I’ve been meaning to leave the Google ecosystem for a year or so, but one thing has been keeping me from doing so. While Google makes a valiant effort to help you migrate most of your data when you leave, it has actually, in the past, made it more difficult to bring your chat logs with you.

Gmail allows users to chat using the XMPP protocol, and keeps a log of all chats, accessible through the “Chats” option on the left hand side of the Gmail interface. If, like me, you had over 2000 chats, it is unfeasible to download the chats on a one-by-one basis. A batch solution was called for.

Old methods, no longer feasible.

It used to be possible to download them using an email client, and IMAP, but this was made unavailable. Various other solutions were suggested by conscientious internet users. It was suggested that one could forward the chats to one’s own gmail account, and then download the resultant email. This had to be done one-by-one, and was therefore no solution. Furthermore, the chats were often truncated.

Collin Anderson came up with the idea of writing a Python script, and using libgmail to scrape the chats. By the time I used it, it no longer worked. JR Gutierrez tried a similar strategy using Ruby. It worked for me when I tried it, but the results weren’t exactly what I wanted, which was just to keep the logs. I am seeing indications in comments that it doesn’t work anymore. Besides all of this, both methods apparently conspicuously violate Gmail’s TOS, and many people were banned for using them. Furthermore, both methods involve lengthy download times.

Another strategy was to use the Google Gears Offline Gmail facility to download all the chats. This was pioneered here and built upon here. This left users with a bunch of chats in a sql database file, which then had to be extracted using a script, and often sorted and formatted manually. When I used this method, the chats were disorganized in a single folder, and the longer chats were truncated at a certain length, leaving out most of the chat.

How to do it

Here’s my solution. It has worked for me for over 2000 chats. All downloads were completed within an hour. I was not blocked by Google, although it is entirely possible that it does violate the TOS. I was left with a folder full of chats in htm format, organized most recent first, under the naming scheme: [#1-2000] – [Contact's Name] – [DD MM YYYY].htm. While this was the way I did it, there is plenty of scope for people who want a different naming scheme to try and tinker with the method to deliver what they need.

An advantage of this method is that, while advanced users will be able to cut corners by using linux command line options like sed or grep, or writing their own scripts for processing the htm files, the method is transparent enough for the average user, and can be carried out using very common applications and user friendly browser plugins.

1. Log into Gmail and set it to display 100 messages per page using Settings > General Tab.

2. Click on Chats in the left sidebar, and Select All chats. (you will be prompted to say whether you want to select all the chats on the present page or all the chats. Say yes.) Label all the chats with a unique label, just for them, like “chatlogs.”

3. Go to the Basic HTML view. In the Basic HTML view, you cannot access chats through the menu. This is why we labeled all the chats. Click on the label to access them.

4. Scroll through each page of chat logs, pressing CTRL-S on each page, and saving each page with a number, starting with 00. Make sure they are all in an easily accessible folder. Remember to save as “HTML only” so that you don’t have folders accompanying them.

5. In Gmail, return to the normal view, and click on Chats again. Click into a single chat. Click on the “Print All” Printer icon at the top right of the pane.

6. You will be given a print view of the chat. A print dialogue pops up. Click cancel. Now, copy the url for the print view. It will look like this:

https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=2222abc2e3&view=pt&search=chats&th=2525c535aa23b234


The string at the end, beginning 2525… is the ID of the chat. This isn’t important, as you have the ID of every chat in aggregate.htm. Neither is the start of the url, which is just the address for Gmail.

The middle bit – which will vary from account to account – is the important part, as this tells gmail you want to see the print view of each chat. In this case, it is:

?ui=2&ik=2222abc2e3&view=pt&search=chats&th=

Copy this string and keep it safe.

5. Download a good text editor, like Notepad++, and open ’00.htm’ in it.

Scroll down and scan the HTML until you see some chats. You will see the names of your contacts, and the first line of the chat. Each chat has a hyperlink which will look like this:

<a href="https:// mail. google. com/mail/h/11zv4nm8v356v/?v=c&s=l&l=chatlogs&st=700&th=2525c535aa23b234">

Again, it is the bit between the Gmail address and the Chat ID string that is important. Copy this. In this case, it is:

h/11zv4nm8v356v/?v=c&s=l&l=chatlogs&st=700&th=


Open the Find/Replace dialogue in your text editor, and paste this string into the Replace field.

Into the Replace With field, put the string we took from the “Print All” page in step 4, which was, in our example:

?ui=2&ik=2222abc2e3&view=pt&search=chats&th=


Hit Replace All. It should make 100 replacements (unless you are on the last page of your chats).

Save. The string you are replacing is different in each of the htm files, so you must repeat this process for every one of your numbered htm files. Always replace with the same string we took from step 4.

6. Now you must concatenate your htm files into one larger file. In linux, navigate to the folder using a terminal and use:

cat * >> aggregate.htm
On Windows, open a command prompt, and navigate to the folder, and use:

for %f in (*.htm) do type “%f” >> aggregate.txt
rename aggregate.txt aggregate.htm


Keep aggregate.htm. Delete the rest.

7. Optional! You can just skip to step 12 now, if all you want to do is pull down all your chats. However, you may want to have the names of the chat files formatted in a nice and easily navigable way. You can do this with some simple editing of the HTML in aggregate.htm. If you examine the HTML for each chat, it (now, after step 5) looks like this:

<tr bgcolor="#E8EEF7"> <td> <input type="checkbox" name="t" value="2525c535aa23b234"> </td> <td> <span class="ar">»</span> [Contact's Name]</td> <td> <a href="https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=2222abc2e3&view=pt&search=chats&th=2525c535aa23b234"> <span class="ts"><font size="1"><font color="#006633"> chatlogs </font></font> Chat with [Contact's Name] <font color="#7777CC"> - [Contact's Forename]: [First line of the chat] </font></span> </a></td> <td nowrap=""> [DD MM YYYY] </td></tr>

As you can see, the date of the chat is not contained within the anchor tags for the link. We need to move the date into those tags, so that our download manager can pick up that text when it is downloading by batch, and thereby name the files. This is possible with a couple of minor replacement operations.

8. First, make sure your text editor’s Find/Replace function supports regular expressions. Open the Find/Replace dialogue, and in the Find field, input:

<font color="#7777CC">.*?</.*?></.*?> </a></td> <td.*/nowrap="">

In the Replace With Field, put: a hyphen, with a space on either side: -

Click Replace All, and the text editor should tell you that it has performed the same number of replacements as you have chats.

This removes the closing tags for the hyperlinks, as well as a lot of intervening information you don’t need, such as the first line of the chat. It therefore leaves the tags unclosed. To close them, carry out the next operation.

9. Now, in the Find field, put:

</tr><tr bgcolor="#E8EEF7">

and in the Replace With field, put:

</font></span></a></tr><tr bgcolor="#E8EEF7">

Hit Replace All. Again, it should replace as many times as you have chats. This operation inserts closing tags at the end of each chat line, including most importantly the hyperlink tags. This fixes the damage we did to the HTML in the last step, while giving us the information we want within the hyperlink tags.

10. The link text still contains the name of the label we put on the chats, which in our case was “chatlogs.” This can be removed later with a nice file renamer, but if you want to do it now, put the following in the Find field:

<font color="#006633">.*?</font>

and leave the Replace With field blank. Click Replace All.

11.. A final cosmetic step would be to remove the “Chat with” text, as unnecessary. Put:

Chat with

in the Find field, and leave the Replace With field blank. Click Replace All.

Save your file – to be on the safe side, save it as a new file, and compare the old one and the new one in your browser. The name of the chats in the new version should show “[name] – [DD MM YYYY]” as the main text on each line. If it does, you’re ready to download.

12. Open the file in Firefox. It should display as all of the pages you downloaded, but strung together one under another. Install DownThemAll. In the DownThemAll settings, make sure it pulls down only one concurrent file at a time – this is to avoid drawing attention to yourself from Google.

13. On the browser view of our prepared aggregate.htm, right click and choose DownThemAll. On the DownThemAll “Make Your Selection” screen, scroll down, and use shift to highlight each group of 100 chats, which will be identifiable by name. Right click on them, and click Check Selected Items. Do this for all your chats.

14. Now you must specify a renaming mask which will pick up on the data we have edited into the hyperlink tags, and rename your eventual files accordingly. If you have your own designs on the filenames, and have processed the HTML differently, you will have your own ideas about how to do the renaming mask. If you followed steps 7-11, specify this mask:

*inum* - *text*.*ext* (which is, item number, text within the hyperlink tags, and file extension, respectively.)

This will give each of the filenames a number based on their order in aggregate.htm (which is chronological), followed by the text within the tags, which is the name of the contact and the date.

15. Choose a new folder to put all your files in. Hit Start! Wait. Hopefully, you will not get blocked.

16. After downloading you will have a lot of single html files. One problem is that all of these will contain some javascript, bringing up a print dialogue whenever you open them. If you run linux, you can use a batch command line option (grep) to remove this, so that all you get when you open is a nicely formatted chatlog.

If you want a(n actually more complicated, but) less intimidating option on Windows, download a batch text editor like ReplaceText. Put your entire folder of htm files into a group, and ask it to find the following script:

<script> 
function Print(){document.body.offsetHeight;window.print()};
</script> 

Leave the replace field blank, and hit replace all. The app should process all your files, and remove the print script from the files. Now when you open them, no print dialogue will pop up.

Enjoy your beautifully formatted, indexed Gmail chat logs, and your freedom from Google!

It appears that the Wall Street Journal – which publishes from News Corp’s Celanese Building headquarters in New York city – is suing for the title of “Murdoch’s Bulldog.” Thinly veiled and deceptive attempts to control the message on the escalating News of the World scandal have been issuing from the once-respected news outlet. And the tactic seems to be diversionary. The second article in two days to defend News Corp by attacking Wikileaks was published today, penned by Bret Stephens.

Trevor Timm has already written here at WL Central about yesterday’s clumsy WSJ editorial, which alleged hypocrisy at the Guardian, in that it criticized News of the World while publishing material from Wikileaks. Today’s article belaboured the same spurious argument even further, as the air of desperation at News Corp intensified in advance of the Murdoch hearing today. Keen to deny his motives preemptively, Stephens notes:

It’s probably inevitable that this column will be read in some quarters as shilling for Rupert Murdoch. Not at all: I have nothing but contempt for the hack journalism practiced by some of the Murdoch titles.

But the entire thrust of his argument undermines this claim. Stephens is either exceptionally ignorant of the facts on which his article touches, or he is very clearly shilling for Rupert Murdoch. These are the only two possible explanations for the deceitfulness on evidence here.

How Damage Control Is Done

The article is a collection of timeworn rhetorical swindles. Stephens’ basic argument is a tu quoque fallacy: he attempts to distract attention from criminal activity in News Corp ranks by arguing that the rest of the press is just as deceitful. Even if this were true, it would be nothing more than a distraction from what is, without a doubt, a scandal very worthy of scrutiny.

To substantiate his argument-by-hypocrisy, Stephens raises a false equivalence between, on the one hand, Wikileaks’ facilitation of conscientious whistleblowing by corporate and government employees and, on the other hand, criminal interception of private voicemail messages by powerful news organizations.

This false equivalence is only sustainable by lying outright, or by passing on the lies of others. There is simply no comparison between these two activities. To support his case, Stephens therefore marshals various demonstrable falsehoods about Wikileaks. The usual suspects make their appearance – the same old zombie lies, already discredited countless times.

Straightforward Falsehoods

Consider Stephens’ initial claims of false equivalence:

In both cases, secret information, initially obtained by illegal means, was disseminated publicly by news organizations that believed the value of the information superseded the letter of the law, as well as the personal interests of those whom it would most directly affect.

