NYT and Jimmy Wales worked together to keep kidnapping news off Wikipedia
Executives at the New York Times managed to say they believed that publicity around the case of a journalist kidnapped in Afghanistan would make him more valuable to his captors, and increase odds that he would die in captivity. To this end, they worked with news organizations to enforce a news blackout on the case -- and they did the same with Wikipedia. Seriously, guys? There's a slippery slope for you.
A dozen times, user-editors posted word of the kidnapping on Wikipedia's page on Mr. Rohde, only to have it erased. Several times the page was frozen, preventing further editing -- a convoluted game of cat-and-mouse that clearly angered the people who were trying to spread the information of the kidnapping. Even so, details of his capture cropped up time and again, however briefly, showing how difficult it is to keep anything off the Internet -- even a sentence or two about a person who is not especially famous. The sanitizing was a team effort, led by Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, along with Wikipedia administrators and people at The Times.Keeping News of Kidnapping Off Wikipedia (NYT)
the latest
latest episodes
I wonder what Rohde would say about this slope and its slipperiness.
"they worked with news organizations to enforce a news blackout on the case"
So is that why the Times hasn't reported on the kidnapping of journalist Ibrahim Jassam? A blackout in order to protect the detained journalist? No, in that case the Times just assumes that since he was kidnapped by the U.S., he's not in any danger of being harmed 'cause we know how well the U.S. treats its detainees.
In fact, there's no reason to report about Jassam at all, 'cause actions that are detestable (and worthy of front-page headlines) when done by "evil others" is OK (and unworthy of such attention) when done by U.S.
Well, during the Iran hostage crisis, the press didn't once mention the fact that two of the hostages were gay, although it was well-known. The press's restraint saved their lives. I wouldn't say that it's always bad to withhold information.
Slippery slope indeed. What's a life compared to freedom of the press?
I would say this is akin to Geraldo Rivera telling the world about planned troop movements. Not everything should be available news to the public, no matter how free you think information should be. Just because you have the capability of publishing information doesn't mean it's necessarily a good or humane thing to do. In this case it possibly saved his life.
I wouldn't say that it's always bad to withhold information.
Every once in a while Antinous, you remind me that you're a proper communist, and that I am not. No offense intended.
What a slippery slope indeed.
How dare they try to save a life.
I say "Fuck You" to wikipedia and Jimmy Wales -- for you obviously are awful abhorrent people. You should be ashamed.
Slippery slope indeed, Xeni. But it's the one under YOUR feet!
There are lots of kidnapped people they don't do this for. Why him?
Tho the fact his captors were lax enough to let him escape suggests the news blackout must have helped them think he wasn't very important..
Because he was one of them.
hahah wikipedia as an authoritative source on anything...thanks for the laugh!
The guy from Florida just exemplifies internet hero for me. So self-absorbed in his little world that the idea that there are larger forces at work isn't even a possibility in his mind. He just wants to be right.
@ShayGuy: Maybe nobody else's employer has asked until now?
Sorry for whipping out Occam's aftershave and all.
My right to not read this in the Times trumps his right to not be decapitated by terrorists. Seriously?
What is your point exactly, Xeni? If you had the info at the time, and were asked by the family and hostage experts not to release it, would you?
Slippery slope arguments are a slippery slope to idiocy.
Saying there's a slippery slope is not an argument in and of itself.
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/slippery-slope.html
I'm not a kidnapping expert. I doubt anyone here is either. I'd be interested in what reliable security people (someone like Bruce Schneier) says about news blackouts about kidnappings in general and in this particular case.
Playing out all the possibilities, maybe keeping the kidnapping out of the news would convince the kidnappers that they nabbed a worthless target, someone they can't trade for anything, and they decide to kill them rather than have the guy go free and possibly reveal any information about them.
Maybe the best response depends on who the kidnappers are, making it impossible to have a single "thou shalt not publicize a kidnapping" rule.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions and zero data but a desire to render an opinion anyway.
It's a slippery slope, like she said. Sure this time it's for a kidnapping. Maybe next time it's for a hostage crisis, maybe the time after that it's a bad traffic accident where one or more parties is of some political or social import. Soon everybody feels that they can control the news, you know, for the children. We saw a similar thing with the reporting on casualties in Iraq. A gradual shrinking circle of what you could say and show.
The New York Times should be ashamed of itself. How would they react if someone had asked them? How many times has someone asked them and they refused?
The press has to be free to write what it wants or it's not free and it's of no use. Ask the Iranians.
The freedom of suppressing the press belongs to those who own one.
Surely there are statistics on this somewhere? X percent of kidnapped journalists get killed if it's made public; Y percent get killed if it's kept quiet.
If X and Y are roughly equal it makes sense to debate whether or not NYT and Wikipedia did the right thing, but if X>>Y (as the NYT article implies, but doesn't cite data for) it would seem pretty clear that they did.
The concerns about slippery slope and censorship are overwrought and misplaced here. The government didn't try to censor this story. Bill Keller at the Times, and his associates, decided that to tell the story would endanger the life of the reporter. And it sounds like they were able to persuade other news organizations, and Jimmy Wales, not through threats, but through appeals to their decency. I would say the free press worked as it should here. These publishers did what they thought was best, Mr. Rohde was able to escape without suffering additional harm just because he works for the Times, he's home safe and the story is out.
What's the problem?
Much as I value freedom of information, in this case I agree wholeheartedly with the NYT and Wikipedia.
I'd phrase the question this way for those who disagree: Which one of your family members' or friends' lives would you sacrifice for one of your "principles"?
I would say a supposedly independant arbiter of information (Wikipedia) played the role of the press here.
And that is a slippery slope.
They had a good point. It wasn't unreasonable that they wanted to keep it hushed. If the Afghan terrorists had heard that he was somehow important they may have asked for more.
