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Wired Responds In Manning Chat Log Controversy

Posted by timothy on from the rumbling-grumbling dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "Earlier this week Glenn Greenwald wrote in Salon about the arrest of US Army PFC Bradley Manning for allegedly acting as WikiLeaks' source and criticized Wired's failure to disclose the full chat logs between Manning and FBI informant Adrian Lamo. Now Wired's editor-in-chief Evan Hansen and senior editor Kevin Poulsen have responded to criticisms of the site's Wikileaks coverage stating that not one single fact has been brought to light suggesting Wired.com did anything wrong in pursuit of the story. '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,' writes Hansen."

6 of 222 comments (clear)

  1. The thing is... by killmenow · · Score: 5, Insightful

    '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,' writes Hansen.

    Notice they don't say "...the logs ARE ENTIRELY sensitive personal information..." We shouldn't have to take Hansen or Poulsen's word for it. Journalism 101: Redact the "sensitive personal information with no bearing on Wikileaks" and publish the rest.

  2. Truth, lies, chat logs... and profit levels by h00manist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    True or false, Wired has no credibility in my book since a long time ago. Some time in the early 90s, shortly after launching and becoming wildly successful, they made a clear decision - to go the route of all-out business sellouts, and away from people's needs and interests. They stopped the stories with the tone of "technology is human evolution, revolution with peace is invented", and kept only the stories to the tone of "technology is product and profit". I cancelled my subscription, since edition #2, shortly afterwards, and never cared for it much again.

    --
    Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
  3. We want to see the documents. by h00manist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That's all we want, documents. Too many people lying. We want evidence, of which there is lots, all hidden. That's what everyone wants, and what Wikileaks gives.

    --
    Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
  4. Re:And that's what's wrong! by Troed · · Score: 5, Interesting

    No. Wikileaks has realised since earlier big leaks that releasing everything at once causes information overflow and the individual atrocities don't get enough attention.

    Releasing the cables over a prolonged period of time allows press coverage, discussion and digestion.

    In Sweden we're currently somewhat disturbed by the Wikileaks-revealed fact that several laws having been imposed on us during the last few years were dictated by the US, with a threat of sanctions if we didn't implement them even though it was known the populace weren't in favor.

    That's info from one single cable.

    --
    it's in my head
  5. Re:And that's what's wrong! by Troed · · Score: 5, Informative

    In reality, once we found that out we put a stop to it. Since the US apparently lied to us, we had to find it out ourselves:

    Confirmation that the planes were transporting prisoners came in April 2006 after a daring “surveillance operation” was ordered by Swedish security service Säpo and carried out without the knowledge of the Americans.

    On Säpo’s orders, Swedish military intelligence agents dressed up as airport service personnel and boarded the plane. The agents reported back that the plane was carrying prisoners.

    [---]

    no more secret American prisoner transports have landed in Sweden since 2006

    http://www.thelocal.se/30626/20101205/

    (This story verified by Wikileaks cable releases)

    --
    it's in my head
  6. Re:The Critical Section by blank+axolotl · · Score: 5, Informative

    Greenwalds reply to that section:

    Hansen again wildly distorted what I wrote by taking a Twitter comment and tearing it out of context. I most certainly never "agreed" that "journalists were violating [Assange's] privacy by reporting the details of rape and molestation allegations against him in Sweden," That's a total fabrication. I don't believe that and never said that. Hansen made that up.

    Assange was asked in a BBC interview questions such as "how many women have you slept with?" When Assange refused to answer, many WikiLeaks critics pointed to this as hypocrisy -- oh, see, he doesn't believe in transparency for himself -- and my tweet pointed out the obvious fallacy of that claim: there is nothing inconsistent about demanding transparency for government while insisting upon personal privacy.

    Moreover, the question Assange refused to answer -- "how many women have you slept with?" -- is relevant to absolutely nothing of public interest, including the rape accusation. By stark contrast, the information Wired is concealing -- whether Lamo is telling the truth about his various claims -- goes to the heart of one of the most significant political controversies in the world.