There is little doubt that News of the World was engaged in mass criminality, at this point. But it is false to assert that Wikileaks obtained its information by illegal means. It is probably true to say that, when whistleblowers leak evidence of wrongdoing from centres of state and corporate power, they do so in violation of the law. This is often what necessitates the confidentiality of sources in the exposure of such activity. But it is misleading to claim that in passively receiving such information, Wikileaks violates any law.

Wikileaks has, to date, successfully defended all legal challenges to its activities. And if Wikileaks does not obtain its information by illegal means, it is all the more deceitful to claim that the news organizations who publish information from Wikileaks – a list of organizations which includes the Wall Street Journal – are thereby obtaining information by illegal means. It is perfectly consistent with normal press freedoms to be in receipt of classified information. While this has been challenged by states hungry for more secrecy, the courts have thus far protected the practice.

Stephens next relies on the myth that Wikileaks has caused demonstrable harm:

In both cases, a dreadful human toll has been exacted: The British parents of murdered 13-year-old Milly Dowler, led to the false hope that their child might be alive because some of her voice mails were deleted after her abduction; Afghan citizens, fearful of Taliban reprisals after being exposed by WikiLeaks as U.S. informants.

It is worth noting in passing that the phrase “a dreadful human toll” conjures images more of mass graves than fearful informants. But the central falsehood here – that the lives of Afghan informants were substantially endangered – has been discredited multiple times as a piece of straightforward US government spin. To date, Wikileaks does not have “blood on its hands,” as has been so often cited. Furthermore, the controversy over the endangerment of Afghan lives rests on the allegation that Wikileaks was careless about harm minimization in its release of the Afghanistan War Logs. This too is a piece of government spin, calculated to conceal the US government’s own negligence in helping with harm minimization.

Stephens, however, presumes damage on the part of Wikileaks, and quotes obediently from official government statements, presumably relying on trust that a faction which has a clear vested interest in seeing Wikileaks discredited would not fabricate harm to this end:

Seen in this light, the damage caused by WikiLeaks almost certainly exceeded what was done by News of the World, precisely because Mr. Assange and his media enablers were targeting bigger—if often more vulnerable—game. The Obama administration went so far as to insist last year that WikiLeaks “[placed] at risk the lives of countless innocent individuals—from journalists to human rights activists to soldiers.” Shouldn’t there be some accountability, or at least soul-searching, about this, too?

Elsewhere, Stephens raises another zombie lie from its umpteenth grave. Yesterday, it became known to the world, through the Zimbabwean press, that a treason investigation into Morgan Tzvangirai had collapsed. Wikileaks was blamed in January when journalists at the Guardian failed to redact some of Tzvangirai’s comments from a published cable, which were then seized upon by Robert Mugabe’s faction in the Zimbabwean government. Ironically, the most strident criticism of Wikileaks issued from the pages of the Guardian itself, although, after a week of criticism, the paper published a retraction, and recognized that it bore the responsibility. The falsehood that it was Wikileaks, and not the Guardian, which was responsible, was nevertheless invulnerable to the facts, and propogated freely elsewhere, as it has clearly done in Stephens’ piece:

Was it in the higher public interest to know, as we learned from WikiLeaks, that Zimbabwe’s prime minister and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was privately urging U.S. diplomats to hold firm on sanctions even as he was saying the opposite in public? No. Did the public want to know about it? No. What did this particular WikiLeak achieve? Nothing, except to put Mr. Tsvangirai at material risk of being charged with treason and hanged.

When these words were published it was already common knowledge that Tzvangirai is no longer to be prosecuted. While critics of Wikileaks, like Stephens, are happy to wax righteous about the endangerment of Tzvangirai’s life, the discovery that he is no longer – and therefore never was – in any danger will likely be a substantial disappointment to them. Distortion though it was to blame Wikileaks for someone else’s negligence – it was the closest thing to a point they had. It is for this reason that Tzvangirai’s vindication is likely to be ignored by dissimulators like Stephens.

Mentioning Rape

In his attempt to tamp down controversy over the worst abuses of the tabloid press, Stephens scruples little from its tactics, indulging in a brief diversion through Assange’s ongoing legal trouble – which has nothing to do with anything here – to throw in a specious association between public interest journalism and the word “rape.”

You can see the attraction of this argument—particularly if, like Mr. Assange, you are trying to fight extradition to Sweden on pending rape charges that you consider unworthy of public notice.

The voluminous reservations that are to be had with the investigation in question are well documented, at WL Central and elsewhere. And in fact, it is to his credit that Assange has endured relentless scrutiny of this case so that the irregularities here can be exposed. Those have been – sadly – very worthy of public notice. But put this aside; Stephens isn’t just being partial here. He is lying, whether intentionally or carelessly. In order for this not to be a casual libel, Stephens would have had to say that Assange is “trying to fight extradition to Sweden for questioning in connection with rape allegations.” Doubtless, the mere mention of sex offences in this context – completely irrelevant though they are – would still have had the desired effect. But fidelity to the facts would not appear to be a priority for the Wall Street Journal, which just happens to share a building with Rupert Murdoch.

Failing to Understand Journalism

The crux of Stephens’ false equivalence is an apparently formidable ignorance of the difference between personal privacy and state/corporate secrecy – an ignorance that is doubly repugnant in someone who claims to be a journalist. Taking issue with stringent criticism of Murdoch’s News Corp by the rest of the press, he accuses them of “a piece of rhetorical legerdemain that masks a raw assertion of privilege.” There is no difference between Wikileaks and phone-hacking, he tells us, except for the self-righteous prejudice of journalistic do-gooders:

The easy answer is that the news revealed by WikiLeaks was in the public interest, whereas what was disclosed by News of the World was merely of interest to the public. By this reckoning, if it’s a great matter of state, and especially if it’s a government secret, it’s fair game. Not so if it’s just so much tittle-tattle about essentially private affairs.

As Julian Assange told media partner Bivol, “I believe in the right to communicate and the inviolability of history, privacy for the weak and transparency for the powerful.” It is a basic jurisprudential principle of civic democracy that the private individual must be protected from the abuses of arbitrary power. There are rigorous legal restraints on the exercise of state power to ensure that the necessary evil of strong government does not become harmful to the people it is supposed to serve. The concept of privacy is one such restraint, as is the concept of due process. When powerful organizations are able to flagrantly breach the privacy of individuals, they are given an almost total power over them, and there is nothing to prevent them from committing injustices.

Likewise, when powerful organizations and individuals are given the right to pervasive secrecy, they can shield abuses, and commit unaccountable injustices against private individuals. This is why there is a need for public interest whistleblowing, and it is why a press that focuses on the wrongdoing of the powerful is a crucial asset of a just society.

If Stephens had a proper grasp of the principles behind public interest journalism he would realize that News of the World – a hitherto unaccountable organization exploiting vulnerable individuals – is exactly the sort of entity Wikileaks would insist could beneficially become more transparent. By criticizing voicemail interception, publications like The Guardian are acting entirely consistently with the principles that led them to publish stories by Wikileaks.

There is therefore no moral equivalence between News of the World and Wikileaks. Instead, two different analogies are worth bearing in mind. A similarity between Wikileaks’ public interest motives and those of The Guardian in the tireless exposure of News of the World. And that between News of the World and a U.S. government which avails of the prerogative of state secrecy to lie and dissemble, mislead its public, spy and violate civil liberties on the domestic front, and commit acts of state terrorism and the crimes of aggression abroad.

If Bret Stephens was a journalist, all of this would be clear to him. But he cannot be that. To appropriate the term ‘journalist’ as one who engages in clamorous apologism for state and corporate criminality, and for the abuse of the vulnerable, is to offend against the language we speak. His attacks on Wikileaks are merely the incidental symptoms of a general malady: the inversion of the function of the press by corporate monopolies and incestuous loyalties. At best, Stephens has negligently misstated the facts. At worst, he is a liar for hire. And either way, it is abundantly clear which payroll he is on.

The Financial Gazette, a Zimbabwean English-language news weekly, reports:

A PANEL set up early this year to probe alleged treason by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and leading ZANU-PF critics, has recommended that there are no legal grounds to prosecute individuals on the basis of accounts contained in WikiLeaks files, The Financial Gazette has established. The panel, set up by Attorney-General (AG), Johannes Tomana, was composed of some of the country’s top legal minds, in terms of Section 76 of the Constitution, to sift through the WikiLeaks cables for possible breach of the country’s laws.

In January, the potential charges against Tzvangirai were seized upon in a Guardian opinion piece by GOP public relations consultant James Richardson, who proceeded to argue that any harm that might come to Morgan Tzvangirai would be attributable to Wikileaks as “collateral damage,” since, he argued, Wikileaks had failed to redact information that might incriminate the Zimbabwean PM.

The article caused a small controversy because in its zeal to criticize Wikileaks it glossed over severe inaccuracies. The initial point of publication for the original Tzvangirai cable, 09HARARE1004, had been The Guardian, and not Wikileaks, and – because of the the publication arrangement between Cablegate media partners – it was the Guardian which had failed to redact the information that had allegedly incriminated Tzvangirai.

WL Central covered the story as it happened, here. ZunguZungu also wrote an informative piece about how Richardson’s piece was culpably simplistic in its treatment of political realities in Zimbabwe, such that it appeared to be mere opportunism. Glenn Greenwald covered the controversy here. The falsehood, that it was Wikileaks that was primarily responsible for the unredacted cable, however, was repeated casually throughout the online news arena.

The controversy eventually elicited corrections, a retraction and a high profile piece drawing attention to the issue, and acknowledging the hypocrisy of the Guardian.

Despite the lack of a clear argument against Wikileaks, the incident remained a favourite case for critics of Wikileaks, who, in their attempts to brand Wikileaks a dangerous and reckless organization, run up against a severe shortage of evidence of actual harm caused by Wikileaks.

The news that the investigation – commissioned by the Zimbabwean Attorney General Johannes Tomana – has concluded that there are insufficient grounds for prosecution of Tzvangirai conclusively ends this controversy. No harm will come to Tzvangirai because of the negligence of the Guardian. There is no longer any blame to shift to Wikileaks.

The news of the collapse of the investigation into Tzvangirai will likely see vastly less attention, however, than stories attributing sensational blame to Wikileaks. As evidenced by today’s suspiciously partial WSJ article – where Bret Stephens defended criminal activity in the News of the World by drawing a moral equivalence between phone hacking and public interest whistleblowing – corrupt and lazy journalism does not scruple from the redeployment of discredited falsehoods:

But you can also see why the distinction between the Public Interest, loftily defined, and what actually happens to interest the public, not-so-loftily defined, is a piece of rhetorical legerdemain that masks a raw assertion of privilege. Was it in the higher public interest to know, as we learned from WikiLeaks, that Zimbabwe’s prime minister and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was privately urging U.S. diplomats to hold firm on sanctions even as he was saying the opposite in public? No. Did the public want to know about it? No. What did this particular WikiLeak achieve? Nothing, except to put Mr. Tsvangirai at material risk of being charged with treason and hanged.

Concern for the wellbeing of Morgan Tzvangirai is laudable, and it is to be hoped that critics of Wikileaks will share the relief that there is no longer any risk of harm to him, regardless of how it might undermine their case.

Last week’s release of the unredacted Lamo-Manning chat logs contained more information on the means by which Bradley Manning is alleged to have leaked information to Wikileaks. For a year now, Julian Assange has insisted that he can neither confirm nor deny whether Bradley Manning is the source for the leaks, since – as a matter of policy – the identity of the source is not known to Wikileaks. Wikileaks protects its sources by keeping them anonymous through cryptography and a secure submission system. Even if pressured to reveal their sources by court order – so goes the reasoning – Wikileaks will be unable to do so.

The original redacted chat logs contained no information which contradicted this, but they did contain various passages which appeared to make the story less likely. In particular, Manning is said in the logs to have claimed to have “developed a relationship” with Assange. The unredacted logs, however, give a more complete picture, and appear to confirm that Assange was speaking truthfully. If they are genuine – which is not assured – the chatlogs relate how Assange, in what appear to have been anonymous communications, insisted on knowing as little as possible about Manning.