Speaking of always freely reporting on people and events, even if they involve the newspaper/website directly, how is Violet Blue doing?
You also seemed a bit miffed that Wikipedia was behind the scenes editing the site's content. May I ask about old articles by Violet Blue I know I once read here, but can no longer find?
Maybe it is not a slippery slope. Maybe unique situations arise that force a bending of ideals. A news organizations reputable is in part about how often and why it happens.
I didn't give up on this site when you purged Violet Blue. Do that too often and people will judge you for it. Once and we try to understand.
all's fair. The world has a right to find things out if it can and people have the right to protect their friends.
I'm not seeing how Xeni's indication of the presence of a slippery slope qualifies as a slippery slope fallacy.
Be_reasonable's post reminded me of the media blackout over Prince Harry's military service in Afghanistan. The whole situation smacked of PR shenanigans, and there were deals cut with the press whereby they would receive access to him in exchange for their silence.
I can't help but wonder about the possibility of quid pro quo between the NYT and Wales for the favor.
Personally, I think the end justifies the means here--at least in this one case. If they thought they could get him home, then why not try it. It's not like newspapers haven't held off printing stories when they were working with authorities. Anytime a newspaper gets a mysterious package they contact the FBI before they depress one keystroke.
If anything, they should get points for thinking creatively on this one. However, as a policy I think it would be foolish--if not near impossible-to implement. It becomes too much about the the Big Brother aspect and this kind of info-quashing strategy is open for easy abuse.
But I laud the the idea of new tactics to get the man home safely.
Oh, and Wikipedia is already considered media so no big "slippery slope" there.
his is a hard one. How do you balance the integrity of Wikipedia against possibly saving a life? If there is ever a good reason for censorship, this probably qualifies. But censorship for good reason is still censorship. Regardless of the reason, censorship reduces the integrity of the information in Wikipedia.
This choice in this case may be obvious, but what about the next time when a government requests suppression of information. Or a court wants to enforce a gag order. Can you trust a small group of admins to always get this right?
Sometimes there is good reason to head down a slope--but that doesn't make it less slippery.
As a journalist and editor who has focused a lot of attention, in school and real life, on the ethics of journalism, I'm really not sure where the outrage is coming from. Sure, the press should be free to publish whatever it wants, and it legally could publish this, but journalists are not one-dimensional, single-minded people (unless they work for Fox News, har har). In a case like this, it's totally acceptable, and necessary, to stop and ask oneself if the value of the story is greater than the ramifications of publishing the story.
And the freedom of the press argument? I'm calling BS on that one. The New York Times exercised their freedom to not publish the story. Wikipedia, though it is open-source and allows for user contribution, is still published and owned by an entity that is responsible for its content. That publisher was exercising his own freedom to omit what he felt was necessary to to protect a life.
It's one thing if they're going on your blog and censoring you. It's another if they don't want the material you're submitting to their website.
That's easy: you try to save the life. Wikipedia and its army of contributors can take care of itself.
How would you feel: "We let your spouse die because the hypothetical integrity of a sometimes-accurate, often-contradictory public encyclopedia that can be modified by anybody and has variable standards for content came first"? Yikes!
OK, if you're all done bashing Wikipedia because it doesn't accurately report your own anecdotal beliefs... or because it requires content creators to back up their content with substance... or because it doesn't use your personal (oh so objective) value judgments on what constitutes substance... or whatever anti-crowdsource argument is in vogue these days...
Frankly, the fact that NO reliable major media had reported this event makes it inappropriate for Wikipedia. Without solid coverage from an outside, recognized, and respected source, it was just rumor -- true or not -- and doesn't belong.
It would be akin to shipping software containing a third party library that you don't know works or not.
the moral of the story is, the guy made it back. it's very likely he wasn't killed due to the withheld information.
i'm all about free information, even if it causes loss of profits, embarrassment, or anything detrimental -- up to and excluding the point where the release of information would cause harm to an unrelated party. that's why i side with Obama over his non-publishing of the most recent abuse photos, the right to fully know is not worth a human life
@22 Depending on the principles, any one of them. That is sort of the point of principles...
Certainly my own life, though admittedly that is a much easier decision.
Let's recontextualize this:
Wikipedia publishes names and photos of protesters in Iran.
I don't mean to bash Wikipedia, I do mean to say it changes the way I think about Wikipedia being an instant user generated source of information. Because yes, freedom of the press belongs to the owner of the press, but I never thought of Wikipedia as "the press" before - I saw it as "speech".
No mention of state interference or "censorship" was implied or intended by me, here or above.
Wikipedia's information is sometimes wrong. It's often scanty, lacking in nuance and depth. Its entries can be contradictory, often within the space of a sentence or sentences. When I check its articles that cover subjects in which I have specialized knowledge, I'm shocked at what's been left out, unsaid, said badly, etc. These are objective facts, true regardless of anyone's opinion.
Using flashy noncewords like crowdsourcing (mobsourcing?) doesn't absolve Wikipedia of any of these ills. It's a tool, very often a fine one, potentially a great one. But to suggest that the accuracy of any of its articles is worth a human life is crazy.
Dr. Benway, the difference is that BB purports itself to be a personal website. Enough said.
They call it slippery for a reason. It starts off with very good reasons and then comes to include merely good reasons, and then reasonable reasons, and then any damn reason at all.
And lest we forget, now that Wikipedia has been discovered to do this, they can never say that they don't do this. Same for the NYT. The government or a more powerful institution could use this as fodder in litigation to stop the publishing of detrimental stories under the guise of saving lives.
