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William McGowan is the prominent journalist and author, most recently, of Gray Lady Down: What the Decline and Fall of the New York Times Means for America. The book authoritatively covers the important and interesting subject suggested in its subtitle.

Glenn Reynolds hailed the book in the excellent lead review of the January 24, 2011, issue of National Review. excellent lead review of the January 24, 2011, issue of National Review. Glenn wrote: "McGowan piles up incident after incident demonstrating beyond dispute that the New York Times of today is very different from, and far inferior to, the New York Times of a generation ago....[He] deploys the sheer repetitiveness of the problems as a way of making clear that they are systemic ones, not just the result of a few bad actors or bad decisions." Numerous excerpts of favorable reviews are compiled here at the site for the book.

We have invited Mr. McGowan to write a series of columns for us on themes related to the book. In the first column of this series he engaged in a bit of alternate history involving the sting that convulsed NPR. Last week he commenced his examination of the Times's treatment of national security issues in posts here (part 1) and here (part 2). Today he continues with part 3, on Bill Keller and Wikileaks, which will conclude in a subsequent post:

* * * * *

Times editor Bill Keller's decision to enter into a journalistic relationship with Julian Assange and Wikileaks bared his most callow, self-serving and contradictory side, as well as his lack of self- and institutional awareness. These feature first appeared after public criticism for the Times's cooperation with Assange when Wikileaks' "dumped" more than 75,000 classified documents related to the U.S. military effort in Afghanistan in late July 2010, followed by another much bigger dump of classified military documents regarding the war in Iraq later in October.

Keller's justifications for cooperating with Wikileaks' grew even thinner, more tortured and more contradictory when Assange and his group released a cache of 250,000 U.S. State Department cables, all classified, that had been obtained by Assange through a low-level Army intelligence analyst who yet might be charged with treason.

Wikileaks had been in existence since 2006 and had gained notoriety when it posted documents on the Guantánamo Bay detention operation, the membership rolls of the neo-Nazi British National Party, reports of repression, including extrajudicial killings in Kenya and East Timor and the corker: the contents of Sarah Palin's personal Yahoo email account.

It gained its greatest exposure, at least at that point when it released a combat video showing American Apache helicopters in Baghdad in 2007 gunning down at least 12 people. Two of the casualties were Reuters journalists. In a move clearly calculated to make the video an anti-American propaganda tool, it released two versions, scrubbing from one an Iraqi militant who was carrying a rocket-propelled grenade, calling this sanitized version "Collateral Murder" for maximum political effect.

In late July 2010 Wikileaks released 77,000 classified documents it had obtained from PFC Bradley Manning, a disgruntled low-level army intelligence analyst in Iraq. These documents were shared with three international news organizations: The New York Times, the British Guardian and Germany's Der Spiegel. According to a Times Note to Readers, the documents were similar to the Pentagon Papers and represented "[a] six year archive of classified military documents [that] offers an unvarnished and grim picture of the Afghan war."

The documents were "records of engagements, mishaps 'intelligence on enemy activity and other events from the war in Afghanistan," the readers' note explained, and were used by desk officers in the Pentagon and troops in the field when they make operational plans and prepare briefings on the situation in the war zone." The note continued: "Most of the reports are routine, even mundane, but add insights, texture and context to a war that has been waged for nearly nine years." The lead story from that document dump ran under the headline "View is Bleaker Than Official Portrayal of War in Afghanistan."

In his note to readers and in a special Question and Answer online feature, Keller tried to make the Times sound responsible in contextualizing and confirming the authenticity of the Wikileaked "War Logs." But he tried to minimize the gravity of the security breach by claiming that most of the documents were "marked secret," which was "a relatively low level of classification."

Keller also declared that "Wikileaks was not involved in the news organizations' research, reporting, analysis and writing," when in fact subsequent disclosures by Keller himself clearly indicated that Assange played a key role in helping the news organizations prepare the leaked documents for publication, and was at the table, so to speak, even after relations between him and the Times had soured.

There was also the irony of Keller declaring in the Q&A; that the Times doesn't "discuss our internal editorial and legal deliberations" when the Times was opening up the internal deliberations of the US Army for all the world to see was apparently lost on him. Nor did Keller take on the question of Assange's clear leftist agenda. As Will Heaven of the London Daily Telegraph said, Assange was hardly politically neutral when he fed his information to left-leaning publications like the Times, the Guardian and Der Speigel instead of releasing the data openly.

In the Q&A;, Keller commended Wikileaks for withholding 15,000 of the 92,000 documents it was going to publish on its Web site, describing this move as part of the organization's "harm minimization process." But in fact Wikileaks had revealed the names of civilians who had cooperated with U.S. military and intelligence in Afghanistan, publishing their fathers' names and villages as well. Rep. Jane Harman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence said it "served up a target list and an enemies list to the Taliban."

Indeed, a Taliban spokesman in Afghanistan using the pseudonym Zabiullah Mujahid said in a telephone interview that the Taliban had formed a nine-member "commission" after the Afghan documents were posted "to find about people who are spying." He said the Taliban had a "wanted" list of 1,800 Afghans suspected of informing or collaborating and was comparing that with names Wikileaks provided.

Wikleaks, and by extension the New York Times, drew the scorn of a host of international human rights and non-governmental organizations too. Among them were Amnesty International, Reporters Without Borders, George Soros Open Society Institute, the Kabul office of the International Crisis Group and the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission.

These groups were joined by Steven Aftergood of the Federation of Atomic Scientists. Aftergood, the editor of Secrecy News, is one of the foremost advocates of governmental transparency, which Wikileaks and the Times claimed to stand for too. But Wikileaks, Aftergood wrote, was not an "open government group, an "anti-corruption group" a "transparency group" or a "whistleblower's site."

In fact, Wikileaks "must be counted among the enemies of open society because it does not respect the rule of law nor does it honor the rights of individuals....This is not whistle blowing and this is not journalism. It is a kind of information vandalism." He went on to condemn "the wave of uncritical and even adulatory reporting about the brave 'open government' site."

Whether any cooperative Afghani civilians were killed was an open question, at least until October when the Pentagon said that no one was killed, though many had to be moved out of harm's way and some reports said Afghani civilians had grown more wary of cooperating with Americans. But military officials did say that Wikileaks exposed battlefield tactics and intelligence sources and methods, and to the extent the Times validated Wikileaks' work, Keller and crew deserve some blame for that.

In preparing its reports based on the Wikileaks war logs Keller consulted with the Obama administration. He also refused to "link" the Times reports to the Wikileaks site. Not linking, Keller told the Daily Beast, was merely a "gesture." Obviously, he said, "our decision not to link to the Wikileaks archive would not deter anyone who wanted to find it. All we could do was make this gesture to show we were not endorsing or encouraging the release of information that could cause harm" to "Afghan informants who could now be targets of reprisals by the insurgents."

Assange was livid about the Times's consultations with the White House. It would give Washington "extra lead time to spin the story." As for not linking to the site, Assange said Keller was being "pusillanimous," "unprofessional" and "defensive," instead of "pursuing the real meat of the story."

In response, at Harvard's Nieman Foundation, Keller declared that Wikileaks "was not my kind of news organization," that he and Julian Assange were not "kindred spirits," and that "he's not the kind of journalist I am." Assange's decision to make certain secret documents available to the whole world online was "regrettable."

It was around this time that Times reporters involved in the project began refuting Assange's version of their working relationship, insisting they "were not in any kind of partnership or collaboration with him," as lead reporter Eric Schmitt told the Columbia Journalism Review, despite the long magazine account written by Keller himself which clearly described the relationship as a collaboration in which Assange played a key role.

The Times began to put even more distance between itself and Wikileaks than Keller's trash talk about Assange through an unflattering profile of the army intelligence analyst who had leaked the military documents to Assange and an even more unflattering profile of Assange himself. These were efforts that got prominent "play" in the paper and were greenlit by Keller.

The profile of army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning ran in early August under the headline "Early Struggles of Soldier Charged in Leak Case." As a boy, Ginger Thompson reported, Manning was "a geek" with a gift for "hacking" computers and was made fun of by classmates for being gay. He seemed to have problems with authority. "In his Bible Belt hometown that he once mockingly wrote in an e-mail had "more pews than people," Private Manning refused to recite the parts of the Pledge of Allegiance that referred to God or do homework assignments that involved the Scriptures," Thompson wrote. "And if a teacher challenged his views, former classmates said, he was quick to push back." Manning also had a bad temper. In school, "Often, with only the slightest provocation, he would launch into fits of rage." His father kicked him out of the house when he learned he was gay.

Manning joined the army, but his military career was anything but stellar. He had been reprimanded twice, including once for assaulting an officer. Before he went to Iraq though he had found some acceptance and comfort in a group of young people in Cambridge, Massachusetts, including a boyfriend who was an open drag queen. Some of those friends, reported Thompson, now wondered "whether his desperation for acceptance--or delusions of grandeur--may have led him to disclose the largest trove of government secrets since the Pentagon Papers."

The article closed with an image of Manning lip-syncing to Lady Gaga as he downloaded the leaked video of the helicopter attack and "hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables." Thompson quoted an email Manning wrote to the man who eventually turned him in. "Hillary Clinton and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack," Thompson said Manning boasted. "But even as he professed a perhaps inflated sense of purpose," she wrote, "he called himself 'emotionally fractured' and a 'wreck' and said he was 'self-medicating like crazy.'"

The paper's hatchet job on Assange himself ran in late October and was co-written by John Burns and Ravi Somaiya. "WikiLeaks Founder on the Run, Trailed by Notoriety" read the headline. The profile made Assange out to be paranoid, grandiose, imperious, condescending, insulting, megalomaniacal, dictatorial, uncompromising, and swollen-headed.

The profile depicted his organization as rebelling against him and the U.S. government as readying to prosecute him. The news peg was the impending release of almost 400,000 documents about the Iraq war. These, the Times wrote upon their release, "shed new light on the war, including such fraught subjects as civilian deaths, detainee abuse and the involvement of Iran."

The reporters described Assange as moving "like a hunted man." He "pitches his voice barely above a whisper to foil the Western intelligence agencies he fears" and demands "that his dwindling number of loyalists use expensive encrypted cellphones and swaps his own the way other men change shirts. He checks into hotels under false names, dyes his hair, sleeps on sofas and floors, and uses cash instead of credit cards, often borrowed from friends."

Some of these comrades were defecting "for what they see as erratic and imperious behavior, and a nearly delusional grandeur unmatched by an awareness that the digital secrets he reveals can have a price in flesh and blood." Assange "alone decided to release the Afghan documents without removing the names of Afghan intelligence sources for NATO troops," which made them quite upset. When one Wikileaks member questioned Mr. Assange's judgment Assange told him: "I don't like your tone," he said, according to a transcript. "If it continues, you're out."

Assange told the colleague that he was "the heart and soul of this organization, its founder, philosopher, spokesperson, original coder, organizer, financier, and all the rest." If the colleague had a problem Assange told him he should quit. The colleague told the reporters that Assange was "not in his right mind." To which Assange said: "These are not consequential people." The reporters described the transcript of an encrypted online chat in which Assange described his colleagues as "a confederacy of fools" and asked one interlocutor, "Am I dealing with a complete retard?"

When the reporters asked Assange about the rifts within Wikileaks, the group's opaque finances, and the fate of Bradley Manning, who Assange regarded as collateral damage in his struggle against an America that was increasingly militarized and a threat to democracy, Assange called the questions "cretinous," "facile," and reminiscent of "kindergarten," the reporters wrote. As for the rape charges which were pending in Sweden, Assange was quoted as referring to himself as "the James Bond of journalism." This had gotten him a lot of fans, he told the Times "And some of them ended up causing me a bit of trouble."

Assange was upset at the Times already for failing to link to the Wiki website; "Where's the respect?" he asked Keller. He said the profile of Manning "psychologized" the leaker and gave short shrift to his "political awakening." And according to Keller, "the final straw" was Assange's own Times profile, which he called "a smear."

So when it came time for Wikileaks to release yet another batch of classified U.S. documents leaked by Manning, this one 250,000 U.S State Department cables laying bare the inner workings of American diplomacy, Assange cut Keller and the Times out of the deal. But the Times got them anyway, from the Guardian.

According to Keller, Assange was losing control over his stockpile of leaked documents--some were appearing in publications not part of the original deal--and the Guardian felt that this absolved it of the pledge it made to allow Assange control over which news organizations would get them. This was the thinnest of rationalizations on the Guardian's part. But Keller did not seem to mind triggering a credibility crisis in American diplomacy during a time of war, the ramifications of which are still not fully evident.

Next: Bill Keller and Wikileaks concludes.

BIG crimes deserve tough responses. In any country the theft and publication of 250,000 secret government documents would deserve punishment. If the leak costs lives, let alone the careers and trust that have already perished amid the WikiLeaks disclosures, the case for action is even stronger.

... Removing illicit material from the internet is hard. But governments spend a lot of money, rightly, on chasing child pornography, bomb-making techniques and copyright breaches to the internet’s margins....  

Businesses will go their own way. Some, such as PayPal, Visa and MasterCard, which handled donations to WikiLeaks, and Amazon, which provided web-hosting services, have dumped it as a customer in response to American outrage. More may follow. They risk attacks from its fans, just as those that refuse face hostility from their customers in America. Too bad: business is full of hard choices.

 For the American government, prosecution, not persecution, offers the best chance of limiting the damage...  The blustering calls for the assassination of Julian Assange .... look both weak and repellent.   If Assange has broken American law, it is there that he should stand trial....  

If America sticks to those standards now it will display a strength and sanity that contrasts with the shrill absolutism and cyber-vandalism of the WikiLeaks partisans.

Thursday, 07 March 2002, 10:13
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DEPARTMENT FOR EUR/WE, EUR/PPD AND DRL
EO 12958 DECL: 03/05/2007
TAGS PHUM, OPRC, OPRC, OPRC, OPRC, IT, ITPHUM, ITPHUM, ITPHUM, HUMAN RIGHTS
SUBJECT: AS PREDICTED, ITALY'S HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT

GENERATES FODDER FOR DOMESTIC POLITICAL MILLS
REF: A. STATE 40721
CONFIDENTIAL
PAGE 02 ROME 01196 01 OF 02 082030Z B. ROME 1098 C. ROME 894 D. MYRIAD POST-DEPARTMENT E-MAILS FROM 10/01-02/02 E. ROME 348
CLASSIFIED BY: POL MINCOUNS THOMAS COUNTRYMAN, REASONS 1.5 (B) AND (D).

1. (C) SUMMARY: AS POST PREDICTED, THE U.S. COUNTRY REPORT FOR ITALY PROVIDED IMMEDIATE GRIST FOR DOMESTIC POLITICAL MILLS. PAPERS POUNCED ON THE REPORT TO TRUMPET "HUMAN RIGHTS: U.S. 'FLUNKS' ITALY;" "POLICE ABUSES IN ITALY;" AND ESPECIALLY "MISTREATMENT OF DETAINEES" BY THE ITALIAN POLICE DURING G-8 MEETINGS LAST JULY, WITH THE ONGOING STORY THAT "THE FIFTEEN PAGES THAT THE REPORT DEVOTES TO ITALY LOOK LIKE A FULL-FLEDGED INDICTMENT OF THE BEHAVIOR OF THE GOVERNMENT DURING THE G-8 IN GENOA." ABSENT THE GUIDANCE REQUESTED FROM THE DEPARTMENT (REFS B AND C), WE HAD TO IMPROVISE IN OUR DISCUSSIONS WITH THE FOREIGN MINISTRY, WHICH WAS NOTICEABLY IRRITATED BY THE REPORT. INTERIOR MINISTER SCAJOLA EXPRESSED HIS DISAPPOINTMENT IN A MARCH 5 MEETING WITH THE AMBASSADOR. END SUMMARY.

2. (SBU) POLOFF DELIVERED THE ITALY HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT TO MFA NORTH AMERICA OFFICE DIRECTOR GERI SCHIAVONI AND HUMAN RIGHTS OFFICE COUNSELOR ALBERTO CECCARELLI MARCH 5. (MUTUAL SCHEDULING CONFLICTS HAD PREVENTED DELIVERY THE AFTERNOON OF MARCH 4, PRIOR TO WASHINGTON PUBLICATION, BUT THE MFA WAS AWARE THAT THE REPORT WAS TO BE RELEASED AND THAT WE WERE SEEKING TO DELIVER IT IN ADVANCE OF ITS PUBLIC RELEASE.)

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PAGE 03 ROME 01196 01 OF 02 082030Z 3. (SBU) AS WE HAD PREDICTED (REFS B, C, AND D), THE ITALIAN PRESS HAD A FIELD DAY WITH THE REPORT. SOME OF THE CHOICER HEADLINES INCLUDED: "'NO-GLOBALS' WERE MISTREATED. THE U.S. CRITICIZES ITALY" (CENTRIST CORRIERE DELLA SERA); "POLICE ABUSES IN ITALY" (LEFTIST LA REPUBBLICA); "HUMAN RIGHTS: U.S. FLUNKS ITALY" (CENTRIST LA STAMPA); "HUMAN RIGHTS: DEPARTMENT OF STATE - THE U.S. TO BERLUSCONI: 'LEGALITY IN DANGER'" (LEFTIST L'UNITA). LA REPUBBLICA CONTINUED THAT "THE FIFTEEN FULL PAGES THAT THE REPORT DEVOTES TO ITALY LOOK LIKE A FULL-FLEDGED INDICTMENT OF THE BEHAVIOR OF THE GOVERNMENT DURING THE G-8 IN GENOA. THERE ARE ALSO EMBARRASSING REFERENCES TO SILVIO BERLUSCONI, WHO IS MENTIONED REGARDING FREEDOM OF THE PRESS AND THE LEGAL SYSTEM."

