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What If Manning Had Leaked To the New York Times?
New submitter minstrelmike points outs a two-page editorial in the NYTimes "about what would have been different legally, morally, and security-wise," had the military information released through WikiLeaks been published by the Times instead.
"'If Manning had delivered his material to The Times, WikiLeaks would not have been able to post the unedited cables, as it ultimately did, heedless of the risk to human rights advocates, dissidents and informants named therein. In fact, you might not have heard of WikiLeaks. The group has had other middling scoops, but Manning put it on the map.' The writers also discusses what the Times would and would not have done, admitting they probably wouldn't have shared with other news outlets, but also admitting they would definitely have not shared everything."
The sooner they go bankrupt the better.
Make them all get real jobs and start producing like the rest of us.
He wanted it to get out.
Spin:
"heedless of the risk to human rights advocates, dissidents and informants named therein"
Reality:
http://www.collateralmurder.com/
"A full audio recording of the whistleblower is released today despite a court prohibition on such recordings"
I thought Manning shopped it around to all the big existing media and they didn't want to know, it was only after Wikileaks picked it up that THEN they came back. And as to unedited, Wikileaks was working with the newspapers to get the redactions done until.. The Guardian in the UK started dropping unedited stuff? Don't know for sure, a lot of finger pointing, but 99% of it always appears to be at Wikileaks and from what appeared to be going on at the time, they were doing the best they could to release slowly and carefully to avoid putting people into danger (though as pointed out, anyone who wanted this data probably already had it).
Waiting for an amusing sig.
There is absolutely no way NYT would have touched Manning's cable archives. They would have feigned interest and then shopped him. Bill Keller knows this.
The OP is the biggest piece of self-serving balderdash I've read in weeks. It's nauseating, and teeming with distortions and outright lies about Manning and Wikileaks.
I wonder if they would have simply sat on them for a year, like they did with the NSA wiretapping matter just because the feds asked them to?
At this point, "Why didn't he leak to the Times?" is only slightly less risible than "Why didn't he just register his concerns with the chain of command?"
It was a pretty stupid set of documents to leak. Diplomatic cables. Nothing earth-shattering. Nothing anyone really cared about. Ruined his life for nothing, really.
From the article:
As an American and Global citizen I want to fucking hug Bradley Manning. I want to thank him repeatedly for the great service he has provided the entire world. He is a true hero in my eyes.
However, he's also a fucking traitor and deserves the punishment which is coming to him. People who are true heroes do not think about the potential consequences they face and do not look for a way out when those happen. They do things to save others, bring about change, etc and they do so selflessly. Manning broke laws and oaths he had to this country just like many others practicing civil disobedience before him. They all paid their price and so will he and I will still love every last piece of information he released.
The fact that The Times would not have published everything shows what a bunch garbage the mainstream press in this country has become. Journalists are the lackeys of corporate legal teams, chickenshits and oppressive management.
Let the heroes shine and let them take whatever comes of them once the protections afforded to journalists run out and the source must be provided.
Again, thank you Manning; I personally put your accomplishments far higher than many of those who have received medals before you even though you deserve every punishment that is coming to you.
NYT to whistle blowers: "Give your leaks to us instead of lame ol' Wikileaks! *WE* will make money on.. err... I mean *WE* will keep your data safer!"
"If we'd been given the material by Manning, we wouldn't have done NEARLY as thorough a job as Wikileaks!"
I'll admit I didn't RTFA, as I don't have an account there :P
WikiLeaks would not have been able to post the unedited cables, as it ultimately did, heedless of the risk to human rights advocates
That's one whopper of a half truth.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Sadly news media like the New York Times are simply not free to publish. They are vulnerable to government and there can be no real recourse if government acts against them. Worse yet they are vulnerable to large and small business people. For example crime reporting does not encourage people to be out and about shopping, eating in restaurants, and simply being consumers. News media garner their money from advertizing and certain kinds of reporting simply generate ire from advertisers. The end result is the sing-song, happy faced, mild and gentle style of reporting that we so often are force fed. Conversely, hard hitting investigative reporting is expensive, is a legal mine field waiting to blow the legs off of a newspaper, and gets one in deep trouble with advertisers.
The results are a highly controlled news media. In many towns and cities if the public really was aware of what happens daily they would be at home hiding under their beds.
If Manning had leaked to the NY Times, only the Chinese hackers would know for sure what he leaked.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57566810/new-york-times-chinese-hackers-attacked-our-computers-for-months/
Come to think of it, why are all these news orgs outing themselves as being hacked? Is it to provide some sort of plausible denial that they are the ones who someone leaked something important?
