Everybody likes a good ruse, particularly when cops trick a criminal into admitting guilt.
But a ruse at its heart is still a lie, and even with a good outcome, lies can create problems down the line.
The FBI confirmed earlier this week the details of how it tracked down the source of repeated bomb threats at Lacey’s Timberline High School in 2007. The FBI, according to reports by the Associated Press and the Washington Post, created a fake story related to the threats, gave it an Associated Press byline to make it look authentic, and sent a message with a link to the “story” to an anonymous social media site associated with the threats. The link contained malware that, once clicked, allowed the FBI to learn the IP address of the person making the threats, a 15-year-old who later pleaded guilty.
Pretty slick. And potentially pretty damaging to the credibility of the Associated Press in particular and journalists in general.
“We are extremely concerned and find it unacceptable that the FBI misappropriated the name of The Associated Press and published a false story attributed to AP,” said AP spokesman Paul Colford in a statement.
Newspapers, such as The Herald, and news organizations, such as the Associated Press, are protective of the credibility we have with our readers. When doubts are raised about what appears under our byline, our ability to function as a source of news and information in our community is weakened.
Also disturbing was the FBI’s defense of its ruse:
“Every effort we made in this investigation had the goal of preventing a tragic event like what happened at Marysville and Seattle Pacific University,” said Frank Montoya Jr., the FBI’s special agent in charge in Seattle.
Never mind that linking the shootings at Marysville Pilchuck High School last week and at SPU earlier this year to the bomb threat case comes off as crass and opportunistic, as always, the ends do not justify the means, particularly when the means here were unnecessary. The ruse was as likely to have worked even without the misappropriated AP byline. It served only as window dressing.
More than journalists depend upon the trust of the public. There are plenty of recent stories about how ruses can violate privacy or cause great harm. In one case, the Drug Enforcement Agency, using photos from a confiscated phone, created a Facebook page in a woman’s name to lure suspects in a drug ring. The CIA used a ruse, in the days before the operation to kill Osama bin Laden in his compound in Pakistan in 2011, sending a doctor to collect DNA samples from what was believed to be bin Laden’s family to verify his likely presence, under the guise of a vaccination program. The doctor was refused entry and no DNA was collected, but the result, when the ruse was publicized, has been rampant mistrust of vaccination efforts in Pakistan, threats to health care workers and a resurgence of polio.
American Civil Liberties Union chief technologist Christopher Soghoian, who dug through documents that revealed the FBI’s ruse, warns of the harm.
“It’s a dangerous road impersonating the media,” Soghoian said. “If people do not trust the news media, then our democracy cannot function properly.”
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