Think that's far-fetched? Think again. When you know what case you have to make, it's surprisingly easy to do so, and you only have to find one sympathetic judge. This is precedent and in the legal world, to potentially save a life is not that different from to potentially save billions, or to potentially prevent panic or whatever else lawyer's can come up with.
I'm all for people not dying, but yes, this person's life, and, in fact, my life, is less important than the freedom of the press by a good measure.
Some have said that this was truly freedom of the press in that, the press (as represented by Wikipedia) just decided not to run the story. That is true, and is where my outrage stems from.
Anyone who wants to be taken seriously as a journalist or news organization should protect that freedom to their dying breaths and to just give it up over one person is shameful. The US has one of the freest presses in the world (I know that's not saying much) and we're giving it all away.
@35
if you're a protester, and some agent (like a republican guard, or even someone in your protest group) wants to publicize you, you will realize it when they ask/demand your personal information. most people can then vanity-search themselves online to see where all this information ends up, and they are free to remove it if they find it on wikipedia.
in a nutshell, nearly everyone "outed" as a protester on wikipedia knows and approves, or they remove it after calculating too high of a personal risk.
Serious question - if any of you ran a blog, and someone published information on in comments that would probably get someone killed if published - say, George Tiller's successor's home address, would you delete it or keep it up?
Me, I'd delete it. If you want freedom of the press, get your own damn press.
Xeni, if you'd had death threats form someone who was likely to kill you, you'd be in favor of Wikipedia *not* deleting information that would lead them to do so? Hogwash. It's easy to pontificate from a position of real safety. Rohde's life was in actual danger. If your life, or someone you cared about's life was, you'd want Wikipedia doing the same.
Be Reasonable, I think we lost a lot more freedom for our presses when Judith Miller freely pimped out the NYTimes during the rush to war with Iraq. (The same Judy Miller who invoked said freedom in covering up her complicity in Scooter Libby's perjury.) We lost some more when the NYTimes sat on stories critical of Bush prior to the '04 election. We've lost a lot of freedom by homogenization and corporatization. Did you just start noticing this?
Voluntarily choosing not to run a story for humanitarian reasons isn't losing freedom of the press, nor is it giving freedom away: it was an attempt to save a life, pure and simple.
Anyone who wants to be taken seriously as a journalist or news organization should protect that freedom to their dying breaths and to just give it up over one person is shameful.
Funny. When I see articles written by the US, UK or other 'free nation' press, I never see them using the real names of their subjects in dangerous political situations. Is it just Westerners would need to be killed for freedom? Only journalists who have to die for that principle?
if you're a protester, and some agent (like a republican guard, or even someone in your protest group) wants to publicize you, you will realize it when they ask/demand your personal information. most people can then vanity-search themselves online to see where all this information ends up, and they are free to remove it if they find it on wikipedia. in a nutshell, nearly everyone "outed" as a protester on wikipedia knows and approves, or they remove it after calculating too high of a personal risk.
A charming scenario for people in a peaceful country, web surfing from an armchair. Not a realistic scenario for endangered protesters in Iran (or half the world.) It's also not hard to find previous versions of the page.
Doesn't it seem like the right to privacy, when losing it means the death of the subject, might just trump the freedom of the press? Even the US Constitution enshrines the right to life above the amendments. But God forbid that we should be denied any information that has no direct effect on us anyway. Some people seem to have trouble distinguishing freedom of the press from gladiatorial games, where we sit safely in the stands and watch others die for our edification and amusement.
I don't see anything terribly outrageous with the idea that the NYT (his employer) acted as his agent and in his best interests asked Wikipedia to remove timely and sensitive information from his webpage on his behalf, as he was not available to make his opinion known.
I do wonder if the corporate head of Wikipedia "heading the effort to sanitize" any part of Wikipedia is a good business model. Just ask the New York Times how well that works.
That's a poor comparison Antinous. You can withhold a name to protect a source and because it's your choice to do so. To ask someone else to do it is what I'm bitching about. To say "Hey, please don't report on this," or even more accurately, to say 'Hey, please keep others from reporting on this" is reprehensible. Who is the NYT to say this will help? Maybe it will, maybe it won't. But as I pointed out above, it damn sure will have other effects beyond the life of just one person.
I get it, for most people, principles stop at someone dying. For me they don't. People die all the time and for stupid reasons. Freedom of the press, such as it is, given the accuracy of #42, is something I am willing to die for and could also reasonably sacrifice a life for.
You may not agree with me, but that is also one of the freedoms Americans (sort of) have that I would be willing to kill and die for.
A charming scenario for people in a peaceful country, web surfing from an armchair.
My armchair and I were not actually charmed.
What if, Justice Potter Stewart asked a lawyer for The New York Times in the Pentagon Papers case in 1971, a disclosure of sensitive information in wartime “would result in the sentencing to death of 100 young men whose only offense had been that they were 19 years old and had low draft numbers?”
The Times’s lawyer, Alexander M. Bickel, tried to duck the question, but the justice pressed him: “You would say that the Constitution requires that it be published and that these men die?”
Mr. Bickel yielded, to the consternation of allies in the case. “I’m afraid,” he said, “that my inclinations of humanity overcome the somewhat more abstract devotion to the First Amendment.”
As I posted over on BB Gadgets on pretty much the same story (ok, it was then about the NYT not publishing the story) a couple of days ago* it was complete common sense not to publish, and rank hypocrisy at the same time.
A free press is not always able to discern what the purpose of its freedom is.
*(Seriously BB, will you please review the terms of the different BB franchises and speak to the various franchisees? Or search the whole of BB before republishing already published stories? Why was this one not published here as an "over on BBG..."? Too much duplication.)
there is a difference between doing and refraining from doing.
You may not agree with me, but that is also one of the freedoms Americans (sort of) have that I would be willing to kill and die for.