(02:56:46 PM) bradass87: he knows very little about me
(02:56:54 PM) bradass87: he takes source protection uber-seriously
(02:57:01 PM) bradass87: “lie to me” he says
(02:57:06 PM) info@adrianlamo.com: Really. Interesting.
(02:57:34 PM) bradass87: he wont work with you if you reveal too much about yourself

If the logs are true, Wikileaks has entirely honoured its promise of source protection. It has done everything by the book. And yet, for Guardian journalist James Ball, the scrupulous insistence on rigorous operation-security on the part of Julian Assange is instead grounds for suggesting that he bears responsibility for Bradley Manning’s arrest. Ball has, regrettably, twisted evidence of Wikileaks’ good conduct in order to reflect on Wikileaks in the worst possible light.

Ball’s article is only the most recent attempt by Guardian staff at scapegoating Julian Assange for the arrest and subsequent torture of Manning at the hands of the US government. For some time now David Leigh at the Guardian has been insinuating that Julian Assange is to blame for Manning’s arrest. Speculation as to Leigh’s motive for so doing cannot be conclusive, but it would be a fair guess to say it has to do with the mutual animosity between Leigh and Assange, which developed after Wikileaks broke with the Guardian late last year.

Leigh’s commentary on Wikileaks since then – by and large promulgated through his twitter account – has been remarkably petty, and bears the indicia more of emotional vendetta than principled disagreement. He has seized on every controversy having to do with Wikileaks that has surfaced, however vulgar or inflated, and has distorted even positive news about Wikileaks so as to find a negative angle. Clearly attempting to affect a jocular tone, Leigh tends instead to come off as hopelessly obsessed and resentful. Nearly 90% of his tweets are clumsily transparent expressions of Wikileaks-directed schadenfreude.

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David Leigh

Oh dear. Daily Mail latches on to allegation that #Assange was on a love-child spree. Bad for #WIkileaks. http://bit.ly/eyzBy0

February 11, 2011 2:32 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

The frustrations of a journalist would be reasonably innocuous, however, if it wasn't for the grave consequences that might result from the circulation of falsehoods in this highly-charged matter. In his baseless insinuations of fault for the arrest of Bradley Manning, Leigh oversteps the mark, and becomes the author of potentially harmful disinformation.

This particular thread in Leigh's vendetta surfaced shortly before the publication of his Wikileaks book, jointly authored by Leigh and Guardian colleague Luke Harding, in January. A Telegraph article revealed that the Guardian’s tell-all Wikileaks book, in its account of the events described in the Lamo-Manning chat logs, prejudicially treated the chatlogs as reliable, and related as fact rather than allegation that Manning was Wikileaks’ source. The Guardian, then, had found Manning guilty before the US government had ever put him in front of a court.

In fact, the book was even more indiscreet. As covered by WIRED magazine, Leigh and Harding’s book related how, privately, Assange was concerned to hold off publication of the War Logs and Cable releases, and wanted to assert rigorous control over the schedule of those releases, so as not to prejudice Manning’s case. While unaware whether Manning was actually the source – because of the anonymous nature of the submission system at Wikileaks – Assange was worried that journalistic efforts on the leaks might expose Manning to the risk of charges under the Espionage Act. While it is salutary to know of Assange’s concern for the wellbeing of a possible source, the very publication of this story runs the risk of further cementing the impression in the minds of the public that Manning is guilty.

Leigh defended the book vigorously on Twitter, alleging industrial jealousy as a motive:

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David Leigh

Jealous "Telegraph" makes absurd attack on Guardian book, falsely calls Manning a source. Gordon Rayner shameful http://bit.ly/wikileaksbook

January 30, 2011 7:03 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

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David Leigh

I'm really amazed at how spiteful and stupid the Telegraph is being about the Guardian's new book http://bit.ly/wikileaksbook. Sour grapes?

January 30, 2011 7:09 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

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David Leigh

@wikileaks Why lie, Julian? You won't go to heaven if you lie about the #Guardian book. gu.com/p/2mnxe/tw You'll go somewhere else

January 30, 2011 11:37 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

Pressed on the issue by multiple twitter users, Leigh then explicitly stated that Assange had gotten Manning arrested, while also defending the practice of treating the chat logs as if they were true, because “life is too short” to presume, in print, the innocence of a man possibly facing the death penalty.

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David Leigh

@sunny_hundal We didn't point out Manning leaked. Wired mag did. US Army indicted him. It can't affect his plight. Assange got him arrested

January 30, 2011 11:48 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

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David Leigh

@trh_humunculus @wikileaks Think about it a minute. Manning's lawyer would have instantly denied contents of published logs, if fabricated.

January 31, 2011 12:45 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

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David Leigh

It certainly wasn't Wired mag who got Manning arrested for #Wikileaks. They published the chatlogs later. http://bit.ly/wikileaksbook

January 31, 2011 8:58 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

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David House

@davidleigh3 How do you know what Manning's lawyer has done?

January 31, 2011 4:08 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

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David Leigh

@davidmhouse You're right. I don't know what Manning's lawyer has done. But we can't ignore realities on the #Guardian. Life's too short

January 31, 2011 9:13 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

Over the next month, Leigh took to dismissal of trenchant criticism, falsely alleging that it came only from teenagers, in a shameless deployment of an “argument from seniority.”

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David Leigh

Some fans, + a little crowd of angry teen detractors: what you get for writing a book about #Assange & #WikiLeaks. Serves us right, probably

March 8, 2011 9:12 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

Leigh thereafter renewed his insinuations of fault on the part of Assange, eventually posting the notorious “I like to think…” tweet, where his self-regarding dishonesty was so acute as to trigger a short-lived satirical meme under the #iliketothink hashtag.

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David Leigh

@wikileaks Pilger and Assange – always craving to be centre of attention. Less concern apparent for Bradley Manning, who has been sacrificed

March 10, 2011 3:42 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

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David Leigh

@BeatriceJBray I like to think that if someone like #bradleymanning had first dealt with me at the #guardian, he wouldn't now be in jail

March 15, 2011 4:10 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

The subsequent volley of questions asking precisely how Assange was responsible for the arrest of Bradley Manning was answered with a dismissive guilt-by-association fallacy. It was, we are to understand, Julian Assange’s fault that Bradley Manning was arrested, because Adrian Lamo had once donated to Wikileaks.

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David Leigh

I see the kids are quite sensitive about the way #bradleymanning got arrested (it was thanks to his trust in #Wikileaks donor Adrian Lamo)

March 15, 2011 6:56 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

Leigh’s argument here is clearly an inept attempt to admonish Wikileaks. Leigh appears to care about Manning’s wellbeing only where doing so affords him grounds for an attack on Wikileaks. His ostensive concern for the plight of Manning extends, elsewhere, to endorsement of the Guardian’s distasteful smear against the alleged motives of Manning:

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David Leigh

Amazing #Guardian #bradleymanning video on #wikileaks. Fellow-soldiers say he was too sick to be sent to Iraq http://bit.ly/jx3A8Q

May 28, 2011 2:12 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

But the attempt to lay Manning’s hardship, not at the feet of those responsible for informing on him or carrying out his inhumane treatment, but at the feet of Wikileaks, does not stop at Leigh. James Ball has now committed himself to substantiating this counterintuitive conclusion. Ball – an ex-Wikileaks employee now employed at the Guardian – pubished an article on Saturday, and, from his twitter account, linked to it on these terms:

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James Ball

By me @commentisfree: How much responsibility does @WikiLeaks bear for Bradley Manning;s plight? guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/…

July 16, 2011 3:28 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

The article cites the recently released unredacted chat logs as a stimulus for debate on how Wikileaks may actually be at fault. Of course, Ball is subtle enough to avoid an overt statement of blame, taking pains instead to advertise – falsely – that he is not blaming Wikileaks:

Would Manning still have found and trusted Lamo without the leak a year before? It’s impossible to say, and certainly unfair to lay the blame for Lamo’s actions at WikiLeaks’ door – but what the incident does underscore is that source protection is about far more than computer security.

Having agonized at length about the dubious complexities of the issue, however, Ball proceeds to strongly suggest that Wikileaks is culpable for the fact that Manning apparently trusted in a treacherous confidante. The crux of the argument is that by implementing faultless source-protection measures – by keeping its source at arm’s length – Wikileaks failed to offer moral support to Manning, and that, unable to look to Assange for validation, Manning instead turned to Lamo. The crucial passages of Ball’s article are the following:

Assange was keen to keep this relationship remote, likely believing this best protects both him and his sources. “He knows very little about me,” Manning wrote. “He takes source protection uber-seriously. ‘Lie to me,’ he says.”

Assange may never have known Manning’s name, his motivations, or other details. The extent of the relationship would matter little for the source’s (virtually non-existent) legal protection, certainly under US law. It is difficult to see who is protected by an arm’s-length relationship with regular sources, other than WikiLeaks itself.

Sources are often vulnerable. By passing secrets or documents from the organisations they are committed to – especially in all-encompassing environments like the military – they further isolate themselves from those around them. Forging a human relationship is often necessary for both source protection and often human decency.

WikiLeaks’ submissions page – which still cannot accept electronic submissions – makes a series of boasts: “WikiLeaks has never revealed a source,” it says. “We cannot comply with requests for information on sources because we simply do not have the information to begin with. Similarly we cannot see your real identity in any anonymised chat sessions with us.”

Such statements are technically true. But what matters is not who reveals a source, but whether a source is found. Solving just one technical problem is not enough. WikiLeaks has also boasted of legal protections offered to sources. “Submitting documents to our journalists is protected by law in better democracies,” it claims, reassuringly.

[...]

WikiLeaks’ greatest source is currently in prison. Instead of stressing no one has been caught through WikiLeaks actions, or boasting of security, WikiLeaks – and everyone else working in that world – should take a long look at what they can do better, and put the results into action.

If not, Manning may not be the last whistleblower to face the consequences.

Ball hereby contends that Wikileaks’ greatest success is the kernel of a greater failure. Wikileaks’ policy of total anonymization was expressly formulated as a solution to an otherwise inherent weakness in the infrastructure of public interest whistleblowing. When a whistleblower leaks to a newspaper, they will often have to entrust that newspaper with information that could possibly identify them. Their security is therefore only as strong as the ability of that newspaper to conceal the information from parties seeking to punish the whistleblower.

To give an example, in 1983, The Guardian complied with a UK court order, relinquishing leaked documents to the UK government which were used to discern the identity of the whistleblower Sarah Tisdall, who was thereafter sentenced to six months in prison under the Official Secrets Act. Betrayals of confidence along this line contribute to a chilling effect, discouraging whistleblowers from braving the risks of leaking to a press which often appears incapable of protecting them. In the Tisdall case, the penalties facing The Guardian for noncompliance with the court order were so adverse as to make the disclosure of its source the lesser of two evils. But Assange’s strategy for anonymization of leaks is a means of ensuring that such pressure is effectively fruitless. If a newspaper cannot disclose its source, it is no longer a target for such oppressive measures. It is the most effective means of ensuring that the source is protected.

Ball, however, would have Wikileaks endanger the confidentiality of its sources by having less stringent source protection. Wikileaks, for Ball, is responsible not just for looking after its own end of the bargain, but also in part for decisions that the source might subsequently make to compromise his/her own security. Ball looks adversely on assurances that Wikileaks’ operations-security is state-of-the-art, on the basis that this constitues a ‘false assurance.’ This is alleged to give rise to a false sense of security on the part of sources.

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James Ball

@x7o Stressing the security of an encrypted dropbox, given that's one tiny risk out of hundreds, perhaps gives false assurance.

