Kneejerk reactions and the red herring of the @vikileaks30 revolution #tellviceverything #cdnpoli

@vikileaks30 has broken no laws yet is Canada's Most Wanted

Why is the Ottawa Citizen trying to shift attention away from C30 and onto the identity of an anonymous blogger who has broken no laws?

The Ottawa Citizen scooped (I use the term loosely) the Canadian mainstream media this weekend by narrowing down the identity of an innocent citizen (@vikileaks30) to one of thousands of people.

However, they went even further to suggest that the same IP, used by thousands of people, had only been used for two things: Updating a Paul Simon blog and refocusing wikipedia articles with an NDP slant. Doesn't seem like this particular IP is used a whole lot. Only for two sites? Bizarre.

They also revealed their digital tiger pit (quoted from the above link):

In a bid to determine the origin of the account, which details personal information about Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, The Citizen undertook an investigation on Thursday.

An email was sent to the writer of the Vikileaks30 Twitter account, containing a link to a website. The website was monitored by The Citizen and only the author of Vikileaks30 had the address of the website.

About 15 minutes after the email was sent, Vikileaks30 opened the link and visited the page, leaving behind an IP address that belongs to the House of Commons.

Debunking the digital snare

1. Only the author of Vikileaks30 had the address of the website.
   The author could have emailed that site to anyone else. Anyone on the planet.
2. Vikileaks30 opened the link and visited the page...
   That's a bit presumptuous. It should read more like 'the alleged author of the @vikileaks30 tweets may have opened the link and visited the page but we really have no idea what happened in the cyberspace between our digital trap and our digital prey.'

So now, the Ottawa Citizen has effectively started yet another war between the NDP and the Conservatives over the identity of @vikileaks30. It dominated Question Period on Friday, and without evidence, the Cons just spat venom at the mongoose that is the NDP. The pseudo-identity of @vikileaks30 has generated muckraking of the worst kind and it is all based on absolutely no evidence and for no reason (other than the word of the Citizen about its own work).

The CBC has also debunked the trap set by the Citizen.

The question is 'why?'

Why would the Ottawa Citizen want to 'out' the @vikileaks30 author so desperately? I mean, it seem strange that they protect sources but then decide that this particular blogger, who would invariably become a witch for the government to hunt, must be made public. What makes it more bizarre is that the blogger is reciting verbatim, public information, the result of public research. Why is it so important to find out who is doing this? In my opinion it isn't.

@vikileaks30 literally could have been anyone on the planet because the information was public until the Citizen whittled it down to a possible NDP sympathizer/Paul Simon afficionado who worked on Parliament Hill (which isn't true - they haven't whittled it down they just keep saying they have).

Missing evidence

The Citizen was very brazen in its proclamations that they had found @vikileaks30 and that they had contacted him and that he had denied it. Their article was so full of puffed-up celebration of their clever machination that they neglected to mention pesky things like all the pages the IP address had visited or that their investigative technique was  in no way conclusive.

I don't want to know the identity of @vikileaks30

Like thousands of other Canadians, I don't want to know the identity of @vikileaks30. I respect the anonymity because it was all public information.

I noticed there were politicians tacitly supporting @vikileaks30, notably Justin Trudeau and Megan Leslie, both of whom tweeted the @vikileaks30 handle to their followers. They certainly didn't want to know the identity if they were supporting @vikileaks30 as an anonymous blogger.

@vikileaks30 is, like many digital heroes, polarizing and persecuted. The truth hurts, and Vic Toews is feeling the sting of it right now. But he's using the Ottawa Citizen 'investigation' as proof in his own investigation and so it behooves me to ask: Who benefits from outing this blogger? I know I don't, the blogger doesn't, so that leaves the Citizen with the scoop and the government with a witch hunt. Even I am assuming it is one person but it could  be an organized group, which was mentioned by @vikileaks30 in one of the last tweets on the account.

The things we should be talking about

1. It is being reported that Vic Toews did not actually read the bill he is defending
2. The Bill only contains the phrase 'Internet Predators' in the title
3. The content of the Bill

My other posts on this topic

• My Ambivalence About the @toewsvic #tellviceverything Revolution #cdnpoli
• The email I received from #victoews #tellviceverything #c30 #cdnpoli

Comments

[Kill Bill C30]

Awesome post, you hit the nail right on the head. Adding you to our blogpost.