My newspaper column is about the leak of the RMA report and the host of issues raised by leaks in the age of the Internet.

Leaks & links
Confidentiality, the Web and the Greensboro police

by Edward Cone
News & Record
10-22-06

The publication at a local Web site of the once-confidential investigative report about the mess at the Greensboro Police Department raises many questions, including this one: What took it so long to get online?

The only surprising thing about the clandestine upload is that it didn't take place long ago.

This is the way we leak now. And it's going to happen again and again, faster and faster, here and around the world. The Internet takes things that used to be hidden and puts them a mouse-click away from ubiquity, and not just government reports.

Ask former Congressman Mark Foley, who may have thought instant messages disappeared into the ether before finding out the hard way they can be saved, or former Hewlett-Packard Chairman Patricia Dunn, who got busted in a corporate espionage scandal after one of her henchman left an electronic fingerprint on someone else's site. Locally, then-Judge Bill Daisy landed in hot water in 2003 when his off-color e-mails were forwarded to members of the press.

The report on former Greensboro Police Chief David Wray, prepared for the City of Greensboro by a firm called Risk Management Associates, was leaked first the old fashioned way: Somebody gave it to the News & Record. Copies eventually ended up with other traditional media outlets, including weekly newspapers and local television stations. By the second week of October, blogger and activist Ben Holder had one, too. So far, so familiar. People were reporting on the report, but nobody published it.

Then on Monday morning someone posted it anonymously to the Greensboro 101 community Web site, and suddenly anyone with an Internet connection could read an unredacted version of the document that helped bring down a chief of police. (A related document circulated with the report was not included.)

A city clamoring for more information on the Wray fray now had what some, including the mayor, saw as too much information.

The report itself seems to bear out two narratives, each advanced by partisans on one side or the other of this ugly saga. On the one hand, as Jerry Bledsoe has detailed in his ongoing series in the Rhinoceros Times, the Greensboro Police Department appears to have been a snakepit of racial politics, where some officers, including Lt. James Hinson, the man at the center of much of the controversy, allegedly comported themselves in a variety of unsavory ways.

At the same time, the report indicates that Wray gave his bosses ample reason to lose trust in him. He is alleged to have misrepresented the circumstances around an investigation of Hinson, to have mismanaged an investigative unit and to have played his share of racial politics, too.

The overall picture is so grim that blogger and columnist Jim Rosenberg, while acknowledging that City Manager Mitch Johnson may have been right to squeeze out Wray, said at David Hoggard's blog: "Pardon me for withholding my attaboy until I hear an answer to the question, 'Hey, what initiatives did you take to deal with the well-known and devastating racial fragmentation within your Police Department?' Is anyone at the wheel?"

The posting of the report also raises questions about the standards and practices of journalism in the age of the Web. Several members of Greensboro 101's advisory board resigned after proprietor Roch Smith Jr. allowed the document to be uploaded by an anonymous source without their explicit buy-in, and then refused to take it down even temporarily while the group discussed the legality and ethics of hosting the thing for public consumption.

My conversation with attorney Ronald Coleman, general counsel for a group called the Media Bloggers Association, made it sound that Smith's legal risk is probably pretty small. Weighing the public's right to know against the host's responsibility toward people who might be named in such a document, and the risk of complicating any ongoing investigations, is a trickier call to make. Greensboro City Councilwoman Sandy Carmany, a savvy blogger herself, was outraged by Smith's decision, and debate about the move simmered all week at local Web sites.

These debates are just getting started, but all the jaw-jaw will only take us so far. Smith is a thoughtful guy who pondered the issues and made a controversial choice. The next leaker may bypass the gatekeepers completely and go straight from the copying machine or scanner to a public computer terminal in order to upload the goods onto an anonymous blog or a subpoena-proof offshore server.

All very interesting, even important, but no problem for you, right? Well, let's see. Are there any pictures of you out there, passed out drunk at the frat house or flashing for beads at Mardi Gras? Any irate or amorous e-mails to your ex, or long-buried arrest records? And have you taken a good look lately at your kids' MySpace page? (Their future employers might.)

The genie is out of the bottle, and we cannot wish him back inside.

