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Bill Keller: True = False, But Better False Than Left or Right

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As you read Bill Keller’s latest exercise in public masturbation, keep in mind how the NYT long refused to correct its credulous and ultimately, factually false, reporting on James O’Keefe III’s ACORN videos (Update: here’s BradBlog’s coverage of their belated admission they were wrong).

Now consider how Keller equates O’Keefe’s serial fabrications with Julian Assange’s leaks–leaks the NYT has heavily relied upon in its own reporting.

Has anyone actually seen James O’Keefe and Julian Assange together? Are we quite sure that the right-wing prankster who brought down the leadership of National Public Radio and the anarchic leaker aren’t split personalities of the same guy — sent by fate to mess with the heads of mainstream journalists?

Sure, one shoots from the left, the other from the right. One deals in genuine (albeit purloined) secrets; the other in “Candid Camera” stunts, most recently posing as a potential donor and entrapping a foolish NPR executive into disclosing his scorn for Republicans and the Tea Party.

Aside from equating video fabrications with documents the accuracy of which the NYT has confirmed itself, Bill Keller repeats the NYT’s earlier habit of repeating O’Keefe’s lies unquestioningly. [Update, 3/28 AM: The NYT has corrected part of Keller’s description of what really happened with O’Keefe’s latest; let’s see how long it takes them to correct Keller’s portrayal of Schiller’s intent.]

Here’s a better description of what O’Keefe’s fabrications exposed NPR Executive Ron Schiller to have said and done, from the digital forensic consultant NPR employed to review the full video.

Take the political remarks. Ron Schiller speaks of growing up as a Republican and admiring the party’s fiscal conservatism. He says Republican politicians and evangelicals are becoming “fanatically” involved in people’s lives.

But in the shorter tape, Schiller is also presented as saying the GOP has been “hijacked” by Tea Partyers and xenophobes.

In the longer tape, it’s evident Schiller is not giving his own views but instead quoting two influential Republicans — one an ambassador, another a senior Republican donor. Schiller notably does not take issue with their conclusions — but they are not his own.

I assume the Keller and the NYT will ignore this analysis, as they did the analysis ACORN had done, and cling to their unquestioning acceptance of O’Keefe’s propaganda about what Schiller said and did.

Now, Keller spends the remainder of his exercise in public masturbation arguing that unlike these two, the NYT has standards, and values “being right” (oh, except for the little Iraq fiasco) and impartial.

Except that in his first two paragraphs, Keller makes it clear that he doesn’t much care about being right–or has forgotten how to do even the most basic work that requires. He’s just going to spout what he wants to as long as it makes him feel important.

So I guess the better question is, has anyone actually seen James O’Keefe III and Bill Keller in the same place at the same time?

We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us

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The stated intent of the Wikileaks.org Web site is to expose unethical practices, illegal behavior, and wrongdoing within corrupt corporations and oppressive regimes …

[snip]

The developers believe that the disclosure of sensitive or classified information involving a foreign government or corporation will eventually result in the increased accountability of a democratic, oppressive, or corrupt the [sic] government to its citizens.

— Army Counterintelligence Report on WikiLeaks, allegedly leaked by Bradley Manning between February 15 and March 15, 2010

I quipped in my last post that the new charges filed against Bradley Manning teach us that we are the enemy–or at least are considered to be the enemy by the federal government. I was referring to the charge that Manning “knowingly gave intelligence to the enemy.” After all, we’re the ones Manning allegedly gave this information to.

Via Glenzilla, Kevin Jon Heller provides more detail about what this charge entails. He summarizes his understanding of how the military might be intending to prove their case against Manning this way:

[1] Manning is guilty of “giving intelligence to the enemy,” because he gave intelligence to WikiLeaks that he knew would be made available on the internet, and an enemy of the United States did, in fact, access that information.

[2] Manning is guilty of “commun[i]cating with the enemy” because he gave information to WikiLeaks intending that an enemy of the United States would receive it.  (The “intent required” view.)

[3] Manning is guilty of “communicating with the enemy” because he gave information to WikiLeaks knowing that it would be published on the internet, where any enemy could access it. (The intent not required view.)