July 16, 2011 3:44 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

Wikileaks, then, is to be faulted for being unable to honour promises it cannot – and did not – make. The only assurance Wikileaks makes is the only assurance Wikileaks is in a position to give. That a source who exposes him/herself is beyond Wikileaks’ abilities to protect is deceitfully cast as a problem with Wikileaks, and not one outside of its control. But Wikileaks had taken efforts even to make this elementary fact plain to its sources. Even at the time Bradley Manning is alleged to have leaked to Wikileaks, Wikileaks website made quite clear that its source protection promises extended only to the information security end of the transaction. Onus clearly remained with the sources to ensure that they did not voluntarily disclose evidence of their conduct to a third party:

Is anonymity completely protected by the site?

It is hard for WikiLeaks to protect against “means, motive and opportunity” which are unrelated to WikiLeaks, but to date, as far as we can ascertain, none of the thousands of WikiLeaks sources have been exposed, via WikiLeaks or any other method.

Whistleblowers can face a great many risks, depending on their position, the nature of the information and other circumstances. Powerful institutions may use whatever methods are available to them to withhold damaging information, whether by legal means, political pressure or physical violence. The risk cannot be entirely removed (for instance, a government may know who had access to a document in the first place) but it can be lessened. Posting CD’s in the mail combined with advanced cryptographic technology can help to make communications on and off the internet effectively anonymous and untraceable. WikiLeaks applauds the courage of those who blow the whistle on injustice, and seeks to reduce the risks they face.

Our servers are distributed over multiple international jurisdictions and do not keep logs. Hence these logs cannot be seized. Anonymization occurs early in the WikiLeaks network, long before information passes to our web servers. Without specialized global internet traffic analysis, multiple parts of our organization and volunteers must conspire with each other to strip submitters of their anonymity.

However, we also provide instructions on how to submit material to us, by post and from netcafés and wireless hotspots, so even if WikiLeaks is infiltrated by a government intelligence agency submitters cannot be traced.

It is only by a process of highly creative reasoning that – in these circumstances – Wikileaks could be considered even partially to blame for the arrest of Bradley Manning – even assuming that he was indeed the whistleblower. Listless prevarication over the many intricacies of the issue does not in any way abrogate the fact that Wikileaks has – on the evidence – behaved exactly as it always promised to. Neither does it fault the logic of complete anonymization as a means of source protection. Had the unredacted chat logs alleged that Assange had not been so scrupulous as to preserve anonymity, instead consoling and encouraging Manning, we would doubtless now be able to read anguished expressions of reproach for this, too, in the pages of the Guardian. By faulting Wikileaks for its flawless performance, The Guardian confirms that – for its purposes – Wikileaks can do no right.

Whether or not he is the source of the documents that have come to us through Wikileaks, the hardships Bradley Manning faces are grave. The exploitation of his plight by professional journalists, having the effect of discrediting one of the only organizations that has consistently acted with his best interests at heart, is an unfortunate slur on the name of journalism. The wrong is exacerbated by the fact that it is cloaked in the rhetoric of high-minded ethical concern and disinterested criticism. The greatest hazard is that these efforts might falsely erode public trust in Wikileaks, contributing to a new chilling effect, and thereby deprive our societies of one of the most significant victories for the cause of justice the world has seen in recent history. Staff at the Guardian – and elsewhere – would be best advised to dwell on serious questions about their priorities in the weeks ahead.

WIRED’s publication of the full Lamo-Manning chat logs brings a year-long controversy to a close. But questions remain over WIRED’s reticence.

1. The History of the Lamo-Manning Chat Logs
2. The Unredacted Chat Logs.
3. WL Central’s Annotated Chat Log

The History of the Lamo-Manning Chat Logs

On June 10, 2010, Kevin Poulsen and Kim Zetter at WIRED Magazine published the abridged chat logs – supposedly between Adrian Lamo and Bradley Manning. The logs gave considerable insight into the person accused of leaking to Wikileaks, and to his possible motivations.

However, many questions were raised over the veracity of the logs, the reliability of their source, Adrian Lamo, and his relationship to Kevin Poulsen. Poulsen and Zetter’s introduction to the logs stated that redactions had been made to those parts of the logs that “discuss deeply personal information about Manning or that reveal apparently sensitive military information,” but shortly after the release, other portions of the logs which fell into neither category appeared in a Washington Post article, and on BoingBoing. These extracts raised the question as to what purposes WIRED had performed the redactions.

Furthermore, Adrian Lamo’s public statements were inconsistent, and impossible to confirm or deny because of the incomplete chat record. Shortly after that release, Salon columnist Glenn Greenwald published a lengthy investigative piece, drawing on an interview with Lamo, which pointed out the long history between Poulsen and Lamo, Lamo’s history of courting press attention, and the various inconsistencies that were already emerging between different statements Lamo had made. Gawker’s Adrian Chen summarized the issue in June 2010. Others, more recently, have built on prior work on apparently deceptive reportage on Lamo written by Poulsen.

In particular, Greenwald had noted:

Indeed, Lamo told me (though it doesn’t appear in the chat logs published by Wired) that he told Manning early on that he was a journalist and thus could offer him confidentiality for everything they discussed under California’s shield law. Lamo also said he told Manning that he was an ordained minister and could treat Manning’s talk as a confession, which would then compel Lamo under the law to keep their discussions confidential (early on in their chats, Manning said: “I can’t believe what I’m confessing to you”). In sum, Lamo explicitly led Manning to believe he could trust him and that their discussions would be confidential — perhaps legally required to be kept confidential — only to then report everything Manning said to the Government.

Lamo was subsequently to alter this story considerably, telling Yahoo News that he had spelled out clearly to Manning that he was not acting as a journalist. This was one of many inconsistencies that emerged in Lamo’s numerous dealings with the press.

Half a year later, in December, when the punitive pretrial treatment of Bradley Manning was becoming an issue in its own right, Greenwald penned a piece directing stringent criticism at WIRED for having withheld the rest of the chat logs. WIRED’s Evan Hansen and Kevin Poulsen responded, reiterating the position that only military material of a sensitive nature, or personal information, had been redacted. Greenwald followed up, pointing out that this story was already inconsistent. A companion post documented what Greenwald felt were personal attacks by WIRED designed to distract from the issue. The exchange was summarized by Rob Beschizza at BoingBoing.

Bloggers at FireDogLake crowdsourced an effort to fully document every detail of the events, so as to better discover the inconsistencies in Lamo’s public statements. To this end, they constructed a timeline of events, a compendium of the most important articles, and a painstakingly reconstructed version of the chat logs, merging the disparate excerpts from the now various publications which had obtained the logs. Their efforts divulged numerous inconsistencies.

On Wednesday evening, June 13 2011, – a year and three days since the original release – WIRED magazine released the unredacted Lamo-Manning chatlogs. WIRED claimed that its primary reasons for withholding the personal information in the logs had been eroded by recent disclosures in the mainstream press concerning Bradley Manning’s gender identity and/or sexuality. WIRED, further, claimed that it had determined that the military information contained in the logs was not sensitive, and had “been satisfied for some time” of this. WIRED claims to stand by its former decision to hold off on publication.

The publication of the logs has prompted a series of reactions, from Greenwald, from BoingBoing, and from FireDogLake’s Kevin Gosztala and Jeff Kaye, all to the effect that the full chat logs contain information that had been withheld which clearly was neither of national security interest, nor had anything to do with Manning or Lamo’s private life. In particular, it is confirmed in the chat logs that Lamo had assured Manning:

LAMO: I’m a journalist and a minister. You can pick either, and treat this as a confession or an interview (never to be published) & enjoy a modicum of legal protection.

A widely aired criticism of WIRED has been that excerpts like the one above are neither personal, nor militarily sensitive, but were withheld for a year, even while WIRED was suspected, over Christmas, of withholding information to protect the reputation of Adrian Lamo. Furthermore, the unredacted chat logs contain information which was of high public interest pertaining to the alleged connection – or lack of – between Manning and Julian Assange. This was – again – neither personal nor militarily sensitive.

Since publication on Wednesday, criticism of WIRED’s redaction procedures along these lines has not seen an official response. However, on Friday afternoon, Kevin Poulsen answered a question in the comment stream on the original article. His answer on the issue of why WIRED had redacted information which showed that Lamo had lied to Manning, and other information that was not of a sensitive nature, did not evince a clear reason for the prior redactions:

“Adrian Lamo has declared that he, Lamo, explicitly told Manning that he was not acting as a journalist during their chats. We now know that Lamo lied about that, and that WIRED shielded him by withholding these logs.“

The logs show that when Lamo mentioned his 2600 Magazine affiliation, Manning said, “im not a source for you. im talking to you as someone who needs moral and emotional fucking support.” To which Lamo replied: ” i told you, none of this is for print.”

This writer tried to push Poulsen on the issue asking for a clear reason why WIRED chose to redact this information. To date, the only response from Poulsen has been a tweet:

@kpoulsen
Kevin Poulsen
@nathanlfuller I’ll admit that when we compiled those excerpts, we were more interested in the biggest leaks in U.S. history than in @6
15 July

Since much of the redacted information has to do directly with the leaks, and since much of it does not have to do with Adrian Lamo personally, this answer does not greatly illuminate the matter. Poulsen has not, as of yet, responded to clarificatory questions (here and here) on this tweet. WL Central will update this post should any new information come to light on WIRED’s motives for redacting information in the chat logs.

The Unredacted Chat Logs.

The unredacted chatlogs are very much more voluminous than the former version. It must also be noted that although they now appear in (mostly) unredacted form, their provenance still relies on the honesty of Adrian Lamo, who is their original source. Until such time as they are confirmed by both parties, which is unlikely, they cannot be entirely trusted.

WL Central has prepared an annotated version, which highlights information that has either come to light in the new release, or demands rereading in the light of the new release. In particular, four topics of interest are identified:

Information Highlighted Yellow
This is information in the newly released parts of the logs which indicates that Adrian Lamo not only lied to Manning about the confidentiality he was granting him, but in fact appears to have deliberately attempted to earn his trust, and encouraged him to disclose more information that might incriminate him.

Information highlighted under this category was withheld by WIRED without any apparent justification.

For instance, in this (abridged, for brevity) exchange, Lamo attempts to trade on an association with the 2600 hacker periodical by claiming – spuriously – that disclosures to 2600 would not violate Wikileaks’ operations security, since 2600 is “an ally of Wikileaks.”

(1:52:54 PM) info@adrianlamo.com: i’ve been considering helping wikileaks with opsec

(1:53:13 PM) bradass87: they have decent opsec… im obviously violating it

[...]

(1:54:04 PM) info@adrianlamo.com: not really. 2600 is an ally of wikileaks.

[...]

(1:54:55 PM) bradass87: but im not a source for you… im talking to you as someone who needs moral and emotional fucking support

(1:55:02 PM) bradass87: :’(

(1:55:10 PM) info@adrianlamo.com: i told you, none of this is for print

(1:55:16 PM) bradass87: ok, ok

Information Highlighted Blue

This is information which has a bearing on the manner in which Manning (may have, if the chatlogs are true,) leaked information to Wikileaks, and the nature of the relationship between Manning and Wikileaks. In the first release of the chatlogs, references to this relationship appeared – but not conclusively – to tie Manning and Assange together rather closely. New information disclosed on Wednesday seems to militate against this idea. There is, again, no explicit justification for WIRED having withheld this information for a year.

For instance, in one newly released exchange, Manning claims that Assange knows “very little” about him, as a matter of policy:

(02:56:46 PM) bradass87: he knows very little about me

(02:56:54 PM) bradass87: he takes source protection uber-seriously

(02:57:01 PM) bradass87: “lie to me” he says

(02:57:06 PM) info@adrianlamo.com: Really. Interesting.

(02:57:34 PM) bradass87: he wont work with you if you reveal too much about yourself

A more complete picture therefore emerges of this matter, which is pivotal to the ongoing grand jury investigation in Virginia. For this reason, information that was already in the public domain is highlighted, along with information disclosed in the recent release. A reading of both will inform a fuller understanding of this matter.