4. (C) OUR MFA INTERLOCUTORS MADE CLEAR THEIR DISSATISFACTION WITH THE REPORT. "THE ITALY REPORT IS THAT LONG?" SCHIAVONI ASKED IN AMAZEMENT. "WHY WOULD YOU WRITE SO MUCH ON ANOTHER DEMOCRACY?" SCHIAVONI, NORMALLY AMONG OUR MOST GRACIOUS AND GOOD-NATURED OF CONTACTS, CHASTISED POLOFF AT LENGTH ABOUT THE NEED FOR POST TO ENSURE THAT WHAT WAS REPORTED ABOUT ITALY WAS CONVEYED IN THE PROPER CONTEXT AND PROVIDED WITH SUFFICIENT NUANCE. "THAT'S WHAT AN EMBASSY'S RESPONSIBILITY IS," HE INSISTED. (COMMENT: WE AGREE. END COMMENT.)

5. (C) IN THE ABSENCE OF THE GUIDANCE REPEATEDLY (REFS B AND C) REQUESTED, WE WERE FORCED TO "WING IT" IN OUR CONVERSATION AT THE MFA. (FOR BETTER OR WORSE, PRESS REPORTS WERE WRITTEN BY WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENTS. ROME-BASED MEDIA HAVE NOT CONTACTED US FOR CLARIFICATION OR COMMENT.) WE CONFIDENTIAL

PAGE 04 ROME 01196 01 OF 02 082030Z EMPHASIZED THAT THE ITALIAN REPORT WAS WRITTEN UNDER THE SAME GUIDELINES AS THOSE FOR ALL COUNTRIES, AND URGED OUR INTERLOCUTORS TO COMPARE THE ITALIAN REPORT WITH THE ONES FOR GERMANY OR FRANCE, FOR EXAMPLE. (SCHIAVONI AND CECCARELLI WERE NOT IMPRESSED.) WE URGED THEM TO READ THE REPORT ITSELF AND NOT PRESS ARTICLES "INTERPRETING" IT. WE ESPECIALLY CLARIFIED THAT THE REPORT DRAWS NO CONCLUSIONS AS TO THE GUILT OR INNOCENCE OF THOSE CONNECTED WITH EVENTS SURROUNDING THE JULY G-8 SUMMIT, NOTES ACCURATELY THE CONTEXT OF THE EVENTS, AND EXPLAINS THAT A GOVERNMENT INVESTIGATION INTO THE EVENTS IS ON-GOING. WE URGED THE GOI ALSO TO REFRAIN FROM DRAWING INFERENCES ON THE BASIS OF THE REPORT.

6. (C) IN A MARCH 5 MEETING WITH THE AMBASSADOR, INTERIOR MINISTER SCAJOLA -- WHO REMAINS UNDER FIRE FROM THE OPPOSITION FOR LAST JULY'S EVENTS LARGELY, AS WE HAVE REPORTED, BECAUSE THE CENTER-LEFT HAS SO FEW ISSUES THAT RESONATE AMONG THE ITALIAN PUBLIC -- EXPRESSED HIS DISAPPOINTMENT WITH THE REPORT, BASED ON PRESS REPORTING. THE AMBASSADOR URGED SCAJOLA TO READ THE REPORT ITSELF, NOT MEDIA ACCOUNTS OF IT. DCM CLARIFIED THAT THE REPORT WAS WRITTEN IN ACCORDANCE WITH DEPARTMENT GUIDANCE AND THE ITALIAN REPORT WAS SIMILAR TO THAT FOR CANADA, GERMANY, FRANCE OR ANY WESTERN COUNTRY. SCAJOLA ACKNOWLEDGED THAT THE SECTIONS OF THE REPORT HE HAD TRANSLATED INTO ITALIAN DID NOT ENTIRELY MATCH PRESS STORIES ABOUT IT, BUT REMAINED DISAPPOINTED THAT THE REPORT HAD PROVIDED AMMUNITION TO THE OPPOSITION.

7. (C) COMMENT: POST WILL CONTINUE TO FOLLOW THE LINE

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ESTABLISHED IN THESE MEETINGS, URGING ALL TO AVOID INFERENCES, PARTICULARLY CONCERNING EVENTS ASSOCIATED WITH CONFIDENTIAL

PAGE 02 ROME 01196 02 OF 02 082031Z G-8 DEMONSTRATIONS OR PM BERLUSCONI'S JUDICIAL PROCESSES. IN PARTICULAR, STATEMENTS OF FACT IN THE REPORT SHOULD NOT BE READ AS JUDGMENTS OR AS A SCORECARD. WE REMAIN DISSATISFIED WITH THE ITERATIVE PROCESS OF DRAFTING THIS YEAR'S REPORT. ALTHOUGH SEVERAL OF OUR CONCERNS WERE ADDRESSED AT THE END, THE FINAL PRODUCT IS NOT AS CONSISTENT OR DEFENSIBLE AS IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN.

8. (C) COMMENT, CONTINUED: WE DO NOT WANT TO SEE AN ALREADY DELICATE SITUATION -- WHERE THE USG HAS BEEN DRAWN INTO THE CENTER-LEFT OPPOSITION'S PREVIOUSLY LARGELY UNHEARD ACCUSATIONS AGAINST A RELATIVELY POPULAR GOVERNMENT -- MADE WORSE. ABSENT ANY OTHER ATTRACTIVE ISSUE, OPPOSITION PARLIAMENTARIANS AND THEIR PRESS COUNTERPARTS WILL CONTINUE TO RESURRECT THE GOVERNMENT'S HANDLING OF THE G-8 AND BERLUSCONI'S JUDICIAL CASES. AND FROM NOW ON, THEY WILL -- RIGHTLY OR WRONGLY -- PROCLAIM USG "SUPPORT" FOR THEIR POINT OF VIEW. WE HOPE THAT OUR MFA CONTACTS, LIKE MINISTER SCAJOLA, WILL READ THE REPORT AND MOVE ON -- ALTHOUGH WE EXPECT TO HAVE AT LEAST ONE FURTHER EXCHANGE ONCE THEY HAVE HAD TIME TO READ THE REPORT CAREFULLY. UNFORTUNATELY, WE ARE NOT ABLE TO CONTROL THE TENOR OF MEDIA REPORTS, AND AS WE NOTED REF E, MEDIA WARS ARE A CONTINUATION OF POLITICS BY OTHER MEANS. ITALY'S OPPOSITION WILL CONTINUE TO HURL THE STONES THAT COME TO HAND IN THEIR EFFORTS TO UNSEAT A POPULAR PRIME MINISTER, AND WE JUST HANDED THEM SOME NEW ONES. POPE

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REF: A. STATE 40721 B. ROME 1098 C. ROME 894 D. MYRIAD POST-DEPARTMENT E-MAILS FROM 10/01-02/02 E. ROME 348

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PAGE 02 ROME 01196 01 OF 02 071049Z CLASSIFIED BY: POL MINCOUNS THOMAS COUNTRYMAN, REASONS 1.5 (B) AND (D).

1. (C) SUMMARY: AS POST PREDICTED, THE U.S. COUNTRY REPORT FOR ITALY PROVIDED IMMEDIATE GRIST FOR DOMESTIC POLITICAL MILLS. PAPERS POUNCED ON THE REPORT TO TRUMPET "HUMAN RIGHTS: U.S. 'FLUNKS' ITALY;" "POLICE ABUSES IN ITALY;" AND ESPECIALLY "MISTREATMENT OF DETAINEES" BY THE ITALIAN POLICE DURING G-8 MEETINGS LAST JULY, WITH THE ONGOING STORY THAT "THE FIFTEEN PAGES THAT THE REPORT DEVOTES TO ITALY LOOK LIKE A FULL-FLEDGED INDICTMENT OF THE BEHAVIOR OF THE GOVERNMENT DURING THE G-8 IN GENOA." ABSENT THE GUIDANCE REQUESTED FROM THE DEPARTMENT (REFS B AND C), WE HAD TO IMPROVISE IN OUR DISCUSSIONS WITH THE FOREIGN MINISTRY, WHICH WAS NOTICEABLY IRRITATED BY THE REPORT. INTERIOR MINISTER SCAJOLA EXPRESSED HIS DISAPPOINTMENT IN A MARCH 5 MEETING WITH THE AMBASSADOR. END SUMMARY.

2. (SBU) POLOFF DELIVERED THE ITALY HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT TO MFA NORTH AMERICA OFFICE DIRECTOR GERI SCHIAVONI AND HUMAN RIGHTS OFFICE COUNSELOR ALBERTO CECCARELLI MARCH 5. (MUTUAL SCHEDULING CONFLICTS HAD PREVENTED DELIVERY THE AFTERNOON OF MARCH 4, PRIOR TO WASHINGTON PUBLICATION, BUT THE MFA WAS AWARE THAT THE REPORT WAS TO BE RELEASED AND THAT WE WERE SEEKING TO DELIVER IT IN ADVANCE OF ITS PUBLIC RELEASE.)

3. (SBU) AS WE HAD PREDICTED (REFS B, C, AND D), THE ITALIAN PRESS HAD A FIELD DAY WITH THE REPORT. SOME OF THE CHOICER HEADLINES INCLUDED: "'NO-GLOBALS' WERE MISTREATED. THE U.S. CRITICIZES ITALY" (CENTRIST CORRIERE DELLA SERA); "POLICE ABUSES IN ITALY" (LEFTIST LA REPUBBLICA); "HUMAN RIGHTS: U.S. FLUNKS ITALY" (CENTRIST LA STAMPA); "HUMAN CONFIDENTIAL

PAGE 03 ROME 01196 01 OF 02 071049Z RIGHTS: DEPARTMENT OF STATE - THE U.S. TO BERLUSCONI: 'LEGALITY IN DANGER'" (LEFTIST L'UNITA). LA REPUBBLICA CONTINUED THAT "THE FIFTEEN FULL PAGES THAT THE REPORT DEVOTES TO ITALY LOOK LIKE A FULL-FLEDGED INDICTMENT OF THE BEHAVIOR OF THE GOVERNMENT DURING THE G-8 IN GENOA. THERE ARE ALSO EMBARRASSING REFERENCES TO SILVIO BERLUSCONI, WHO IS MENTIONED REGARDING FREEDOM OF THE PRESS AND THE LEGAL SYSTEM."

4. (C) OUR MFA INTERLOCUTORS MADE CLEAR THEIR DISSATISFACTION WITH THE REPORT. "THE ITALY REPORT IS THAT LONG?" SCHIAVONI ASKED IN AMAZEMENT. "WHY WOLD YOU WRITE SO MUCH ON ANOTHER DEMOCRACY?" SCHIVONI, NORMALLY AMONG OUR MOST GRACIOUS AND GOOD-ATURED OF CONTACTS, CHASTISED POLOFF AT LENGTH AOUT THE NEED FOR POST TO ENSURE THAT WHAT WAS REORTED ABOUT ITALY WAS CONVEYEDIN THE PROPER CONTEXT AND PROVIDED WITH SUFFICIENT NUANCE. "THAT'S WHAT AN EMBASSY'S RESPONSIBILITY IS," HE INSISTED. (COMMENT: WE AGREE. END COMMENT.)

5. (C) IN THE ABSENCE OF THE GUIDANCE REPEATEDLY (REFS B AND C) REQUESTED, WE WERE FORCED TO "WING IT" IN OUR CONVERSATION AT THE MFA. (FOR BETTER OR WORSE, PRESS REPORTS WERE WRITTEN BY WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENTS. ROME-BASED MEDIA HAVE NOT CONTACTED US FOR CLARIFICATION OR COMMENT.) WE EMPHASIZED THAT THE ITALIAN REPORT WAS WRITTEN UNDER THE SAME GUIDELINES AS THOSE FOR ALL COUNTRIES, AND URGED OUR INTERLOCUTORS TO COMPARE THE ITALIAN REPORT WITH THE ONES FOR GERMANY OR FRANCE, FOR EXAMPLE. (SCHIAVONI AND CECCARELLI WERE NOT IMPRESSED.) WE URGED THEM TO READ THE REPORT ITSELF AND NOT PRESS ARTICLES "INTERPRETING" IT. WE ESPECIALLY CONFIDENTIAL

PAGE 04 ROME 01196 01 OF 02 071049Z CLARIFIED THAT THE REPORT DRAWS NO CONCLUSIONS AS TO THE GUILT OR INNOCENCE OF THOSE CONNECTED WITH EVENTS SURROUNDING THE JULY G-8 SUMMIT, NOTES ACCURATELY THE CONTEXT OF THE EVENTS, AND EXPLAINS THAT A GOVERNMENT INVESTIGATION INTO THE EVENTS IS ON-GOING. WE URGED THE GOI ALSO TO REFRAIN FROM DRAWING INFERENCES ON THE BASIS OF THE REPORT.

6. (C) IN A MARCH 5 MEETING WITH THE AMBASSADOR, INTERIOR MINISTER SCAJOLA -- WHO REMAINS UNDER FIRE FROM THE OPPOSITION FOR LAST JULY'S EVENTS LARGELY, AS WE HAVE REPORTED, BECAUSE THE CENTER-LEFT HAS SO FEW ISSUES THAT RESONATE AMONG THE ITALIAN PUBLIC -- EXPRESSED HIS DISAPPOINTMENT WITH THE REPORT, BASED ON PRESS REPORTING. THE AMBASSADOR URGED SCAJOLA TO READ THE REPORT ITSELF, NOT MEDIA ACCOUNTS OF IT. DCM CLARIFIED THAT THE REPORT WAS WRITTEN IN ACCORDANCE WITH DEPARTMENT GUIDANCE AND THE ITALIAN REPORT WAS SIMILAR TO THAT FOR CANADA, GERMANY, FRANCE OR ANY WESTERN COUNTRY. SCAJOLA ACKNOWLEDGED THAT THE SECTIONS OF THE REPORT HE HAD TRANSLATED INTO ITALIAN DID NOT ENTIRELY MATCH PRESS STORIES ABOUT IT, BUT REMAINED DISAPPOINTED THAT THE REPORT HAD PROVIDED AMMUNITION TO THE OPPOSITION.

7. (C) COMMENT: POST WILL CONTINUE TO FOLLOW THE LINE

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CONFIDENTIAL PTQ2122

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INFO LOG-00 NP-00 AID-00 AMAD-00 CIAE-00 INL-00 DODE-00 SRPP-00 EB-00 VC-00 H-01 TEDE-00 INR-00 IO-00 LAB-01 L-00 VCE-00 NSAE-00 NSCE-00 OIC-02 OPIC-01 PC-01 PM-00 PRS-00 P-00 SP-00 STR-00 TRSE-00 USIE-00 IIP-00 SNIS-00 NISC-00 PMB-00 PRM-00 DRL-02 G-00 SAS-00 /008W ------------------70C958 071050Z /38 O 071013Z MAR 02 FM AMEMBASSY ROME TO SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 2621 INFO EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 02 OF 02 ROME 001196

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR EUR/WE, EUR/PPD AND DRL

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/05/2007 TAGS: PHUM, OPRC, IT SUBJECT: AS PREDICTED, ITALY'S HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT GENERATES FODDER FOR DOMESTIC POLITICAL MILLS

ESTABLISHED IN THESE MEETINGS, URGING ALL TO AVOID INFERENCES, PARTICULARLY CONCERNING EVENTS ASSOCIATED WITH G-8 DEMONSTRATIONS OR PM BERLUSCONI'S JUDICIAL PROCESSES. IN PARTICULAR, STATEMENTS OF FACT IN THE REPORT SHOULD NOT BE READ AS JUDGMENTS OR AS A SCORECARD. WE REMAIN DISSATISFIED WITH THE ITERATIVE PROCESS OF DRAFTING THIS YEAR'S REPORT. CONFIDENTIAL

PAGE 02 ROME 01196 02 OF 02 071049Z ALTHOUGH SEVERAL OF OUR CONCERNS WERE ADDRESSED AT THE END, THE FINAL PRODUCT IS NOT AS CONSISTENT OR DEFENSIBLE AS IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN.

8. (C) COMMENT, CONTINUED: WE DO NOT WANT TO SEE AN ALREADY DELICATE SITUATION -- WHERE THE USG HAS BEEN DRAWN INTO THE CENTER-LEFT OPPOSITION'S PREVIOUSLY LARGELY UNHEARD ACCUSATIONS AGAINST A RELATIVELY POPULAR GOVERNMENT -- MADE WORSE. ABSENT ANY OTHER ATTRACTIVE ISSUE, OPPOSITION PARLIAMENTARIANS AND THEIR PRESS COUNTERPARTS WILL CONTINUE TO RESURRECT THE GOVERNMENT'S HANDLING OF THE G-8 AND BERLUSCONI'S JUDICIAL CASES. AND FROM NOW ON, THEY WILL -- RIGHTLY OR WRONGLY -- PROCLAIM USG "SUPPORT" FOR THEIR POINT OF VIEW. WE HOPE THAT OUR MFA CONTACTS, LIKE MINISTER SCAJOLA, WILL READ THE REPORT AND MOVE ON -- ALTHOUGH WE EXPECT TO HAVE AT LEAST ONE FURTHER EXCHANGE ONCE THEY HAVE HAD TIME TO READ THE REPORT CAREFULLY. UNFORTUNATELY, WE ARE NOT ABLE TO CONTROL THE TENOR OF MEDIA REPORTS, AND AS WE NOTED REF E, MEDIA WARS ARE A CONTINUATION OF POLITICS BY OTHER MEANS. ITALY'S OPPOSITION WILL CONTINUE TO HURL THE STONES THAT COME TO HAND IN THEIR EFFORTS TO UNSEAT A POPULAR PRIME MINISTER, AND WE JUST HANDED THEM SOME NEW ONES. POPE

CONFIDENTIAL

> 2002ROME01196 - Classification: CONFIDENTIAL

Which came first: the vampire or the bat? Getting a lift with Pontius the pilot; Why is the kitchen the place to party?

Are vampire bats named because they suck blood like the monsters of legend, or were the monsters named vampires because they sucked blood like the vampire bat?

As the monster is medieval (the earliest reference is 11th century, in a colophon to a copy of the Book of Psalms in Old Russian), whereas the bats come from the Americas, not discovered until the early renaissance more than 400 years later, the bats are clearly named after the monster and not vice versa.

