An apologetic piece extolling the virtues of WikiLeaks, written by a former New York Times executive editor?

Too good to be true.

As it turns out, it was.

The fake article,  posted online late July 28,  featured an almost wistful Bill Keller saying he was in “the awkward position of having to defend WikiLeaks.”

Keller, former executive editor of The New York Times,  had a rocky relationship with WikiLeaks, further adding to the shock factor of the piece.

The story used quotes pulled from Keller’s emailed responses to Matthew Ingram’s post in defense of WikiLeaks. The webpage was, in The Guardian’s words,  an “immaculate” replication of The New York Times webpage.

This piece came soon after reports that some United States government officials are looking for ways to prosecute journalists who publish leaked secrets.

Ultimately, Keller cleared the air with his July 29, all-caps tweet:

“THERE IS A FAKE OP-ED GOING AROUND UNDER MY NAME, ABOUT WIKILEAKS,” the tweet read. “EMPHASIS ON ‘FAKE.’ AS IN, NOT MINE.”

WikiLeaks later  claimed credit for the op-ed hoax.

A second  tweet from the organization hinted their motivation might have been to embarrass the Times into running something about the financial embargo against the company, according to The Guardian.

In retrospect, a few signs should have tipped off those who tweeted the column.

Not only did Gizmodo report inaccuracies with the missing favicon and inaccurate URL, but the column also contained several typos, Poynter reported.   (More tips on how to spot an internet hoax !)

WikiLeaks’ involvement with the hoax spurred mixed responses.

“Well done,” @LifeInGotham  said.

However, others weren’t so supportive of the prank:

“The people who  hate wikileaks(sic) will use this to cast doubt on the validity of everything you have/will ever leak,” James Gammell (@Destraudo) said.

• See how the episode unraveled
• In the event the fake editorial is pulled offline, here is a pdf:  WikiLeaks a Post Postscript – NYTimes

Poynter

Gizmodo

The Guardian

GigaOM

The Christian Science Monitor

Whitney is the summer Pulliam/Killgore intern with the Society of Professional Journalists. She recently graduated from Brigham Young University after studying journalism. Connect with her via email –  wevans@hq.spj.org –  or on twitter – @whitevs7

*Know something about Freedom of Information that you think we should cover in a blog post? We want to hear from you! Send information to wevans@HQ.SPJ.org. It may be featured in a future post.

Limousines, limousines and more limousines

During an economic crisis, wasteful spending can seem like Public Enemy No. 1.

Public records can provide a great way to check on how local, state and federal governments are spending their funds.

The Center for Public Integrity’s iWatch News did just that. Sifting through records revealed that one of the federal government’s extravagances as of late has been the purchase of extra fancy cars. Limousines, to be exact.

U.S. General Services Administration records showed that, during the Obama administration, the number of limos increased from 238 in the federal fleet in fiscal year 2008 to 412 in 2010.

From 2008, the last year of George W. Bush’s presidency, to 2010, there was a 73 percent increase in the number of federal limousines. Obama began his presidency in 2009, serving in the Oval Office for eight months. It was also in 2009 that the largest increase in limos occurred.

Some of the ’09 additions could have been part of previous requests from the Bush administration.

According to GSA, however, these limousine numbers aren’t reliable because ‘limousine’ is not a well-defined term and could include vehicles such as sedans. Overall federal fleet numbers are recorded every year.

Hearing on Federal Reserve transparency today

The Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology Subcommittee, chaired by Ron Paul and part of the House Financial Services Committee, will hold a hearing on transparency within the Federal Reserve today at 2 p.m. in Washington, D.C.

The event will focus on the information on emergency lending facilities, open market regulations and other topics that the Fed disclosed in order to comply with the Dodd-Frank Act and FOIA.

Also up for discussion is how the Federal Reserve will make future disclosures as demanded by Dodd-Frank Act provisions.

– Morgan Watkins

Morgan Watkins is SPJ’s summer Pulliam/Kilgore Freedom of Information intern and a University of Florida student. Reach her by email (mwatkins@spj.org) or connect with her on Twitter (@morganwatkins26).

This week a New Jersey appeals court ruled that police use-of-force reports are public records. The township of West Milford claimed that the reports were ongoing investigations so they didn’t have to be made public. The court disagreed. The record is about when an officer uses a gun, taser, club, etc., not about a criminal investigation.

Good for the court. Use-of-force records should be open to the public to make sure police are held accountable for the power we give them to restrain people with force – sometimes lethal force. I remember looking at lawsuits and claims against a city I covered to find hundreds of thousands of dollars being paid out to compensate victims of overzealous officers (three of the officers were called “the cowboys” because of their propensity to go wild with their batons).

Request and analyze use-of-force reports in your town to see how how officers are handling suspects. Also look at claims against the agency and lawsuits. The problem is that even in states where the reports are clearly public records, agencies often will try to keep them secret and say they aren’t public, or just ignore your request. For example, a group of college students requested taser-use records from hundreds of Texas police agencies in 2006 and found that 74 out of 254 (29%) sheriffs ignored the requests. One of my students requested use-of-force records from all police agencies in Arizona in 2007 and 42% didn’t even respond (and only 9 out of 104 actually provided the records). It’s a shame that police, sworn to uphold the law, often ignore it. Like in Chicago, where a court ruled Tuesday that citizen complaints against police officers can be kept secret. That’s just wrong.

Don’t walk away. Keep after those records and keep our government accountable.

Find out problems in major university athletic programs near you by going after NCAA sanction records.

