
Wired's Response to Glenn Greenwald (re:Lamo-Manning Chat Logs) - Athtar
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/12/greenwald/
======
cma
Greenwald fucked this one up. That NYT article he relied on was plain wrong,
something he should have been aware of given all of his critiques of the
mainstream media's handling of the case and since Wired had already put out an
article saying that piece was incorrect and that the specific allegations
_were_ in the already-released logs.

(Greenwald _does_ get stuff right sometimes though:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XInz4i6AV8M&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XInz4i6AV8M&feature=player_embedded)
)

------
wycats
As someone with journalism training, I find this argument compelling. If it
was a case-study in a classroom setting, the answers would be difficult and
the subject of much debate.

Choosing to "redact" private parts of a document without otherwise information
important to the public is a perfectly reasonable position. While it is easy
to say "how do we know it's just private information unless they release it",
that sort of reasoning would force journalists to release all of the
information they have about any topic, even when they clearly violate the
professional ethics of journalists.

~~~
anamax
> that sort of reasoning would force journalists to release all of the
> information they have about any topic, even when they clearly violate the
> professional ethics of journalists.

Jouornalists don't get to say "professional ethics" - you they to explain why
the relevant decisions are correct, and journalists don't get to decide what's
correct.

Example - it may violate "professional ethics" for a journalist to not reveal
that US troops are walking into an ambush, but if certain journalists don't do
exactly that ....

~~~
cookiecaper
Journalists are entitled and indeed obligated to be bound to ethics just as
much as the next guy. The argument that everyone is obliged to deliver to the
public everything they know about everything, then we will get into problems
very quickly. If you don't like someone's journalism, you are free to perform
your own counter-journalism; investigate and publish your findings.

There's no necessity that every journalist must publish everything they ever
learn just because some guy says the journalist should. If that's how you feel
journalists should behave, hire a bunch of journalists to behave that way, and
perform your own journalism and do likewise.

~~~
anamax
> Journalists are entitled and indeed obligated to be bound to ethics just as
> much as the next guy.

Yes, but when they're claiming privileges, as they frequently do, they don't
get to decide the rules.

------
gwern
> The excerpts we published included passages referencing both the file server
> and the encrypted chat room.

Interestingly, if you look at the link
[http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/12/wikileaks-
conspirac...](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/12/wikileaks-conspiracy-
case/) nowhere does Manning say anything like 'Assange set up an FTP server
just for me which I then used for the video and cables'.

What he actually says is that hypothetically speaking, one of the best ways to
transmit hot stuff is through SFTP, but he immediately mentions that one could
also transmit over HTTPS (plus Tor) to get stuff into the Wikileaks submission
queue and discusses general considerations like senior sources getting looked
at first.

The only way you could read Wired's claim into that excerpt is if you made
stuff up or are making a large inference based on other non-public logs. So at
least with that claim, Wired is bullshitting readers.

------
lionhearted
This sort of thing never winds up reflecting well on people involved, just
getting caught up in a personal back and forth and speculating on people's
motives and nonsense like that. This part seemed particularly silly to me -
Greenwald emails on Christmas and when they don't respond by the 26th, he says
they're acting unprofessionally -

> Nonetheless, once the Times story — and our explanation — was over a week
> old, Greenwald sent Poulsen an e-mail inquiring about it, and giving him one
> day to respond to his questions. He sent that e-mail on Christmas Day.

> When we didn’t meet the urgent Yuletide deadline he’d imposed on himself to
> publish a piece about a 10-day-old newspaper article, he wrote in his column
> that we “ignored the inquiries,” adding: “This is not the behavior of a
> journalist seeking to inform the public, but of someone eager, for whatever
> reasons, to hide the truth.”

~~~
wycats
What part of what Wired is doing seems amateurish? I thought this response was
thoughtful, well reasoned, and professional.

~~~
lionhearted
I could've phrased it better - I meant that that the whole unfolding of events
generally doesn't reflect well on participants. Just getting sucked into a
mudfight is bad, though their response was good. I'll do a clarity edit.

For context, here's my exact edits:

Before - This whole thing is coming across pretty amateurish on all sides.

After - This sort of thing never winds up reflecting well on people involved,
just getting caught up in a personal back and forth and speculating on
people's motives and nonsense like that.

------
jder
Greenwald has posted two responses to this:

[http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/29...](http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/29/wired_1/index.html)

[http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/29...](http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/29/wired_response_1/index.html)

(They seem to be returning 404s occasionally for some reason.)

------
wnoise
Wired doesn't need to publish _all_ of the logs -- just the bits that confirm
some key assertions that Lamo made. The idea that they are restricted to
publishing the whole thing, or nothing more than they already have is a false
dichotomy.