John English, Littlehampton, W Sussex

It's the former; the bats were named after the mythological creatures. The OED traces their folkloric use in English from the 1730s, and the zoological not until the 1770s. Interestingly, however, the saliva of vampire bats contains an anti-coagulant called draculin, which was named after Bram Stoker's Count Dracula.

Oh, and the bats don't suck blood, but rather lap it up, having first created a small incision with their teeth.

Nader Fekri, Hebden Bridge, W Yorks

The word "vampire" is of slav origin, as one might expect, and came into the English language around 1734; one year before the publication of Carl Linnaeus's Systeme Naturae, which introduced the system of binary classification of organisms still in use today. Under this system, for instance, humans are known as Homo sapiens.

Vampire bats are only known from the new world. Because of the exploratory voyages of people like Amerigo Vespucci and Christopher Columbus, the old world knew about the existence of the new world before the word vampire came into the English language. But such explorers were not interested in studying the fauna; rather how much gold and silver they could pillage from the natives. The American indians themselves must have known about these bats, and most probably had a name for them, but it wouldn't have been vampire.

After the work of Linnaeus, the systematic study of plants and animals became increasingly popular. With this form of classification it is usual to name and set aside in a museum a so-called type specimen when an organism is first described. The French zoologist Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire gave names to some of these bats; the common vampire bat, for instance, is known as Desmodus rotundus, E Geoffroy, 1810. So we can say these animals only came officially into existence after this date, nearly 80 years after the word vampire came into use.

Terence Hollingworth, Blagnac, France

I understand there are seven archangels. Michael, Gabriel and Raphael are well known, but who are the rest and why is no one ever named after them?

Another character not to be missed from the Christmas scene (N&Q;, 8 December), was on the Flight out of Egypt. One of my father's junior school pupils drew the holy family on board an aeroplane, with Mary and Joseph peeping out of the cabin windows. The guy up front was Pontius the pilot.

Carrie Hill, Bath

I haven't seen Our Lady of Carafa (N&Q; 8 December), but I wonder if the look in her eyes really is a mischievous twinkle if she's just been told by the Archangel that yes, she's a virgin, but she's also pregnant?

Mark Lewinski, Swaffham Prior, Cambs

If England wants to move to Central European Time and the Scots don't, could the Scottish parliament decide to be in a different time zone to England?

If the Scots want an example of a time-zone boundary that creates a north-south divide (N&Q;, 8 December), they should look to the US state of Idaho. The southern part of Idaho, including the state capital Boise, is on Mountain Time, like its neighbours Utah and Montana, while the northernmost 200 miles, including Moscow, home of the University of Idaho, keeps Pacific Time. This is because north Idaho has better communication links and closer economic ties to the state of Washington than to south Idaho.

The natives of north Idaho resent the concentration of political power "down south", and regard southern Idahoans with disdain. North Idaho winters are long and cold, but the scenery is mountainous and magnificent. The parallels with Scotland are plentiful.

David Harper, Cambridge

Why do people always end up in the kitchen at parties?

You've obviously never spilt a glass of red wine on the cream carpet in the sitting room.

David Beeley, Hawkesbury Upton, Glos

Any answers?

William Francis, St Lo, France

Why are cold snaps and heat waves so inappropriately named? In Britain, wouldn't it be more sensible to talk about heat snaps and cold waves?

Rebecca Grant, Manchester

Send questions and answers to nq@guardian.co.uk. Please include name, address and phone number.

In 1998 the United States fired cruise missiles at al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan to try to decapitate the group after it bombed two U.S. embassies in Africa. The United States knew about bin Laden and the whereabouts of his camps because, according to Steve Coll's Ghost Wars, "the National Security Agency had tapped into bin Laden's satellite telephone and kept track of his international conversations."

After the missile strike, according to the 9/11 Commission Report, a prominent newspaper revealed the United States' knowledge about bin Laden's phone. As a result, "al Qaeda's senior leadership ... stopped using [the satellite phones] almost immediately. ... This made it much more difficult for the National Security Agency to intercept his conversations." U.S. intelligence lost its most valuable source for tracking the world's most dangerous terrorist.*

The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, emphatically could have been prevented if the United States was able to protect classified information. The newspapers' complicity in divulging classified information helped murder some 2,977 people.

I make this point now in response to those who believe the protection of classified information is unjust. There is an anonymous movement now among anarchist hackers to attack government and corporate websites to protest the prosecution of Julian Assange and defend WikiLeaks. Judging from the responses to my last post, in which I advocated the passage of a Secrecy Act, some readers of Foreign Policy would sympathize with the hackers.

The most common argument is that protecting information, and prosecuting offenders, is a violation of free speech. That is simply not true. The Supreme Court has never upheld First Amendment absolutism. There are legal and reasonable restrictions on what people are allowed to say, print, or broadcast. It is illegal to incite a mob to violence. It is illegal to libel others. It is illegal to make false claims in advertising about a product. It is illegal to utter profanity on broadcast television or radio. And it is, in fact, illegal to reveal information that would cause immediate harm to U.S. national security. This was uncontroversial during World War II, when sailors and their families were routinely trained that "loose lips sink ships."

You may quibble with the application of these rules (the rule about profanity seems more and more anachronistic), but it is flatly untrue that citizens or the press have the right to say absolutely anything, anytime, in any medium. Few should disagree with the principle that there are restrictions on speech; the debate is really where the line ought to be drawn and how to enforce it. I argue that we should actually try to enforce the principle at least a little when it comes to protecting classified information, which would be a significant change from our current habit of not enforcing it at all.

Once again, it goes without saying that the Obama administration needs appropriate oversight and accountability, which is why we have the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, among other organs. No doubt they need to work better. And perhaps there ought to be a standing body charged with reviewing the government's classification decisions. But the need to protect classified information is as obvious as our government's failure to do so.

*(Some newspapers have tried to debunk this story by claiming there was no specific leak of the information about bin Laden's phone, or that it had been leaked previously to no effect. Of course the newspapers have an interest in exonerating themselves. Their efforts are unconvincing. If their claims are true, it is actually more damning that the information about bin Laden's satellite phone stemmed not from a specific leak but from a general culture of impunity among the media to disclose intelligence sources and methods. And the August 1998 reporting plainly had an effect on bin Laden, even if the information had been reported earlier. Both the 9/11 Commission and Clinton-era NSC staffers Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon wrote in The Age of Sacred Terror, bin Laden stopped using his phone "instantly" after the publication of the story.)

Julian Assange has declared that geopolitics will be separated into pre-“Cablegate” and post-“Cablegate” eras. That was a bold claim. However, given the intense interest that the leaks produced, it is a claim that ought to be carefully considered. Several weeks have passed since the first of the diplomatic cables were released, and it is time now to address the following questions: First, how significant were the leaks? Second, how could they have happened? Third, was their release a crime? Fourth, what were their consequences? Finally, and most important, is the WikiLeaks premise that releasing government secrets is a healthy and appropriate act a tenable position?

Let’s begin by recalling that the U.S. State Department documents constituted the third wave of leaks. The first two consisted of battlefield reports from Iraq and Afghanistan. Looking back on those as a benchmark, it is difficult to argue that they revealed information that ran counter to informed opinion. I use the term “informed opinion” deliberately. For someone who was watching Iraq and Afghanistan with some care over the previous years, the leaks might have provided interesting details but they would not have provided any startling distinction between the reality that was known and what was revealed. If, on the other hand, you weren’t paying close attention, and WikiLeaks provided your first and only view of the battlefields in any detail, you might have been surprised.

Let’s consider the most controversial revelation, one of the tens of thousands of reports released on Iraq and Afghanistan and one in which a video indicated that civilians were deliberately targeted by U.S. troops. The first point, of course, is that the insurgents, in violation of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, did not go into combat wearing armbands or other distinctive clothing to distinguish themselves from non-combatants. The Geneva Conventions have always been adamant on this requirement because they regarded combatants operating under the cover of civilians as being responsible for putting those civilians in harm’s way, not the uniformed troops who were forced to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants when the combatants deliberately chose to act in violation of the Geneva Conventions.

It follows from this that such actions against civilians are inevitable in the kind of war Iraqi insurgents chose to wage. Obviously, this particular event has to be carefully analyzed, but in a war in which combatants blend with non-combatants, civilian casualties will occur, and so will criminal actions by uniformed troops. Hundreds of thousands of troops have fought in Iraq, and the idea that criminal acts would be absent is absurd. What is most startling is not the presence of potentially criminal actions but their scarcity. Anyone who has been close to combat or who has read histories of World War II would be struck not by the presence of war crimes but by the fact that in all the WikiLeaks files so few potential cases are found. War is controlled violence, and when controls fail — as they inevitably do — uncontrolled and potentially criminal violence occurs. However, the case cited by WikiLeaks with much fanfare did not clearly show criminal actions on the part of American troops as much as it did the consequences of the insurgents violating the Geneva Conventions.

Only those who were not paying attention to the fact that there was a war going on, or who had no understanding of war, or who wanted to pretend to be shocked for political reasons, missed two crucial points: It was the insurgents who would be held responsible for criminal acts under the Geneva Conventions for posing as non-combatants, and there were extraordinarily few cases of potential war crimes that were contained in the leaks.

The diplomatic leaks are similar. There is precious little that was revealed that was unknown to the informed observer. For example, anyone reading STRATFOR knows we have argued that it was not only the Israelis but also the Saudis that were most concerned about Iranian power and most insistent that the United States do something about it. While the media treated this as a significant revelation, it required a profound lack of understanding of the geopolitics of the Persian Gulf to regard U.S. diplomatic cables on the subject as surprising.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ statement in the leaks that the Saudis were always prepared to fight to the last American was embarrassing, in the sense that Gates would have to meet with Saudi leaders in the future and would do so with them knowing what he thinks of them. Of course, the Saudis are canny politicians and diplomats and they already knew how the American leadership regarded their demands.

There were other embarrassments also known by the informed observer. Almost anyone who worries about such things is aware that Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is close to the Russians and likes to party with young women. The latest batch of leaks revealed that the American diplomatic service was also aware of this. And now Berlusconi is aware that they know of these things, which will make it hard for diplomats to pretend that they don’t know of these things. Of course, Berlusconi was aware that everyone knew of these things and clearly didn’t care, since the charges were all over Italian media.

I am not cherry-picking the Saudi or Italian memos. The consistent reality of the leaks is that they do not reveal anything new to the informed but do provide some amusement over certain comments, such as Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitri Medvedev being called “Batman and Robin.” That’s amusing, but it isn’t significant. Amusing and interesting but almost never significant is what I come away with having read through all three waves of leaks.

Obviously, the leaks are being used by foreign politicians to their own advantage. For example, the Russians feigned shock that NATO would be reassuring the Balts about defense against a potential Russian invasion or the Poles using the leaks to claim that solid U.S.-Polish relations are an illusion. The Russians know well of NATO plans for defending the Baltic states against a hypothetical Russian invasion, and the Poles know equally well that U.S.-Polish relations are complex but far from illusory. The leaks provide an opportunity for feigning shock and anger and extracting possible minor concessions or controlling atmospherics. They do not, however, change the structure of geopolitics.

Indeed, U.S. diplomats come away looking sharp, insightful and decent. While their public statements after a conference may be vacuous, it is encouraging to see that their read of the situation and of foreign leaders is unsentimental and astute. Everything from memos on senior leaders to anonymous snippets from apparently junior diplomats not only are on target (in the sense that STRATFOR agrees with them) but are also well-written and clear. I would argue that the leaks paint a flattering picture overall of the intellect of U.S. officials without revealing, for the most part, anything particularly embarrassing.

At the same time, there were snarky and foolish remarks in some of the leaks, particularly personal comments about leaders and sometimes their families that were unnecessarily offensive. Some of these will damage diplomatic careers, most generated a good deal of personal tension and none of their authors will likely return to the countries in which they served. Much was indeed unprofessional, but the task of a diplomat is to provide a sense of place in its smallest details, and none expect their observations ever to be seen by the wrong people. Nor do nations ever shift geopolitical course over such insults, not in the long run. These personal insults were by far the most significant embarrassments to be found in the latest release. Personal tension is not, however, international tension.

This raises the question of why diplomats can’t always simply state their minds rather than publicly mouth preposterous platitudes. It could be as simple as this: My son was a terrible pianist. He completely lacked talent. After his recitals at age 10, I would pretend to be enthralled. He knew he was awful and he knew I knew he was awful, but it was appropriate that I not admit what I knew. It is called politeness and sometimes affection. There is rarely affection among nations, but politeness calls for behaving differently when a person is in the company of certain other people than when that person is with colleagues talking about those people. This is the simplest of human rules. Not admitting what you know about others is the foundation of civilization. The same is true among diplomats and nations.

And in the end, this is all I found in the latest WikiLeaks release: a great deal of information about people who aren’t American that others certainly knew and were aware that the Americans knew, and now they have all seen it in writing. It would take someone who truly doesn’t understand how geopolitics really works to think that this would make a difference. Some diplomats may wind up in other postings, and perhaps some careers will be ended. But the idea that this would somehow change the geopolitics of our time is really hard to fathom. I have yet to see Assange point to something so significant that that it would justify his claim. It may well be that the United States is hiding secrets that would reveal it to be monstrous. If so, it is not to be found in what has been released so far.

There is, of course, the question of whether states should hold secrets, which is at the root of the WikiLeaks issue. Assange claims that by revealing these secrets WikiLeaks is doing a service. His ultimate maxim, as he has said on several occasions, is that if money and resources are being spent on keeping something secret, then the reasons must be insidious. Nations have secrets for many reasons, from protecting a military or intelligence advantage to seeking some advantage in negotiations to, at times, hiding nefarious plans. But it is difficult to imagine a state — or a business or a church — acting without confidentiality. Imagine that everything you wrote and said in an attempt to figure out a problem was made public? Every stupid idea that you discarded or clueless comment you expressed would now be pinned on you. But more than that, when you argue that nations should engage in diplomacy rather than war, taking away privacy makes diplomacy impossible. If what you really think of the guy on the other side of the table is made public, how can diplomacy work?

This is the contradiction at the heart of the WikiLeaks project. Given what I have read Assange saying, he seems to me to be an opponent of war and a supporter of peace. Yet what he did in leaking these documents, if the leaking did anything at all, is make diplomacy more difficult. It is not that it will lead to war by any means; it is simply that one cannot advocate negotiations and then demand that negotiators be denied confidentiality in which to conduct their negotiations. No business could do that, nor could any other institution. Note how vigorously WikiLeaks hides the inner workings of its own organization, from how it is funded to the people it employs.

Assange’s claims are made even more interesting in terms of his “thermonuclear” threat. Apparently there are massive files that will be revealed if any harm comes to him. Implicit is the idea that they will not be revealed if he is unharmed — otherwise the threat makes no sense. So, Assange’s position is that he has secrets and will keep them secret if he is not harmed. I regard this as a perfectly reasonable and plausible position. One of the best uses for secrets is to control what the other side does to you. So Assange is absolutely committed to revealing the truth unless it serves his interests not to, in which case the public has no need to know.

It is difficult to see what harm the leaks have done, beyond embarrassment. It is also difficult to understand why WikiLeaks thinks it has changed history or why Assange lacks a sufficient sense of irony not to see the contradiction between his position on openness and his willingness to keep secrets when they benefit him. But there is also something important here, which is how this all was leaked in the first place.

To begin that explanation, we have to go back to 9/11 and the feeling in its aftermath that the failure of various government entities to share information contributed to the disaster. The answer was to share information so that intelligence analysts could draw intelligence from all sources in order to connect the dots. Intelligence organizations hate sharing information because it makes vast amounts of information vulnerable. Compartmentalization makes it hard to connect dots, but it also makes it harder to have a WikiLeaks release. The tension between intelligence and security is eternal, and there will never be a clear solution.

The real issue is who had access to this mass of files and what controls were put on them. Did the IT department track all external drives or e-mails? One of the reasons to be casual is that this was information that was classified secret and below, with the vast majority being at the confidential, no-foreign-distribution level. This information was not considered highly sensitive by the U.S. government. Based on the latest trove, it is hard to figure out how the U.S. government decides to classify material. But it has to be remembered that given their level of classification these files did not have the highest security around them because they were not seen as highly sensitive.

Still, a crime occurred. According to the case of Daniel Ellsberg, who gave a copy of the Pentagon Papers on Vietnam to a New York Times reporter, it is a crime for someone with a security clearance to provide classified material for publication but not a crime for a publisher to publish it, or so it has become practice since the Ellsberg case. Legal experts can debate the nuances, but this has been the practice for almost 40 years. The bright line is whether the publisher in any way encouraged or participated in either the theft of the information or in having it passed on to him. In the Ellsberg case, he handed it to reporters without them even knowing what it was. Assange has been insisting that he was the passive recipient of information that he had nothing to do with securing.

Now it is interesting whether the sheer existence of WikiLeaks constituted encouragement or conspiracy with anyone willing to pass on classified information to him. But more interesting by far is the sequence of events that led a U.S. Army private first class not only to secure the material but to know where to send it and how to get it there. If Pfc. Bradley Manning conceived and executed the theft by himself, and gave the information to WikiLeaks unprompted, Assange is clear. But anyone who assisted Manning or encouraged him is probably guilty of conspiracy, and if Assange knew what was being done, he is probably guilty, too. There was talk about some people at MIT helping Manning. Unscrambling the sequence is what the Justice Department is undoubtedly doing now. Assange cannot be guilty of treason, since he isn’t a U.S. citizen. But he could be guilty of espionage. His best defense will be that he can’t be guilty of espionage because the material that was stolen was so trivial.