Heller dislikes examples 1 and 3 because they threaten Manning with life imprisonment for something that newspapers do, but he doubts the government is relying on example 2 because, he argues, it would require making the argument that Manning intended al-Qaeda to get the information. Yet, as Glenn points out, we don’t have to guess at Manning’s intent (at least if we believe the chat logs are authentic); Manning described his own goal for leaking information this way:

Manning: well, it was forwarded to [WikiLeaks] – and god knows what happens now – hopefully worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms – if not, than [sic] we’re doomed – as a species – i will officially give up on the society we have if nothing happens – the reaction to the video gave me immense hope; CNN’s iReport was overwhelmed; Twitter exploded – people who saw, knew there was something wrong . . . Washington Post sat on the video… David Finkel acquired a copy while embedded out here. . . . – i want people to see the truth . . . regardless of who they are . . . because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public. [emphasis Glenn’s]

Glenn suggests another possible way the government might be thinking of “enemy” here–one Heller dismisses.

In light of the implicit allegation that Manning transmitted this material to WikiLeaks, it is quite possible that WikiLeaks is the “enemy” referenced by Article 104, i.e., that the U.S. military now openly decrees (as opposed to secretly declaring) that the whistle-blowing group is an “enemy” of the U.S.

I’d like to look at that possibility more directly, because I think it is one the government might actually have the proof for.

As I noted earlier, Charge II, Specification 15 alleges that Manning:

between on or about 15 February 2010 and on or about 15 March 2010, having unauthorized possession of information relating to the national defense, to wit: a classified record produced by a United States Army intelligence organization, dated 18 March 2008, with reason to believe such information could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicate, deliver, transmit … the said information, to a person not entitled to receive it …

This is one of the new charges from yesterday.

We know from the date and the description that this charge refers to the counterintelligence report the NGIC did on WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks published that report on March 15, 2010.

That’s significant because, in addition to treating WikiLeaks as a counterintelligence threat, the report reviews several leaks of DOD information previously released by WikiLeaks, then describes the threat presented by it this way.

(S//NF) It must be presumed that Wikileaks.org has or will receive sensitive or classified DoD documents in the future. This information will be published and analyzed over time by a variety of personnel and organizations with the goal of influencing US policy. In addition, it must also be presumed that foreign adversaries will review and assess any DoD sensitive or classified information posted to the Wikileaks.org Web site. Web sites similar to Wikileaks.org will continue to proliferate and will continue to represent a potential force protection, counterintelligence, OPSEC, and INFOSEC threat to the US Army for the foreseeable future. Sensitive or classified information posted to Wikileaks.org could potentially reveal the capabilities and vulnerabilities of US forces, whether stationed in CONUS or deployed overseas.

(S//NF) The proliferation of access to Internet, computer, and information technology technical skills, software, tools, and databases will allow the rapid development, merging, integration, and manipulation of diverse documents, spreadsheets, multiple databases, and other publicly available or leaked information. Possible enhancements could increase the risk to US forces and could potentially provide potential attackers with sufficient information to plan conventional or terrorist attacks in locations such as Iraq or Afghanistan.

In other words, the government is newly charging Manning with leaking a document that clearly identifies WikiLeaks as a threat to US forces. Read more →

Bradley Manning’s New Charges: “Bringing Discredit upon the Armed Forces”

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Aside from learning that we–the recipients of a bunch of information Bradley Manning is alleged to have leaked–are the enemy, what did we learn from the new charges the government filed against Bradley Manning yesterday? Most of the charges say the information Manning allegedly leaked were of a nature that they would bring discredit upon the armed forces. Heh.

Here’s a summary of the charges, with my comments (note, these are all allegations–I won’t repeat that remind with each charge, but please keep it in mind):

Charge I; Article 104: Between November 1, 2009 and May 27, 2010, giving intelligence to the enemy, through indirect means.

Note, here’s how that article defines “enemy:”

“Enemy” includes (not only) organized opposing forces in time of war, (but also any other hostile body that our forces may be opposing) (such as a rebellious mob or a band of renegades) (and includes civilians as well as members of military organizations). (“Enemy” is not restricted to the enemy government or its armed forces. All the citizens of one belligerent are enemies of the government and the citizens of the other.)

As I’ll discuss in a follow-up, I think they may be refusing to say who they consider the enemy in one more effort to tie Manning to Julian Assange. But since they don’t specify who the enemy is, we can just assume it is us.

Charge II, Article 134, Specification 1: “Wrongfully and wantonly” causing intelligence to be published in the internet.

This one, it seems to me, might be broad enough to trouble the newspapers that have published the cables.

Charge II, Specification 2: Between February 15 and April 5, 2010, transmitting the Collateral Murder video to someone not entitled to receive it.

