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With World Watching, Wikileaks Falls Into Disrepair
JDRucker writes "Supporters are concerned. Very concerned. Would-be whistle-blowers hoping to leak documents to Wikileaks face a potentially frustrating surprise. Wikileaks' submission process, which had been degraded for months, completely collapsed more than two weeks ago and remains offline, in a little-noted breakdown at the world's most prominent secret-spilling website."
Taken from wikileaks' Twitter at http://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/17498238199 is this:
"Wired's war on WikiLeaks continues. See comment by 'mpineiro' http://bit.ly/aZm4US"
Posted by: mpineiro | 07/1/10 | 9:21 am |
ADDITIONAL INFO REQUIRED TO FULLY UNDERSTAND THIS ARTICLE:
Below are some additional bits of information that may change your understanding of why this heavily-editorialized piece is appearing in Wired at this time.
1. The editor of the Threat Level blog at Wired, Kevin Poulsen, has recently been questioned by journalists and privacy activists for his strange role in the recent Wikileaks / Bradley Manning story. A number of questions have been asked of Poulsen in order to clear up any suspicions of impropriety or violation of journalistic ethics by Poulsen but he hasn’t been able to answer those questions, resulting in stronger suspicions and newly-revealed information that strengthens the suspicions further still. This entire matter could be cleared up and resolved except for Poulsen’s on-going non-cooperation.
2. Kevin Poulsen apparently did not like even being *asked* about conflicts of interest (something that all journalists are questioned on all the time as part of the job). To make matters worse, Poulsen is resorting to retaliation, as if this was a BBS war between pre-teens and not an important discussion about law enforcement abuses in the US, abuses committed by occupation soldier abuses in Iraq, a co-ordinated campaign to discredit Wikileaks and the unethical, allegedly illegal manner in which PFC Bradley Manning was interrogated by someone who Poulsen has known and worked with for years and years.
If you look at Poulsen’s Twitter feed (@kpoulsen), it is sparsely updated. It appears that Poulsen only posts on Twitter when he is announcing a new Threat Level blog post or he is openly attacking Wikileaks. It seems safe to say that the “editorial line” over in Poulsen’s corner of Wired is sharply opposed to Wikileaks.
Any journalist should be prepared to respond, without getting emotional or defensive, if legitimate questions about conflict-of-interest or ethics are asked of them. That’s part of the job.
3. In the If-It-Wasn’t-So-Serious-It’d-Be-Funny Department, both Poulsen and known police informant Adrian Lamo are WELL AWARE of the SERIOUS implications of Poulsen being involved with law enforcement in any way. As a result, they both say the exact same thing when anyone asks about the nature of the relationship: “It’s a reporter-source relationship,” they’ll both recite. Lamo, who has much less to lose than Poulsen and possibly has reason to feel resentful that he has to take all the heat for something that benefited both of them, recites that line with a hint of sarcasm. But, maybe I’m reading something in the tone that isn’t actually there. Could be.
4. Poulsen was asked (you might even say “challenged”) by Salon columnist Glenn Greenwald to release the unedited, un-redacted portions of the chat transcripts between Poulsen’s long-time source/friend (Lamo) and PFC Bradley Manning also, releasing the logs would help clear up any perceived impropriety by Poulsen or Wired.
Poulsen refused to do so then and continues to refuse the many requests by Greenwald and others to release the logs. Even worse, the reason Poulsen gave about why he wouldn’t release them was shown to be untrue, as documented by Greenwald. Poulsen has never said ANYTHING MORE AT ALL about THAT maybe under the advice of his attorney?
The logs that Poulsen won’t release would have enormous value in the public domain — they would help individuals & government/law enforcement watchdog groups deal with the increasing erosion of our civil liberties. They also show an unfortunately side effect of California’s
Wikileaks has never claimed to be unbiased. Assange himself explained that the organization will attempt to present material in a way to maximize impact. Stop confusing Wikileaks with the WSJ.
"If you see a man on a horse, he is likely an enemy. Kill the man and eat the horse."