I have no idea whether or when he got involved in the acquisition of the material. I do know — given the material leaked so far — that there is little beyond minor embarrassments contained within it. Therefore, Assange’s claim that geopolitics has changed is as false as it is bold. Whether he committed any crime, including rape, is something I have no idea about. What he is clearly guilty of is hyperbole. But contrary to what he intended, he did do a service to the United States. New controls will be placed on the kind of low-grade material he published. Secretary of Defense Gates made the following point on this:

“Now, I’ve heard the impact of these releases on our foreign policy described as a meltdown, as a game-changer, and so on. I think those descriptions are fairly significantly overwrought. The fact is, governments deal with the United States because it’s in their interest, not because they like us, not because they trust us, and not because they believe we can keep secrets. Many governments — some governments — deal with us because they fear us, some because they respect us, most because they need us. We are still essentially, as has been said before, the indispensable nation.”

“Is this embarrassing? Yes. Is it awkward? Yes. Consequences for U.S. foreign policy? I think fairly modest.”

I don’t like to give anyone else the final word, but in this case Robert Gates’ view is definitive. One can pretend that WikiLeaks has redefined geopolitics, but it hasn’t come close.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Meet Operation Payback: The Guys Shutting Down Visa And Mastercard In Defense of WikiLeaks
• Jon Stewart On Julian Assange: Let's Just Call Him A Somewhat Pasty Predator
• Gauging The Threat Of An Electro-Magnetic Pulse Attack In The US

Having just published Stephen Collins' reply to Rory's post, I'm going to pile on and offer my own critique.

But first let me point out that we have already received a number of emails from the bureaucracy and diplomatic community in support of Rory's position. Unfortunately, these were marked 'not for publication', so I want to encourage those readers in Canberra who feel constrained by saying that we are prepared to put aside this site's usual reluctance to publish anonymous comment.

So, to business, and I want to start by agreeing with Stephen Collins' introduction, and to put the case more explicitly: I think Rory is showing status quo bias. He is absolutely right to say that 'most of the world's problems demand cooperative responses', and that a certain level of secrecy is required to make this workable. But what level, exactly? Rory seems to assume that the pre-WikiLeaks level of secrecy was just the right one, and that Assange's organisation has busted open an arrangement that was working pretty well for world peace. I'm not at all certain that's right.

But even if Rory is right, that ship has sailed, and governments will have to learn how to cope in a WikiLeaked world. How are they doing so far? Rory is probably right that the leaked cables will just encourage governments to tighten security, and that this, in turn, will impede good policy and diplomacy. But another way of expressing this is to say that WikiLeaks is goading governments into taking self-defeating and counterproductive action.

How best to avoid this? One way is to shut down WikiLeaks, though that seems unlikely to succeed, and would just open up territory for imitators. So here's an alternative suggestion for the governments of the world: stop taking self-defeating and counterproductive action. Rather than tighten security in response to these leaks, why not loosen it? Instead of investing more in spooks and less in diplomats, as Rory thinks will happen, why not adapt to this new reality by shifting away from the presumption in favour of secrecy?

Maybe this would make life easier for the West's rivals. But the 'intelligence gifts' to America's rivals that Rory sees in the Wikileaks cables are tactical victories.

You can draw an analogy with the free trade debate. Opponents of free trade often make the 'level playing field' argument — there's no sense putting our own economy at risk by lowering tariff barriers if the other side won't reciprocate. Clearly it would be better if tariff protection was lowered all around, and it would be preferable if China's political system was just as transparent as America's. But whether the other side reciprocates or not, we can be strengthened when the barriers to the free flow of information and goods are lowered.

As to whether WikiLeaks is 'bad for journalism', I should say so! After all, WikiLeaks has comprehensively scooped the mainstream media. But let's be clear what Rory is talking about when he refers to 'journalism'. He's talking about a profession that is traditionally practiced inside a newspaper or TV station. But journalism is not solely a profession, it is an activity, and increasingly it can be practiced by anyone.

I would also like to hear more from Rory about what makes the WikiLeaks cables so special. The media has always trafficked in leaks, so if this one is so damaging, where does that leave the practice of leaking? Is all leaking bad?

My guess is that Rory's reply would have something to do with the 'indiscriminate' nature of WikiLeaks. But as Fergus just pointed out, only a tiny percentage of WikiLeaks' cables have been released so far, and its been done in consultation with major newspapers, who advised on any redactions that were thought necessary. WikiLeaks and the NY Times even sought State Department help for the redactions.

To close, I want to extend the free trade analogy a little. One of the greatest barriers to economic liberalisation is the fact that its victims are highly concentrated and vocal, and tend to be politically powerful. By contrast, the benefits of a free economy, while pretty overwhelming, are quite diffuse, so liberalisation does not have a strong political or lobbying base.

For instance, when a government proposes to lower farm tariffs, you will see farmers marching in the street and lots of sympathetic media coverage. But you won't see counter-rallies by consumers demanding that the government drop tariffs so that a litre of milk is 10 cents cheaper — after all, it's only 10 cents. Yet when multiplied by 22 million milk consumers, that 10 cents represents a huge efficiency gain across the economy. It's just that no single individual is likely to notice the difference.

Something similar is true for information. I'm sure Rory is absolutely right that the Northern Ireland peace process would not have survived a WikiLeaks dump, and those who are invested in the current system of classification will come up with lots of specific cases where leaks have caused damage.

By contrast, the case for greater freedom of information is more diffuse and less dramatic. Yes, the Daniel Ellsberg and Deep Throat examples demonstrate that leaks can have specific public benefits, but that may not be the main point. The more mundane but important point is that free citizens ought to have a really good idea of what governments are doing in their name. No specific piece of information will be transformative, but in sum the health of our society is enhanced when they know more.

It bothers me that, in his introduction, Rory's apparently sincere reference to the value of 'freedom and truth' transforms, in the very same sentence, into 'libertarian righteousness'. There clearly are people (and Julian Assange may be among them) who take pleasure in just 'sticking it to the man', but it is surely possible to take some satisfaction from the release of the WikiLeaks cables without resorting to such undergraduate anti-authoritarianism.

You don't have to be an anarchist to be in favour of greater transparency, just as you don't need to be an authoritarian to appreciate the need for occasional secrecy.

Photo by Flickr user John Kannenberg.

Classified document publishing website Wikileaks has now been kicked off of Amazon, Paypal, its DNS server and its Swiss bank account - but it lives on, including across hundreds of mirrored sites and is the subject for widespread discussion on Facebook and Twitter.

Site leader Julian Assange is hiding on the run but said to be facing imminent arrest in multiple countries. US Republican party figureheads have reportedly called for him to be hunted down like a Taliban leader and executed. He may very well be named TIME Magazine's Person of the Year for pushing the envelope on questions of technology disruption of media and diplomatic secrecy. Senator Joe Lieberman called on US corporations to stop doing business with Wikileaks but tonight Facebook has issued a statement about its stance: for now at least, Wikileaks can continue publishing updates to supporters on the world's largest social network.

Sponsor

ReadWriteWeb's question, by email: "Does Facebook have a statement on the Wikileaks account there? Will it be allowed to continue publishing, despite government calls to stop doing business with the organization? Is Facebook considering shutting down the account?"

Facebook's response, from Andrew Noyes, the company's D.C. based Manager of Public Policy Communications: "The Wikileaks Facebook Page does not violate our content standards nor have we encountered any material posted on the page that violates our policies."

That's notably different from what Twitter told us today. Twitter passed around a press statement this morning stating that it is not censoring Wikileaks from its "trending topics" section, but when we asked point blank about whether it will permit the Wikileaks account to remain online or whether it will be shut down, Twitter's Matt Graves told ReadWriteWeb, "We've got no additional comment beyond the statement."

Don't expect this to be the last that's heard from either company on this matter.

Every company online is likely considering how to relate to Wikileaks. Google, for example, appears to have indexed almost 1500 pages of the site, while Bing appears to have indexed only 10 pages of Wikileaks.ch.

Wikileaks began publication, in conjunction with a handful of media outlets around the world, of 250,000 US diplomatic cables late last month. The subject of heated international debate, the collection includes documents with a variety of security classifications, ranging from unclassified to "classified" to "secret." An estimated 3 million people in the United States have been granted clearance to access documents set as classified and according to Wikileaks, only 5% of the cables set for release are classified as secret. None of the documents are believed to be classified as "top secret," the most sensitive security classification.

The most recently reported release from the site is an aggregated list of infrastructural facilities around the world deemed most important to US interests. The publication of that list may be one of the most controversial acts the site has taken yet. It is unclear, however, how unknown any of those sites were prior to disclosure of the list.

Australian citizen and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is clearly an "enemy of the United States," as the Wall Street Journal argues, and the Obama administration is rightly considering prosecuting him for espionage. I agree with my colleague Peter Feaver that the disclosure of State Department cables hurts our diplomats' abilities to do their jobs. But a more pressing and complex question is whether the New York Times should be prosecuted as well.

It is a crime to disclose classified information under the Espionage Act of 1917 (see 18 U.S. Code § 793, paragraph e). The Supreme Court upheld its constitutionality in Schenck vs. United States (1919). The Court ruled that "Words which, ordinarily and in many places, would be within the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment may become subject to prohibition when of such a nature and used in such circumstances a to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils which Congress has a right to prevent." The First Amendment does not protect espionage.

The most famous prosecution under the Espionage Act was the Pentagon Papers case, New York Times vs. United States (1971), in which the Nixon administration attempted to stop the publication of a Department of Defense internal history of the Vietnam War. The Nixon administration lost the case and the New York Times (and others) published the history in full. Since the Pentagon Papers case, administrations have been generally reluctant to prosecute under the Espionage Act both because of the perceived difficulty of winning a conviction and because of general discomfort with the idea of suing the media for the content of what they publish.[[BREAK]]

The Pentagon Papers case is, however, a poor guide to Espionage Act prosecutions. The administration sought to prevent the Times from publishing, not bring criminal charges against it for what it had already published. The Court ruled that such attempts at "prior restraint" must meet a higher standard, which the Nixon administration failed to do regarding the Pentagon Papers -- which was, after all, just an internal history, not a record of ongoing operations. The Court did not invalidate the Espionage Act, nor did the ruling acquit the New York Times.

In fact, Supreme Court Justice Byron White, in his concurrence, practically invited the administration to pursue prosecution against the New York Times after the publication was completed. The "failure by the Government to justify prior restraints does not measure its constitutional entitlement to a conviction for criminal publication," he wrote, "I would have no difficulty in sustaining convictions under these sections on facts that would not justify … prior restraint." This was in 1971.

Much more recently, the New York Times (among other media outlets) has a well-established habit of disclosing classified information. In 2005 it disclosed the existence of the National Security Agency's terrorist surveillance program. In 2006 it disclosed the U.S.'s efforts to track terrorists' financial transactions through bank records. In July 2010 it was complicit in WikiLeaks's disclosure of some 92,000 U.S. military documents related to the Afghan War. In October, it helped publicize WikiLeaks's access to 400,000 U.S. military documents related to the Iraq War. And in November it helped with the disclosure of 250,000 diplomatic cables.

The administration is considering prosecuting Assange. But what is the difference between Assange and the New York Times? Why prosecute one but not the other? They both had unauthorized access to classified information and they both communicated the information to others to the detriment of U.S. national security. The New York Times will invoke the First Amendment, but the Supreme Court ruled 91 years ago that the press is not free to disclose classified information, despite current practice. There does not seem to be a convincing reason in principle not to prosecute the Times for espionage and treason.

This reductio ad absurdum is worth exploring to illustrate the absurdity of the situation we are now in. The United States government for all intents and purposes is legally unable to protect classified information, safeguard national security, and prosecute leaks. The one tool it has -- the Espionage Act -- is a nearly century-old statute that is so draconian, politically radioactive, and difficult to implement that it is essentially defunct. The law was written in a time when there were fewer media outlets and they policed themselves with an ethic of responsibility -- in other words, ancient history. Faced with an epidemic of leaks, presidents face the choice of either doing nothing or literally accusing the press of treason. No president is going to do the latter. Under current practice, the press may disclose classified information with complete impunity.

The Obama administration should, in addition to prosecuting Assange for espionage, seek to replace the Espionage Act with a Secrecy Act that is more useable. Many (but not all) sections of the Espionage Act require demonstrating an intent to harm the United States. Demonstrating intent is virtually impossible and shouldn't be required anyway: The damage to U.S. national security is the same regardless of the source or motivation of the leak. A generic Secrecy Act should define as a crime the leaking and publishing of classified information regardless of intent.

Additionally, espionage convictions carry steep penalties, ranging from decades in prison to the death penalty. Secrecy violations, by contrast, should allow a range of lesser penalties starting with fines. If the FCC can fine television stations for uttering profanity on air, why can't the government fine newspapers for disclosing classified information? That would equip the administration with a far more useable tool that would impose a real cost on media outlets. It goes without saying that such a law should include appropriate oversight and accountability, and also include a mechanism to oversee the government's classification decisions, many of which are truthfully unjustifiable. But it is past time to update the law to protect classified information and cope with the new media realities.

I am teaching my current students about alternate media, a.k.a. citizen journalism, also known as "blogging", in a course on organizational and social aspects of healthcare informatics.

I am using a (de-identified) personal experience as an example of why alternate media is valuable in getting "inconvenient" memes into circulation.

In addition to recent articles such as "The Problems with Peer Review" (in the British Medical Journal by Mark Henderson, Science Editor, the Times, London. BMJ 2010;340:c1409), "Ghostwriting at Elite Academic Medical Centers in the United States" (LaCasse & Leo, PLoS Medicine, February 2010, Volume 7, Issue 2) and others about ghostwriting and other ills affecting the conventional biomedical literature, I provided my students the personal example below.

I thought the example might be interesting to blog readers as well.

Here is the example I used with my students:

Regarding a paper I wrote a few years ago and that I ultimately simply posted on Scribd, "Remediating an Unintended Consequence of Healthcare IT: A Dearth of Data on Unintended Consequences of Healthcare IT" (link), an anonymous peer reviewer had this to say when I submitted it to "journal XYZ":

Comments to the Author

This paper addresses a potentially important issue but adds little that is new or that goes beyond what a reader might find in a major city newspaper. Proposing a classification of sources of UC and analysis of reasons for undereporting of each type in the resulting classification could be a useful addition to the field.

This was certainly an ironic if not bizarre comment. A paper on a scarcity of data on unintended consequences of health IT due to a "closed culture" in the HIT industry does not add anything new "beyond what one might find in a major city newspaper?"

Unfortunately, the anonymous peer review process does not allow me to ask what newspaper this reviewer reads, but it was clear to me this reviewer was 1) attempting to prevent the paper's publication and 2) "moving the goalposts" to delay it or have the focus on scarcity removed by seeking for me to "propose a classification of sources of UC" (tangential or even irrelevant to the paper's topic).

I felt it likely the review of a revised paper by this reviewer would have led to negative comments on any proposed classification schema.

Worse, was this, in a dialog via several emails I've condensed for readability. It is very likely it came from the same reviewer above:

EDITOR OF JOURNAL XYZ: I suggest Scot that you modify this into an editorial. One reviewer recognized the writing and asked me if this may have been pre-published on a blog. Any possibility for that?

In other words, I was being accused by the anonymous reviewer of possibly violating the ethics of journal publication and the contract I signed to not pre-publish (the journal has exclusive rights).

My response:

SS: No, this work was entirely original, written from a clean slate, and was not pre-published on a blog. I would think the reviewers would know me better than that in terms of integrity.

The editor shot back:

EDITOR: My response as well. Good - looking forward to the edits. Happy snow day

I reminded the editor:

SS: Not to mention the extensive footnotes showing where I sourced my material. In an age of search engines, I have to ask the following:

- was the person who raised this concern so technologically limited they were unable to search themselves to answer their own question?
- did this person have such a lack of trust they felt compelled to make such a statement?
- did this person raise this due to bias against the fundamental thesis of the paper?

I think it's fair to say there is very, very strong pushback against articles such as this being published. I have to consider whether it's worth my while to continue, or to withdraw the paper.

At which point I received the following revealing comment from the editor:

EDITOR: I think, Scot, that you have a talent for sniffing out problems, dangers, risk, failures and by addressing them in your head on ways, you are likely to make enemies. You are doing a valuable job, but you have to realize that people are threatened by you. That's why the respond in this manner. Not that it is excusable, but it is understandable.

I decided it was not worth revising the paper due to that reviewer's comments and the editor's observations, and therefore disseminated the paper via the Healthcare Renewal blog and Scribd.

While I believe the current Wikileaks web exposures have gone insanely too far, as those incidents involved exposure of material held illegally that could damage international relations, the web has proven valuable for dissemination of one's ideas that have not been able to escape the gravity of the sometimes "peer review Black Hole."

-- SS

Doesn't Janet make you feel safe...

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RED ALERT - TSA & DHS Are Watching You And Taking Notes! - 'Domestic Extremists' Are Anyone Who Objects To Screening Procedure Or Supports National Opt-Out Day

LEAKED INTERNAL MEMO - JUST MADE PUBLIC

Let's throw it right back in their faces.

Make This Story Go INSANELY Viral.

According to a leaked internal memo from TSA/DHS, we might all be considered "domestic extremists" for not wanting our privates explored, our loved ones groped, or our 3 year-olds strip searched.

The terminology contained within the reported memo is indeed troubling.  It labels any person who “interferes” with TSA airport security screening procedure protocol and operations by actively objecting to the established screening process, “including but not limited to the anticipated national opt-out day” as a “domestic extremist.”  The label is then broadened to include “any person, group or alternative media source” that actively objects to, causes others to object to, supports  and/or elicits support for anyone who engages in such travel disruptions at U.S. airports in response to the enhanced security procedures.

Full story immediately below.

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By Douglas J. Hagmann

DHS & TSA: making a list, checking it twice

Following the publication of my article titled “Gate Rape of America,” I was contacted by a source within the DHS who is troubled by the terminology and content of an internal memo reportedly issued yesterday at the hand of DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano.  Indeed, both the terminology and content contained in the document are troubling.  The dissemination of the document itself is restricted by virtue of its classification, which prohibits any manner of public release.  While the document cannot be posted or published, the more salient points are revealed here.