The date on this is interesting: WikiLeaks was already boasting of having a video on January 8, and they announced decrypting it (which was a ruse–it was not encrypted) on February 20, which correlates with the timing Manning described in the chat logs. I wonder if the government hasn’t been able to pinpoint when this was transmitted?

Charge II, Specification 3: Between March 22 and 26, 2010, transmitting more than one classified memo to someone not entitled to receive it.

On March 23, the WL twitter feed announced, “We know our possession of the decrypted airstrike video is now being discussed at the highest levels of US command.” This was the time period when it appears Manning, according to the chat logs, was tracking the surveillance of Assange. I suspect this reference pertains to this information.

Charge II, Specification 4: Between December 31, 2009 and January 5, 2010, getting the “Combined Information Data Network Exchange Iraq database” of more than 380,000 records.

This suggests the government believed Manning had this by the first few days of 2010.

Read more →

Time to Reevaluate the Importance of Bradley Manning’s Alleged Leak?

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Back when WikiLeaks leaked the Collateral Murder video, I was agnostic about the value of the leak. Surely, exposing the cover-up of the killing of the Reuters journalists was important. But I thought the response focused too much on the soldiers who had been trained to respond the way they had, and too little on the architects of the policies that put them in that dehumanizing position.

I personally didn’t delve much into the Afghan cable dump, so I never really assessed its value. And with the sole exception of the Iran hiker cable–which the NYT left dangerously unredacted to make one of its pet points–I found the Iraq cables to be redacted beyond the point of usefulness.

And so it was that in the early days after the State cable release when Joe Lieberman was intervening to try to prevent publication of WikiLeaks, Joe Biden was calling Julian Assange a high tech terrorist, and Sarah Palin was advocating hunting down WikiLeaks like al Qaeda, I was somewhat agnostic on the value of the massive leaks WikiLeaks released. When Floyd Abrams was trying to distinguish “good” leaker Daniel Ellsberg from “bad” alleged leaker Bradley Manning, I knew there had been revelations important to my issues, but I wasn’t sure how Manning’s alleged leak would measure up across time.

That seems like a long, long time ago.

And while we don’t yet know how the State Department cable leaks will weather history, the importance of the leak now seems beyond question. Consider the way the NYT–the Administration’s mole in the press corps–continues to rely on the cable leaks even while it disdains Julian Assange as a bag lady. Indeed, on some stories the NYT is getting scooped on by their former reporters, they use cables as a crutch to catch up.

The NYT is not alone; it seems news outlets around the world have grown accustomed–and downright happy–that these sources are all out there to help them do their jobs.

And consider the range of stories we’ve seen. We’ve seen American pressure on allies to put counterterrorism policies–both data collection and torture–ahead of democracy. We’ve seen how our troops in Iraq knowingly turned over Iraqis to be tortured. We’ve seen our allies in the Middle East promising to cause democratic elections not to take place. And while I definitely don’t think WikiLeaks “caused” the Middle Eastern uprising, they did make it hard for Western elites to defend their former client dictators once the uprisings started.

Over time, I think one of the most damning lessons from the State cables will be evidence of the tolerance for bribery and looting that rots our foreign policy. Thus far, we’ve seen details of our allies’ oil bribery, our disinterest in doing anything about Hosni Mubarak’s or Muammar Qadaffi’s or the Saudis’ looting, We’ve also seen how our government apparently threw its investigation of rich tax cheats to get Switzerland to take three of our Gitmo detainees. Our government complains about the corruption of other countries. But as WikiLeaks makes clear, those complaints are mostly just for public show.

Our government may hate all these disclosures. But they are disclosures we, as citizens, need to demand our government deliver on its promise of democracy.

After all this time, it seems, El Pais editor Javier Moreno seems to have had the right read on these leaks.

A democracy comprises diverse elements: institutions and rules; free and fair elections; independent judges and a free press, among others. At the bottom of all this there are legal procedures. When these are flouted, all the rest is put at risk.

We have come to accept the difference between the government that we elect every five years, and the military, bureaucratic, and diplomatic apparatus that it is sustained by, but that all too often it fails to control. The WikiLeaks cables have confirmed this beyond any doubt.

Ellsberg’s leak of the Pentagon Papers proved our government systematically lied about the war in Vietnam. The WikiLeaks dumps have proved that our government systematically lies about democracy.

George W Bush Won’t Share Stage with Someone Who Has Harmed US Interests

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Mark Knoller tweets:

A spokesman says former Pres George W Bush cancelled a speaking appearance tomorrow to avoid sharing stage with Wikileaks’ Julian Assange.