Information Highlighted Green

This is information that falls into the category of possibly militarily sensitive information. This is information that WIRED explicitly made clear it had redacted, on ethical grounds, pending further vetting. Manning apparently describes various things: NSA wiretap and code-breaking capabilities, signals intelligence technology, Manning’s alleged contacts in Washington DC, an elite cell of Hizbollah and Chinese botnet capabailities. Readers will also be able to see for themselves whether there was a valid public interest in withholding this information, or whether the stated motives for redaction pass muster.

Information Highlighted Pink

This is information having to do with the conditions giving rise to Manning’s pending discharge at the time of the conversations. Previously, because of (entirely justified) redactions on WIRED’s part, readers were led to believe that Manning was to be discharged for “adjustment disorder.” This led to an adverse interpretation of his mental health on the part of the mainstream press, which was then used by his critics to stigmatize his alleged actions.

It can now be confirmed, from the chatlogs, that “adjustment disorder” was here a military euphemism for the gender identity issues that Manning was experiencing. The story that emerges from the unredacted chat logs is that an incident whereby Manning allegedly struck a superior officer served as an impetus for an inquiry into Manning’s background. It appears that this made his psychiatric evaluations available to his superiors, and that his gender identity issues where hereby discovered, which were then used as a pretext for ejecting him from the military.

As a result, his then-pending discharge appears to be bound up with the US military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. Other comments by Manning provide insight into how the gender/sexual orientation of serving individuals is, under DADT, unofficially tolerated, and officially ignored until it becomes a convenient way of dismissing service members – yet more evidence of the discriminatory hazards of that (now-repealed) policy. While this issue is separate from the whistleblower dimension of the Manning story, it has become relevant after several months of sustained perception management on the part of the establishment media, and the full chat logs provide some important context.

Visit WL Central’s Annotated Chat Log Here

New York Magazine‘s Steve Fishman profile on Bradley Manning was hyped for several months, and, as happened with Vanity Fair’s much anticipated “Wikileaks exposé” in February, where the published article contained new information it was not newsworthy, and where it contained newsworthy information it was not new.

More perniciously, Fishman’s piece is far from an impartial presentation of the facts of the case. Instead he has crafted a highly suspect narrative, employing some of the more deceptive techniques at the disposal of a writer: distorting facts, stating conjecture as if it were fact, misquoting key sources and omitting important information, among others. The resulting story – implausible though it is to anyone with adequate familiarity with the facts at hand – is as favourable as any story could be to the prosecution in the ongoing Grand Jury investigation in Alexandria, Virginia. The investigation therefore looms large behind the article, although its sole mention is in passing, on the second last page:

After Manning, [Assange] was a hero to some on the left, “the most important person to ever live,” as one of his circle maintained. So important that the military drew up a plan to undermine him (which was leaked to WikiLeaks). The U.S. convened a grand jury to investigate WikiLeaks under the 1917 espionage act. (Separately, Assange is under house arrest in England, awaiting a hearing on extradition to Sweden, where he faces questioning for sexual misconduct.) And the pressure has taken a toll on WikiLeaks. A top lieutenant, fed up with what he saw as Assange’s dictatorial ways, defected to launch his own site—­OpenLeaks.

Readers will be aware that the present U.S. administration intends to use the Espionage Act to prosecute Wikileaks, and in so doing, to criminalize any form of journalism disclosing confidential information unfavourable to the official propaganda of the U.S. government. The prosecution has been trying to satisfy the Grand Jury that there is evidence of a conspiracy between Julian Assange and the alleged leaker, Bradley Manning: evidence that they associated and worked in concert to exfiltrate information from the U.S. government. While the parties might be argued by the prosecution to be criminally liable separately under other provisions of the Espionage Act, the use of a conspiracy charge would allow the prosecution to embroil each of the accused conspirators in the more serious of the charges available under the Act, charges which carry the gravest sentences.

This is, on all fair accounts, a fraught attempt at prosecution. Wikileaks was designed in the knowledge that one of the traditional ways for the powerful to go after whistleblowers is to put pressure on the press to reveal their identity. In order to create a bulletproof leak infrastructure – in order to reduce disincentives for conscientious whistleblowing and make it impossible to seek the identity of the source through the publisher – Wikileaks’ submission system and protocol was designed such that the identity of the leaker was never given to Wikileaks. The anonymous submission system is one of the innovations that makes Wikileaks different to the traditional press in this regard; it is a press organization exclusively and powerfully tailored to facilitate one of the more important functions of the press: public interest exposure of secret information. Whenever Wikileaks has had occasion to comment on its sources, its spokespeople have been able to truthfully claim that they can neither confirm nor deny Bradley Manning’s role in the last year’s leaks. They simply do not know.

These details present insurmountable difficulties for any narrative that is attempting to descry a “conspiracy.” It is worth noting in passing, however, that even were Wikileaks to have used the more traditional method of receiving leaks, the application of a conspiracy charge here would be a serious abdridgement of the freedom of speech and of the press, criminalizing most important political journalism in the United States, and, by exercise of extra-territorial jurisdiction, outside of it too.

Since the initiation of Cablegate, and for reasons we shall not speculate on here, the U.S. press has been shaping public perception of the affair, normalizing the assumption – for which there is no evidence – that Manning and Assange were conspiring together, sharing an intention to commit espionage. There has, as noted, been a dearth of supporting evidence for this notion, and a weight of countervailing evidence. Fishman, however, has come up with a simple means of negotiating this difficult obstacle. He simply makes it up.

There is much at fault in Fishman’s article, and WL Central has already addressed one of the more insidious facets of the piece here, but it is possible to see all of the article’s faults as derivative of the core problem: its attempt to fabricate, and make seem more plausible, some form of close cooperation between Bradley Manning and Julian Assange.

Distorting the facts

In fact, Fishman concocts an absurd narrative, whereby Assange – an older man – exploits a sexually vulnerable Manning, and exercises such influence over him as to cause him to exfiltrate classified information. Assange here is made the architect of the leaks, and Manning’s agency is downplayed to make this more plausible. He is cast as the wretched incompetent: psychologically troubled and serially deceptive. Evidence as to his conscientious motivation is either omitted or introduced dismissively, as if the idea were absurd. Manning’s legitimate moral qualms with the work of the U.S. military in Iraq are scoffed at, and it is made seem that there could be no possible public interest justification for blowing the whistle on the government:

Manning explained to Lamo that he had targeted innocent men, as if that justified a seemingly endless leak of government secrets.

The attack on Manning’s autonomy targets his psychological health. As discussed before, his sexuality and gender are presented as if they were prima facie evidence of weakness and reduced capacity. Elsewhere, more legitimate evidence of stress symptoms and erratic behaviour are presented as if they were intrinsic weaknesses, and by implication, the reason he “became… a traitor.” They should instead be seen as a form of stress-induced trauma common to whistleblowers, who in the course of exposing wrongdoing must strive against enormous institutional and social pressure for conformity, and live in fear of grave personal consequences.

That Manning employs alternative identities on the internet – an extremely familiar practice for most people today – is treated as duplicitous and unhealthy. In fact, at times it is described in terms that suggest popular notions of schizophrenia:

Manning shipped out to Iraq with a top security clearance, his multiple identities held close inside him.

Fishman consistently interposes his own unfavourable reading while reporting the content of chatlogs involving Manning. Where something Manning said displays any inconsistency with a less favourable witness, Fishman assumes that Manning was flattering himself.

To ZJ, however, he related a more flattering version… Bradley concocted a more satisfying story for ZJ—on the web, he controlled the narrative.

Broader efforts are made to harnass conservative prejudices so as to stigmatize Manning, militating against identification with him. Much is made of his small stature and above-average intelligence. While there has been some contention that the intrusion of the press into the most intimate details of his private life might humanize him in the eyes of readers, this is probably optimistic. His sexuality and gender identity, sadly, will alienate a cross section of a society in which – despite many victories – the rights of LGBT people to such basic things as marriage are still very much under dispute. Likewise, mention of Manning’s atheism will likely fail to endear him to the public at large in a culture where atheists are systematically demonized and marginalized. At worst, it will fund adverse inferences as to his ability to reason morally at all, as happened recently to a British conscientious objector.

Reporting conjecture as fact

It is no accident that Fishman plays up Manning’s sexual identity: he wants sex to be on the reader’s mind, because his version of events is to be a species of potboiler romance where sex is the force driving all of the important interactions. Throughout the article Fishman presents Manning’s whistleblowing not as an effort to inform the public of concealed crimes and illicit behaviour in the military but as a symptom of sexual vanity – an attempt to get closer to Julian Assange:

According to the government, it was in November 2009, the same month that he reached out to the gender counselor, that Manning began to work with WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange… Assange’s appeal to Manning was obvious. The WikiLeaks leader was a celebrity in Manning’s hacker world — dashing, mysterious, and cartoonish in equal parts. There was his striking appearance: knife-thin with a constantly cocked head and that saintly white hair.

Observe, also, how Fishman explicitly states, as if it were common knowledge, that Manning “began to work with” Assange. Fishman has a wealth of documentary material to substantiate some of his more ancillary claims. Chatlogs given to him by acquaintances of Manning appear to confirm the details about his private life. However, the pivotal element of his story – the connection between Manning and Assange – is apparently pure conjecture. It is, however, presented as if it were widely known. Inserted into the text alongside the less salient – although better substantiated – aspects of the story, they lead the reader to assume that Manning and Assange were in direct contact, and were well acquainted with each other. This is false and misleading. It is, sadly, endemic. The sexual subtext that Fishman reads into the affair serves only to dispel doubts that the two individuals knew each other. After all, if readers can be made believe that they were intimate then they could not be strangers.

It was while in Iraq that Manning came across WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange—a charismatic authority figure who, far from rejecting him, as had so many others, took a passionate interest in him and what he had to contribute. Manning had an awakening—and he became, says the U.S. govern­ment, a traitor.

Later, a similar comment asserts, without a shred of evidence, that Assange found Manning “irresistible.” The language Fishman uses throughout the story is not only suggestive, but explicitly alleges that there was “seduction” involved:

The seduction worked both ways. For Assange, someone like Manning was irresistible, too. WikiLeaks had revealed political and banking scandals in Kenya and Switzerland, but a person like Manning had access to more impressive secrets, involving the United States, a central perpetrator of injustice in the world, as Assange saw it, and one on which there were few checks.

There is no evidence that Julian Assange had any idea who Bradley Manning was, far short of taking a “passionate interest” in him, or “seducing” him. All likelihood is to the contrary. Fishman either has an unnamed and incendiary source he can’t even acknowledge, or is indulging in fabrication. The only evidence which purports to describe the means by which Manning dealt with Wikileaks is to be found in the chatlogs released by Adrian Lamo, which have not been confirmed, and whose provenance must remain doubtful. Even still, they do not support Fishman’s statement.

Selective misquotation and misattribution

In the chatlogs released by Adrian Lamo, Manning’s comments, while using the word “relationship,” indicate that, at most, he may have had intermittent and anonymous contact with Assange, to confirm the trustworthiness of Wikileaks as a recipient of information he had already decided to leak. As long ago as a year, and repeatedly since then, Assange has made it clear that this sort of communication would not be unusual, but neither would it implicate Wikileaks in a conspiracy, since the role is inherently passive.

(2:04:29 PM) Manning: im a source, not quite a volunteer
(2:05:38 PM) Manning: i mean, im a high profile source… and i’ve developed a relationship with assange… but i dont know much more than what he tells me, which is very little

This excerpt from the chatlogs is the only point at which demonstrable reality intersects with Fishman’s story. Notably, however, when he deals with it Fishman cherrypicks the quote about how Manning had developed “a relationship” with Assange, and omits the further qualifying information. He also exploits the connotative ambiguity of the word “relationship” to continue to develop the conceit of romance between the two individuals:

For months, Manning later said, he tracked Assange, and eventually, he claimed, the WikiLeaks founder responded. “He finds you,” Manning later explained. It was something like a courtship, at least from Manning’s point of view. “i’ve developed a relationship with assange,” he wrote. Assange’s attentions flattered Manning, and his beliefs spoke directly to the troubled, impressionable private.