I'm amazed how many people have philosophies that involve dying for a principle and how few ever get around to implementing it at that level.
@ JosephLRC (#34)
Have you told your friends and family this? That you value your principles above their lives and safety?
If not, please do so, and then come back and tell us the story of their reactions.
Easy in the abstract, isn't it?
I'm amazed by how few people have philosophies that involve living for a principle.
I'm amazed by how few people have philosophies that involve living for a principle.
"We live for the One. We die for the One. But we don't die stupidly."
Once in a while, it's good to be reminded that *not* all information really wants to be free.
Good grief. Putting the fact that no one here knows anything about kidnapping:
First of all, this isn't a first ammendment issue. No one was forced to muzzle information about the kidnapping. It was all voluntary self-muting.
If during this period of time BB decided to make a post about the kidnapping, and the government or its agents forced their takedown, then you're dealing with first ammendment issues.
Secondly, it's also not a national security issue. The kidnapping wasn't classified information in any way. So, reporting it wasn't a violation of law by revealing classified information.
Comparing this to Bush and Obama's attempts to exert State Secrets around the torture photos is comparing apples and oranges. The torture photos reflect the actions of the american government. It's established legal principle that you cannot suppress information merely because it is embarrasing or because it might piss our enemies off.
You can classify information if its revalation will weaken our existing military position. Not because it's bad PR or will forment the masses against the government and increases the threats our military and government faces.
Revealing where our nuclear submarines are would weaken our position. Reporting that a sub had an accident in a naval port and civilians are at risk, doesn't.
Revealing where our troops are specifically located in combat operations would weaken their military position. Revealing that our troops killed civilians in a Mai Lai incident would not. (it might enrage the american population and enrage the enemy, but it wouldn't weaken us).
Revealing that our troops have tortured and murdered prisoners does not weaken our military power. It migth enrage americans and enrage our enemy, but it doesn't actually give them any actual military advantage.
This is the difference between information about how to shoot down a B2 bomber (classified) and you're goddamn right I ordered the code red (not classified). Stop muddying them together because you're channeling colonel jessup. You guys aren't jack nicholson.
Have you told your friends and family this? That you value your principles above their lives and safety?
I'm going to start charging nickels for emotional pleading. You owe me at least two dollars at this point.
Anyone making your kind of argument is doing so on the implied fallacy that principles have no real world value. That principles are strictly the outcome of the soft-headed, bleeding heart liberals who want to stop the government from fighting bad guys.
THe principles of something like due process has real world consequences. Note the hundreds of innocent people tortured for years in Guantanamo when due process is suspended because people like you argue that those principles were meaningless and mere fantasies.
That's the biggest lie to ever come out of Bush's 8 year legacy.
Shoeboy? His legissy lives on:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/06/30/accountability/
I don't think it's slippery.
The NYT kidnapping experts and military personnel advised them that he would be valued less if no one talked about it.
It's a specific case, about a specific person, involving his co-workers, the military and his family and they agreed to it. It's their right to ask this, and I think Jimmy Wales did a really good thing.
I'm going to start charging nickels for emotional pleading.
Note the hundreds of innocent people tortured for years in Guantanamo when due process is suspended because people like you argue that those principles were meaningless and mere fantasies.
Irony clean up in aisle three.
this is one of the better discussions i've read on bb, and there have been alot of good ones.
as far as shooting down a B2 bomber, that should not be classified. very few people have the knowledge, the means and the opportunity to do so, but supplying only the knowledge to an enemy does not put the pilot at greater risk.
the torture photos are more than info, they are material, as well as prima facie evidence. everyone knows that abuse took place, but enemies cannot use the information nearly as successfully as the material in order to endanger coalition units.
and enraging the enemy most certainly strengthens them; it strengthens their resolve to harm people who have nothing to do with the issue due to "guilt by association". as long as psychology is a factor in warfare, an enraged enemy is far more dangerous than a comparatively content enemy.
the captive was held by his/our enemies. the most accessible source of information about the prisoner was tailored to reduce the enemy's hostility towards the captive, were the enemy to even access it.
the dead have no principles.
when the means and the opportunity to directly harm a person are already in order, then the knowledge that can contribute to the harm MUST be classified, except in a case where such classification would certainly lead to more harm than it would prevent.
I'm amazed how many people have philosophies that involve dying for a principle and how few ever get around to implementing it at that level.
Oh, so we're down to snark then. OK. So if I killed someone for freedom of the press, is that good enough? I think both are important components and I've never been called on to do either, but I am willing should the situation arise. They also serve who only stand and wait you know.
Also, because bobhughes has a good point. My assertion is that asking someone not to report on something, asking them to actively prevent others from doing so qualifies as a situation "where such classification would certainly lead to more harm than it would prevent." One person may be saved, but what does it cost society in the long run?
So if I killed someone for freedom of the press, is that good enough?
No, because then the terrorists win, because you become them.
what does it cost society? why should it cost anything? classifying the information didn't lead to anyone being directly harmed, that's my point.
suppose i was married, should my marriage somehow be less meaningful after hearing of Sanford's & Ensign's philandering? Hell, Ensign actually belonged to some political group with "family" in its name - that means he was supposed to be "protecting" marriage, albeit in misguided ways.
"society" is often interchangeable with "knee-jerk reactionism" but they are not the same.
freedom of information will continue to be respected & sought after by the majority of society, despite the occasional step backwards taken to protect something more important than opinions
how to shoot down a B2 bomber ( 1 cc of water)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZCp5h1gK2Q
For me, the interesting question is, "Why is freedom of the press important?" I think that sometimes our freedoms just become self-referential memes. My understanding of the value of freedom of the press is that it helps to stave off tyranny (governmental or private/corporate) with information. If we have agreement about why it's important, it's easier to look at an incident in context of the overall mission statement.