> WikiLeaks would not have been able to post the unedited cables, as it ultimately did, heedless of the risk to human rights advocates, dissidents and informants named therein
The unredacted cables were published by accident, with Wikileaks and The Guardian being about equally neglectful. The op-eds claim of "[publishing] heedless of the risk" here is a lie.
I know that it is an op-ed, and therefore not the New York Times' opinion, but the New York Times still have a responsibility to do a basic fact check before posting it.
And he should still be hanged for it.
What If The New York Times Still Mattered?
If he'd leaked to NYT then nobody would have read the cables at all because the site is paywalled.
"'If Manning had delivered his material to The Times"
I would bet 99% of the information would never had seen the light of day. The press and government are far too intertwined these days, investigative journalism is virtually dead. Most "articles" are press releases that are copy/pasted from their source with a few comments by the "writer" of the article.
The problem with Manning's case is that, rather than finding actual glaring examples of wrongdoing, he just copied everything and offered the raw data.
Supposedly, he was so outraged by the rampant abuses perpetrated by the US that he was compelled to get the truth out. But rather than actually highlighting those outrageous abuses and revealing them, he just dropped a huge infodump of mostly boring government paperwork and said, "Oh, yeah, there's some really heinous stuff in there, yeah, so heinous that I'll let you all dig through it all and find it for yourself!"
That doesn't exactly get journalists excited. Most of them have deadlines, after all.
What the fuck planet is this author from? The government would have gotten wind of it, after they likely reported it to the government, and they would have immediately handed it all over with a court gag order in place as well. Receiving stolen property is illegal. Receiving stolen government classified intel is probably more illegal. Publishing it online and in the paper is mega ultimate super-illegal so no, not a damn word of it would have gotten out. I can't believe Slashdot let this idiotic of a fantasy story through.
Then we would have never known about the leak or Manning as the NYT's are willing co-conspirators with our federal govmt.
WikiLeaks would not have been able to post the unedited cables, as it ultimately did, heedless of the risk to human rights advocates, dissidents and informants named therein.
Either if the poster is a troll, has political motives or is just ignorant of the facts I cannot say. What I can say, is that, there are no unedited cables in the open the cables where edited to remove the names and only 3 names came out to the public, for reasons explained by the WikiLeaks team.
The New York times would censor anything that would piss off major politicians. They simply would not want to lose their access to these folks and as such would have buried any cables on the backpages and censored anything too embarrassing.
None of this would be known: Revealed: Pentagon's link to Iraqi
Undo modding post...
Unless you show me an internal NYT document that can be clearly shown as having been written BEFORE the wikileaks thing that describes their policy on such matters, this is all revisionist history. How many times has the NYT published something they should have either a) confirmed or b) thought twice about because it would get someone killed?
Being a Patriot I think we should do all we can do to protect the country and that sometimes means keeping secrets.
I do think everyone should be treated the same. It does not seem fair to prosecute WikiLeaks for excepting information and reporting on it when other Media organization have done the same in the past.
In 1992, Ted Gup of the The Washington Post revealed a classified, underground facility, named "Project Greek Island" at The Greenbrier Hotel in West Virginia. The bunker was completed in 1962 at a cost of $14,069,000 and remained secret for 30 years. Ted Gup was never charged for revealing government secrets or made to pay back any of the tax payers money that was lost.
I just think if a reporter from the Washington post can report on top secret data then we should allow any reporting agency to do the same.
It would have ended up being some small little story, A summary of the events, and it would have ended there.
Well, the first thing that would happend is the in-house spooks would have leaked it to their station chief ...
AccountKiller
Wikileaks was being actively supported by several media outlets at the time (which IIRC included the Associated Press). As such, they were acting agents of the press doing work that the papers themselves hadn't dared for decades.
However it was the Guardian's blunder that caused the real breech, IMO. There is no denying they bungled it.
They made a deal with a London newspaper to redact, edit, and publish many of the documents.
Because the news agencies would lose "embedded" status and therefore have no breaking news on many things. They need to scoop or they'll lose advertisers willing to advertise there.
And what's to say that NYT would have edited the cables? DoD were asked to help WL but they preferred to risk their people than to aid a leak of actions that were not legal, so the NYT would either have had to not print them at all or dump them like WL did.
And those embedded reporters with the US army? Walking around with folks armed with RPGs and M16s.