The memo, which actually takes the form of an administrative directive, appears to be the product of undated but recent high level meetings between Napolitano, John Pistole, head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA),and one or more of Obama’s national security advisors.  This document officially addresses those who are opposed to, or engaged in the disruption of the implementation of the enhanced airport screening procedures as “domestic extremists.”

The terminology contained within the reported memo is indeed troubling.  It labels any person who “interferes” with TSA airport security screening procedure protocol and operations by actively objecting to the established screening process, “including but not limited to the anticipated national opt-out day”  as a “domestic extremist.”  The label is then broadened to include “any person, group or alternative media source” that actively objects to, causes others to object to, supports  and/or elicits support for anyone who engages in such travel disruptions at U.S. airports in response to the enhanced security procedures.

For individuals who engaged in such activity at screening points, it instructs TSA operations to obtain the identities of those individuals and other applicable information and submit the same electronically to the Homeland Environment Threat Analysis Division, the Extremism and Radicalization branch of the Office of Intelligence & Analysis (IA) division of the Department of Homeland Security.

For “any person, group or domestic alternative media source” that actively objects to, causes others to object to, supports  and/or elicits support for anyone who engages in such travel “disruptions” at U.S. airports (as defined above) in response to the enhanced security procedures, the [applicable DHS administrative branch] is instructed to identify and collect information about the persons or entities, and submit such information in the manner outlined [within this directive].

Read the whole thing...

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Strip searching a 3 year-old boy...

This is outrageous.

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Song is safe for all ages - no profanity.  "Civil rights, baby."

Video - Don't Touch My Junk!

• Complete background story  on TSA abuse is here...

And read this:

• Soros, Chertoff getting richer off the scanners...

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The Taiwanese animators on "Don't Touch My Junk"...

Outstanding work as usual.

#

Song - TSA Gangstaz

Fly the unfriendly skies.  Profanity warning.  This is solid.

#

Brilliant.

Roxi Copeland - I'll Be Groped For Christmas...

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Absolute must see from earlier...

• TSA - Transportation Sexual Abuse - How Matt Kernan Beat The System By Demanding His Constitutional Rights

SALAMI is a Digging into Data project to support musicologists and is also my favourite project acronym ever: Structural Analysis of Large Amounts of Music Information. We’re conducting an analysis of digital music recordings on an unprecedented scale. This might at first sound a bit unsophisticated – let’s throw a very big computer at the deluge of digital music data! But in its approach SALAMI exemplifies the e-Research of 2010: crowdsourcing, annotation, community software development, high performance computation, data publication. Oh, and workflows and Linked Data too :-)A few years ago I renewed my acquaintance with the Music Information Retrieval community. There was I struggling with the challenges of interdisciplinary e-Research, and there were they buzzing with interdisciplinarity… musicologists, signal processing experts, computer scientists, digital librarians, all united round some common tasks. It was MIREX – the music evaluation exchange, the TREC of the music world, led by Stephen Downie from Urbana-Champaign. At dinner I met Ichiro Fujinaga from McGill. Fast forward to Tokyo in 2009 and SALAMI was born.The project inputs (…projects are just workflows after all!) are masses of “signal” – 350,000 digital recordings of music including a major collection of live performances in the Internet Archive. We also have the community-maintained and annually-evaluated algorithms of MIREX for feature extraction, and the National Centre for Supercomputer Applications kindly donated 250,000 supercomputer hours. The project outputs are Linked Data repositories of music analyses for use by musicologists, students and citizens alike.We have humans in the loop too: 1000 pieces of music annotated by music students at McGill and Southampton, UK. This is the crowdsourced “ground truth” that enables us to calibrate our algorithms, and it’s a unique and powerful resource by itself. And of course we have musicologists providing scenarios… imagine mashups which show the evolution of musical form over time and place. Our prototype of this approach is nicknamed “country/country” and uses genre classification to measure how much country music comes from different countries. Hidden behind the scenes we bring together multiple Linked Data sources and use Meandre workflows on myExperiment, taking an architectural approach we established in a project called NEMA and which we absolutely see as the future. Musicology could not be done on this scale before (a new kind of musical scale!)Enough SALAMI for now – there will be plenty more! The theme of this series of posts based on my inaugural lecture is “Machines, Methods and Music” so let’s close by reflecting on the combination.Ada Lovelace wrote that the Analytical Engine “might act upon other things besides number, were objects found whose mutual fundamental relations could be expressed by those of the abstract science of operations, and which should be also susceptible of adaptations to the action of the operating notation and mechanism of the engine… supposing, for instance, that the fundamental relations of pitched sounds in the science of harmony and of musical composition were susceptible of such expression and adaptations, the engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent.” (Thanks to Betty Toole for this quotation.)Can a machine compose music? Or rather, can I tell whether a piece of music is composed by computer or human? It’s an old debate. But equally, can I tell whether a piece of research was composed by computer or human? If the computer can now learn from the activities of 1,000,000 scientists isn’t it going to be indistinguishable from the “real thing”? I can write a workflow that creates workflows based on a workflow repository (think mutation and crossovers). Equally I can register a query over a growing pool of data sources and one day the answer to a research question will pop out – so who did that research? As we function increasingly in a digital world I wonder if the Turing test is outmoded.

This IBM® Redpaper™ publication describes the integration of IBM Classification Module with IBM Content Collector.

From the G-side, or corporate governance standpoint, business plans were approved that had unsustainable growth assumptions and set volume targets for the sales force that put them under significant pressure. Incentives in place made it more profitable to sell loan products having low initial monthly payments that qualified borrowers for larger loan amounts.

From the R-side, or risk management standpoint, Riskier sub-prime borrowers actually presented greater fee income opportunities due to the way the risk was priced and the fees shared with brokers and loan officers. Residential property values had been on a steady increase and in some areas speculation and home flipping had fueled a run-up in home values at an unprecedented pace. Some financial products represent greater risk due to pricing and payment terms, with some regulators referring to them as financial time bombs. Then there was the originate to distribute model, where lenders pooled loans for sale or securitization.

Turning to the C-side, or compliance view, it turns out that there were problems due to the huge volume of paperwork, and poor controls, where appropriate signatures, timely deed filing, and record retention was not executed well and in fact this happened repeatedly for loans as they were re-sold and sometimes ultimately packaged for sale to investors in the form of a mortgage-backed security. Finally, there are potential fair lending issues associated with lending practices (such as product steering and reverse redlining) and also loan servicing and collections practices (imbalances in access to relief and terms of loan modifications and concessions granted relative to women and minorities versus there white non-Hispanic male borrower counterparts).

This is the perfect storm where the concentration risk spanned governance, risk and compliance areas.

• For those who heard my talks about pseudoarchaeology in Oslo and Uppsala and wonder who Finland's equivalent of Erich von Däniken is: Finnish colleagues inform me that it's Jukka "Jukkis" Nieminen, author of The Lost Kingdom of Finland. Yay!
• On Monday 15 November I'm speaking at a seminar in Gothenburg about social media and scientific and political communication. My talk will be some time between 1300 and 1600 hrs, and treat of how I as a professional research scholar take part in the writing of Wikipedia. The venue is most likely at the IT University, Forskningsgången 6 on Lindholmen.
• My part-time employers, the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, have decided upon the same enlightened publication policy for their books as for the journal Fornvännen. Full text Open Access publication six months after the paper version appears! Agrarian historian Janken Myrdal's biography of his University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign colleague Folke Dovring is already available as a free e-book in English. I am particularly pleased with this step as my own upcoming book on Late Iron Age Östergötland under the Academy's imprimatur will receive the same treatment.
• Emma Vodoti has defended an interesting PhD thesis about invertebrate taxonomy at the University of Gothenburg. In the age of cheap DNA sequencing, the whole Linnaean edifice is going through some radical restructuring as it turns out that skin-deep classification criteria are not always enough to track real evolutionary genealogy.
• Tobias Bondesson has sent me the full 7-page document (in Swedish) where the EU reprimands the Kingdom of Sweden on its restrictive metal detector legislation.
• Jack of Kent comments on the TAM London skeptics' conference on The New Statesman's blog site.
• Joacim Lund comments on the Kritisk masse skeptics' conference in Aftenposten.
• The European Association of Archaeologists is having its Annual Meeting in Oslo in 2011.
• UK Museums are removing mummies and other human remains from display because of pressure from religious minorities including neopagans. At least they're not caving in to demands for reburial. (Thanks to Roger Wikell for the tip-off.)
• A group headed by my old undergrad buddy Sven Isaksson has identified a biomarker that allows a test for yeast in ancient pottery. This will offer new data for the debate on the function of the Beaker culture's essential piece of kitchenware!

Psychopathology is the study of mental illness, mental distress and abnormal, maladaptive behavior. The term is most commonly used within psychiatry where pathology refers to disease processes. Abnormal psychology is a similar term used more frequently in the non-medical field of psychology.

...is to define basic dimensions of functioning (such as fear circuitry or working memory) to be studied across multiple levels of analysis, from genes to neural circuits to behaviors, cutting across disorders as traditionally defined.

However, in antedating contemporary neuroscience research, the current diagnostic system is not informed by recent breakthroughs in genetics and molecular, cellular and systems neuroscience. Indeed, it would have been surprising if the clusters of complex behaviors identified clinically were to map on a one-to-one basis onto specific genes or neurobiological systems. As it turns out, most genetic findings and neural circuit maps appear either to link to many different currently recognized syndromes or to distinct subgroups within syndromes. If we assume that the clinical syndromes based on subjective symptoms are unique and unitary disorders, we undercut the power of biology to identify illnesses linked to pathophysiology and we limit the development of more specific treatments. ... To date, there has been general consensus that the science is not yet well enough developed to permit neuroscience-based classification. However, at some point, it is necessary to instantiate such approaches if the field is ever to reach the point where advances in genomics, pathophysiology, and behavioral science can inform diagnosis in a meaningful way.

RDoC will follow three guiding principles, all diverging from current diagnostic approaches. First, RDoC is conceived as a dimensional system (reflecting, e.g., circuit-level measurements, behavioral activity, etc.) spanning the range from normal to abnormal. ... Second, RDoC is agnostic about current disorder categories. The intent is to generate classifications stemming from basic behavioral neuroscience. Rather than starting with an illness definition and seeking its neurobiological underpinnings, RDoC begins with current understandings of behavior-brain relationships and links them to clinical phenomena. Third, RDoC will use several different levels of analysis in defining constructs for study (e.g., imaging, physiological activity, behavior, and self-reports of symptoms).

• 61 percent also have at least one anxiety disorder, most commonly a specific phobia, or social phobia
• 49 percent have an impulse-control disorder, most commonly intermittent explosive disorder
• 38 percent have a substance abuse or dependence disorder, most commonly alcohol abuse or dependence
• 34 percent have a mood disorder, most commonly dysthymia (mild, chronic depression), or major depression.

...any given disorder can be marked by disruptions among multiple mechanisms, and one particular mechanism may contribute to the psychopathology of a large number of disorders. Thus, the same mechanisms can be implicated in “different” disorders, whereas multiple mechanisms can be implicated in “one” disorder.

This story was co-published with The National Law Journal and ProPublica.

When Judge Henry Kennedy Jr. ordered the release of a Guantánamo Bay detainee last spring, the case appeared to be a routine setback for an Obama administration that has lost a string of such cases.

But there turns out to be nothing ordinary about the habeas case brought by Uthman Abdul Rahim Mohammed Uthman, a Yemeni held without charges for nearly eight years. Uthman, accused by two U.S. administrations of being an al-Qaida fighter and bodyguard for Osama bin Laden, is among 48 detainees the Obama administration has deemed too dangerous to release but "not feasible for prosecution."

A day after his March 16 order was filed on the court's electronic docket, Kennedy's opinion vanished. Weeks later, a new rulingappeared in its place. While it reached the same conclusion, eight pages of material had been removed, including key passages in which Kennedy dismantled the government's case against Uthman.

In his first opinion, Kennedy wrote that one government witness against Uthman had been diagnosed by military doctors as "psychotic" with a mental condition that made his allegations against other detainees "unreliable." But the opinion the public sees makes no mention of the man's health and discounts his testimony only because of its inconsistencies.

The alterations are extensive. Sentences were rewritten. Footnotes that described disputes and discrepancies in the government's case were deleted. Even the date and circumstances of Uthman's arrest were changed. In the first version, the judge said Uthman was detained on Dec. 15, 2001, in Pakistan by Pakistani authorities. Rewritten, Kennedy said in the public opinion that Uthman admitted being captured "in late 2001 in the general vicinity of Tora Bora," the cave complex where bin Laden was thought to be hiding at that time.

The creation of the additional opinion stemmed from a mishap inside the Justice Department: Kennedy's first opinion was accidentally cleared for public release before government agencies had blacked out all the classified information it cited.

While the government privately took responsibility for the error, it initially refused to correct it. Two people familiar with the discussions said prosecutors in the Justice Department's Civil Division gave Kennedy a choice: his entire decision would remain classified or he could write a new version that did not reference classified evidence.

Justice Department sources offered a different account. They said the department later relented and gave Kennedy a properly redacted version of the opinion, in which classified material had been blacked out. The sources said this opinion was meant to be published. But for reasons that remain unclear, the edited opinion became the starting point for the creation of an entirely new version.

Matthew Miller, a spokesman with the Justice Department, said "the department's practice in all of these cases is to propose release of a properly redacted opinion."

The second opinion, drafted after a contentious exchange between Kennedy and the prosecutors, did not refer to the earlier version and gave no indication material had been removed.

Legal scholars and classification experts said the drafting of a second opinion was a deception. All previous opinions in Guantánamo habeas cases have noted when material has been blacked out or removed to protect security.

Stephen Gillers, who teaches legal ethics at New York University School of Law, said Kennedy may well have had a legitimate concern about "national security issues."

"But that concern then inspired him to participate in the creation of a parallel universe that fools everyone except a small circle of judges. We don't allow the justice system to create false impressions," Gillers said.

ProPublica obtained the original version of Kennedy's opinion when it appeared briefly in the court record and conducted a line-by-line comparison with what was published five weeks later. That comparison, highlighting information that was removed, can be found here.

Reporting for this story was complicated by the fact that much of the evidence is classified, and judges, lawyers and prosecutors are barred from discussing most aspects of the litigation. But an examination of the opinions and additional documents, as well as interviews with government and intelligence officials, former military prosecutors and key players in the habeas cases, makes it possible for the first time to publicly examine the evidence against a detainee designated for indefinite detention.

To justify Uthman's incarceration, the government relied on statements from five current or former detainees who were previously discredited by judges in other cases, questioned by internal Obama administration assessments or found unreliable by military psychiatrists because they were mendacious, mentally ill or subjected to torture.

Kennedy's first opinion reveals that some of the government's evidence came from a detainee who committed suicide at Guantánamo three years ago after months of hunger strikes. In the second opinion, the detainee's name is concealed, making it impossible for the public to know he is dead.

DOJ's Miller said witness testimony is thoroughly reviewed before it is presented. "In every habeas case where we ask the court to rely upon detainee statements, we do so because we believe courts can and should consider their accounts based on the totality of the evidence," Miller said.

The Justice Department has appealed Kennedy's ruling and officials there declined to say what they might do if the government does not prevail.

Uthman, according to senior government officials, is on the secret list of 48 Guantánamo detainees who the Obama administration designated for indefinite detention and, officials said, he is the first of those men to win his habeas petition.

Further complicating matters, Uthman hails from Yemen -- a country the White House has deemed too unstable to handle such a transfer. Should he send Uthman home, President Obama risks a fierce political backlash from Republican lawmakers eager to portray the president as weak on terrorism.

Disclosure of the Uthman case comes at a pivotal moment in the government's complicated efforts to prosecute detainees and close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. On Oct. 6, a federal judge in New York barred the government from using its main witness against a terrorism defendant because the information that led investigators to the witness was obtained through torture.

Botched Classification

When Kennedy, who serves on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, ruled in February that Uthman was being improperly detained, his 27-page opinion was turned over to a court security officer for classification review.

The judges themselves have very little insight into the process and no sway over what is redacted. Government security officials review filings in the habeas litigation and other cases involving classified evidence and remove sensitive information.

In the Uthman case, that clearance process took three weeks. Kennedy's decision was stamped "Redacted," by the court's security officer and returned to his chambers on March 16. The deletions were minimal. For the first 16 pages, the only word blacked out was "secret," stamped at the top and bottom of each page.

Kennedy's clerk added the document to the electronic court file late in the day. Twenty-five hours later, the security office sent out urgent notices to attorneys and the judge that the opinion had not been ready for release and needed additional deletions. The decision was promptly removed from the public docket.

In a closed hearing in his courtroom four days later, Kennedy lashed out at the government for releasing classified information. He and Justice Department attorneys then argued over what to do, according to three sources familiar with the discussion.

Kennedy insisted that the reasoning behind his first habeas ruling be made public. But the Justice Department resisted releasing it in redacted form, arguing that blacked out portions would call attention to the exact material the government wanted to conceal.

With Uthman slated for indefinite detention, the stakes were high.

During the next month, government lawyers scoured the Internet for the original decision; the legal database Westlaw was asked to remove it from archives; defense attorneys were instructed to destroy their electronic copies.

Even the court docket was altered. When the opinion was originally posted on March 16, the docket noted Kennedy's grant of the writ of habeas corpus to the petitioner. Today, the entry for March 16 simply reads: "Document Entered In Error Erroneously."

Kennedy ordered the Justice Department to explain how the information was released and to suggest solutions. In the written response, according to three people who saw it, the department took responsibility for the error. Kennedy rejected the government's initial attempt to keep the opinion classified, insisting on other options, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.

One Justice Department source said the department relented, gave Kennedy a properly redacted copy of his opinion, and expected him to publish it. But two others said no such intention was conveyed to Kennedy.

Classification experts could not recall another case in which a second decision was secretly created.