~~~
wycats
Actually, they're absolutely not taking the position that it's all or nothing:

"That doesn’t mean we’ll never publish them, but before taking an irrevocable
action that could harm an individual’s privacy, we have to weigh that person’s
privacy interest against news value and relevance."

The specific request that Greenwald made for partial disclosure missed the
fact that the information referenced had already been released, as described
by Wired:

"The Times story quotes Lamo as saying that Manning described uploading his
leaks to Assange via a dedicated file server, and that he communicated with
Assange over encrypted chat. The story says those portions of the
conversations aren’t included in the excerpts we published.

"Based on that, Greenwald claims that Wired’s “concealment” of the chat logs
“is actively blinding journalists and others who have been attempting to learn
what Manning did and did not do.” (That’s one sentence. He goes on in that
vein for quite a while.) But the Times story is incorrect, as we noted on
Wired.com the day after it ran. The excerpts we published included passages
referencing both the file server and the encrypted chat room."

Bottom line for me: Wired's response was well-reasoned and professional, and
answered the fairly wild accusations in the original Greenwald piece.

~~~
spot
So why don't they publish the part that confirms or denies Lamo's claims? Or
just say if it does or not?

If you read Glenn's responses I think you will change your mind.

------
SoftwareMaven
You don't get to the point of admitting leaking massive amounts of secret
information via chat in a single step. Trust has to be built, and is built by
slowly revealing more and more about ourselves: issues with significant
others, problems with the neighbors, pains of serving with Don't Ask, Don't
Tell, etc (I have no idea what the actual list might look like, I'm just
giving examples.).

These are things that are highly personal and extremely private. These are the
things Wired is saying they aren't releasing right now, and I, for one,
appreciate it. Releasing them _would_ just be pandering to the masses.

You can argue that Wired is withholding more than that, but I think it fails
Occam's Razor. Unfortunately, the more complex the "complex" solution, the
more likely it seems that people will gravitate to it:

"Wired has released all the relevant pieces and is trying to protect an
individual's privacy" - simple.

"Wired is withholding relevant information because it is part of some
conspiracy involving hackers prosecuted in the 80s" - complex (but, too be
honest, who didn't love Angelina in leathers on the back of a motorcycle?).

~~~
jdp23
Very well said all around.

~~~
spot
Just like Wired Magazine, he does not explain why they don't address Lamo's
claims not found in the logs released so far.

------
winfred
I'm not sure what to think of these articles from Salon and Wired. Greenwald
did have one question, that remains unanswered as far as I know. Why did
Manning contact Lamo?

------
grandalf
Greenwald's point is not so much that Wired has committed journalistic errors,
but that its decision not to disclose the rest of the chat logs leaves aspects
of the case open to wild conjecture.

So Greenwald, for emphasis, goes on to do some wild conjecture of his own.
Clearly the people at Wired failed to recognize the irony of this and quote
Greenwald extensively in their refutations, something Assange cannot do since
the full logs have not been released.

~~~
btmorex
If your point isn't that "Wired has committed journalistic errors", you
probably shouldn't name your piece "The worsening journalistic disgrace at
Wired". But really, that's exactly what Greenwald was saying and I think this
response pretty much refutes it.

~~~
grandalf
There are allegations against Assange that he can't refute w/o the chat logs.
That's my point. Wired got up in arms after a few accusations it didn't like.

~~~
tptacek
"A few accusations it didn't like", including:

* That Kevin Poulsen was untrustworthy because he'd been caught hacking in 1990.

* That Wired had helped orchestrate Manning's arrest (Lamo turned Manning in; Lamo doesn't work for Wired).

* That Wired is being unprofessional by not releasing complete private chat transcripts, while other news outlets are being unprofessional for releasing _too much_ private information about Wikileaks supporters.

* That Wired had refused to respond to Greenwald's request when that request was in fact issued with a 24 hour deadline on Christmas day.

* That Wired had concealed material details of the supposed Manning leaks when in fact the details they were alleged to have concealed were in fact referenced directly in the the chat logs they released.

* That Wired is responsible for Manning/Lamo/Assange stories they themselves didn't report on.

* That Poulsen is Lamo's "personal media voice" despite the fact that Lamo received significantly more coverage outside SecurityFocus (Poulsen didn't meet Lamo while working at Wired) than in it.

