due to the corrupt miss-handling of both government informants in this case as well las the PR work the government embarked upon...there are simply too many skeletons that no-one wants to see the light of day..

And the US government has history of dropping prosecution if secrets are used as evidence in courts as they do not want them exposed...However, Manning is different case because he will be in the Military court system not the public US court system..which is unfortunate as he should be able to defend himself using whatever evidence Wired has..