Sometimes, especially in the US, people talk about Constitutional Amendments as if they were religious dicta; they are what they are because they are what they are. One of the strengths of our system is that the Constitution can be interpreted in light of current reality, instead of pretending that it's the late Eighteenth Century and trying to figure out what Jefferson would have done. Freedom of the press is a strategy to effect an overall goal. Strategies should be reviewed regularly. If the strategy doesn't meet the goal, it's the strategy that needs to be refined, not the goal.
Antinous,
The appeal to pity, or special pleading, is a form of spurious argumentation where a position in a dispute introduces favorable details or excludes unfavorable details by alleging a need to apply additional considerations without proper criticism of these considerations themselves. Essentially, this involves someone attempting to cite something as an exemption to a generally accepted rule, principle, etc. without justifying the exemption.
To put it into small words for you, saying you support due process except when someone's life is at stake is special pleading. Saying you support due process without exception is NOT special pleading.
And to my specific example, saying "Have you told your friends and family this? That you value your principles above their lives and safety?" is saying you support your principles, as long as it applies to someone else and you make a special exemption if it involves you or your family.
Whereas pointing out the costs of that special pleading, of making exceptions to the principles, and the innocent people it harms, is not itself special pleading.
I support due process without exception. I plead no special exemptions.
you should stick with navel gazing.
Common sense not to publish, but hypocritical for the NYT to do so, given its breathless irresponsibility in regards to similar stories in which it has no financial self interest.
It's maybe mildly pportunistic for wikipedia to play along given the nonsense its editorial culture tends to allow to remain on there. But it's the NYT's glib ability to suppress news that should raise an eyebrow..
But just an eyebrow, given the common sense involved in this case. It's the formation of a pattern we should be concerned about.
aw bull-crap Greg! you'd sell any of us to protect your child - in an eye-blink. And so would I.
As for torture photos giving military advantage: it would certainly give enemy soldiers the advantage of having nothing to hope from Americans. This kind of desperate resignation might be a huge motivating factor for battlefield soldiers, prisoners, etc.
I mean, if you were fighting, say, Canadians, you'd probably relent 'cause Canadians are warm fuzzy bears at heart and they obey laws and whatnot. But if you were fighting the America of the last eight years, you'd resist till the last breath: who wants to be raped in Gitmo?
As Daredevil says, "A man without hope is a man without fear." And that's one fucking deadly man, man! Similarly, Sun Tzu advises not to back an enemy into a corner that they can't get out of: they'll fight so much harder knowing it's kill or die. Give them a chance of escape, you've maybe already beaten them, or at least sapped their will to resist.
Cops and interrogators say the same thing: a prisoner who believes in the law's essential justness will be more compliant, forthcoming, etc. They hope to get out of the situation they're in, and they rationally view compliance as a way to do this. Remove that hope, and you've got a caged animal on your hands: a caged animal with opposable thumbs, rage, and a lot of time and will to think of ways to fuck you up.
So, yeah, a serious military advantage might be given to an enemy who was properly, um, versed in those photos. Basically, what BobHughes said:
/tangent
Be Reasonable, whom do you plan on killing, however hypothetically, to renew or preserve your beloved freedom of the press? Sounds scary, foolish, and counterproductive: good thing you're just boasting, right? Right?
At Takuan,
He would sell me out, bucko!
ya oughtta beat that kid
bob: when the means and the opportunity to directly harm a person are already in order, then the knowledge that can contribute to the harm MUST be classified,
Cover up Mai Lai? For how long? Cover up Abu Graib? For how long? THat's the problem with this exceptionalism you're preaching:
the worse the American government behaves, the more you call for covering it up.
Americans bomb an afghan wedding and kill 50 civilians? Cover it up, cause if you let go public, you'll only add to the recruitment of Al Queda and the Taliban.
And since state secrets is an international principle, if your government happened to be involved in say, the extermination of a million or so ethnic minorities, shouldn't that be classified as well? Don't want the world to see the truth and become a potential enemy.
Here's a rule of thumb to apply to principles: what if my enemy were doing this?
Don't think the rule works? How about this: After world war 2, Americans tried and convicted Japanese soldiers of war crimes for waterboarding prisoners. half a century later, hundreds (maybe more) of americans are waterboarding prisoners. Do you convict them?
The hypocricy means that what is at play here does not qualify as "principles".
There is an awful lot of implied "so long as we're talking about us doing this" in your rules about what is right and what is wrong, what should qualify as state secret and what should be made public.
Here's one for you: WHat if newspaper reporters found out that, oh, say, the Gulf of Tonkin incident was staged by the American military the day it occurred? WOuld you declare it a state secret and throw them in jail for publishing the truth? It would certainly weaken the government's position to wage war against north vietnam. It would even incite the north to anger of America tryign to frame them for something they didn't do. It would definitely make it harder for america to wage war against the north vietnamese.
So, do you declare the Gulf of Tonkin a state secret and imprison the reporters?
My take is this: while the constitution says the president has the exclusive power to declare war and congress has the power to approve and disapprove budgets that fund wars, it is ultimately the american people who decide whether or not the war is a good idea in teh first place. That's their job. Not the presidents and not congress and not the courts.
And when state secrets get to the point that they prevent the people from knowing what their own government is really doing, then they should not be state secrets any more.
We the people cannot honestly decide whether invading Iraq is a good idea if the facts that WMD's don't actually exist were declared a state secret. We the people cannot honestly decide if we shoud continue our support of our war on terror if we cannot see the direct consequences of that war such as photographs of the dead, photographs of teh war crimes our people committed as part of government policy that went all teh way to the president.