Bush/43 was invited to address the YPO Global Leadership Summit in Denver tomorrow, but cancelled when he learned Assange was too.

A spksmn says Bush/43 won’t share a stage “with a man who has willfully & repeatedly done great harm to the interests of the United States.”

Jeebus.

The Iraq War, by itself, has done far graver harm to the interests of the United States than all of the cables Julian Assange has leaked. And that’s before you consider allowing banksters to ruin our economy. And a whole slew of other things W did, like torture, that willfully hurt US interests.

It’s a wonder W can even share a stage with himself, if that’s his criteria.

The Government’s Amended Twitter Order

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After successfully petitioning the court to unseal them, EFF has posted the motion to vacate, motion to unseal court records, and motion to unseal motions it filed in the government’s effort to get Twitter information on several people in its investigation of WikiLeaks. The first motion to unseal has a detail I didn’t know before: Twitter appears to have objected to the government’s first request as being too burdensome to provide, so it trimmed its request.

As reflected in the published order, the government originally requested a bunch of Twitter data relating to Wikileaks, Julian Assange, Bradley Manning, Jacob Appelbaum, Birgitta Jónsdóttir, Rop Gonggrijp, and Jacob Appelbaum, covering the period from November 1, 2009 though the request.

But then–presumably after December 14–the government agreed to narrow the request (the four “people” in this passage are Wikileaks, Appelbaum, Jónsdóttir, and Gonggrijp):

As a result of negotiations between Twitter and the government, to reduce the burden on Twitter and to recognize that Twitter does not have certain of the requested information, Movants understand that the government is presently restricting the time period of its request to November 15, 2009-June 1, 2010, and that the scope of the information sought has been limited to contact information for the four account holders, the addresses used each time Movants logged into their accounts, and information regarding DMs between the four Twitter accounts named in the Order.

The time limitation is not all that surprising: the government alleges that Manning’s illegal activities began on November 19. And they arrested him on May 29.

It’s the other limitations I find interesting: the government is content to get information on the whereabouts (IP Address) of each of the four each time they used Twitter during the period when Manning is alleged to have been leaking to Wikileaks. And, the government is asking to know the timing of each DM the four sent amongst themselves in that period.

Now, presumably the other social media companies the government requested similar information from have since turned it over. In other words, the government may well be happy to limit their request based on what it has already learned from companies less willing to protect their customers’ privacy than Twitter.

Nevertheless, at least from Twitter, they seem to be tracking just this small groups activities in intense form.

The Disinformation Campaign Bank of America Considered

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Wikileaks has posted the presentation three security companies–Palantir, HBGary Federal, and Berico Technologies–made to Bank of America, proposing to help it respond to Wikileaks.

In addition to the degree to which the proposal emphasizes the national security ties and military background of the employees of the company (particularly Berico), the presentation fleshes out what the companies proposed. Under potential proactive tactics, it lists:

  • Feed the fuel between the feuding groups. Disinformation. Create messages around actions to sabotage or discredit the opposing organization. Submit fake documents and then call out the error.
  • Create concern over the security of the infrastructure. Create exposure stories. If the process is believed to not be secure they are done.
  • Cyber attacks against the infrastructure to get data on document submitters. This would kill the project. Since the servers are now in Sweden and France putting a team together to get access is more straightforward.
  • Media campaign to push the radical and reckless nature of wikileaks activities. Sustained pressure. Does nothing for the fanatics, but creates concern and doubt amongst moderates.
  • Search for leaks. Use social media to profile and identify risky behavior of employees.

Of particularly interest, they describe HBGary Federal’s abilities to conduct INFOOPS, including “influence operations” and “social media exploitation.”

In other words, in addition to proposing to conduct cyber attacks on Wikileaks’ European-based infrastructure (complete with a picture of WL’s bomb shelter-housed servers), the proposal appears to recommend that these companies be paid to troll social media, like Twitter, to not only “identify risky behavior of employees” but also, presumably, “push the radical and reckless nature of wikileaks activities.” You know–the kind of trolling we often see targeted at Glenn (and in recent days targeted against David House, who was also listed in this presentation).

In addition, the presentation proposes to create a concern over the security of the infrastructure. Interestingly, when additional newspapers in Europe got copies of the State cables (including Aftenposten), some people speculated that the files had come from a hack of Wikileaks servers. (Note how the slide above notes the disgruntled WL volunteers.)