* That Mark Rasch prosecuted Poulsen for computer hacking when in fact he left _federal_ government service in 1991, before Poulsen was tried (by two unrelated state prosecutors).

* That all the time Greenwald accused Wired of bias, he was using Jacob Applebaum (Wikileaks' US spokesperson) as a primary source without disclosing the affiliation, was privately trying to hire an attorney for Manning, and was carrying on daily off-the-record conversations with Assange.

Yeah, I can see how Wired might "get up in arms" about this.

~~~
intended
Greenwald has been talking about this since Manning got arrested, this is not
the first article he has written about Wired.

One of the issues Greenwald brings up is that the logs are the only evidence
to understand what happened in the Manning case.

Greenwald that Lamo makes statements to the press, regarding his interactions
with Manning. He points out that some statements made have even contradicted
themselves.

The only evidence are the chat logs themselves, which are not available.

~~~
tptacek
I think we can all see how much more straightforward Greenwald's job would be
if he had all the chat transcripts, but their release is Wired's prerogative,
not his.

------
chaostheory
There's one thing missing in this response: do the non-public portions of the
chat logs support the public statements that Lamo has been making or not?

------
yread
It's a pity they didn't clarify some of the contradictions of Lamo's
statements. It would be nice to know for example whether Manning did claim to
use a dedicated server or not. And Poulsen actually confirmed he was talking
to Lamo even before Manning arrest.

On the other hand it is quite surprising indeed that Greenwald didn't check
the basic facts about Rausch and Poulsen

------
brunoqc
> his computer hard drive was confiscated, and he no longer has has a copy

That's a bit surprising. I have multiple copies (one offsite) of family
pictures, code and documents. I don't think I would have only one copy of the
log if I was the hacker guy.

~~~
tptacek
He would have been asked if he had copies and would have been criminally
liable had he lied. He's already been convicted of crimes in the past. Would
you fuck around in a case like this one if you'd been in his shoes?

------
ditojim
TL;DR. Are they releasing the full logs or not?

------
jacquesm
We need more people like Glenn Greenwald and fewer talking heads spewing
talking points.

~~~
btmorex
What specifically separates Glenn Greenwald from all the other talking heads
except for your own personal political view? I mean, he's pretty much the
definition of a pundit.

~~~
Bud
How about having 10x the intellectual rigor, more integrity, and being right a
lot more often? Oh, and having the cojones to stand up for Wikileaks, too.
That takes some guts in the current political environment.

Glenn's pretty impressive, most of the time. If he proves to have called this
one wrong, so be it. But he sure isn't on the same level as your average hack
pundit.

~~~
brown9-2
The definition of "pundit" from Wikipedia:

 _A pundit is someone who offers to mass-media his or her opinion or
commentary on a particular subject area (most typically political analysis,
the social sciences or sport) on which they are knowledgeable._

Greenwald seems pretty clearly to be offering commentary on these events, and
not just straight fact/story-reporting.

How much you like him or find him honest doesn't change what you call what he
does. You can set him apart from other "pundits" but it's hard to say he isn't
commentating or offering his opinion.

~~~
Bud
What was asked was, what sets Greenwald apart from OTHER pundits? I attempted
to answer that. I didn't attempt to say he's not a pundit. I happen to think
he's a particularly good pundit; others might disagree.

As an aside, there certainly seems to be a lot of downvoting based on
disagreement in this comment thread.

------
DanI-S
_This is nothing more than a despicable smear campaign based on the oldest
misdirection in the book: Shoot the messenger._

Sounds familiar...

------
8ig8
Wired: How about you just post the fucking chat logs and let the tubes decide
right and wrong.

Edit (added): Wired just sounds like that a-hole kid on the playground that
you just want to punch in the freakin' nose.

~~~
fuzzmeister
"Our position has been and remains that the logs include sensitive personal
information with no bearing on Wikileaks, and it would serve no purpose to
publish them at this time."

How can the "tubes" decide right and wrong in a situation like this? Once the
chat logs on the internet, it's not like the internet can collectively decide
that Wired was right, that the remaining logs are personal and meaningless,
and erase them forever.

~~~
robterrell
But whose sensitive personal information is it? BradAss87 or Lamo's? Does it
shed light on why BradAss87 would admit to treason to some guy on IM? Does the
sensitive personal information identify Manning as BradAss87? Also: will
Manning's lawyer get to see the entirety of the logs?

I agree that you can't put the genie back in the bottle, but a enormous genie
has already escaped.