Combat reporters should have to keep secret information like troop locations and planned movements, but it should be their job to the american people to show the true cost of war, the dead, the wounded, the maimed, the innocent people killed by our troops.
The biggest lie ever told is that some people can't handle the truth about war. That we have to hide the dead so we don't get too "weak". that we have to hide the atrocities our own troops commit so we don't lose "support".
War is a fucking nightmare. If you support going to war, you support the idea that the fucking nightmare you're about to create is better than the fucking nightmare that will occur if you do nothing. If you support going to war based on the propaganda that war is a cakewalk, that we won't kill any innocent people, that our people won't die or get permanently maimed, then you don't deserve to vote.
And anyone arguing that "everyone knows Americans tortured prisoners therefore there is no reason to relase the photos" I just have to say: What. The. Fuck. You think americans know, but our enemy does NOT know???? That releasing these photos only enrages teh enemy? without educating or shifting the views of Americans? That's white-hat-ism taken to the most naive extreme. That's pure military propaganda. That Colonel Jessup telling me I can't handle the truth.
ANd it's complete and utter bullocks.
If you screw up, the only way to make it better is to acknowledge it, apologize, and make amends. If you deny it and cover it up, you're only compounding the evil you just committed by adding more evil to it.
That's all this comes down to. People who support burying the torture photos have a relationship to "doing something wrong" the way a 6 year old relates to it: cover it up, blame someone else, deny any involvement, hope to get away with it. We've had the 6 year old mentality run this country for years. Enough already.
Someoen who has an adult relationship to screwing up acknowledges it, apologizes, adn cleans it up. Compensate teh victims you just created. Deal with it.
Takuan, it is the last refuge of scoundrels to try and convince the world they are nothing but scoundrels too.
This is all a lot of talking, when we don't know either way if any that what the NYT and Jimbo &c contributed in saving Rohde's survival.
What are the chances of survival for someone if news gets out that they've been kidnapped and by whom? How do these chances improve if the news doesn't get out?
We don't know... and until someone can point out to figures (debatable or not) on that, statements like "New York Times' actions saved Rohde's life" and "leaking out information on kidnap victims and protestors threaten their lives" remain pointless speculation.
Now, what bugs me is that once again, the Wikipedia's ugly culture of suppression in the name of notability has come to fore again... this time in the mainstream media. How would this, seriously, maintain Wikipedia's reputation (however tenous) of integrity? How do you think this would affect Wikipedia's claim that they're an encyclopedia that "anyone can edit"?
How does that sound: "Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia that anyone can edit, as long as Jimbo and his cronies say it's okay for you to do so".
If all it takes for a single source to suppress all information about anything in Wikipedia is to collude with its owner... what's the point of the damn thing anyway? What else could the owner and his cabal be hiding, and for whom?
Lengthy discussion of this issue in relation to Canadian journalist Mellissa Fung at http://www.j-source.ca/english_new/detail.php?id=3003
It seems maintaining secrecy to prevent a hostage from becoming more valuable is a common piece of advice dolled out by these faceless security experts.
Fung's case has an added dimension in that it came to an end because the Afghan security forces identified the kidnapper and then detained his family as a bargaining chip.
The NYT happily reveals secrets that might result in the death of American soldiers, but zealously guards secrets that if revealed that might harm someone on their payroll. We now know exactly what kind of news is fit to print.
The NYT can't go out of business soon enough.
I'm confused. The NYT tried to save their reporter's life. Wikipedia helped, voluntarily. No government D-notices, no rights violations. And you know as soon as the situation's resolved we'll get the story. So what's the big deal exactly?
Given that Wikipedia relies on sources such as published news articles, and there were no reputable news sources publishing anything about this kidnapping, it didn't belong in Wikipedia in the first place.
Furthermore, freedom of the press is about freedom from *government* pressure. It doesn't mean that the press guarantees to be fair, or that it promises to publish all stories.
And finally, I've never seen the NYT publish anything directly harmful to a known individual.
I don't need convincing.
@ Be_Reasonable
I fail to see how this is about freedom of the press. The government doesn't seem to have been involved at all. The NYT and wiki chose to withhold the information on their own, without intervention. The freedom of the press allows them to report the news, but they are also free not to report it. Kind of like you have the right to free speech, but also the right to remain silent.
As for the slippery slope thing...
i think at best they may have saved this man's life and at worst they did no harm. i can see where the uneasiness is coming from but every rule has to have exceptions. zero tolerance just doesnt work very well in practice.
A journalist was kidnapped and saved with no ransom paid due to the 'security experts' whom called for a voluntary news blackout. All legitimate news agency's did. The CBC interview was stunning.
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/southasia/news/article_1441907.php/Kidnapped_CBC_journalist_freed_by_Afghan_forces_
@ Greglondon:
All very easy to say from the comfort of your computer desk. And your irony has been noted above.
Somehow the tone of your comments says you've never been close to putting your "principles" to the test.
I'll leave it at that unless you can offer definitive, verifiable evidence to the contrary.
No, they really really don't.
--
This is the first time in a long time that I've bothered reading through all the comments on a post when it's gotten nearly this long. The discussion has been very interesting.
I'm pretty torn on the issue. Personally if I was either Jimmy Wales or anyone at the NYT's position then I'd probably do the same thing. However I feel it's pretty damn hypocritical of both parties because clearly they have both published information in the past that could be argued to have endangered lives. Of course it would be impossible to keep all information that has ever endangered any lives off both sites at some point so where does the line get drawn?
---
This sort of argument was used a few times in the comments, but this was the closest to my post so I'll use this.
What makes the information reputable? There are plenty of articles on wikipedia that source small town press and others that report blogs.
Does only Western Media constitute reputable information?
There are plenty of articles on wikipedia that source small town press and others that report blogs.
