WikiLeaks Strikes. NYT Reports.

Posted By Cliff Tuttle | July 25, 2010

No. 486

The internet has come to be the place where news breaks without warning, causing big problems for the main line media.  There are those who have no compunction about releasing doctored or highly edited audio and video, misleading but with the look and feel of truth.  We had an example of this earlier this week — fooling the likes of Fox News and the White House — with the fact checking only catching up about 24 hours after the story had appeared everywhere.

So now comes an organization called WikiLeaks, founded in December 2006, to release hundreds of classified documents about the War in Afghanistan today over the internet.  It seems that WikiLeaks is opposed to government and corporate secrecy and wants to out all classified material everywhere while keeping the source of the leak anonymous.  Of course, WikiLeaks keeps information about itself pretty quiet.

WikiLeaks gave three news organizations, The New York Times, The London Times and Der Spiegel, an opportunity to view these documents for a couple of weeks and fact check them, provided they were not published before today.

The Times ran a sidebar beside their reports explaining how they decided what to report and what not to report. For example, the Times says it won’t report material that could endanger the lives of troops in the field.  Very noble — but does it really matter?  Its all out there on WikiLeaks.

CLT

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CLIFF TUTTLE has been a Pennsylvania lawyer for over 45 years and (inter alia) is a real estate litigator and legal writer. The posts in this blog are intended to provide general information about legal topics of interest to lawyers and consumers with a Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania focus. However, this information does not constitute legal advice and there is no lawyer-client relationship created when you read this blog. You are encouraged to leave comments but be aware that posted comments can be read by others. If you wish to contact me in privacy, please use the Contact Form located immediately below this message. I will reply promptly and in strict confidence.

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