That doesn’t mean we’re seeing this campaign in process. After all, Glenn has a ton of enemies on Twitter. And if the intent behind leaking additional copies of the cables was to suggest WL’s infrastructure had been hacked, that perception has largely dissipated as more and more newspapers get copies.

One final note: according to Tech Herald, the law firm pitching these firms, Hunton and Williams, was itself recommended to BoA by DOJ. As the presentation makes clear, these are significant government contractors. (Remember, we’re getting these documents because Anonymous hacked HBGary Federal, which was offering what it had collected to DOJ.) To what extent is what we’re seeing just an extension of what our own government is trying to combat Wikileaks?

Security Firms Pitching Bank of America on WikiLeaks Response Proposed Targeting Glenn Greenwald

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On Saturday, private security firm HBGary Federal bragged to the FT that it had discovered who key members of the hacking group Anonymous are. In response, Anonymous hacked HB Gary Federal and got 44,000 of their emails and made them publicly available.

You believe that you can sell the information you’ve found to the FBI? False. Now, why is this one false? We’ve seen your internal documents, all of them, and do you know what we did? We laughed. Most of the information you’ve “extracted” is publicly available via our IRC networks. The personal details of Anonymous “members” you think you’ve acquired are, quite simply, nonsense.

So why can’t you sell this information to the FBI like you intended? Because we’re going to give it to them for free. Your gloriously fallacious work can be a wonder for all to scour, as will all of your private emails (more than 44,000 beauties for the public to enjoy). Now as you’re probably aware, Anonymous is quite serious when it comes to things like this, and usually we can elaborate gratuitously on our reasoning behind operations, but we will give you a simple explanation, because you seem like primitive people:

You have blindly charged into the Anonymous hive, a hive from which you’ve tried to steal honey. Did you think the bees would not defend it? Well here we are. You’ve angered the hive, and now you are being stung.

As TechHerald reports, among those documents was a presentation, “The Wikileaks Threat,” put together by three data intelligence firms for Bank of America in December. As part of it, they put together what they claimed was a list of important contributors to WikiLeaks. They suggested that Glenn Greenwald’s support was key to WikiLeaks’ ongoing survival.

The proposal starts with an overview of WikiLeaks, including some history and employee statistics. From there it moves into a profile of Julian Assange and an organizational chart. The chart lists several people, including volunteers and actual staff.

One of those listed as a volunteer, Salon.com columnist, Glenn Greenwald, was singled out by the proposal. Greenwald, previously a constitutional law and civil rights litigator in New York, has been a vocal supporter of Bradley Manning, who is alleged to have given diplomatic cables and other government information to WikiLeaks. He has yet to be charged in the matter.

Greenwald became a household name in December when he reported on the “inhumane conditions” of Bradley Manning’s confinement at the Marine brig in Quantico, Virginia. Since that report, Greenwald has reported on WikiLeaks and Manning several times.

“Glenn was critical in the Amazon to OVH transition,” the proposal says, referencing the hosting switch WikiLeaks was forced to make after political pressure caused Amazon to drop their domain.

As TechHerald notes, an earlier version of the slide said support from people like Glenn needed to be “attacked.”

Now aside from the predictable, but nevertheless rather shocking detail, that these security firms believed the best way to take WikiLeaks out was to push Glenn to stop supporting them, what the fuck are they thinking by claiming that Glenn weighs “professional preservation” against “cause”? Could they be more wrong, painting Glenn as a squeamish careerist whose loud support for WikiLeaks (which dates back far longer than these security firms seem to understand) is secondary to “professional preservation”? Do they know Glenn is a journalist? Do they know he left the stuffy world of law? Have they thought about why he might have done that? Are they familiar at all with who Glenn is? Do they really believe Glenn became a household name–to the extent that he did–just in December?

I hope Bank of America did buy the work of these firms. Aside from the knowledge that the money would be–to the extent that we keep bailing out Bank of America–taxpayer money, I’d be thrilled to think of BoA pissing away its money like that. The plan these firms are pushing is absolutely ignorant rubbish. They apparently know almost nothing about what they’re pitching, and have no ability to do very basic research.

Which is precisely the approach I’d love to see BoA use to combat whatever WikiLeaks has coming its way.

What State Wanted Withheld from WikiLeaks Publication

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There are now four versions of the cooperation between WikiLeaks and its journalistic “partners:” Vanity Fair, NYT, Guardian, and Spiegel. A comparison of them is more instructive than reading any in isolation.