The NCAA this week turned over documents regarding sanctions against Florida State University following a lawsuit brought by dozens of newspapers and TV stations (see Tallahassee Democrat story). The university faces punishment because of cheating by its athletes.

The NCAA, which is a nonprofit, said its internal documents were not subject to the public records law because it is not a government agency, but the courts said the records pertain to official government business regarding a state-funded institution, so they are public under Florida’s law.

So what does that mean to you if you don’t live in Florida? After all, that precedent applies only to Florida – such records might not be deemed public in your state. Well, the first step is to seek records directly from your public university (Florida State already had released the records). You can mention the Florida case, including the massive amount of negative publicity (nationally) against Florida State, and that might break it loose. Also, if the records are general in nature, covering the whole nation, you might be able to team up with a Florida journalist to request them from the NCAA through Florida and then localize it to your area.

The bottom line: If there are major problems going on at your local university, the public should know about that. Common sense often prevails, as it did in Florida.

Check out the FOI Toolbox in this month’s Quill magazine for 11 public records that make for fun features. Some of the records include:

* U.S. patents (wacky inventors in your hometown)
* Pet licenses (most common breeds and names, and people with lots of pets)
* Expense reports (city council dinner choices and travel perks)
* Agriculture census (trends in bee keepers, maple syrup production, etc.)
* Code enforcement records (residents who do annoying things)
* Claims against government (wacky mishaps, such as an attack peacock)

See more details in the column, and if you have other ideas feel free to let me know at cuillier@email.arizona.edu.

Check out which cruise ships and cruise lines have the most sickness outbreaks through data provided online by the Centers for Disease Control. The CDC Vessel Sanitation Program allows you to search outbreaks and inspection records by ship or cruise line going back to 1990. You can sort by date, cruise line, ship, and score. You can also see the report and corrective action. A non-government Web site, cruisinghealthy.com, has pulled together the CDC data and put them online in another easily searchable format.

These online records are great for journalists in cruise-ship cities, and for folks thinking of taking a cruise, but they also are a good example of inspection records that government agencies keep. Think of any public or quasi-public places (businesses) that government inspects, then go look at those records (school cafeterias, hotel pools, gas pumps, etc.). A ton of good stories to be had through records!

A Web site, ratemycop.com, started a year ago, allows anyone to anonymously rate individual police officers in their communities. You can find all sorts of interesting comments, such as, “Swaggers like John Wayne but has the muscle of Olive Oil. Causes hate and discontent everywhere she goes.” And worse, similar to comments posted at ratemyprofessors.com or pickaprof.com. But how credible are these complaints?

Instead, go to government documents to find bad cops (and profs). Request internal investigation reports or disciplinary records regarding government employees. Sift through claims against agencies and lawsuits (I found patterns of excessive force by a few officers through analyzing claims and lawsuits, which are both public records). Some agencies will want to hide behind privacy laws, and in some states the courts have upheld the privacy rights for government employees’ disciplinary records. But more and more, I’m seeing courts rule in favor of requesters. They see the importance of the government transparency. We pay these people’s salaries so we should know if they are doing bad things or not. The public supports access to those records.

A great story by The Benton County Daily Record in Arkansas demonstrates how judges have far too much discretion for sealing entire cases and even making their existence secret. Other newspapers from around the country have exposed how this practice hurts the public, particularly when it involves companies wanting to hide the fact their products harm or even kill consumers. See a great series in 2006 by The Seattle Times about this issue. Also, see a 2003 report by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press on secret dockets. Then, check out the extent of secret court files in your community.

Judge Kelly A. MacEachern of Orange County, Calif., probably thought nobody would notice that she was paid to attend a weeklong class in San Diego but actually attended only part of it and instead spent time at Sea World, the San Diego Zoo and kayaking, according to a disciplinary report issued last month by the California Commission on Judicial Performance. But somebody did notice, and she got caught. The commission based its findings on e-mail records they were able to review that pieced together the series of events. MacEachern, a former county prosecutor, also was found to have lied under oath when questioned about the fibs, and she was removed from the bench (see summary at the Corruption Chronicles blog).

FOI Tip: Request all the travel vouchers and conference records kept by your local government agency (city, courts, school district, etc.), then verify whether the officials actually went, looking at the agency-issued credit card records for the same dates, e-mails regarding those people around the travel dates, and the program details of the training or conference. If a judge could have the gall to lie about such a petty little thing, imagine what other folks might be doing. All at taxpayer expense.

Looking for great stories you can do with the help of documents? Here are three Web sites that might help:

1. The Guardian in London has created a Web site where it posts stories based on public records, up to more than 1,200 now. Brits are going gangbusters on access, finding all sorts of problems because of their relatively new Freedom of Information Act. For example, check out the story where The Guardian requested records involving city officials’ use of surveillance powers intended to monitor organized crime, finding that most of the officials were using the powers to spy on law-abiding private citizens’ phone and e-mail.

2. The BBC has a similar Web site highlighting great stories they did through the use of their FOIA law. Some examples include finding that 20 percent of subway (“tube”) drivers are given retraining each year because of unsafe driving, and the fact that many people are certified as dead even though they aren’t. What’s neat about these sites is you might find a story idea that hasn’t been done much or at all in the United States yet.

3. Closer to home, check out a cool site, titled The Storites Behind the Stories, put together by folks at the University of Florida (led by SPJ FOI Committee member Ana-Klara Hering). The project highlights 30 great document-driven investigations in the past 30 years in Florida.

For other links to useful FOI resources and Web sites providing document-driven story ideas, check out the SPJ Sunshine Week site.