"Reconstituting and replacing a judicial opinion without public notice is active deception," said Steven Aftergood, a classification expert with the Federation of American Scientists in Washington. "There is a role for classification and there are things that need to be redacted, but there is never a justification for deception in the judicial process and that's what this is," Aftergood said, after reviewing both versions of Kennedy's ruling in the Uthman case.

Two senior officials in the Obama administration and two others with direct involvement in habeas cases were surprised to learn that Kennedy's final opinion was a different version than the original.

Changing the Record

Uthman was 21 years old and traveling with about 30 other men when he was taken into custody by Pakistani police in the town of Parachinar, near the Afghan border. It was Dec. 15, 2001, and U.S. troops were in the middle of a five-day battle against an al-Qaida stronghold known as Tora Bora, where bin Laden was believed to have taken shelter. Parachinar and Tora Bora are 12 miles apart but separated by a treacherous mountain range that takes two to three days to traverse.

The government maintains that Uthman was in Afghanistan to fight for bin Laden; Uthman has claimed he went there to teach the Quran to children. Some facts of his story are not in dispute, some critical ones are. They look different depending on which of Kennedy's two opinions you read.

Kennedy's original opinion noted that Uthman was seized in Parachinar; that he reached the town after an eight-day trek from the Afghan town of Khost, nowhere near Tora Bora; and that his journey to Pakistan began around Dec. 8, 2001. Those facts make it difficult to portray Uthman as a fighter in a battle that took place between Dec. 12 and Dec. 17 at Tora Bora. Two footnotes in the original opinion note that the government does not contest that Uthman was taken into custody in Parachinar.

Both were removed in the second opinion and Kennedy substituted wording to write instead that Uthman admitted he was seized "in late 2001 in the general vicinity of Tora Bora, Afghanistan."

The intent of this editing may have been to conceal the role of the Pakistanis in capturing al-Qaida fighters although those details were long ago declassified. But the effect was to link Uthman more closely to the retreat of bin Laden and his inner circle through Tora Bora.

It is unclear precisely what restrictions or classification requests guided Kennedy's alterations. Neither the judge nor the Justice Department would say.

Gillers said such editing has an effect on public opinion, even when it doesn't change the outcome of the case.

"The ability to influence Kennedy's opinion gives the government a public relations advantage," Gillers said. "These battles are fought outside the court system as well as within it."

Another advantage has been the government's ability to largely conceal the identities of its witnesses.

In ordinary federal proceedings, from mob cases to white-collar crime, prosecutors would be loath to attempt such strategies because repeated use of a discredited witness would provide a significant opening to defense attorneys. In the habeas cases, it is difficult for defense lawyers and judges to learn of the roles played by flawed witnesses in previous cases.

The issue arose in a separate habeas case in May 2009, when Judge Gladys Kessler of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia noted that a government witness had been diagnosed by Guantánamo medical staff as suffering from "psychosis." In a footnote, she said she was troubled that the diagnosis had come to her attention "through the diligent work" of the defense attorney "and not as a result of the government's obligation to provide" it.

Attorneys with security clearances can access classified information the government plans to raise in court at a secure facility near the Pentagon. But the material is not easy to use.

The facility is staffed by court security officers and Justice Department officials who determine what information the lawyers can remove from the facility, including, in some cases, their own notes. No classified information can be shared over the telephone or Internet, a significant burden for lawyers who reside outside the Washington area.

"It's monumentally difficult to fight these battles when the government holds all the cards," said David Remes, one of the attorneys representing Uthman. Neither Remes nor Uthman's other Washington attorneys, including William Livingston at Covington & Burling, would discuss the details of the Uthman case.

Near Total Secrecy

Although President Obama inherited many aspects of U.S. detention policy from his predecessor, Guantánamo detainees have been fighting their detentions in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia almost entirely on his watch.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June 2008, as Obama was campaigning for president, that detainees could challenge their detentions in federal court under the constitutional doctrine of habeas corpus, which protects individuals from unlawful imprisonment by the government.

Obama, still a senator then, issued a statement calling the ruling "an important step toward re-establishing our credibility as a nation committed to the rule of law, and rejecting a false choice between fighting terrorism and respecting habeas corpus. Our courts have employed habeas corpus with rigor and fairness for more than two centuries, and we must continue to do so as we defend the freedom that violent extremists seek to destroy." The first challenges were decided on Nov. 20, just three weeks after Obama's election.

Lawyers from the Justice Department's Civil Division handle the Guantánamo litigation in coordination with intelligence agencies and the Department of Defense, which acts as warden of Guantánamo. The litigation process was built around the government's assertion that the bulk of the evidence is classified, a claim that has enabled the government to operate under a cloak of near total secrecy, with judges and defense attorneys barred from publicly discussing most aspects of the litigation. Court filings that reveal details about the cases undergo classification review before they are made public.

Intelligence and military officials take the lead in determining what can be released. As this story was going to publication, the Justice Department released an unclassified version of its appeal brief in the Uthman case. A number of details that were excised from Kennedy's final opinion appear in the appeals brief.

Justice Department spokesman Miller said, "as a general matter, Justice Department litigators are not responsible for classification or declassification decisions in habeas cases."

Officials at other agencies said they had a fairly free hand in removing information supplied for the government's case. "Whenever a court security officer identifies a document slated for posting on the court's public docket as potentially containing classified information, the officer refers that document to appropriate agencies for classification review," Maj. Tanya Bradsher, a spokeswoman for the Pentagon, said.

One government official who spoke on the condition of anonymity acknowledged that the classification process has been plagued with inconsistencies and that no one is coordinating the effort. In most declassified habeas filings, the names of all detainee-witnesses are removed; in others, a name or two slips past the redaction process.

Some government-ordered deletions clearly appear designed to conceal names of confidential informants, associations with foreign intelligence services and the identities of certain federal agents. But the Uthman case shows that many of the deletions go further.

"This censorship has nothing to do with protecting 'national security' and everything to do with covering up government mistakes and malfeasance," said Jonathan Hafetz, a professor at Seton Hall University School of Law who has represented a number of detainees in habeas litigation. The practice, he said, allows the government to "mislead the American public on issues of profound importance to the country by skewing the perception of who really is at Guantánamo."

There have been some attempts, but with limited results, to make more of the habeas proceedings public. Nearly two years ago, as the litigation was getting under way, three media organizations -- The Associated Press, The New York Times and USA Today -- sought access to the court filings in which the government argued for holding the detainees.

The government fought the request but Judge Thomas Hogan, then the chief judge of the U.S. district court in Washington, ordered the government to release redacted, unclassified versions of its filings within 14 days.

David Schulz, a First Amendment attorney who is representing the media group, said the government is flouting Hogan's order.

"The frustrating thing about this litigation is that the judge in no uncertain terms upheld the public's constitutional right to inspect the records of the habeas proceeding and yet, nearly two years after the documents were supposed to be filed and publicly available, we are still waiting to get properly redacted filings," Schulz said.

The government is now seeking to amend Hogan's order to include six new broad categories of information that it can restrict without review by a judge unless the detainee objects. Schulz has opposed this idea. Both sides are waiting to hear from Hogan.

When the media group first fought for access, just weeks after the 2008 presidential election, the Bush administration was still in office. But Schulz said the election has had no impact on the department's position in this area.

Said Schulz: "The Obama Justice Department has fought as hard and resisted as strongly the right that the public has to see these court records."

Perhaps most illuminating, for anyone who watches cable tv news shows semi-regularly, was Robinson's inability/unwillingness to understand the time-delay phenomena--and his insistence that Maddow was lying about it to cover her own "sarcasm", because he knew the speed of light.  Thia denial of commonly-known data in favor of his own knowledge of an isolated fact extrapolated in ignorance of related factors is emblematic of Robinsons egotistical delusional style of thought and action across a wide range of subjects, including several examples that Maddow tried to explore in the segment, including global warming, AIDs, and the impacts of low-level radtiation.

Here's the interview interchange about the satellite delay:

Robinson:  You ask me to explain something and interrupt with more sarcasm.

Maddow:  I am quite literally asking you a question.  

Robinson:  You interrupted me in the second sentence.  I don't see any reason -- I've taught thousands of students at the university. But I'll tell you, I don't think I could teach you because you interrupt the first sentence the instructor gets out of his mouth.  

Maddow:  Have you ever done a satellite interview before?  

Robinson: Have I ever done what?  

Maddow: A satellite interview before? A tv satellite interview?  

Robinson: I guess I actually think i have, yes. But not because i don't often do these things. I'm running for political office for the first time. I'm not a politician I'm a scientist, a very good one.  I'm sure you've checked it out and found that to be true.  But you're going to smear my reputation anyway.  

Maddow: One of the things that happens in satellite is there's about a 1 1/2-second delay between me asking a question and you hearing it. So you can interpret that as sarcasm and interruption, but it's just the way the medium works. I'm sorry that's been so awkward for you.

Robinson:  No, no. Your interruption wasn't caused by the speed of light. It's much faster than that.

And here's an explanation from www.satsig.net ("Geostationary satellite latency and time delay") [Emphasis added]:

Radio waves go at the speed of light which is 300,000 km per second.

If you are located on the equator and are communicating with a satellite directly overhead then the total distance (up and down again) is nearly 72,000 km so the time delay is 240 ms.?? ms means millisecond or 1 thousandth of a second so 240 ms is just under a quarter of a second....

If you were to communicate with another similarly located site, the total distance is nearly 84,000 km so the end to end delay is almost 280 ms, which is a little over quarter of a second.

Extra delays occur due to the length of cable extensions at either end, and very much so if a signals is routed by more than one satellite hop.

Significant delay can also be added in routers, switches and signal processing points along the route.

So, a little bit of time actually watching cable news interviews, and a couple of seconds with le Gooble, and super-scientist Robinson could have cleared it all up.  But noooo...

Turning to just one grievous example from the interview, on the subject of AIDs:

Maddow:  Here's the AIDs question,  You posited in print in your own publication, there was no editor that aids was a government conspirary. That it wasn't real.  That the government was mis-classifying...

Robinson: I never, ever in my life made a statement like that. You are lying. I never made a statement like that. I know it. The statement you made is an outright lie, and everyone listening to you needs to know that.

Maddow: Quoting from mr. Robinson's newsletter.

Robinson: No way. No way.

Maddow: Look, look, it's on the screen. 'Only government reclassification of more and more disease types as AIDs cases has kept the number of victims at politically necessary levels.' You wrote it, I'm quoting it. Do you no longer believe it?

Robinson: No, you... Madam, i'm not going to discuss -- what happened to hermeses. 15 years ago in a large discussion of many thing, you go right ahead. i can't even check your quotes and I don't trust trust you so I'm not even going to answer your question.

After the interview, a link was placed on Maddowblog to Robinson's own publication:

AIDS

Additional readings for the AIDS article in Access to Energy 22-3 are "The Longevity of Homosexuals Before and After the AIDS Epidemic,'' by P. Cameron, W. L. Playfair, and S. Wellum, Omega Journal of Death and Dying 29, pp 249-272 (1994) and "AIDS: The Epidemic that Never Was,'' New African, pp 8-11, December (1993).

Cameron, et al report research results showing that the median age at death for homosexual men dying of AIDS is 39 years and that for homosexual men who do not die of AIDS is 42. By comparison, the value for heterosexual married men is 75. This is evidence in support of the hypothesis that AIDS may be little more than a general classification of deaths resulting from exposure to homosexual behavior.

I immediately recognized Cameron as a famous anti-gay crusader, whose "scientific" work had been widely criticized. A little bit of Googling turned up an article, "Publication Outlets Used By The Cameron Group " which involved some specific analysis of a number of journals, comparing them to leading journals in the field, and including the following findings:

Thus, the Cameron group has published its empirical research in academic journals with low prestige and, at least in the case of Psychological Reports, with a low rejection rate and a publication fee required from authors.

Given the serious methodological flaws in their survey studies and obituary study, it is reasonable to conclude that the Cameron group's papers would have been rejected by more prestigious scientific journals....

Conclusion   In summary, behavioral and social scientists have virtually ignored the Cameron group's data. Other than the Cameron group itself, researchers have not cited their empirical studies as a source of ideas for new research on sexual orientation. Nor have scientists cited the group's papers to support assertions about the dangers to society posed by homosexuals.

Were it not for the sensationalist uses to which they have been put by the Cameron group, the group's data would probably be totally unknown to the US public.

A further blog post by the same author including the following information about Cameron's professional "be-barment":

Most readers of this blog are already familiar with Paul Cameron, who holds the dubious distinction of having been castigated by the major professional societies of two different disciplines:

?In 1984, the American Psychological Association informed its members that "Paul Cameron (Nebraska) was dropped from membership for a violation of the Preamble to the Ethical Principles of Psychologists" by the APA Board of Directors.

?Later that same year, the Nebraska Psychological Association adopted a resolution stating that it "formally disassociates itself from the representations and interpretations of scientific literature offered by Dr. Paul Cameron in his writings and public statements on sexuality. Further, the Nebraska Psychological Association would like it known that Dr. Cameron is not a member of the Association."

?In 1986, the American Sociological Association (ASA) adopted a resolution that stated: "The American Sociological Association officially and publicly states that Paul Cameron is not a sociologist, and condemns his consistent misrepresentation of sociological research."

?In August, 1996, the Canadian Psychological Association adopted a policy statement that said, "The Canadian Psychological Association takes the position that Dr. Paul Cameron has consistently misinterpreted and misrepresented research on sexuality, homosexuality, and lesbianism and thus, it formally disassociates itself from the representation and interpretations of scientific literature in his writings and public statements on sexuality."

So, this is the sort of discredited fringe character on whom Robinson was relying.

Of course, when it came to global warming, he was even worse.  He circulated a petititon of "thousands of scientists" denying global warming, which included the fake signature of one of the Spice Girls.

On second thought, that's actually not worse, though, is it?

Yes, the Michelin guide just unfurled its 2011 star ratings and the only man who can help us make sense of ’em is Jean-Luc Naret, the dapper Frenchman who is the face of the operation (not including the actual Michelin man, of course). Our first question to him: Whattup with Del Posto? The place spends $500,000 and Naret tells us that his inspectors found improvements in service and whatnot, but not in the quality of the cuisine. Here’s what else he told us, about why restaurants like Locanda Verde and Colicchio & Sons didn’t make the cut, what a Michelin report actually looks like, and his favorite New York City meal of the past year.

So first things first, you didn’t give Del Post its star back. Were you thinking of the drama of the situation as you made that decision?
We’re not looking at any drama. We’re not looking at the name on the door, or the investment made in the restaurant. We’re only looking at what’s on the plate. People who know about food understand [why it didn’t get the star], because after the restaurant received the four-star review there was a lot of tweets questioning that. Obviously we did find improvement in terms of the restaurant and the service, but we didn’t find improvement in the quality of cuisine.

How about another highly regarded restaurant that still has just one star, Eleven Madison Park?
Again, we’e looking at the value in the plate, your experience, how the ingredients are cooked, the way the chef is preparing and mastering the supper, and obviously it got one star, it didn’t get two. You have to go to other restaurants to see the difference between one and two star.

There were a few new two-star restaurants, but the three-star list seems pretty static. What does it take to crack that?
The first thing I would say is that this year the overall quality of restaurants in New York tremendously improved; at the beginning we only had 500 restaurants, and now we have 716. The level of the cuisine has really been elevated. There’s really great potential in the coming years; we’re looking at the three-star chefs of tomorrow.

What does one of your inspector’s reports actually look like?
You can look at it as two-page report — the first being about the ambiance, the classification of service, the wine cellar. It could go from one cover to five cover (an incredible beautiful dining room such as a Per Se or Daniel; Del Posto I think is a four). The other part of the report is everything about the plate. Every single dish that has been served and tested, he’s ranking it one way or the other: one, two, three stars. You can have a restaurant that has a three-star signature dish, but that’s only one dish. We’re looking for consistency across the menu based on the fact that we go to this restaurant not only once but different times, for different experiences — lunch dinner, weekday, weekend.

What do you say to the inevitable accusations you’ll get, that you gave a heretofore under-the-radar place like Danny Brown a star just to stir up chatter, or so you’d have a Queens pick?
We’re not creating stars to sell books. He was a bib gourmand before, which is already a distinction in itself. When I called him this morning to tell him he was getting a star he was very happy — it’s unpretentious, it's mixed up between a wine bar with tapas and some Italian. It’s a very friendly, very nice, neighborhood place, and a restaurant deserves to be recognized when you go there and are surprised by the quality of the product and the personality of the chef on the palate.

What do you say to people who think the list is getting stale and there isn’t enough change from year to year? I’m thinking of restaurants that might’ve perhaps deserved a star, like Locanda Verde.
I totally disagree. Obviously there’s more and more restaurants in New York and more this year that deserve to be recognized. They’re all different, from places like Aldea, Laut, Dovetail, and the Chef’s Table, which we recognized with two stars. That means it’s one of the top 300 restaurants in the world. We didn’t give two stars because it was Brooklyn — it really deserved to be recognized. To be listed in the guide is already to be two stars with any other publication.

Did you consider Colicchio & Sons? Is Tom Colicchio not cooking at a Michelin level?
It’s not in the world of the stars, but yes we’re looking at it& #8212; it’s being followed like all the others. We have quite a few restaurants actually listed from Tom Colicchio.

Are there times when you disagree with the inspectors? Do you have personal favorites that haven’t gotten starred?
We actually are very lucky to be in accordance with a lot of things on the list. My job is not to influence at all any decision made by the group, since when I go to restaurants obviously I’m recognized and can get different treatment. Sometimes we disagree and I say, “On that one, I’d appreciate it if you go back because the experience I had was really good, and you should go.” Out of my top three dining experiences this year, one was in Chicago (we’ll announce that later), the second was in Tokyo, and the third was in New York — and it was in Brooklyn at the Chef’s Table.

Read more posts by Daniel Maurer

Filed Under: the other critics, jean-luc naret, michelin guide

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Antoine's Restaurant in New Orleans' French Quarter was founded in 1840. It is the oldest restaurant in the United States that has been continuously run by the same family.