And how can you see their identification if you can't tell the difference between a telephoto tv camera and an RPG?
Next up, what about the dad with their kids in the van, picking up the wounded and taking them to safety? Oh, I get it, they were near people who, until they were shot down, carrying RPG-looking objects and maybe AK47s and had no identification, right?
This is ridiculous. It wouldn't have made a bit of difference. Fact is the man leaked top secret information. Leaking it to WikiLeaks or a media outlet like the NYT makes no difference. The NYT would have made the info just as public getting it to our enemies so the same damage would have been done. The author is living in some fantasy world.
he sent them to WikiLeaks rather than the Times....
No wonder the NYT is struggling. Why are they publishing a two-page editorial about a what-if scenario instead of news? And they expect people to pay to get this from behind their paywall?
Thinking logically, I think that some of the issues that would preclude a 'blind dump' include:
1. Making sure it's paid attention to - places like the NYT probably get tinfoil and conspiracy stuff all the time. How do you even make sure they pay attention to the packet?
2. Confidentiality - If you want your identity protected, you probably want to make contact, otherwise if they can figure out who you are they are under no obligation to protect your identity. If you make some sort of contract, they can be. Though it gets complicated.... Illegal agreements are unenforceable, but if a news agency gets a reputation for NOT protecting their sources, they may not get that scoop in the future...
3. Use of information - If you just do a blind drop, the paper has full control. If you meet, you can work out specifics of presentation. You're going to have to let the paper get it's story, and a place like the NYT isn't going to anger it's readers by publishing details that will harm US troops and such, but there's some room for negotiation. What form said negotiations would take I don't know; I'm not an ideologically or revenge driven informant.
4. Payment. Of whatever form. Cash to the informant. Donation to the informant's pet charity. A billboard somewhere. Attribution. I don't know.
I don't read AC A human right
This is what this is about. The Times really didn't like Jullian Assage.
I think its because they are titled, old newspaper snobs who think its not only their duty, but their right to decide what the people get and do not get to hear. They are pissed that things like wikileaks exist in the first place and the old order of newsmedia is being shaken up.
The NYT thinks the people OWE the Times news stories, and they should just for them over, as if they are a perennial authority figure on everything news related.
Again with the leaks, they think it was their sole right to censor the government cables of what and what should not be shown to the public.
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/20/opinion/keller-wikileaks-a-postscript.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/28/julian-assange-press-wikileaks-documentary_n_1116599.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/26/new-york-times-assange-wikileaks_n_814434.html
So althought it was not wikileaks who outed Manning, but a hacker named Adrian Lamo, who Bradley Manning bragged to about leaking the docs.
So what got Bradley Manning caught was ultimately his own big mouth.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/03/adrian-lamo-bradley-manning-q-and-a
This article is nothing more than some weasel words to get potential informats to go back to the news media instead of new media, for all the wrong reasons. I wreaks of typical news trickery, and self-promotion.
did a great job covering the same topic earlier this month on his Common Sense podcast, including the Daniel Ellsberg angle. His Hardcore History podcast is also amazing for any history fans out there.
They're still just as brave as they were when they lead the way on the Watergate scandal.
Oh, wait...
Because here we have yet another slashdot post of an issue that is completely germane to the Internet and technology world and culture yet there isn't a Conservative here who hasn't used it as an opportunity to troll the ideological 'talking points' that roll out of the Republican echo chamber.
Obama is a socialist... in spite of the Dims having the same economic policy as the Gips since 1992.
The New York Times is liberal propaganda... as if there is such thing as a liberal mainstream media.
Taxes are going up... sure, for the poor, whom conservatives universally condemn as parasites while corporations paid nothing, at all!
All of which is OT. Oh, that's Internet talk for Off Topic! I didn't want the guys in the boiler room to be confused. ;p
Leaking to NYT we would not have heard anything.
As many other intelligent posters have and will mention, the New Whore Times would have rolled over for the gov't (the Bush-Obama Administration) and never have published, as they have repeatedly demonstrated in times past.
the person who turned over Watergate evidence remained anonymous.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Manning is a great Hero for rest of the people and mankind even though he will be convicted traitor in U.S mock courts.
He will be remembered by history many generations unlike those petty haunting now him for revealing great unjust will be left in vain. He may suffer now and be made suffer more rest of his life, but that doesn't change any of that said.
Rest of the world Thanks him dearly.
Sounds familiar. It probably would have went down like this.