In another similar passage, Fishman again cherrypicks a quote, this time from the slightly less redacted chatlogs released by BoingBoing, and transposes it from a context where Manning castigates himself for talking too much to Lamo, to a new context – fabricated by Fishman – where it appears to support the idea that Manning was leaking material in order to impress Assange. The quote is now an admission of exhaustion from Manning. It was no such thing in its original context.

Manning claimed he was a source to Assange, not quite a collaborator, but he had certain privileges: “i mean, im a high profile source.” To maintain his status in the hierarchy of Assange’s attentions, Manning had to produce, which ratcheted up the pressure. The process exhausted him. “I’m a total fucking wreck,” he later wrote.

Fishman technically avoids telling a lie by inserting the word “later” into “he later wrote.” The deviousness is not alleviated, however, since the entire structure of the paragraph strongly implies what is not true. Calculated mendacity in the use of quotation is not isolated to these examples, but is in fact rife throughout the article. Fishman displays a considerable sleight of hand in his use of quotations. He later lifts a quote from Assange’s TED interview, and – while advertising he is doing so – transposes it to a context where it could only poison the well:

Assange didn’t admit that Manning was a source, but he couldn’t quite abandon him. Assange generally cared more for principle than people, whom he considered either useful or not. “I’m not so big on the nurture,” he admitted in a different context. But Manning was special.

This paragraph is exceptionally misleading. Fishman here implies that Assange knows Manning is the source, but was unwilling to say so. This is, as we have rehearsed, false, but it is just assumed by Fishman. Furthermore, Fishman pretends that the refusal to “admit” Manning was a source is a partial betrayal of Manning, when – if Assange knew as much – it would only incriminate Manning to identify him. Finally, having misled the reader this far, Fishman implies that Assange cares about sources only so much as they are useful: again, a malicious lie. The very existence of Wikileaks – which is Assange’s attempt to protect anonymous sources – is testament to his concern for them. Furthermore, Wikileaks’ silence on the identity of its source – which is only correct – has been accompanied by generous contributions to the legal defense fund of Bradley Manning, since Wikileaks undertakes to assist with the legal fees of everyone accused of being a source.

Fishman’s use of quotations throughout the article is tantamount to journalistic malpractice. He manages to utterly distort his subject matter to encourage adverse inferences about his subjects. In one paragraph, he alleges that Manning was more of a proactive seeker of information than a classic whistleblower, and, again, supplies an out-of-context quote which appears to support the idea:

Manning isn’t a classic whistle-blower. Disturbing information didn’t cross his desk, prodding him to act. Manning snooped—according to the timetable he proposed to Lamo, he’d been at it since almost the moment he arrived in Iraq. “i had always questioned how things worked, and investigated to find the truth,” he said.

This quote is interesting, because while it has been misleadingly used, it is related to another incident, which Fishman made reference to in his article, but which he also distorted so as to cast an adverse light on Manning. Fishman describes a situation where the Iraqi police had “made a mistake.” Manning informed his superior, and was told to return to work. The event sounds reasonably unimportant, and Fishman supplies another misleading quote at the end of the paragraph, to imply that Manning’s main greivance was that he had not been paid adequate attention:

Any illusions Manning had about saving lives quickly vanished. At one point, he went to a superior with what he believed to be a mistake. The Iraqi ­Federal Police had rounded up innocent people, he said. Get back to work, he was told. “I was never noticed,” he later said.

The quote in this paragraph has nothing to do with this incident, and the incident itself is actually far more serious than Fishman makes it seem. In fact, in the Lamo chatlogs, Manning describes the incident as a transformative experience of systematic injustice, which – if the chatlogs are to be believed – is likely to have contributed to his conscientious motives. As revealed in the Iraq War Logs, and as Manning was at this stage aware, the Iraqi Federal Police were engaging in systematic torture of suspects, and the U.S. military was aware of this fact. A strong imperative is created by international law to investigate torture-related injustices. The quote Fishman misused in support of his claim that Manning is not a classic whistleblower was lifted from this passage:

(02:31:02 PM) Manning: i think the thing that got me the most… that made me rethink the world more than anything
(02:35:46 PM) Manning: was watching 15 detainees taken by the Iraqi Federal Police… for printing “anti-Iraqi literature”… the iraqi federal police wouldn’t cooperate with US forces, so i was instructed to investigate the matter, find out who the “bad guys” were, and how significant this was for the FPs… it turned out, they had printed a scholarly critique against PM Maliki… i had an interpreter read it for me… and when i found out that it was a benign political critique titled “Where did the money go?” and following the corruption trail within the PM’s cabinet… i immediately took that information and *ran* to the officer to explain what was going on… he didn’t want to hear any of it… he told me to shut up and explain how we could assist the FPs in finding *MORE* detainees…
[...]
(02:36:27 PM) Manning: everything started slipping after that… i saw things differently
(02:37:37 PM) Manning: i had always questioned the things worked, and investigated to find the truth… but that was a point where i was a *part* of something… i was actively involved in something that i was completely against…

It is clear from the above passage that the incident was for more serious, and Manning’s alleged conduct far more indicative of laudable moral stature, than Fishman allowed in his retelling. It is also clear that the quote in question does not imply that Manning was a “snooper” and not a “classic whistleblower.” To accept the chatlogs on face value: that he perceived systematic injustice, that he perceived a culture in which a blind eye was turned to it, and that he acknowledged a moral imperative to make a disclosure, places him firmly in the ranks of the classic whistleblower.

In conclusion

The examples are more numerous than can be recounted here, but even the examples rehearsed above should give ample indication of the dishonesty at work in this piece. A great deal of effort has gone into crafting a story which will manage perception of the Wikileaks controversy. Multiple ends are achieved: Manning is alienated and stigmatized, Assange is falsely implicated, and the mission of Wikileaks is denigrated as a reckless and foolish enterprise.

Fishman’s deceptions will not be used as evidence in the Wikileaks Grand Jury investigation, but this is not the only danger. At a time when the U.S. government is mounting a direct attack on the freedom of the press, that same press ought to be leading the counterattack, and drawing attention to the gravity of the transgression. The erosion of liberty is made all the more possible if there is a lack of public opposition. Instead of accurately informing the public, however, the establishment press has – for reasons unknown – gone to great lengths to normalize the government’s narrative, and to distort the facts in a manner favourable to the prosecution of Wikileaks. This serves to diminish the likelihood of popular dissent, should the Wikileaks case ever get to trial.

Towards the end of his article, Fishman quotes the last lines of the Lamo-Manning chatlogs, again in a misleading manner:

Lamo couldn’t muster any sympathy. A little later, Manning wrote, “im not sure whether i’d be considered a type of ‘hacker’, ‘cracker’, ‘hacktivist’, ‘leaker’ or what.” Lamo offered another possibility: “or a spy ,” adding a smile.

Fishman leaves it here, happy to tacitly endorse the suggestion that Manning was, indeed, committing espionage against his own country. But Manning, in the original, did actually have a last word here, and it is a last word worth ending on.

(04:42:16 PM) Manning: im not sure whether i’d be considered a type of “hacker”, “cracker”, “hacktivist”, “leaker” or what…
(04:42:26 PM) Manning: im just me… really
[...]
(04:45:20 PM) Lamo: or a spy
(04:45:48 PM) Manning: i couldn’t be a spy…
(04:45:59 PM) Manning: spies dont post things up for the world to see
(04:46:14 PM) Lamo: Why? Wikileaks would be the perfect cover
(04:46:23 PM) Lamo: They post what’s not useful
(04:46:29 PM) Lamo: And keep the rest

Bradley Manning’s sexuality is irrelevant. For anyone who has read the logs purporting to document his confession, his professed motives were plain. If he is guilty of blowing the whistle, he clearly blew the whistle on conscientious grounds. His sexual identity is irrelevant to this. If he did not blow the whistle, his sexuality is equally irrelevant.

His sexuality is irrelevant, but what is becoming relevant is how assiduously the press have focused on it. The issue has become seperate from the story of Manning’s alleged involvement with Wikileaks. Since Ginger Thomson’s Bradley Manning piece in August last year, mainstream media coverage of the issue has created and reinforced an alternative history of the Manning case, wherein his actions were the pathological outcome of a deeply psychologically troubled individual, recklessly breaking protocol in a fit of indulgent self-realization.

The cornerstone of this effort to discredit Manning has been a relentless appeal to homophobia and prejudice. Over and over again, details of Bradley Manning’s sexuality have been sequenced into purportedly neutral accounts of his case, as if they spoke for themselves. They do not speak for themselves. They are not clearly newsworthy. Their presence in these reports would be inexplicable, except that they are clearly intended to supply a narrative, stringing together otherwise factual content to create a story where Manning’s higher motivations are completely eclipsed.

There is nothing sordid about homosexuality. This needn’t be clarified. But what is interesting about the coverage given to Bradley Manning’s sexuality is we are plainly intended to find the details sordid. So, for instance, in support of the idea that Bradley Manning is unusual and weird we are treated, in The Guardian, to anecdotes graphically describing him slow-dancing with a boyfriend:

When I first saw Brad he was at a school dance dancing with his then boyfriend. I had not met either of them in person but I knew who they were from the internet. And they were in the middle of the dancefloor… just right in front of everyone… not off to the side or anything… they were dancing extremely… close. It was… uh… I wouldn’t say ostentatious, but it was… kind of exaggerated dancing. And very… hot.
The Guardian – “The Madness of Bradley Manning”

It is not unusual for people to perform such activities with their sexual partners. The opposite, in fact. This is normal and healthy. But the only possible reason for including this piece here is to draw attention to itself, to signal to the “normal” readers that Manning is deviant and odd. Readers are expected to feel a sense of revulsion which makes it more difficult to identify with Manning, thereby sewing up the story, and precluding further investigation. The anecdote simply doesn’t have a place here except as a signal that this innocuous display of public affection between two lovers is not innocuous at all, but is abnormal and deviant.

Likewise with the reference, in the recent Steve Fishman New York Magazine piece, to how Manning was considering a sex-change. It is surely consistent with any proper construal of personal liberty that what a person wants to do with their body is their own business. A fair minded individual would realize that there is no valid inference from a fact like this to the idea that there is something wrong with a person. This piece of information was included, however, in order to trade on a widely shared – but utterly unfair – perception of transgendered individuals as deeply troubled people. The comment itself was sourced from a gender counselor, apparently flouting the gravest confidence a counselor is ever given, and making him or herself signally complicit in the tacit marginalization of LGBT people. Together with other illegitimate disclosures by this anonymous health practitioner, Fishman uses Manning’s alleged gender identity to carefully insinuate that the whistleblower was psychologically unstable.

Another popular insinuation is that Manning’s alleged actions were carried out as a symbolic revenge for the injustices of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and the wider injustices of a cruel world that just didn’t want Bradley Manning in it. Ginger Thomson’s notorious piece from last August led the way with this, dutifully deploying references to the DADT policy as she profiled the soldier as a troubled gay loner, and omitting entirely any reference to his higher level motivations, so that his background and alleged infirmity of character were implied as causative of his actions. More recently, PBS Frontline reinforced this narrative, by publishing Manning’s facebook page in annotated format. The facebook page is unexceptional as a facebook page, documenting the soldier’s personal life and interests. For want of something to call news, PBS chose to draw attention to indications of Manning’s homosexuality, as if gays were a mystifying alien species, with esoteric tastes and motivations. The private breakup of a gay relationship is highlighted and timelined as if it had keen public interest value, and Manning’s understandable (and by no means exclusive to gay people) interest in Proposition 8 and DADT news is treated as if it were some obscure clue as to why he had chosen to leak evidence that, among other things, the US military was complicit in the torture and murder of Iraqi civilians. PBS Frontline’s subsequent documentary “The Private Life of Bradley Manning” compounds this mistake.