I accept a 'claiming to be factual' link on BB if it's a news article on a news site, even if it's the Bugtussle Clarion or Fox News. No opinion. Very rarely blogs. It's not an ironclad standard, but it's a reasonable start. Of course, you can link to most anything non-offensive for entertainment purposes, but if you claim that it's factual news, you're going to be challenged on it. I hope that Wikipedia has more stringent standards than me.
Bizarrely, some commenters believe its hypocritical to suspend your principles when lives are at stake. I guess they've never considered preservation of life to be a principle. And I guess they don't think there's any justification for witness protection programs...
As for the torture photos, there is no practical military justification for suppressing them. Anyone who'd give a damn about US imperial crimes already knows America tortures people; now they know America overrides its own laws to hide the torure, so Americans are not just seen as torturers, they are seen as hypocritical torturers. Nice one Obama.
There is no ethical justification either. State power must be subordinated to humane values - such as truth, freedom from torure, and punishment for torturers - or else humane values are subordinated to state power. Hasn't the 20th Century provided enough evidence about where that takes you?
Also, remember that the key "evidence" used to get the Iraq war going was obtained through torturing people till they lied, then reporting those claims without mentioning the torture. If this was common knowledge in 2003, no US soldiers would have died in Iraq, because the war would never have been sold to Americans. It bears repeating: TRANSPARENCY WOULD HAVE SAVED SEVERAL THOUSAND US SOLDIERS, NOT TO MENTION A MILLION IRAQIS.
i really do wonder how slippery you'd think this was if the slope was one of YOUR loved ones.
(if it means saving lives i don't have to know the whole truth)
This really brought out the "the end justifies the means" crowd. For the biblically inclined : the road to hell is paved with good intentions. There hasn't been a case of censorship in history that hasn't been done for a "good cause."
#87
Cuts both ways. The fundamentalist anti-censorship ones believe that their end - no censorship at all - justify the means - announcing things that will potentially kill someone.
Maybe I'm old, cynical and bitter, but I feel too many things are grey areas to just steam straight down a fundamentalist path. Is there really no limit to what you can say? Does being the media mean there is no responsibility as long as what you say is technically true?
@88
I don't think the "no censorship" position is fundamentalist. If you look at the situation it is the position which leaves the greatest amount of personal freedom and so should naturally be preferred.
I agree the world is grey, but disagree that this should be reflected in the principles. Principles are supposed to point the moral compass.
Of course if I would find myself in this situation I would myself be tempted off the straight and narrow, but I wouldn't expect my actions to be held up as being "good." If you do bad things to serve a good cause you should man up and accept the consequence, not twist principles until you justify them.
Wikipedia has also kept the name of Star Wars kid out of their pages - as Jonathan Zittrain pointed out during Open Video Conference (#openvideo) - in respect to the kid's wishes, against the arguments of their need to be publication of ALL record.
camera: Somehow the tone of your comments says you've never been close to putting your "principles" to the test.
Principles in scare quotes. That's a nice touch.
I'll say it again: the last refuge of scoundrels (or cowards) is to argue that the rest of the world is nothing but scoundrels (or cowards) too.
And you've been so busy posturing about how "tough" you are that you haven't been reading my actual posts. If a newspaper wants to NOT print a story, that's their choice. I don't have a problem with that. I said this isn't a first ammendment issue and it isn't a national security issue as people keep wanting to frame it.
What I find amazing is how this post got all the mall ninja tough guys to crawl out of the wood work (and their mother's basements) to proudly declare how much they'd be willing to ditch their "principles" (in scare quotes no less) the second they got scared by a news story.
I said it in #57, and you seemed to have missed it, or not realized that I was talking about people exactly like you: Anyone making your kind of argument is doing so on the implied fallacy that principles have no real world value. That principles are strictly the outcome of the soft-headed, bleeding heart liberals who want to stop the government from fighting bad guys.
That's why you put my principles in scare quotes. That's why you're willing to jettison your principles the moment the news reel starts rolling. You assumption is that "principles" are not real. And that the only thing "real" is when your own life is being threatened by some boogeyman.
And if you want to continue your "show me your battle scars" nonsense, I just have to point out that you're arguing nothing short of the tired old saw that liberals are liberals until they get mugged. You're saying that "principles" (in scare quotes no less) are "principles" until they meet cold hard reality.
Doesn't fly. Got any more tired cliches you want to trot out here? Maybe something like "They hate us for our freedom"???
@ Greglondon, Be Reasonable, Forkboy, Xeni and the similarly principled
Whenever someone says they're taking a stand "on principle," what they really mean is that they are standing on *a* principle with their noses so high in the air they can't see all the other principles lying about.
Principles come into conflict; otherwise, there would be nothing to discuss. If you simply cite your "principle" you are begging the question. To really engage in the argument you would need to say why your favored principle ought to win out over the other guy's.
Now, what exactly are the principles at issue? On one side, the belief that we ought to do what we can to prevent the loss of innocent human life. On the other...the first amendment? No, the belief that a news organization ought to report any 'newsworthy' event.
Hmm, anyone have a scale?
Seriously though, is this a difficult question? If WP held back the Watergate story to save a life, that would be a very different question. But this was one of many kidnappings over many years. There was no reason to think that publishing the story would have any particular significance beyond his death. It's not like there was going to be a major policy shift if they published a report of yet another kidnapping.
(Of course, this leaves aside the essential practical point of whether publishing would actually have put him at greater danger. That could indeed make it a difficult question.)
The fundamentalist anti-censorship ones
This isn't censorship. No one was censored. civilians organized amongst themselves to not report a story.
Is there really no limit to what you can say? Does being the media mean there is no responsibility as long as what you say is technically true?
Ah, there now, see? Now that is a slippery slope argument.
