Wikileaks Refused To Publish Manafort Family Texts, So Someone Else Did

from the hypocrisy? dept

Update: A quick correction/clarification here. The hacked texts in questions were from Manafort's daughter, rather than Manafort himself, but included texts between Manafort and his daughter, as well as other texts about Paul that his daughter sent or received. Wikileaks, for its part, says it didn't publish the texts because they weren't verified. Except that multiple people confirmed the legitimacy of those texts including Paul Manafort himself. The point of the article still stands.

We just wrote about why it would be a dangerous move for press freedom for the DOJ to prosecute Julian Assange for publishing leaked documents. In that post, we noted that even if you think Julian Assange is a horrible human being and proactively trying to undermine US electoral sovereignty, the mere act of publishing leaked documents should not be criminal. But, that doesn't mean that Assange can't be hypocritical and one-sided. Obviously, during the 2016 election, when Wikileaks helped spread both John Podesta's emails and the DNC's emails, some wondered if Assange would have published similar messages from the Trump campaign. While publicly Assange insisted he disliked both campaigns equally, other reports and leaked (of course) chat messages certainly suggested otherwise, as did at least some of his apparent attempts to ingratiate himself with Trump insiders, including asking Don Jr. to leak his father's tax returns to Assange to "dramatically improve the perception of our impartiality."

Of course, when faced with an opportunity to post the equivalent of the Podesta emails on the Trump side, it appears that Assange decided not to do it. Public records-savant Emma Best recently chose to publish the entire collection of leaked Manafort family texts in a searchable database. These texts have long been out there and available if you knew where to look -- and had received widespread reporting in early 2017. However, beyond the excerpts, they were not fully available in a way that was searchable for most users.

Best communicated with Wikileaks, who admitted that it had the entire collection as well, but chose not to publish it -- which certainly can be read as hypocrisy on Assange's part, considering the similarities with the Podesta emails. As Best notes in discussing the decision to publish these in a more accessible format:

The public haven’t had access to the messages, and the press (including high profile and high budget outlets) haven’t had access to an easily searchable version – instead only to an unwieldy database.

This was nearly not the case, however – WikiLeaks had a copy of the database, but ultimately didn’t publish it, despite its newsworthiness and their willingness to publish unredacted information on the Democrats. Their unexplained decision not to put the database into a searchable format and make it public struck me as questionable at the time, but in light of the disclosure of their preference for the GOP it has become not only questionable, but hypocritical. WikiLeaks’ decision can no longer be trusted prima facie or viewed in terms of presumed good faith.

[....]

This noteworthy refusal, along with ongoing probes and charges filed against Manafort by the Special Counsel’s office, makes the text messages and their contents undoubtedly newsworthy. Their relevance to the general public may go beyond this, as the personal reality reflected in the messages presents the Manaforts as real people, rather than merely as abstract figures. This same reality is, of course, also relevant to news and current events, and to understanding the character and actions of those involved.

There may be reasons why Wikileaks chose not to publish these texts, but the fact that it eagerly published the Podesta emails, yet held back on publishing these texts should at least raise serious questions. Obviously, every publisher makes different decisions on what to publish and what not to publish. And there's no rule saying that you absolutely must publish every "equivalent" set of data or stories. But given all of the background here, and the high profile nature of this, it is noteworthy to point out the different approaches Wikileaks chose to take with two similar sets of data on different sides of the 2016 election.

Filed Under: emails, emma best, hypocrisy, john podesta, julian assange, paul manafort, texts, transparency
Companies: wikileaks

Murder Case Upended After Police Read Phone Texts Without A Warrant

from the get-a-warrant-maybe dept

There have been a number of cases on the legality of police going through your mobile phone, and the courts are basically all over the place on rulings, with very little guidance from the Supreme Court. You can find cases where it's legal and some where it's not. The Supreme Court had a chance to clarify and punted (as it often does these days), choosing instead to tap dance around the 4th Amendment issue and deal with the case on other grounds.

Now we've got yet another ruling saying that looking at texts without a warrant violates the 4th Amendment. The case involved a six year old boy who stopped breathing and later died. His mother had called the police to report the not breathing bit... and while the police were in the house, they picked up the mother's cell phone and noticed a written (but unsent) text to her boyfriend which suggested foul play:

Wat if I got 2 take him 2 da hospital wat do I say and dos marks on his neck omg

Other texts mentioned punching the kid. Not surprisingly, police used this to start a murder investigation, leading to the arrest of the kid's mother's boyfriend. Except... the court has now rejected much of the evidence because it was obtained in a manner that violated the 4th Amendment. Even though such info is clearly useful for the case, this (Rhode Island state) court didn't fall for the claim that "if it helps police, there aren't any 4th amendment concerns."

... the Defendant has a reasonable expectation of privacy in his text messages and in the apartment where the subject cell phones were searched and seized so as to grant him standing, under the Fourth Amendment, to challenge the legality of the searches and seizures of those phones and their contents by the police. Based on the tsunami of illegal evidence collected by the Cranston Police Department, this Court grants Defendant‘s suppression motions and excludes the State‘s core evidence from being used at trial, including the text messages, all cell phones and their contents, all cell phone records, and critical portions of the Defendant‘s videotaped statement and his written statement given to the police.

The ruling will almost certainly be appealed, and it's reasonable to want to make use of any evidence that points to a potential murder suspect (especially one who killed a six year old boy!). But, at the same time, we believe in the 4th Amendment for a reason -- and we expect law enforcement to live by that in collecting evidence, or we cross over into a police state (and yes, some people think we're already there). It's the cases like these that are often the toughest, because it's so tempting to come up with some sort of excuse to allow the evidence in order to lock up someone "bad." But at the same time, you want courts to recognize the importance of the 4th Amendment for all of those other cases where people get unfairly searched without a warrant.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, privacy, search, texts, warrants