Posted on 11/08/2005 6:59:47 AM PST by advance_copy
Earlier this year a mysterious source turned over some e-mails to a Washington Post reporter. The e-mails seemed to indicate that a man with ties to the Republican governor of Maryland, Robert Ehrlich, was spreading rumors about the governor's chief political rival on FreeRepublic.com. The Post wrote a series of articles about the e-mails and the man a state employee named Joseph Steffen resigned and apologized to the governor.
The Post didn't do any reporting on the source of the e-mails someone only identified by the Free Republic screen name "MD4Bush" but it was apparent from the nature of the e-mails that MD4Bush had entered FreeRepublic.com with the intention of engaging Steffen in a conversation about the rumors, leading him into making damaging statements in private e-mails or "Freepmails," and then turning those e-mails over to the Post.
The strategy worked like a charm. Washington Post reporter Matthew Mosk demonized Steffen and downplayed aspects of the e-mails that seemed exculpatory, such as when Steffen wrote (in response to a clearly leading question), "I am sure you will understand, I cannot and will not offer suggestions that may be considered unethical concerning what you should do, campaign-wise. This is especially true concerning [the rival's] personal life." In over a dozen stories written about Steffen over the subsequent months, this statement appeared only once, in the last paragraph of a sidebar story titled, "Uproar brings focus on role of bloggers."
While Mosk was playing Judith Miller for some anonymous political operative, WBAL-TV investigative reporter Dave Collins was getting curious about the identity of MD4Bush. He reported a few stories speculating about the identity, but he couldn't do much FreeRepublic.com sympathized with the governor's side but was bound by law to keep any information on MD4Bush confidential.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
The more I read of this, the more I hate the ComPost. Mosk should be fired immediately.
I don't believe the depths of this entire sordid affair have been even skimmed yet. Amazing. This should serve as a textbook lesson to many.
For your reading pleasure if you haven't caught this one yet.
Mosk is still reporting too!
What a bunch of lying weasels.
Hmmmm,
Sounds like a "Culture of Corruption" to me.
dung.
The ends justify the means for Demoncrats.
You might ping your lists.
Under pressure to tell the public what it knows about MD4Bush, the Post included the following in its statement:How can the post claim to have "authorized" access to a Free Republic account, and not know who the account belongs to?
As we have also reported in the newspaper, we do not know the identity of MD4Bush. We have tried to find out who MD4Bush is, but we have not been successful.
Hey Matthew, ask your wife if she remembers that quote?
MD4Bush Ping!
November hasn't been a good month for liberals for a few years.
Moi Kerri got his butt kicked last November.
This year their favorite city is burning, Paris, thanks to the jihadists the liberals are in love with.
The Fizty thing is ready to turn into a nightmare for all of the lying MSM maggots who lied in rotation at the Grand Jury.
The republicans in the Senate and House are getting ready to hold hearings on who outed our real CIA agents at those prisons.
Now the Compost is running into the Free Republic like Blather/Mapes and CBS did last year.
I'm seeing legs :0)
blistering...
Free Republic is showing signs that theyre ready to go public with the name, and it doesnt look good for the state Democratic party.."
There really is no might to it. MD4Bush did violate the User agreement.
Registration and User Agreement
"User Account Confidentiality: User agrees to protect user's account and password and not to disclose account information to any third party."
What's more the Washington post did as well when they logged in under his name and this might get a lot more serious than mere embarrasment.
Unlawful Access to Stored Communications 18 U.S.C. 2701.
"§ 2701. Unlawful Access to Stored Communications
(a) Offense.--Except as provided in subsection (c) of this section whoever
(1) intentionally accesses without authorization a facility through which an electronic communication service is provided; or
(2) intentionally exceeds an authorization to access that facility; and thereby obtains, alters, or prevents authorized access to a wire or electronic communication while it is in electronic storage in such system shall be punished as provided in subsection (b) of this section. "
The WP did exceed an authorization to access FR by using anothers password(Forbidden under the Users Agreement which govern the access of users) to access FRmails and did not make any attempt to determine the rules of access to FR or presumably they would not have improperly used anothers password. They flat did violate section 2b of 18 U.S.C. 2701 in that they did not view, or observe the rules if they did view them. If the reporter was unaware of 2b of 18 U.S.C. 2701 it won't help. A professional at a large newspaper should know or should have asked.
Mosk could not have missed that point. He hoped he readers would overlook the obvious. If not for MD4Bush's mistake of registering from a traceable email address it would have worked with few problems.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.