I love how folks are foaming at the mouth about there being no boundaries here and we're all gonna die. This case isn't a case of "no limits". There are plenty of limits. It's called "classified information". THat's the extreme edge of whether information can be kept a state secret. It can. No need to argue about some hypothetical world where there are no rules or laws that allow the government to keep secrets. They can. Everyone can calm down about that.
This case lands in the spectrum towards teh "public info, but voluntarily muted" scale of things.
If you put numbers to it, with 10 being highly classified and 0 being universally known public knowledge, this case might land somewhere around the number 4.
10 top secret
8 secret
6 confidential
5 state suppressed torture photos that should be public because they don't qualify as classified information
4 voluntary, self organized, news blackout
2 the recipe for coca cola
0 public domain info that everyone knows. Michael Jackson's death.
So, all the folks arguing the slippery slope about "no limits" to the information that people can make public need to chill out for a bit. There are limits. There is plenty of established legal principles to define those limits.
This particular case is in the median range, non-classified information that some civilians voluntarily decided not to report on publicly.
The torture photos too are in the median. Every court thus far has said the photos do not qualify for state secret protection and should be released. Even some military generals have come out and said they should be released.
This debate isn't one of "ZOMG! There's no limits! There's no ground! We're free falling thorugh space! AAAaaaaarrrggghhhH!"
This debate is one of definitional boundaries on a spectrum. And the topics at issue are in the middle of the spectrum, not the ends of the spectrum. So, the "ZOMG! No boundaries!" responses aren't reflecting the facts.
A very well established chunk of the spectrum allows for state secrets. This isn't inside that part of the spectrum though.
danmv: To really engage in the argument you would need to say why your favored principle ought to win out over the other guy's.
that's not all that's been happening here. When people say they support some principle up until it threatens them or their family, then that is special pleading.
I support the rule of law for others as well as myself. If I say I support the rule of law, but then if someone murders my wife and I want the cops to throw due process out the window, then that's special pleading.
For example, mncamera@22: Which one of your family members' or friends' lives would you sacrifice for one of your "principles"?
That isn't weighing one principle against another, its suspending one priniciple in the face of a physical threat to you or your family.
Here's the question for you, danmv, tell me of one major principle in somethign like the US constitution that does not already try to weigh all the principles against each other.
Demand for probable cause for warrants? Weighs the desire to stop criminals against the desire to keep the government from using search and seizure to harrass its enemies.
demand for a trial by jury? Weighs the desire to stop criminals against the desire to keep the judicary from becoming a rubber stamp for the cops.
Due process? Weighs the desire to stop criminals against the desire to keep the government from putting its enemies into black sites and making them dissappear forever without a trial.
Freedom Of Information Act? Weighs the desire to allow the government to operate so that our enemies don't know our military plans against the desire to keep the goverment from operating behind an opaque curtain. Democracy requires that the people voting know what it's own government is doing. There is classified information that does not have to be made public, but something like the torture photos are not classified. Demanding they be released is demanding to have the actions our government committed in our name be made known.
All of these principles already involve weighing various goals and issues against each other.
Some people here are weighing one principle against another and trying to find the right balance. Others are simply arguing that teh proper response is to imagine that we (or our family) are the victim of the crime in question and decide what to do from there.
That isn't balancing one principle against another, that's victim's justice.
What would you do if it was your family? The answer should be the same whether it was your family or someone you don't know thousands of miles away.
Greglondon @ 93:
"When people say they support some principle up until it threatens them or their family, then that is special pleading."
Yep.
Greglondon @ 67
"To put it into small words for you, saying you support due process except when someone's life is at stake is special pleading."
No, that is weighing two conflicting moral principles. This is a necessary part of mature moral reasoning. This was the point of my last post. But, perhaps I'm just misreading and you only meant this as a statement of the line I quoted from 93.
"Here's the question for you, danmv, tell me of one major principle in somethign like the US constitution that does not already try to weigh all the principles against each other."..."All of these principles [Due process, trial by jury, FOIA] already involve weighing various goals and issues against each other."
Did you somehow take me to be suggesting that we amend the US Constitution or repeal the FOIA?
greg: saying you support due process except when someone's life is at stake is special pleading.
dan: No, that is weighing two conflicting moral principles.
OK, dan, pop quiz for you: There's a serial killer on the loose. People are being murdered every couple of days. People's lives are at stake. Do you (1) allow the cops to start searching people's houses without warrants, wiretapping the city, imprison people without due process, execute people without due process or (2) do you demand the cops maintain the principles of due process to catch the killer?
Here's the thing you're missing: the weighing of conflicting moral principles has already been done with concepts like due process, habeous, probable cause, and so on. THey all involve situations where people's lives are at stake.
What some people are trying to do here is to pretend that these principles were arrived at in some kind of political vacuum rather than the brutal reality of history, they're trying to pretend that these principles now have to be jettisonned because zomg! Terrorists!
And what some people are trying to do is subvert all of that and invoke simple victim's justice. Asking a question like "What would you do if your wife who was kidnapped?" isn't weighing principles against each other to find the correct balance. It's trying to throw out principles and replace them with victim's justice.
Certainly, some people here are debating the proper balance between principles. But not everyone. Some people here are trying to devolve the issue into a simple response of victim's vengeance. And it's those people I'm disagreeing with.
You wanna balance principles, go right ahead. But if you don't see a difference between balancing principles and victim's justice, then I don't know what to tell you.
From the Fine Posting:
That seems counter-intuitave - by lessening his value, they thought his captors would release him?
I would have thought that by making him more valuable they would be compelled to trade him - if her were inconsequential, I would have assumed he would have been more expendable.
Anyway, glad he's safe, apparently they were right, and this is just another reason why we're all safer because I don't work in the State Department.