That to be homosexual is to be congenitally weak and helpless is another falsehood to which appeal has been made in Manning coverage. As has been described elsewhere there is a towering irony in the fact that Manning’s alleged decision to risk his life and liberty to expose systematic wrongdoing is portrayed as a failure of courage on his part. “Manning… wasn’t built for this war,” observes Fishman. Apparently, we are expected to share in the valorization of those whose “courage” stretches to putting aside morality, while Manning’s alleged sacrifice is evidence of squeamishness. Fishman clearly considers Manning’s sexuality as fodder for the easy and hackneyed narrative of the effeminate outcast, and moves freely back and forth between discussion of Manning’s queerness, how physically slight he is, and how his alleged conscientious whistleblowing was instead a sort of compensation for how powerless he was ‘in the real world.’ Various psychological episodes Manning had are presented as the consequence of his frailty. We should instead consider whether we ought not to expect that someone who has chosen to face capital penalties, and struggled against extraordinary peer pressure, institutional conformity and intimidation in order to do the right thing, might, at some point, succumb to stress and anxiety. And in fact, these symptoms are well documented amongst whistleblowers.

Low flying planes could have seen that kid wasn’t suitable. I do not understand the justification or what excuses they had to keep him around. I mean, he was a rat, a complete rat. And this is for a boy who’s pissing his pants and curled up in a foetal position on his bunk, and constantly……… you know……. screaming.
The Guardian – “The Madness of Bradley Manning”

The Guardian, too, in its documentary, happily conflates fragility and homosexuality. The quote above is from an anonymous military colleague of Manning, whose face has been digitally blacked out. His is but one of a series of anecdotes which invites the viewer to identify with the military view that Manning was an anomaly. Viewers should instead be wary of who they find at their shoulders when they settle comfortably into the moral majority here, on the invitation of the ‘liberal media’. Militaries – and the US military is no exception – systematize and institutionalize hierarchical violence and abuse, misogyny and homophobia in order to ensure unconditional obedience. We now find on the back of this undeniable evidence for what we already knew – that the US military is also responsible for the commission and cover-up of criminal activity. The anonymous comments are so spiteful and given such pride of place here that it is difficult not to get the impression that we are being asked by the Guardian filmmakers to believe that Manning was so wretchedly weak that he in fact deserved to be brutalized.

An environment like this is not an environment in which an individual is to be commended for ‘fitting in.’ It is not moral weakness that debilitates a person in such an environment. Moral weakness is a prerequisite for complicity in systematic wrongdoing. Moral weakness is the perfect way to fit in. Those who are not morally weak in a setting like this are far more likely to be targeted for brutal institutional suppression, as we find Manning was. But coverage of the bullying Manning received in the army assumes – as in fact all bullies do – that Manning was victimized because he must have been weak. As if to confirm this – and it can be intended to do nothing else – details of how exceptionally and notably gay Manning is are carefully inserted by the Guardian. It is clearly intended that viewers freely conflate homosexuality and moral, physical and intellectual cowardice. But this is just bigotry, plain and simple, and we all have a duty, when presented with disguised hate speech like this, to examine it closely and to refuse to make the lazy inferences we are being asked to make.

It is lamentable, but not surprising, that civil society at large still harbours ugly prejudices about sexuality. While political correctness ensures that most people will profess tolerance and open-mindedness, this is often the product of the tabooization of blatantly prejudiced expression on the subject of sexuality. Most people understand that open expression of hatred for gay people will earn them opprobrium. But this does not mean that everyone has outgrown these primitive and seedy habits of thinking. By and large, so long as the situation affords everyone better liberty in their personal lives, it is to be preferred to the former situation, where bigotry was socially acceptable. But even suppressed prejudices can be manipulated, and where this has negative real world consequences, as it does here, it is odious. Analysis of the virulence of Birther conspiracies correctly identified how subliminal racism can still be harnassed, though it dare not speak its name. That latent homophobia similarly persists even beneath the facade of political correctness is – again – lamentable, but it is not surprising.

What is surprising is that we find the ‘liberal media’ transparently and relentlessly appealing to these same prejudices, effectively conducting a coordinated smear campaign. Why, while masquerading as a moderate news outlet, is the ‘liberal, left-leaning’ Guardian engaging in crypto-hate speech, thereby marginalizing and discrediting an alleged public interest whistleblower? Why do we find in the New York Times or New York Magazine so brazen an appeal to latent homophobic prejudice, while Manning’s credible public interest motives are suppressed or dismissed? Why, behind the veil of “balance,” does PBS Frontline so zealously concentrate on irrelevant gossip about the sex life of Bradley Manning?

The answer, sadly, is that there is no great conspiracy. While the personal prejudices and political biases of journalists and editors will no doubt play a part in this, it is no accident that “sexing up” is a euphemism for making a piece of reportage more interesting. Sex sells, and the salacious details of the sex life and gender identity of an alleged whistleblower are probably the best way to move the largest number of units with this story, which otherwise deals with sober and inconsequential things, like justice, human rights, and the abuses of state and military power. This, and the melancholy fact that there is a populist appeal to a story that takes an exemplar of moral fortitude, and alleges that his actions spring from sexual proclivities, rather than adherence to principles. A hero, after all, is an embarrassment to those with less elevated motives, and Bradley Manning would not be the first person whose actions so clearly implied our own shame that it became necessary to destroy him, whether that means putting him in a box for the rest of his life, or smearing him in the ‘liberal media’ as just some effeminate and contemptible queer who had no idea what he was doing.

His article, of course, falls from the fallacy tree and hits every branch on the way down, but you could spend a merry week enumerating everything that’s stupid and wrong with it.

The most adverse transgression, however, is where Myers countenances a blatant and easily discovered falsehood. This discredits him as a journalist. It is on that that we should focus. The rest is noise.

Dear Sir,

In his article on June 24th, entitled “How can do-gooders possibly think that Gaza is the primary centre of injustice in Middle East?,” Kevin Myers printed in your publication a quote attributed to a “Mathilde Redmatn,” a deputy head of the International Committee of the Red Cross, to the effect that “there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza.”

A brief spell of fact-checking on the internet will inform your readers that there is no such person as “Mathilde Redmatn.” There is, instead, a deputy head of the ICRC, Mathilde De Riedmatten. Readers will find, if they look, a 2011 interview on the ICRC website in which she enumerates the many and crippling hardships contributing to what she identifies as a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Interestingly, the first mention of a “Mathilde Redmatn,” – who does not exist – was in a 2004 article on an Israeli Defence Forces website by Rotem Caro Weizman. Readers can verify this via Google. This is also the publication where “Mathilde Redmatn” – who, again, does not exist – first stated her view that there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

It is also worth pointing out that the present blockade on the Gaza strip, which has directly given rise to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, began in 2007. A 2004 quote from an ICRC official – whether she existed or not – cannot on principle count as a current authority on the subject. It is misleading of Mr. Myers to quote her as if she was speaking of the present situation.

I think it likely that “Mathilde Redmatn” is an IDF misspelling of “Mathilde De Riedmatten,” and that the presence of the mistake in Mr. Myers’ article is telling. To be fair to Mr. Myers, we must presume that, upon finding this quote published by the IDF, or reproduced elsewhere, he made no attempt to check its provenance, nor even whether the named individual was real or fictional. We must presume this, because the alternative is that Mr. Myers is an unscrupulous liar, and we must not presume that. Either way, however, he is no journalist, and either way the editorial staff of the Independent will, I am sure, have much to think about.

The IRA subject was revisited, but this time in an international context, and with particular interest in extradition and due process rights, the UK policy of internment for IRA terror suspects, the international influence of the organization, its illicit business ties, and its context post 9/11. The subject of Shannon was also revisited, in an article on how Obama’s visit reversed a new government policy to apply the Hague Conventions in Shannon airport. For a fuller treatment of the same topic, please consult WL Central’s May piece on the subject.

Saturday’s coverage is perhaps the strongest of all the days of the Independent’s Wikileaks coverage thus far, choosing to focus on substantive issues, and to ignore the more frivolous aspects of the cables, which have, more through the inadequacy of reportage than any shortcoming of the source material, become the hallmark of Cablegate in the establishment media. The Independent is to be lauded for turning to the political and diplomatic dimensions of extradition, and there is some depth here to the appreciation of how security concerns (particularly those of the US) can conflict with procedural protections for civil and human rights embedded in the Irish legal order.

One topic, in particular, draws interest in this regard. A report on page 24 (and reproduced online at the Independent’s website) describes how the full displeasure of the American government was brought to bear diplomatically on the Irish government after the escape of the Colombia Three from custody, and their return to Ireland. The judiciary in Ireland is traditionally trenchant about extradition of Irish citizens to face trial in foreign courts, or sentence in foreign jails – a fact which made less likely the prospect of the Three serving their sentences in Colombia.

The Irish government was allegedly warned by the US embassy that failure to act firmly would earn Ireland the status of “haven for terrorists.” We learn that the Irish government was deeply embarrassed by the incident, and strove to find a viable legal mechanism by which to appropriately bring the Three within the law. The ambassador reportedly expounded at length on the Irish judiciary’s “activist interpretation” of Irish law – a surprising remark: Irish law, presumably, being that law it is the Irish judiciary’s express privilege to interpret, and said interpretation being so well established in the case-law as to be the law.

It is refreshing however to read that while the US mission looked with disapproval on the idea that the Irish judiciary would not smile on the extradition of citizens to foreign jurisdictions with a “less than stellar rule of law record,” the Irish government observed the appropriate deference to the courts in this matter, and apparently attempted to keep within Irish law in its efforts to appease Washington.

Another article by Tom Brady on the same topic promises to reveal how “the US suits itself when it comes to extradition.” The article runs over some of the basic principles of Irish extradition law and its history during the conflict in Northern Ireland. The article makes a strong argument that – regardless of the gravity of the offenses in question – a robust approach to extradition is a strength of the Irish justice system. It does not entirely make good on its promise, however, to survey the full hypocrisy of the United States in its use of the term “haven for terrorists.” The US could fairly be said to be a “haven for terrorists” from Cuban exiles in Miami, to – ironically – supporters of IRA terror. Congressman Peter King former head of the House Homeland Security Committee, is known to have a history of fraternizing with Irish terrorists, speaking in their favour in American courts, and raising money for weapons that extracted their cost in blood and tears in Northern Ireland and England. This is before the subject of responsibility for US state terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq, and sanctuary for the criminals who instigated it, is ever broached. But it is unlikely that topics such as these would ever see column inches in the Independent.

Notwithstanding the stronger stance and more disciplined focus, the usual criticisms apply to the Independent’s coverage. The lack of source material by which to do follow-up reading, and the non-chronological nature of the reportage, has a disconcerting effect on the reader, who remains reliant on the testimony of the journalist. The reports do not instill the sort of confidence in their issue that gives readers adequate epistemic ground to seek reform.

Confining the stories to a one day print run also gives them a limited shelf life. It is as if it is not just expected but hoped that legitimate discontent over government mendacity on Shannon rendition flights will eventually fade, to make way for the next scandal. While the subject of the reports is important and demands the scrutiny of an informed readership, the journalism, by and large, seems designed to provide an outlet for contained and routine outrage, before smothering its memory in the humdrum cycle of headlines and soundbites. It is precisely this cycle, where journalism, even in its political form, is seen as a part of the establishment – as a mere controversy factory – that Wikileaks is hoped to displace. The relatively low impact of the releases, of course, is all grist to the mill of lazy and erroneous opinions. Wikileaks may have changed international journalism, but there is the sense that Ireland has not noticed.

Online Articles

The following are the articles the Independent made available on its website.