Le Bernadin in New York City has three stars from the Michelin Guide, four stars from The New York Times, and top ratings from Zagat. The chef's tasting menu is currently $186 per person. 

McDonald's, founded in 1954, serves affordable hamburgers, plus an increasing number of healthy options, like smoothies, at 32,000 locations around the world. It is said that no two countries with a McDonald's have ever gone to war.

Which of these is the "best" restaurant? The oldest and most traditional? The top-reviewed and most expensive? The cheapest and most ubiquitous? (Personally, I would pass them all up to go to my favorite Thai place in Queens.)

Everyone loves to argue over rankings. Foodies, however, understand that the process is overwhelmingly subjective, and that your choice of a particular restaurant on a particular day has to be calibrated by price range, type of cuisine, healthiness, and convenience.

Choosing a college to attend, of course, is far more fraught than picking a restaurant for dinner. The consequences may last a lifetime—the name on that diploma can be used as a proxy to judge you for hiring and other competitive situations. That's why the way we rank and judge colleges is so troubling: It's all but devoid of measures that might be meaningful or helpful to students who are making such a fateful decision.

Therefore, here I endeavor to rank the rankers:

The Carnegie Foundation's classification system originated in 1970 with Clark Kerr, legendary president of the University of California. It's one of the most important classification systems in higher ed, serving as the basis for eligibility for state funding and federal research money. If you hear the terms, "first-tier," "second-tier," or a "Research I" university, this refers the Carnegie scheme. Carnegie ranks universities and colleges primarily according to the type of degree they award (associate's only, mainly master's, or lots of doctorates), as well as the proportion of arts and sciences vs. pre-professional degrees. The not-so-hidden assumption here is that the more English Ph.D.s your institution produces, the better it is.

Score—Importance: 5 out of 5; Relevance: 1 out of 5; Overall Helpfulness: 2 out of 5.

U.S. News and World Report has put out the most famous college rankings since 1987. About one-quarter of their points rely on reputational surveys—what other college administrators and high school guidance counselors think—which tend to get a bit circular. (Princeton is the best because everyone thinks so!) The other factors are mostly related to how wealthy a college is: faculty salaries, class size, alumni giving, and straight-up spending per student. There's no room here for colleges that may do more with less or provide a good value for money. 

Score—Importance: 4 out of 5, Relevance: 2 out of 5, Overall Helpfulness: 2.5 out of 5.

SmartMoney magazine put out a small survey in December, 2008, comparing the published cost of a four-year degree to the average salaries of graduates. The public institution Texas A&M scored first, with a payback of more than two and a half times that of Harvard. In fact, the state universities of tiny Delaware and Rhode Island scored higher than every Ivy League school. But it's too small and one-dimensional to be a reliable source. 

Score—Importance: 1 out of 5, Relevance: 4 out of 5, Overall Helpfulness: 3 out of 5.

Recently, the U.K. publication Times Higher Education released a ranking of the 200 best world universities (the top 10 are all in the United States or the United Kingdom). Nearly 65 percent of the rankings are based on research—how much of it is taking place, how widely it's cited, the number of income-producing patents it yields, and reputation. "Teaching" receives 30 percent, but much of this score is based on student-teacher ratios, as well as a reputational survey. Research is key to the broader social function of a university, but from a student's point of view, is it really the most important factor in choosing a college? 

Score—Importance: 4 out of 5, Relevance: 2 out of 5, Overall Helpfulness: 2.5 out of 5.

Forbes magazine put out a ranking in 2010 that makes more of an effort than most to capture measurements that are actually useful to students. (Full disclosure: I wrote an essay accompanying the rankings.) Their five factors include the four-year graduation rate, student debt and default rates, average salary of graduates, and (amazing!) the students' own opinion of their experience, as measured by websites like Rate My Professors. While not objective, such measures at least make a nod to the idea that the student's experience is important in evaluating a college.

Score: Importance: 4 out of 5, Relevance: 5 out of 5, Overall Helpfulness: 4.5 out of 5. 

There is no one best ranking, just as there is no one best college. But, paying attention to how we compare colleges should raise important questions about what we really value in higher education.

Anya Kamenetz is a staff writer for Fast Company and author of Generation Debt. Her latest book is DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education.

Now the Kat brings news of another webtool that is so good it required two press releases this morning. Thus, WIPO has today announced the launch of WIPO Lex, described as:

"an on-line global intellectual property (IP) reference resource which provides up-to-date information on national IP laws and treaties. This centralized search facility, which offers a user-friendly interface and functionalities, is in line with one of the Organization’s strategic goals, namely to serve as a world reference source for IP information and analysis."

WIPO Lex claims one-stop access to all of the IP legal texts for over 60 countries (67 by this Kat's count) with substantial coverage for a further 100 legal systems. WIPO explains:

"WIPO Lex will be integrated into WIPO GOLD which was launched earlier this year and provides quick and easy on-line access to a broad collection of searchable IP data and tools relating to, for example, technology, brands, designs, statistics, WIPO standards, and IP classification systems."

A dip into WIPO Lex will be sure to fulfil the IP desires of even the most fact obsessed. Tidbits from the toolshed include the fact that Greece apparently has the most national IP laws of any of the 67 countries for which a complete listing is available, with a whopping 230 in total (most are ministerial decisions relating to geographical indications). The UK is next with 150, followed by China (135) and Ireland (134). However, if you have a burning desire to find out what it is about the laws of Puerto Rico that caused it to appear at number 8 in the World Economic Forum's "Global Competitiveness Report" ranking of the states offering the best IP protection, then you will be sorely disappointed, as it does not appear as a separate entity in WIPO's database and instead falls under the United States' mighty umbrella.

The Kat also brings news of the EPO's publication last week of the regional breakdown of the origin of the European applications filed in 2009 for the EPC contracting states and other major countries. The file arrives in a modest 230(ish)KB Excel spreadsheet, optimised for offline digital manipulation, and is available here.

The remainder of the statistics for 2009 are to be found here.

Earlier this month, the UKIPO also released a web-based tool to assist applicants in assessing the likely timeframe in which they can expect to receive an examination report.

Noting that “we are acutely aware that our levels of unprocessed patent examinations are higher than they should be”, the IPO offers a tool that operates along vaguely the same lines as the USPTO’s patent dashboard (although it must be said that it suffers from classic British understatement when compared to the USPTO’s rather jazzier offering). The IPO explains that: “The calculator … gives an indication of when you might expect to receive your first examination report. Information is available only for applications where examination has been requested (Form 10 filed) and the application has been published. Applicants requiring information about unpublished applications should contact the IPO.”

So the wait to find out how long you might reasonably be expected to wait before wondering whether you have been waiting for too long, is finally over…

Find the tool here

You won't catch the Advocate General dressed like this in court ...

"(1) Does Article 14(1) of Regulation ... 510/2006 [being the current EU legislation on GI protection, repealing and replacing Regulation 2081/92] apply in the case where the protected indication has been validly registered in accordance with the simplified procedure under Article 17 of Regulation ... 2081/92 ... on the protection of geographical indications and designations of origin for agricultural products and foodstuffs?

(2) (a) If the answer to Question 1 is in the affirmative, what date should be taken as the basis for determining the classification in time of the protected geographical indication for the purposes of Article 14(1) of Regulation ... 510/2006?

(b) If the answer to Question 1 is in the negative, what provision governs the conflict between a geographical indication validly registered in accordance with the simplified procedure under Article 17 of Regulation ... 2081/92 and a trade mark, and what determines the classification in time of the protected geographical indication?

(3) May the national provisions on the protection of geographical designations be applied in the event that the indication “Bayerisches Bier” fulfils the conditions for registration under Regulation ...  2081/92 and Regulation ... 510/2006, but Regulation ... 1347/2001 is invalid?"

"1. Article 14(1) of Council Regulation ... 510/2006 ... is not applicable in a case where a protected indication of origin has been validly registered in accordance with the simplified procedure provided for in Article 17 of Council Regulation ... 2081/92 ....

2. Regulation ... 2081/92 is to be interpreted as meaning that the date of the publication of the registration is the material date for the classification in time, for the purposes of Article 14(1) of that regulation, of a protected geographical indication which has been registered in accordance with the simplified procedure under Article 17 of that regulation".

< ?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

201009150900PR_NEWS_EURO_ND__30016002en_Public 20100915T090000-0400 prnewswire.com 20100915 30016002en_Public 1 urn:newsml:prnewswire.com:20100915:30016002en_Public:1

20100915T090000-0400 20100915T090000-0400

MimeType/@FormalName PrestaShop Integrates Moneybookers in its e-Commerce Open-Source Software PARIS, September 15, 2010

201009150900PR_NEWS_EURO_ND__30016002en_Public.xml

Julian.artope@moneybookers.com; PrestaShop, Sabrina Maréchal – Responsable communication sabrina.marechal@prestashop.com, +33-(1)-40-18-30-04″/>

 Contacts

Moneybookers Julian Artope - Head of Marketing & PR Julian.artope@moneybookers.com

PrestaShop Sabrina Maréchal - Responsable communication sabrina.marechal@prestashop.com, +33-(1)-40-18-30-04 

Entry by Greg Girard

Entry

I recently fielded a call from a reporter at Fortune researching a story about how retailers can use collective intelligence, what some have taken to calling "crowd computing," to predict which new products will perform well and which ones will be dogs. A short while later I had the opportunity to post a comment on TradeStone Software's blog about retailers adopting Merchandise Lifecycle Management (MLM) technology to execute their private label programs better.

No analyst worth his or her salt can resist making hay on a coincidence like this, especially when it presents a readymade topic that demands attention. Let's take a look at collective intelligence and merchandise lifecycle management and put them in the retail context of predicting new product success.

More

Persistently High New Product Introduction Failure Rates

The continuing plague of unplanned markdowns and promotions attest to new product introduction failure rates throughout retail. Unplanned markdowns and promotions can consume 5% to 15% of gross margin dollars.

Writing in the MIT Sloan Management Review on the risk of new product development in retail Susumu Ogawa and Frank T. Piller observe that "newly launched products suffer from notoriously high failure rates, often reaching 50% or greater. The main culprit has been a faulty understanding of customer needs."

If the good professors have it right, then the persistence of unplanned markdowns draws attention to our industry's limited success in adopting the customer-centric model we've been talking about for years now.

Don't Bank on Miracles

In view of the above I like to draw the block diagram below to depict the retail process flow for any class of short-lifecycle merchandise from high-level merchandise financial planning through assortment and store planning and ending in allocation. Tongue firmly planted in cheek, I draw the cloud depicting where the miracle happens to bring attention to the fact that information technology has informed and supported every step in this process save arguably the most crucial one—where the merchant selects items and lays his or her company's money on the line in an inventory position.

See Figure 1.

The miracle needs to happen there exactly because the buyer has a faulty understanding of customer needs. It's tough to bank a business, and millions of dollars in inventory, on what all too often comes down to at best an informed judgment call. The result—plans whipped for lack of a miracle.

Retailers banking on a private label double down on this bet. They absorb all of the risk, foregoing recourse to a vendor's markdown allowance when, usually not if, an item misses plan on unit sell-through and on margin, as shown in the different risk allocation profiles in vendor- and private-label retailing models depicted below.

See Figure 2.

MLM—Half of a Miracle Worker

MLM software can help reduce new product failure by enabling design and make decisions flowing into and through the miracle cloud. It is especially helpful the private label business model. It supports three fundamental requirements:

Speed which means:

• Bringing a new style or other fashionized item to market in weeks with the aim of selling the item through in 13 weeks or so
• Repeating the design-make-sell-clear process  at least four times, if not six or more times annually

Agility which means responding to unexpected changes in market trends and chasing it

Volume which means:

• For large retailers, handling 100s of style ranges or assortments every year with thousands of individual styles
• For every retailer, handling:
  •  A design ideation pipeline of at least 3X, maybe 6x, the number of styles that make it to their shelves
  • At least handful of attributes for each style in that pipeline, and
  • Possibly 10s of choices for each attribute

All three capabilities mitigate design or buying risk. With MLM in place, a retailer stands a better chance of making plan on more products and categories.

Collective Intelligence—the Other Half of a Miracle Worker

Still, at some point the merchant has to pick a design pack or a vendor line and lay his or her money down. That's where collective intelligence comes in. Playing a nice techno-geek pun off "cloud computing," MIT Professor Srini Devadas calls it "crowd computing."

(By the way, Prof Devadas should know a thing or two about collective intelligence; he's associated with the MIT Sloan School Center for Collective Intelligence run by a friend of mine Tom Malone. Tom holds the Patrick J. McGovern Professor of Management at MIT endowed by the founder of IDG, the parent company of IDC Retail Insights.)

In essence, collective intelligence sources insights from crowds of people. James Surowiecki literally wrote the book on the topic, The Wisdom of Crowds. Surowiecki demonstrates through numerous examples that any set of people with a modicum of familiarity with a topic (though not necessarily any sort of schooled or trained expertise in it) can reliably and regularly make better estimates (e.g., the butchered weight of an ox) and better predictions (e.g., the outcome of a political race) on matters related to the topic.

Surowiecki posits three attributes of a crowd that make its estimate or prediction accurate. Its members must be distributed, independent, and diverse. And, there's a fourth requirement—the person seeking wisdom from the crowd must have a reliable mechanism to aggregate the information collected from the crowd. The mechanism must be able to "get the sense" of what the crowd in its totality is saying.

There are two common aggregation mechanisms—prediction markets and games. Prediction markets are modeled on stock markets where shares representing possible outcomes or estimates are traded. Price indicates the "sense" of the crowd. In games, decisions players in the game indicate the "sense" of the crowd.

I'd add a fifth requirement positioned opposite the aggregation mechanism—an appropriate distribution mechanism to reach the right crowd and effectively engage their participation. Distribution can be to a closed community, e.g., the employees of a firm and those of its business partner, loyal customers who have achieved a certain status, or the members of a panel or registered community. Distribution can be open, virally across social networks or from a brand or product's website or increasingly now its facebook page.

See Figure 3.

Collective Intelligence Applied—the Path Retailers Should Take

The McKinsey Quarterly cites collective intelligence as one the Web 2.0 capabilities companies must adopt. Another recent McKinsey & Co publication ranks collective intelligence second among the most popular bets companies are making in Web 2.0 capabilities, ahead of peer-to-peer networking and social networking.

At least one pharmaceutical company is using it successfully to predict which drugs will pass clinical trials. That's huge. The MIT Center for Collective Intelligence cites many other applications of collective intelligence. Its list of the business decisions to which these techniques have been applied include: capacity allocation, emission rights, media publishing success, new product success, product sales, revenues and profits, and video game sales.

Here's an example I spotted recently. In one demonstration of the power of collective intelligence, the simExchange, a video game predictions market, used crowd sourcing to predict game console sales. One published account measured the crowd's predictions against predictions made by a leading Wall Street analyst covering that industry. The crowd beat the analyst 12 out of 15 times.

In another example, HP has used collective intelligence to predict printer sales. In one example, the collective intelligence prediction beat the official company forecast 75% of the time. HP Labs has had an internal research effort focused on one approach to collective intelligence, prediction markets, for several years now. The printer sales forecast process is summarized in the chart below.

See Figure 4.

Wal-Mart's Got the Collective Intelligence Bug

Our industry has a long way to go to cash in on collective intelligence. Uptake has been slow. Take heed—Wal-Mart has a leadership position. Its UK apparel division ASDA has been using collective intelligence for some time now. Its buyers in market take pictures of items offered by vendors, add a few pieces of information, and push the pictures to a predefined set of consumers who comment on the apparel items they see. ASDA buyers take that input into consideration as they negotiate with vendors to buy next season's clothing line.

Best Buy started using prediction markets for crowd-sourced insight a few years ago. It earned notoriety for its efforts. One Best Buy executive likened big companies to communist countries—nobody at the bottom can tell the politburo what to do, but all too often the information needed to make the right decision is scattered throughout all levels of the company. While Best Buy found prediction markets to be effective in bringing that information to bear on decisions, we believe that it abandoned its prediction markets program.

Alternative Approaches to Applying Collective Intelligence in Retail

There are a few interesting vendors retailers should consider as they get serious about collective intelligence. Two that come immediately to mind are Consensus Point and First Insight, Inc. Consensus Point runs Best Buy's prediction markets. First Insight has been applied by at least two retailers, neither of which can be referenced by name. A third vendor bears mentioning, Stylehop.

Consensus Point and First Insight take fundamentally different approached in applying collective intelligence to retail: the populations from which intelligence is distilled and the mechanisms by which the crowd's intelligence is aggregated into useful and actionable insights.

See Figure 5.

First Insight primarily sources information from consumers, as does Stylehop. Employees can easily play games too. First Insight's games are more or less self-evident, require little effort to learn, and game-play is a series of once-and-done episodes. That makes them ideal for viral marketing distribution to consumers through social media, e.g., a retailer's Facebook page, as well as through traditional CRM and loyalty program emails. The same attributes make games a great sourcing tool to collect intelligence from pools of employees.

First Insight and Stylehop differ in their approaches to distribution and the populations from whom they source insight. Stylehop locks down its population to a panel maintained through time whose members have individually demonstrated a knack for predicting the performance for a tightly circumscribed merchandise classification. In contrast, First Insight's populations are open but like Stylehop's approach it sources insights from people who demonstrate the same knack for predicting performance of merchandise in different classifications.

At least as it was deployed at Best Buy, to date its only announced retail customer, Consensus Point sources intelligence from employees and aggregates it via prediction markets. The other examples we've mentioned—HP printer sales and pharmaceutical clinical trial outcomes and those compiled by the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence take the same approach. They all use prediction markets to aggregate intelligence sourced from employees.

In some instances people can be drawn from the general population to participate in prediction markets. SimExchange, mentioned before, is such an example. The Hollywood Stock Exchange is another. Participants trade stocks representing movies and stars, for example, nominees for various Academy Awards. The Iowa Electronic Market has been used for several election cycles now to predict political races. Both of these mechanisms have consistent track records of success in predicting outcomes.