For example, compare how the NYT and Spiegel describe the three things the State Department asked journalistic partners not to publish during the lead-up to publication of the diplomatic cables. The NYT says State asked them not to publish individual sources, “sensitive American programs,” and candid comments about foreign leaders.

The administration’s concerns generally fell into three categories. First was the importance of protecting individuals who had spoken candidly to American diplomats in oppressive countries. We almost always agreed on those and were grateful to the government for pointing out some we overlooked.

“We were all aware of dire stakes for some of the people named in the cables if we failed to obscure their identities,” Shane wrote to me later, recalling the nature of the meetings. Like many of us, Shane has worked in countries where dissent can mean prison or worse. “That sometimes meant not just removing the name but also references to institutions that might give a clue to an identity and sometimes even the dates of conversations, which might be compared with surveillance tapes of an American Embassy to reveal who was visiting the diplomats that day.”

The second category included sensitive American programs, usually related to intelligence. We agreed to withhold some of this information, like a cable describing an intelligence-sharing program that took years to arrange and might be lost if exposed. In other cases, we went away convinced that publication would cause some embarrassment but no real harm.

The third category consisted of cables that disclosed candid comments by and about foreign officials, including heads of state. The State Department feared publication would strain relations with those countries. We were mostly unconvinced.

Spiegel describes those three things slightly differently. It says State asked them to withhold government sources, cables with security implications, and “cables relating to counterterrorism.”

At first, less than a week before the upcoming publication of the leaked documents, Clinton’s diplomats wanted three things from the participating media organizations. First, they wanted the names of US government sources to be protected if leaks posed a danger to life and limb. This was a policy that all five media organizations involved already pursued. Second, they asked the journalists to exercise restraint when it came to cables with security implications. Third, they asked them to be aware that cables relating to counterterrorism are extremely sensitive.

Now the discrepancy may mean nothing. Both agree State had three categories of information they wanted withheld. Both agree State asked the newspapers to withhold both the names of sources and details on intelligence programs. But since the NYT notes the journalistic partners didn’t take the third category–candid comments–very seriously, perhaps Spiegel just misremembered what that third category was, or just remembered a particular focus on counterterrorism. Presumably, after all, the counterterrorism programs would be included in category two.

But whatever the cause of the discrepancy, I am intrigued that Spiegel emphasizes counterterrorism programs rather than candid comments about foreign officials, not least because the Spiegel article describes working with US Ambassador to Germany Philip Murphy directly. Consider the two most sensitive revelations pertaining to Germany and counterterrorism. First, there was the news of Philip Murphy personally bad-mouthing the Free Democratic Party’s opposition to US vacuuming up European data, particularly as it relates to the SWIFT database. Then there are negotiations about whether Germany would prosecute Americans involved in the rendition of Khalid El-Masri. As I showed, it appears that Condi was telling German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier one thing about a subpoena for those Americans, followed quickly by the American Deputy Chief of Mission “correcting” the US position on it.

That is, on both major disclosures about US counterterrorism cooperation with the Germans, the US has reason to be embarrassed about its two-faced dealing with German officials.

In other words, there may be no discrepancy. It is possible that the third category of information State wanted suppressed has to do not with the substance of our counterterrorism program (after all, both the details of SWIFT and of our rendition program have been widely publicized), but with the degree to which our private diplomacy belies all the public claims we make about counterterrorism.

The NYT’s “Heads Up” Meeting with the FBI on Wikileaks

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The NYT has a very long profile on their interactions with Wikileaks, about which I will have more to say.

But I wanted to point to this meeting, which Bill Keller describes as the NYT’s effort to give the government a “heads up” on the diplomatic cables.

Because of the range of the material and the very nature of diplomacy, the embassy cables were bound to be more explosive than the War Logs. Dean Baquet, our Washington bureau chief, gave the White House an early warning on Nov. 19. The following Tuesday, two days before Thanksgiving, Baquet and two colleagues were invited to a windowless room at the State Department, where they encountered an unsmiling crowd. Representatives from the White House, the State Department, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the C.I.A., the Defense Intelligence Agency, the F.B.I. and the Pentagon gathered around a conference table. Others, who never identified themselves, lined the walls. A solitary note-taker tapped away on a computer. [my emphasis]

It’s bad enough that–as Keller also reports–the NYT has no secure communications.

But is it also the habit of the NYT to meet with the government–including the FBI–on upcoming stories? For all the NYT’s insistence, with Judy Miller, that they would not be an accomplice to a government investigation, what the hell were they doing meeting with the FBI before they published a story?