‘No change’ in policy on US military flight checks
BY FIONNAN SHEEHAN AND LISE HAND
THE Government last night confirmed it will be making no change to the inspection of US military flights through Shannon Airport, despite ongoing accusations about the transport of so-called terror suspects.

IRA retained active global support
BY ADRIAN RUTHERFORD
THE IRA retained active support around the world right up until it finally put its arms beyond use, according to leaked embassy cables.

US tried to force action on Colombia Three
BY TOM BRADY
THE United States warned the Government that Ireland would be seen as a “haven for terrorists” unless it extradited the Colombia Three, leaked embassy documents reveal.

Northern Bank raid was breaking point
BY EAMON DELANEY
THE confidential US cables from 2004-2006 confirm what we suspected: the Government had run out of patience with Sinn Fein; that not only would SF not put the IRA out of business, but that the republican movement was ambivalent about the existence of an empire of criminality.

Ahern hardened his stance toward SF after £26.5m robbery
BY TOM BRADY
FORMER Taoiseach Bertie Ahern was “generally considered softer” on the Provisional republican movement than either of his two key cabinet ministers during the northern peace talks.

Idea of coalition with Sinn Fein provoked fury among FF TDs
BY ADRIAN RUTHERFORD
FIANNA Fail officials privately admitted they would be the last party to form a government with Sinn Fein — at the same time as they were negotiating to push the DUP into a power-sharing deal at Stormont.

Provo ‘businessmen’ fronted property drive
BY TOM BRADY
FORMER ‘active’ IRA members who amassed multi-million-euro fortunes went on to front a huge property empire for the paramilitary group spanning at least four countries, the Irish Independent has learned.

Britain exposed IRA mole Donaldson to taunt Provos
BY TOM BRADY
MURDERED Sinn Fein official Denis Donaldson was outed by the British government as a spy to send a message to Provisional republicans that it had a more valuable informant within its leadership ranks.

Offline Articles

The following articles, which the Independent has refrained from posting on its website, can be accessed here.

McDowell backed US pursuit of Garland
BY TOM BRADY
FORMER Justice Minister Michael McDowell promised his government’s support for US efforts to pursue the one-time leader of the Official IRA and alleged currency counterfeiter, Sean Garland.

US kept close eye on ‘Slab’ Murphy investigation
BY TOM BRADY
US Embassy officials in Dublin sent updates to Washington on an investigation by the Criminal Assets Bureau into the finances of prominent republican Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy.

Diplomat in Taliban link claim kept role as adviser
BY SHANE PHELAN
AN IRISH diplomat continued to act as an important adviser to the Minister for Foreign Affairs after his expulsion from Afghanistan where he was accused of holding direct talks with the Taliban, a leaked US Embassy cable reveals.

Afghan stand-off ended in ‘victory’
BY TOM BRADY
THE outcome of a hunger and thirst strike by 41 Afghani asylum seekers at St Patrick’s Cathedral was a key victory for the Government and law enforcement authorities.

Internment was ‘an option’ in the North as late as 1988?
BY ADRIAN RUTHERFORD
The British government privately refused to rule out reintroducing internment to Northern Ireland as recently as the late-1980s, leaked cables reveal.

Thatcher offered to train gardai in anti-terror flight
BY ADRIAN RUTHERFORD
THE British government made a secret offer to train gardai in counter-terrorism at the height of the Troubles, leaked cables reveal.

UK feared second Brighton attack
BRITISH officials feared the IRA would attempt a second murderous attack on government members – four years after the Brighton bombing.

Cables shine light on how extradition tested ties with US
BY TOM BRADY
EXTRADITION has traditionally been a key issue for successive US governments with their embassies worldwide expected to put pressure on the local powers to ensure that supected offenders do not evande American justice.

The paper was scooped by the national broadcaster, RTE, which ran on Thursday night a half-hour segment (starts at 14:50) during its investigatory feature, Prime Time, on the Wikileaks Shannon Airport cables (early cables for which were reported on by the Guardian, and analysed by WL Central here). The morning of Thursday, some of the cables dealt with by both outlets had been released on the Wikileaks website, and so it was possible to read them already.

The paper has, as described in previous WL Central roundups, been posting some of its daily content online, presumably so as to entice readers to buy a newspaper. In the days before Friday, and since, this has meant that some of the most significant stories have been posted online for everyone to read. Curiously – given that the Shannon airport stories were the ones that had already generated the most attention internationally and domestically – only one story was posted online on Friday, and it had nothing to do with Shannon airport. The story – important in its own right – highlights revelations in the cables about the child sex trade in Ireland, and failures of the Health Service Executive to adequately care for minors in this regard. One cannot fault the Independent for leading with this story online, but one wonders why the Shannon stories had to be effectively withheld from the international audience, and from posterity, by being confined to a single day print edition.

Furthermore, based on the information that came to light on Thursday, Friday’s Independent coverage was markedly selective. An article by Harry Browne on Counterpunch details the content of a cable that was seen by both RTE and the Independent, but saw publicity from neither. (Browne’s article has been reposted on WL Central, here.)

The Friday articles suffered from the now familiar pitfalls of the Independent’s Wikileaks coverage. The source material, by which readers can check on the veracity of the reports, remains unavailable. The selection criteria for stories is often skewed in favour of headlines, instead of opting for a broad picture of the diplomatic state of play. Since the discernment of the most telling information that comes to us in the cables requires some subtlety and appreciation for broad patterns in US-Irish relations, the material in the Independent seems at best like old news and at worst like mere gossip. This has led to the usual perfunctory echoes among the professionally opinionated, never known to look a malicious rumour in the mouth, and for whom a lack of adequate research is apparently a great professional asset.

Certain of the pieces in Friday’s edition were strong in the stance they took on Shannon rendition flights. Notably, Eamon Delaney’s piece on page 33 and Don Lavery’s piece on page 25 mince no words. However, the brevity of the reports militates against a full and informative account of the events at hand. As Browne argues the record on Shannon remains incomplete, despite the full access granted to the Independent. Furthermore, it is difficult not to detect a note of opportunism in the Independent’s suddenly strong awareness of human and due process rights, given that the relative silence of the Irish press on what is now a ten year old issue has been partially responsible for smothering public awareness of the suspicions of rendition flights.

In another report, the Independent claims to be breaking news on the history of the two former detainees from Guantanamo now settled in Ireland. It is therefore evident that nobody in the Independent was aware of April’s Guantanamo Files releases, in which the personal files of both Uzbekistan nationals, Oibek Jabbarov and Shakhrukh Hamiduva, have been published since late April. Once again, Irish readers who rely on the domestic press are worse off than those who bypass it on the internet.

Online Articles

The following is the article the Independent made available on its website.

Kids in HSE care ended up working in brothels
BY TOM BRADY AND SHANE PHELAN
Children have been going missing from State care and ending up working as sex slaves in brothels for at least three years, leaked US embassy cables reveal.

Offline Articles

The vast majority of Friday’s articles, some of which treat of the most important issue raised in the cables – the Shannon airport military stopover – were not featured on the Independent’s website. No explanation was given for this omission; the most important articles have been posted online for all other days. WL Central would be only too happy to link to the Independent’s stories, if they were online. In their absence, it is our duty to inform readers that scans of the articles continue to be made available by an apparently dedicated Irish reader of Wikileaks, on IrishIndoLeaks.

FF turned blind eye to US ‘torture flights’
BY SHANE PHELAN
SUCCESSIVE Fianna Fail governments refused to properly investigate allegations that Shannon Airport was being used by the CIA to illegally transport terror suspects, leaked US embassy cables reveal.

Spook speak for kidnap, smuggling and torture
BY DON LAVERY
‘EXTRAORDINARY rendition’ is a polite term for CIA agents kidnapping suspected terrorists in countries outside America, smuggling them to hidden prisons around the world where they could be questioned and tortured.

Government refused to grant US soldiers any special status
BY TOM BRADY
IRELAND fought off pressure from the US government to grant special status to American troops passing through Shannon Airport on their way to Afghanistan and Iraq.

Airport talks kept quiet ‘for fear of anti-war protests
BY SHANE PHELAN
THE previous government insisted negotiations over an agreement to allow all Irish passengers uninterrupted passage through American airports be kept secret because it feared anti-war protestors could “make mischief” if word of the talks leaked out.

Cabinet divided on resettling of former Guantanamo inmates
BY SHANE PHELAN AND TOM BRADY
Serious divisions existed within the government ove whether Ireland should resettle freed Guantanamo Bay detainees, leaked US embassy cables reveal.

Fears for ‘psychologically damaged’ detainees sent here
BY SHANE PHELAN
FROM Guantanamo Bay to Ballyhaunis, Co Mayo – the harrowing story of two former Guantanamo Bay detainees who have been resettled in Ireland can be told for the first time today.

Irish firm blocked from exporting lasers to Iran over missile fears
BY SHANE PHELAN
A CONTROVERSIAL Irish aviation firm was stopped from exporting laser-cutting equipment to IRan amid fears it was ultimately bound for a company linked to the country’s ballistic missile programme.

Cullen: Ryanair’s takeover bid not tolerated
BY SHANE PHELAN
A FORMER minister told America’s top diplomat in Ireland the government would do everything in its power to stop Ryanair from taking over Aer Lingus, according to a leaked US embassy cable.

Gilmore under fire over Lisbon views
BY FIONNAN SHEEHAN
TANAISTE Eamon Gilmore’s reputation as a ‘straight talker’ came under continuous fire yesterday as he was accused of saying on thing in public and another in private.

How the scourge of people trafficking grew in Ireland
BY SHANE PHELAN
IRELAND has been an established people trafficking destination and transit country for at least a decade now. But it is only in the past three years that authorities have found firm evidence tha trafficking is not just confined to adults and that children are also ending up in the sex trade too.

US official intervened to secure release of kidnapped priest
BY SHANE DORAN
A KIDNAPPED elderly Irish missionary was only released after a top US official told his captors the incident threatened to derail the entire peace process in the Phillipines.

Diplomats horrified plane deal awarded to Boeing rival
BY SHANE PHELAN
THE American embassy engaged in furious behind-the-scenes lobbying of govenment ministers and the chief executive of Aer Lingus in an unsuccessful bid to secure a $1bn (€698m) contract for a US aviation firm, leaked US embassy cables reveal.

‘Only the IRA had discpline to keep £26.5m off streets’
BY TOM BRADY AND ADRIAN RUTHERFORD
THE Government knew the Provisional IRA was responsible for the stg£26.5m Northern Bank robbery because no other group had the discipline to avoid spending some of the cash in the months after the raid, a leaked diplomatic cable reveals.

Businessman suspected of heist role
BY TOM BRADY
A PROMINENT businessman alleged to have been heavily involved in the laundering of several million pounds sterling stolen by the Provisional IRA from the Northern Bank in Belfast has been described as “an enemy of the State”.

Robbery came close to killing off peace process
BY TOM BRADY AND ADRIAN RUTHERFORD
IT was the terrorist crime that almost torpedoed the peace process. Massive bombings had scuppered previous ceasefires but behind the scenes the talks were never fully derailed.

US believed party was a spent political force
BY ADRIAN RUTHERFORD
The US wrote off Sinn Fein as a spent force in the Republic – two years before its 2011 election success.

Adams’ denial of IRA links to crime ‘absurd’
BY ADRIAN RUTHERFORD
CLAIMS by Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams that there was no link between republican activity and criminality were privately branded “absurd” and “disingenuous” by the top US diplomat in Ireland.

Top Republican favoured by US Embassy
BY TOM BRADY
LEADING republican Rita O’Hare was a big hit with the US Embassy in Dublin where she was seen as an important player in the peace process, leaked diplomatic cables reveal.

Official hailed Assembly as a ‘daily miracle’
BY ADRIAN RUTHERFORD
A SERNIOR civil servant descvribed the Northern Ireland Stormont Assembly as a “daily miracle”.