Happy people make bad consumers.
Since he didn't spill to the times, and since the Times wouldn't have published it, there is an automatic admission of collusion there. The Times, in the name of "Responsible Journalism" is a puppet of the government. Knowing this, what other stories that should have been published in the times that would could cast a critical light on truth in the US, but because of corporate interests, government interference or both have been killed? Wikileaks is clearly too much truth for either the Times or the Government to handle. Its true: "The truth? You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!" Note that the US government has very quickly killed the messenger in this case. Inquiry into the US killing of innocents overseas? NONE! Bradley Manning and Julian Assange? Incarcerated! And even if he isn't in a US jail, the case against him --complete with trumped up charges courtesy the CIA-- casts him in a 'never trust this guy again' light that some point to as if it were the truth. The N.Y. times isn't a puppet with two arms in its back, only the government pulls the strings there. Corporate interests control the US government (so its puppet controlling puppet).
It's owned by the richest man in the world. I'm sure those mega wealthy types always have the interest and well being for the common man in mind. I'm sure he would have released it /s
...second time today that I've seen someone do this. It isn't the Times. That's a London newspaper. It's the New York Times. Shortening the name after the first referral only works if nothing else already has that name....and ultimately, a real Journalist would not need this pointed out to them.
If Manning had leaked to The Times, they would have read closely filtered all the memos to find actual stories, and not mindlessly dumped the data into the public sphere. Asset names would have been protected.
Wikileaks DID NOT RELEASE the cables unedited until they'd already been leaked by one of their other media partners.
Give it a year or two and everyone will move on without Mr. Manning. He will be forgotten until he is up for parole, actually released, commits suicide, or killed.
It's funny to me that the NYT posted this at all, because they're engaging in a counterfactual about what could have happened if they had done their fucking jobs.
Bradley Manning tried to get in touch with a number of traditional media outlets, the NYT included, before giving up on traditional outlets and just dumping the files to Wikileaks. He discussed this, and many other things, in a statement he read at his pre-trial hearing. The Times tries to blame their failure on Bradley, but the ball was in their court and they chose not to follow up on it.
It matters not
Manning is a traitor. He should be shot. Or at least forced into hard labor for the rest of his days.
The people that posted it should be found, fixed and destroyed.
In the least they should be pounding rocks next to that douchetastic traitor manning.
Yep, after discovering Kirk Sorensen's 10-min talk on TED.com,
I've convinced myself that a dual-stream Nuclear program (with:
Stream 1 comprising our current reactors (to supply military's
Plutonium requirements) -AND-
Stream 2 comprising, eg, Liquid Fluoride THORIUM Reactors
(to supply our domestic & industrial needs for electrical &
hat energes).
Lower cost for each LFTR bult + fewer "oil wars" fought, etc.
Just maybe NO ONE would have had to take risk of leaking
-any- of those secrets.
===
When you take actions to keep the rich corporations that way, ever rich, then the poor get poorer. And poor people, at some point, can't buy the goods and services to sustain the wealthy. As proof, look at Walmart. They grew to 34000+ stores by purchasing foreign goods, and killing local jobs. They killed small businesses and created new jobs at minimum wage, which means that these Walmart employees are not able to take that vacation, to easily buy the new 55 inch TV, and most of all, took away from their communities, all discretionary income. Now these communities suffer from not being able to raise taxes to cover infrastructure repairs due to the populations inability to pay, and the people, mostly baby boomers are entering retirement, are needing what I get in Canada. Canada is a very democratic capitalistic country, with a social safety net to ensure that I will be able to live out my life without fear of starvation, without having to choose between medication or food, and with very affordable access to medicare. I worked for 50 years in Canada, as did most of the Americans that did the same for their richest country in the world, and I am better off.
Canada is not communist, Canada respects and cares for its citizens. The Republicans, according to their latest proposals, want to kill all social safety nets, want to wash their hands of responsibility to look after grandparents, or parents, and just keep the status quo. The Republicans last pronouncement was to kill social safety nets, but not one word about closing tax loopholes.
I feel sorry for the American seniors who slaved all their lives, have no discretionary income, and yet cant live without fear from unexpected medical bills or high inflation. Your comments make me sad.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
And the summary of the Times article suggests that.
And the Times, "left wing"? What Americans know of socialism is identical to what "good Germans" knew of Jews in the late thirties.
mark
Why does a Private get access to all of this secret stuff should be the first question on the mind of security. The fact that he could see the inner workings of the government is astounding.