Wikileaks: Wired.com responds to questions on the Manning/Lamo chat logs


(illustration: Rob Beschizza)

UPDATE, 8am PT, Wed 12/29: Greenwald says, "[My] response to Wired's refusal to release or comment on the chat logs, [and my] response to Wired's accusations.



Those who've been following the Rashomon-like saga of Wikileaks/Assange/Manning/Lamo as it unfolded over the past year have no doubt read Glenn Greenwald's piece this week calling into question Wired.com's coverage, and specifically the work of Kevin Poulsen. Today, Poulsen and Evan Hansen respond:

At stake are the chat logs.


We have already published substantial excerpts from the logs
, but critics continue to challenge us to reveal all, ostensibly to fact-check some statements that Lamo has made in the press summarizing portions of the logs from memory (his computer hard drive was confiscated, and he no longer has has a copy).

Our position has been and remains that the logs include sensitive personal information with no bearing on Wikileaks, and it would serve no purpose to publish them at this time.

That doesn't mean we'll never publish them, but before taking an irrevocable action that could harm an individual's privacy, we have to weigh that person's privacy interest against news value and relevance.

This is a standard journalistic balancing test — not one that we invented for Manning. Every experienced reporter of serious purpose recognizes this, and the principal is also embodied in the Society of Professional Journalists' code of ethics.

TL:DR version: No, Wired.com hasn't released more of the chat logs. But the rather long piece responds, step by step, to what Poulsen and Hansen claim are inaccuracies in Greenwald's piece.


Putting the Record Straight on the Lamo-Manning Chat Logs
(Wired News)

Related: Lamo is quoted in this New York Times story from a couple of weeks ago on the US building a case against Assange.