Prediction markets are by far and away the predominant aggregation method used in collective intelligence applied to business-to-business settings. They may be also suited for aggregating information from retail head office associates and some store associates. Participants in prediction markets typically come with specialist knowledge and some inclination to stay involved in a market over time.

Prediction markets however are not well suited to the task of sourcing information from consumers. All prediction markets employ some form of financial market metaphor—typically stocks and futures, the rules of which are not self-evident to most consumers. Taking on the persona of investors prediction market participants must attend to their investment portfolios more or less daily for weeks at a time.

Wrap Up: Grab the Pole Position in Your Segment

There's ample evidence, some of which we've presented here, that collective intelligence is very good at predicting outcomes and estimating quantifiable aspects of an unknown. There's also strong evidence that these approaches are quite useful in the context of consumer goods and retail merchandise. Well-respected influencers and thought-leaders encourage their adoption in demanding commercial and scientific and regulatory environments.

More importantly, there are a few proof points in retail already. Still there's been a lot of hesitation and slow adoption.

We encourage experimentation with collective intelligence. Provide an environment in which the effectiveness of collective intelligence can be evaluated and define self-evident success metrics. Working with a collective intelligence vendor requires executive leadership to manage organizational resistance. It will be strong.

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• Video footage shows Ferrari driver was over starting line
• Outcome of findings will not effect overall result

The FIA, Formula One's governing body, is to investigate how Felipe Massa was able to make a false start at last weekend's Belgian grand prix without any race officials or rival teams noticing.

Video footage taken from the crowd and posted on the internet after the race at Spa clearly show that the front of Massa's car was positioned well ahead of the line on the starting grid. Had it been noticed the Ferrari driver, who started sixth and finished fourth, would have collected a penalty.

"The problem was not brought to the attention of the FIA race director by either the marshals nor the automatic jump start system in time to be able to apply the appropriate penalty for jump starts," an FIA spokeswoman said. "As no further information or complaints were received before the publication of the official result on Sunday night, the classification of the Belgian grand prix will now remain unchanged.

"The FIA are investigating the causes of the apparent failures in communication with race control in order to ensure a repetition is not possible."

Normally a transponder on the car would send an automatic signal to alert officials to the vehicle being out of position at the start.

Ferrari have already been fined $100,000 (£64,780) for illegally ordering Massa to let team-mate Fernando Alonso pass at the German grand prix in July.

One of the first football games I went to at the University of Wyoming was against Brigham Young University. The taunts hurled in their direction from the student section are not quite fit for a family publication.

In any case, the Cougars of BYU are leaving the friendly confines of the Mountain West Conference after this season, choosing instead to strike it on their own as an independent, opting instead for the West Coast Conference for all sports besides football.

This move is huge for the fledging WCC, which is made up of private religious schools that are similar in size. Having recently opted not to expand as recently as June, the conference changed its tune quickly when the possibility of BYU joining fell into their lap after the collapse of the Western Athletic Conference.

Most of the fallout seems to be that it doesn’t make any competitive sense for BYU to do this. Except, none of the realignment moves that have happened this year have absolutely anything to do with competitiveness. They have everything to do with money. College sports fans desperately want to believe in the purity of the game, because it makes them feel better when contrasted against the backdrop of holdouts, lockouts and performance enhancing drugs of the pro ranks.

This move makes a ton of sense for BYU in the short term. It’s unlikely the BCS Board of Directors will give BYU much in the way of concessions related to access to BCS bowl games beyond the standard “finish in the Top 14” that they had while in the Mountain West. But the school can schedule whoever it wants. They’ll have help, partnering with ESPN to broadcast their BYU-TV games and that will help tons to create some marquee matchups. Still, the BYU name doesn’t have the same cache as Notre Dame (even if BYU has been a lot better over the past decade) and it’ll be difficult to convert eyeballs west of the Mississippi.

Still, the Mountain West’s horrible TV deal was the sticking point here. It was hampering BYU’s own goals with marketing itself. Worst case scenario, the two parties kiss and make up within a decade in some kind of new conference realignment. Best case? BYU has great success and manages to position itself beyond what it could’ve done as a member of fledging leagues.

I’ve been hypercritical of the Mountain West leadership for being conservative during the quiet period. Boise State should’ve been invited years ago and they would have been smart to position that league well before Utah had a chance to bolt. But their missteps are coming back to haunt them now. The league will be a 10-team league next year, which is still one team more than they’ll have this season. But it wouldn’t surprise me if they found a way to expand to 12 teams before the dust settles.

No matter what, the league they’re inheriting isn’t as good as the one they are leaving behind. Meanwhile, the WAC will need a hail mary to ensure it’s own survival. I suspect UT-San Antonio will join the league and at least one other Texas school to prevent the defection of Louisiana Tech, but if Hawai’i decides it’s easier to be an independent too, they might have a difficult time scrambling to convince half a dozen FCS schools to move up in a few years, since many of them will need to add sports to qualify at that classification.

To really illustrate BYU’s quibble, the MWC television network (The Mtn.) is only available on extended packages via cable and DirectTV sports package. Meanwhile, BYU-TV is available on the basic tier of DirectTV, meaning I could conceivable follow BYU football anywhere, whereas the Mtn. would be an added expense.

I think this move is smart, proactive and low-risk because people aren’t looking at it with the right lenses. It’s all about the dollars and cents and long-term, it makes a lot of sense and cents for BYU to make this move.

We’ll see how it goes, I guess.

The readers' editor on... the moral and legal implications of publishing the war logs

It is an age-old journalistic dilemma: the reporter discovers information that he or she believes is in the public interest to disclose, but the government says lives will be put at risk by doing so.

To publish or not to publish? How do editors and reporters make that decision? How did journalists make it when working on the Afghan war logs published by the Guardian a fortnight ago?

The logs are tens of thousands of internal US tactical reports by troops operating in Afghanistan between January 2004 and December 2009. The detailed background to the acquisition of the 92,000 documents can be found here and here.

The Guardian, along with the New York Times and Der Spiegel, spent weeks deploying teams of journalists to comb through the raw material of the documents, which were eventually published on WikiLeaks. Each approached the task slightly differently.

There was immediate criticism from both governments and individuals of publication. Critics focused on the risk to soldiers on the ground and those Afghans who have co-operated with Nato forces. Much of the anger came from other newspapers, but the Guardian has received only two complaints from readers who believed we were wrong to publish.

For David Leigh, the Guardian's head of investigations, the issue was simple: "We always erred on the side of caution and we believe we didn't run anything that endangered individuals' lives."

Nick Davies, who brokered the deal to gain access to the WikiLeaks documents, is equally adamant:

"The first time I spoke to Julian Assange [the founder of WikiLeaks] in Brussels in mid-June, before I saw the documents I said there are two issues: one, there may be nothing of interest here, and two, there must be a risk that publication would put people on the ground at risk. There was always a big shining light on that right from the outset. It's not our job to get people killed and I am not interested in publishing anything that might get someone killed.
"There were 92,000 documents and we published fewer than 300 of them. Each one was read from top to toe with the conscious aim of excluding anything that might endanger people on the ground.
"You can't have governments decide what should be published and what shouldn't, therefore we, as journalists, have to make our own judgments."

The documents themselves were classified as "secret" in the US. The equivalent in the UK is "classified". That is lower than a "top secret" classification in the UK.

At the New York Times, where the US-based American journalists have the benefit of the first amendment – a key section of which is: "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press" – they nevertheless took a slightly different approach.

Eric Schmitt, one of the authors of the NYT piece said:

"I can't speak for the newspaper as a whole, but I've received a handful of emails complaining about this point so I expect we've received several complaints.
"On this story, as with all sensitive military/ intelligence/ national security articles, we took great care to mitigate any threat to US service members, Afghan security forces and informants working with the US in Afghanistan; as well as US national security, and sensitive sources and methods. We redacted [removed] the names and other identifying details from the incident reports we published in the Times. Before publication, we asked the White House, CIA and Defense Department if they had any objections to specific information being made public. They had a couple of specific requests, which we honoured because we did not feel their omission would lessen the impact of the articles. Since publication, we have not received any specific complaints on this point from the Pentagon."

In the UK, newspapers are encouraged to approach the defence press and broadcasting advisory commitee (DPBAC), which is not part of the Ministry of Defence but is nevertheless chaired by the permanent undersecretary of state for defence. The role of the committee, which has press and broadcasting members but no one from the Guardian, is to advise publications on matters of national security. Journalists don't have a legal obligation to take the advice. The Guardian's legal advice was quite clear that it faced potential actions by the US government under the US Espionage Act and the UK's Official Secrets Act. Not much incentive to go to the DPBAC then?

Air Vice-Marshal Andrew Vallance is the DPBAC secretary. If we had taken the documents to his committee he says he would not have felt obliged to tell the MoD and thus potentially trigger an injunction, which was a very real fear for the Guardian's editor, Alan Rusbridger.

Valance said: "I am independent of the MoD and any advice I offer [to media organisations] is always given in strictest confidence. However if I was faced with an issue where I believe someone's life was actually in danger I would have to think about breaking that confidence", said Air Vice-Marshal Vallance.

"As it was, I couldn't see anything in the Guardian's coverage which put lives directly at risk, but I understand why analysts believe that some agents may have been compromised [in the wider coverage]."

The Guardian has not been approached by either the US or UK government since publication.

Rusbridger confirmed that discussions about the risk to soldiers and Afghans as a result of publication were part of the investigation from the beginning.

"We had a lot of discussion about that. Our starting point was that we were not going to just put things out there. The alternative was just a gigantic dump of raw information. I think that what we have done is a good thing, not a bad thing. We were very careful to do our best to put it in context, treat it with caution. If you read the coverage, particularly Declan Walsh's piece, you can see that there was real scepticism about the quality of some of that information. We were very careful to vet everything we published, using advice from regional specialists. We also tried to influence Julian Assange to redact names."

He said the fear of injunction should the Guardian approach any government agency or committee before publication meant that such an approach was out of the question.

"We satisfied ourselves that that we hadn't broken our own internal rules in the way we handled these documents. We generally don't identify serving intelligence operatives or their contacts, although you can never say never. I don't believe we have ever done so."

In fact that convention, however strongly embedded in the Guardian's approach to journalism, is not part of its editorial code of conduct although that code is currently under review. "Maybe we should codify it," said Rusbridger.

Isn't it arrogant for an editor to think that he or she is in a position to decide what would cause harm and what wouldn't? Rusbridger said:

"In the end you weigh up what you believe to be public good against public harm, you try to minimise the harm by highlighting public material of most public interest. You have a discussion about whether journalists should make those decisions but what it comes down to is whether you believe in the fourth estate.
Alternatively you leave these decisions to be taken by elected officials or parliament but I believe that would mean that virtually no material would be released."

Only the next few months will reveal whether we got the balance of risk right. Professionally there is no evidence that the reporters were other than scrupulous in minimising the risk. There may still be a risk, but when challenging authority, which has been the basis of the best Guardian journalism for nearly 190 years, you can't ask its leave to do so.

Listen to the Audio

Daily Beast contributor Philip Shenon, a former New York Times investigative reporter, speaks with Judy Woodruff about the purpose of the online whistle-blower publication WikiLeaks and who runs the non-profit website, which continues to create a stir over its publication of classified U.S. government documents.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Now back to our main story. We take a closer look at what is WikiLeaks and who is behind it.

And, for that, we turn to Philip Shenon, a contributor to the Daily Beast website, where he has covered the WikiLeaks story. He is a former investigative reporter for The New York Times.

Philip Shenon, good to have you with us.

PHILIP SHENON, TheDailyBeast.com: Thank you.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, what is WikiLeaks?

PHILIP SHENON: WikiLeaks is largely the -- the big project of one Julian Assange, a former computer hacker from Australia who decided that he wanted to do his best to make all secrets public. Four years ago, he set up this Web site that was designed to do just that. And, over these four years, it has produced a remarkable number of what you and I would call scoops.

JUDY WOODRUFF: All secrets. So, he's interested in everything, or a few things?

PHILIP SHENON: Anything and everything. I mean, they have had everything from Sarah Palin's hacked e-mails, to the e-mails among global climate scientists that were described as climate-gate, to the video that we now know about from April that showed this American airstrike in Baghdad back in 2007.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, what does he say -- do they say is their mission, their purpose?

PHILIP SHENON: Well, Assange, who really is at the heart of everything at WikiLeaks, describes this grand conspiracy between governments and other powerful institutions to hide the truth from the public. And he is going to do his best to make all of that material just as public as he can.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, so, when he said I -- we -- we played earlier a quote from him where he said it's -- he said, these documents will show the true nature of this war. Then the public can take steps to address the problems.

So, it sounds as if he has an agenda.

PHILIP SHENON: Well, he is certainly somebody who has made clear he is opposed to this war. And the documents do suggest that this war has often gone very, very badly, despite the statements from the Bush and the Obama administrations of progress in the war.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Why the deal with these newspapers, The New York Times, and then two major European papers, because, in the past, it is our understanding that Assange has been critical of the mainstream media? So...

PHILIP SHENON: Basically, he has real disdain for major news organizations. But I think this was a stroke of genius. It accomplished two things. One is, he knew that The New York Times and The Guardian and "Der Spiegel" would know absolutely how to package this for maximum impact.

And they did. And also, too, they did a lot of the vetting for him. You know, Assange has said he doesn't want to be responsible for deaths of innocent people, for doing real damage to human beings. And The New York Times and these other organizations are able to vet the material to make sure that doesn't happen.

And they can also go a long way to proving the authenticity of this material.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, what is -- now, we spoke about this a few minutes ago, too, a little bit, but what is known about the source or sources of all these documents?

PHILIP SHENON: I think all the evidence on the public record suggests that it was leaked by a single 22-year-old Army intelligence specialist in Iraq, this fellow by the name of Bradley Manning, who is now in custody and charged with stealing classified information.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Twenty-two years old, an enlisted man, intelligence analyst in the Army. How in the world did he get access to important information?

PHILIP SHENON: Well, he was an intelligence specialist. This was his field. And, you know, it is just remarkable what we are learning about how much information, secret information, top-secret information, is available to very junior officers in the military and other government employees.

And I think there must be a real panic in the government at this moment at the thought that there are other young people or not-so-young people who have access to the same information and can download it with a couple of keystrokes on a computer.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But what does it say about the value of the material? Because we heard Steve Coll a few minutes ago say that most truly important information, words to this effect, are marked top-secret or it has some other classification that is not part of these documents.

PHILIP SHENON: That's true.

And, apparently, these documents are largely secret or classified -- low-level classified information. This doesn't include really top-secret information, though there are an awful lot of people not much older than Bradley Manning, not much more senior who do have access to that material.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Does Assange, do the people around him at WikiLeaks consider themselves journalists, or...

PHILIP SHENON: They use that term. But Assange is more likely to describe himself as an information activist, that his whole goal is to release this information, not so much to put it in the context that most mainstream journalists do.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And what is it -- and for these news organizations that took this information and vetted it, as you put it, what is -- what was their responsibility? I mean, how did they today, in putting this out, describe what their responsibility was in checking it?

PHILIP SHENON: Well, I think this has been extraordinarily uncomfortable for The New York Times, where I worked for more than 20 years, because they don't -- when classified information walks into The New York Times, or we -- our reporters discovered it, there was a big internal debate about what to do with it, whether or not it could do real damage to national security. And months, years would be taken sometimes to vet this material.

In this case, WikiLeaks set the terms and they said, you can have it, but you can only have it for a month. And, apparently, a lot of the information that was released through The New York Times, for example, wasn't -- the authenticity of it is still, to some extent, in question.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, right now, we are hearing from WikiLeaks they have another 15,000 or so pages they're going to release...

PHILIP SHENON: Oh.

JUDY WOODRUFF: ... more than that. And...

PHILIP SHENON: That's the start.

(LAUGHTER)

PHILIP SHENON: Apparently, they have 15,000 pages related to this particular information dump. But Assange was talking today about having a million documents, a million reports that he will some day make public.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And the nature of that? We will see.

PHILIP SHENON: He said it involves every nation on Earth with a population of more than a million.

I think that the 15,000 he's talking about now are specifically related to the United States. They may be cables from the State Department that Manning has previously acknowledged leaking to WikiLeaks.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, it raises all sorts of interesting questions.

PHILIP SHENON: It does.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Philip Shenon, thank you very much.

PHILIP SHENON: Thank you.

Secret military files have been opened up by Wikileaks in a joint venture with the Guardian, the New York Times and Der Spiegel

The Afghanistan war logs series of reports on the war in Afghanistan published by the Guardian is based on the US military's internal logs of the conflict between January 2004 and December 2009. The material, largely classified by the US as secret, was obtained by the whistleblower website Wikileaks, which has published the full archive. The Guardian, along with the New York Times and the German weekly Der Spiegel, was given access to the logs before publication to verify their authenticity and assess their significance.

A team of investigative reporters, regional specialists and database experts spent weeks combing the data for matters of public interest. After establishing the meaning of more than 400 abbreviations and military acronyms they were able to authenticate the logs by comparing them with other records and cross-checking with other sources. They were able to dismiss some of the more lurid intelligence reports as unfounded and establish that some aspects of the coalition's recording of civilian casualties is unreliable.

But taken together, the logs provide a revealing and important picture of how the war is being conducted: the continuing escalation of the conflict; the weakness of much coalition intelligence; and the gap between the polished account of the war offered for public consumption and the messy reality experienced by commanders on the ground. This is one side's raw, immediate first hand account of the conflict as it happened.

Although the material has a relatively low level of secrecy classification, the Guardian has taken care not to publish information that could identify intelligence sources, expose unknown intelligence-gathering techniques or place coalition forces in danger. For that reason we have not made available the full database. Instead we have published a selection of the logs relating to significant events in the paper and a number more on the web. The website has a glossary tool which makes them easier to read.

The Guardian, the New York Times and Der Spiegel agreed to publish their reports simultaneously, at the same time as Wikileaks released the full database online. The Guardian has no direct knowledge of the original source of the material.