in fallout A disturbing trend emerged from Pentagon document leaks.The journalist appears to be enthusiastically volunteering to help the Pentagon and Justice Department expedite an investigation into the cause of the leak, but has not discussed the ethical implications. made public by and shared by individuals currently under arrest by federal authorities exactly the same taxonomy Regardless of his motives, along with reporters, he was vigorously defended as a source.
NPR recently denounced Twitter’s labeling as a state media, writing that this is the label Twitter uses to “designate official state mouthpieces and propaganda outlets.”that unrelated controversy is noteworthy NPR staff By posting the image analysis on Twitter, he appears to have acted as a government investigator. (NPR has announced that the official organizational account has terminated his Twitter account, but it appears that individual staff members of his account are still active.)
NPR Senior Editor and Correspondent Geoff Brumfiel Monday combed through the artifacts visible around the leaked photos, collated findings found by others, and itemized each one.Brumfield said his summary was “for the most part meaningless, he was effectively doing free labor for the Department of Justice, and his postings may have corroborated the suspect’s identity. It may be possible to analyze to see if the suspect ordered the object in question at some point. Brumfiel did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.
The saving grace here, as is often the case with open source research on social media, was that the analysis was flawed. He is”full of confidenceManuals partially visible in some photos of the leaked document are from a specific model range, others It pointed out In fact the manual was clearly for a different model. “I apologize for the mistake” responded Blumfield. To his credit, Brumfiel freely admits in his bio that he is “almost stupid on Twitter”, but in this case, self-proclaimed stupidity could endanger someone’s freedom.
see something say something
It is not uncommon for government agencies to explicitly request assistance with this type of image identification. For example, Europol maintains her Trace an Object website, which helps budding image analysts identify various objects in photographs related to child abuse cases. In the case of the leaked Pentagon documents, the Department of Justice didn’t even need to make such a call, as many volunteers have provided leads.
Brumfiel is far from the only social media vigilante. So does Jake Godin, a visual investigative journalist for Scripps News. engaged In a Twitter pastime of volunteering his time to help the Justice Department. Bellingcat, meanwhile, went further and virtually handed over the potential source of the leak by specifying the exact name of the chatroom where the document was supposedly originally shared. The fact that these identities may have aided the Justice Department’s investigation does not appear to merit general consideration from those conducting the analysis.
On Wednesday, The Washington Post released additional information about the content surrounding the “previously unreported images,” as well as various additional information about the alleged leaker and his underage associates. The Washington Post said the leaker “could have seen or possessed sensitive information, putting young supporters at risk and subjecting them to potential federal crime.” Considering this risk, The Washington Post was very unconcerned in its portrayal of one of those teenagers, releasing the video with only rudimentary pixelation accompanied by his unaltered voice. points out that interviewees asked not to cover up their voices, but wondered if they asked for the missing keys to be clearly visible, including close-up shots of laptops. In other words, while acknowledging the dangers facing the interviewee, The Washington Post chooses to simply present evidence that could help investigators establish his identity. (In response to a detailed question from The Intercept, a Post spokesperson reiterated that the reporter had obtained parental consent for the interview.)
The New York Times went further and identified the suspected leaker’s name on Thursday based on the “evidence trail” they compiled. This includes matching elements in the margins of document photos with other posts on social media.
Perhaps the strangest entry in this dubious parade was an article about role-playing game character sheets published last week by Motherboards of VICE, which appears to have been included in a batch of photos of leaked documents. Motherboard published their character sheets in full (in stark contrast, the same publication had an edit revealing the names of minors suspected of using the AI chatbot ChatGPT at school). (In contrast to the extreme trouble it took just a few days ago to avoid publishing poor documentation.) Motherboard says it’s not clear if the erroneous image was inadvertently or intentionally added to the photo dump, or if it was added by the original leaker or an intermediary who further disseminated the photo archive. The lack of sexuality makes the decision to publish the document even more confusing and questionable, but the authors’ doesn’t seem to mind… The game.
The document in question appears to be a very niche adaptation of a roleplaying game. Let’s say someone in the online community of Reddit, 4chan, or Discord servers instantly recognizes this particular game and says, “Oh, that’s Alice’s game sheet.” Alice may now be subject to Justice Department scrutiny and/or her online lynching mob, courtesy of Motherboard. She or she says the Department of Justice has set its sights on suspected leakers and used handwriting on published Motherboard documents to positively identify them.of The author of the story, Matthew Gort, did not respond to a request for comment.
duty of care
Why is the media so eager to help the Justice Department by providing potentially actionable leads? Indeed, the leaker is not the source of NPR or Motherboard, but the whistleblower, as far as we know. But would that allow a journalist to act as an investigator for the Department of Justice? Duty of care no doubt extends beyond one’s direct sources . Individuals are not required to assist in publicizing government activities, but at the very least, they should not be intentionally compromised.
It could be argued that the leaker’s identity is newsworthy. For example, as the CIA points out, leakers are often high-ranking officials. But verifying the identity of sources can be done by journalists personally, not across social media or published articles. Life isn’t spoiled by overzealous state-run reporting when it turns out that the identity of the source isn’t really newsworthy.
Of course, Department of Justice investigators also have access to reverse image search sites, so they are already familiar with photographic ephemera, making it clear that journalists aren’t telling them things they don’t already know. There is a possibility. know. Nevertheless, various clues as to the identities of the leakers and their associates provided by various news outlets may very well have helped the government in recent arrests of suspected leakers. expensive.
In any case, the eagerness of some “reporters” to divulge information hidden in the margins of images or to find clues in “gotchas” seems offensive. Another impulse is to provide guidance to help sources avoid getting caught. This could make future leaks easier and increase transparency.