© News & Record 2006

Edward Cone (www.edcone.com, efcone@mindspring.com) writes a column for the News & Record most Sundays.

Comments

[meblogin]

People have been asking about Wray's version and I found this response from him dating back a few months at WFMY--http://www.wfmynews2.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=55149&provider=rss.

Statement By David Wray In Response To Mitchell Johnson's Statement Of January 10, 2006

In the statement made by the City Manager in the wake of my resignation, he raised issues concerning the investigation of Lt. Hinson. The City Manager also raised an issue concerning a purported "black book."

By way of background, the Special Intelligence Division of the Greensboro Police Department has existed since long before I became Chief. The investigation of Lt. Hinson arose out of information we received indicating the Lt. Hinson's name had come up in connection with another office's investigation of a target other than Lt. Hinson. We understood that Lt. Hinson was a person of interest in connection with that investigation. We did gather information concerning Lt. Hinton. We did use a tracker on Lt. Hinson's police vehicle. There was no tracker on Lt. Hinson himself and no tracker on his private vehicle. We did ultimately conduct an administrative investigation concerning Lt. Hinson, and a copy of this investigation and my findings was given to the City Attorney's office. I stand by the conclusions and recommendations I made in that report.

With respect to the existence of a purported "black book," I did hear rumors that a "black book" containing photos of all the black officers in the Greensboro Police Department has been assembled and was being used against these officers. This is not true.

A photo array was prepared in early 2005 following complaints by a confidential informant that an unknown black male in the Greensboro Police Department had groped and sexually assaulted her during an on-site strip search. This photo array was prepared by the Special Intelligence Investigators in a manner consistent with accepted photo array practices. The photo array included one photo of the 19 black make officers who could have been present based on time and assignment. It also included five other photos from DMV files for each of the 19 officers (a total of 114 photos). The photo array was placed in a black notebook. The photo array book was shown to the confidential informant, but she did not identify the officer in question.

The photo array was prepared as a case-specific document. The Special Intelligence Officer who prepared and used the book did not use it on any other occasions. Because the investigator considered the case still unresolved, he retained the photo array book as part of his case file.

The photo array was not destroyed. The photo array was not hidden. I did instruct that the book be secured. This photo array book was turned over to the City legal staff during their investigation in late 2005.

[Jeffrey Sykes]

Ed:

Great point about the myspace pages.

[Sue]

"Several members of Greensboro 101's advisory board resigned after proprietor Roch Smith Jr. allowed the document to be uploaded by an anonymous source without their explicit buy-in, and then refused to take it down even temporarily while the group discussed the legality and ethics of hosting the thing for public consumption."

I know you didn't talk to me prior to writing the above. Did you talk to Ben, Cara Michelle, or Jay? I don't think you even approach our real reasons with the above statement of "fact."

"buy-in" was never an issue. Letting an anon poster put it online was never the issue. Quoting an old election slogan and not dissing you personally, "it was the process, stupid."

[Ed Cone]

Sue, my description is of a sequence of events, not the individual thought processes of those who resigned.

I did read explanations of motives at various individual blogs.

[Roch101]

"buy-in" was never an issue. Letting an anon poster put it online was never the issue. Quoting an old election slogan and not dissing you personally, "it was the process, stupid." -- Sue

Sue, I think the process is what Ed was describing when he said you weren't given the opportunity to "buy-in." But you also cited reasons other than the process:

"Posting the report was not good for Greensboro or our Police Department."

and

"There are other important issues about which I will take a different stand and be willing to be sued or investigated, but this is just not one of them."

from: http://sue.polinsky.com/?m=20061016"

[Sue]

All of the above are pieces of the puzzle. My point is that it's more complex than any one thing. THe final sentence in my blog post that Roch cites is accurate -- and perhaps unlike paid journalism -- should not be construed as a summary.

Ed's sentence seems to me to try to represent a unified "resigned-board-member" position and that's just not true. It was one among many and more important for some than for others. I resist anyone trying to categorize 4 people's reactions as being one single reason. Four people cited four very different reasons with some overlap.

[Ed Cone]

Again, Sue, I describe a timeline, saying the board resigned AFTER, not the board resigned BECAUSE.