Re: Yo

i will not forget anon. the question is how to make it exciting. people typing into computers is always hard to make sexy/interesting. but not impossible.

On Jan 2, 2011, at 10:39 PM, barri2009 wrote:

That's a good idea and let's discuss it more soon because I think iwe have the contacts to pull it off. Don't forget about an anon movie.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
From: Robert Green <robertogreen@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 2 Jan 2011 23:28:30 -0800
To: <barriticus@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Yo

sure. to be clear--the stuff about my wife is because she shoots covers for wired (she just did italian wired's new cover of this guy andrea perroni who invented World of Warcraft). they nickel and dime her to death. it's a nightmare.

and yes, you can send to glenn under the proviso that i'm NOT a journalist and this isn't for anything, attribution or non.

i think the big play here is to get julian's film rights, because we could make a movie that would make social network look like (insert name of lame ass movie here).

RG

On Jan 2, 2011, at 10:07 PM, barri2009 wrote:

This e-mail is fucking extraordinary. Can I send just this to greenwald without his words, just this? He'll love it.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
From: Robert Green <robertogreen@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 2 Jan 2011 23:00:20 -0800
To: Barrett Brown<barriticus@gmail.com>
Subject: Fwd: Yo

this is what i wrote back to ryan.

Begin forwarded message:

From: Robert Green <robertogreen@gmail.com>
Date: January 2, 2011 5:43:05 PM PST
To: Ryan Singel <ryan@ryansingel.net>
Subject: Re: Yo

there's a similar story of sorts underneath all of this.

i think my dad may have written it in The Nation (he's on the editorial board there) years ago but it basically said about torture and the "he has the codes and we are all going to die if we don't kneecap him kiefer" scenario. the question is always "WHAT DO YOU DO, WHAT DO YOU DO?".

the assumptions are:
1) that torture will be efficacious
2) that nothing else will
3) that time is of the utmost essence
4) that torture, even in these circumstances, and for good reasons, remains illegal.

so you have that data (and terrorist dude, let's describe him as swarthy to keep the racists happy) and you are the guy sitting in front of the dude. what do you do?

to me, the answer is obvious. you torture the guy and hope that 1) will actually be true. then you do that thing where you jump onto the moving train from the bridge above and cut the red wire or whatever.

THEN

you face the consequences. you committed a crime and deserve whatever the appropriate punishment is. you surrender yourself and make clear that you are NOT asking for clemency.

that's how it works in a civil society that faces crises, whether temporal or more stretched out. that's how i see what manning did, FWIW.

right now we have a major rolling crisis, best described in the el pais article today i think. our elite institutions, which are quite easy to personify in the individuals who have been running them, have failed us. in every way that matters, things are getting fucked up worse and worse. major problems are not being addressed so that a select few may make massive short term gains, or to quote jaz of killing joke "feather the nest and fuck the rest". what wikileaks has done has been to take a broadsword and smash the elites upside the head, not just now but in a way hopefully that creates an external moral hazard for bad behavior.

maybe. we are talking geo-engineering here on an internet scale. so who knows? but at the moment it strikes me as FAR better than nothing, and probably more important than anything else.

Wired has decided to be the gossip rag of this event. digging up and working on theories of behavior, both criminal and personal, that really amount to what EW does in that same building. that's too bad. what's going on is far more important than that and i think a side has been chosen, not a political one but a "this is what wired does" side that seems debased and low. to me.

i'm not going to address the substance of your reply because it seems to me you have similar feelings to evan, so we aren't going to agree. i feel that kevin's response was shocking insofar as he said "glenn greenwald accuses me of x" then copped to "x" then said "but i didn't do x". it was just...fucking pathetic. embarrassing. so clearly we don't have common ground there. and i have to say i didn't read glenn's stuff to suggest that kevin was possibly a fed. i can see where that is a tough thing to insinuate. very sharp-elbowed.

and YES, greenwald is being an asshole. but he is an individual. you are an institution. i get NOTHING done by being nice with institutions. i usually start by asking. "no, can't do it." then i cajole. "sorry, not in our records". then i beg. "look ,we would love to help but we can't." then i demand "talk to the lawyers" then i threaten and tantrum and finally "oh, we are so sorry, we DO have your paycheck." that's my experience. it's hardly like greenwald is wrong--you guys will inevitably release more after he yelled then after he asked.

ask my wife about getting her cab fare reimbursed by Wired for her last job. or the one before that. or before that. or anytime that fucking rhymes with bunt brenna was the photo editor. only being an asshole made anything work.

also, i really do appreciate you getting back to me and taking the time. very cool.

RG

On Jan 2, 2011, at 4:19 PM, Ryan Singel wrote:

Hey Robert,

Thanks for the frank and candid e-mail.

To be clear, I have not seen the chat logs and what has been published was what was cleared by Kevin, Evan and Kim Zetter -- the only three I know who have read the chat logs (perhaps a Conde Nast lawyer, but I think that's doubtful).

From where I stand and sit, I don't really see what the issue is.

So far as I can tell, Greenwald, who is the de facto PR arm of Wikileaks, wants to see more of the transcript. Wired.com's position is that it will balance privacy and national security interests in deciding what to publish or not publish, which seems to be the Washington Post's position as well. (Argue all you like with the Washington Post, but they were the newspaper who revealed the CIA's black prison site and torture program, so it's not like they aren't a respectable outlet as well.)

Charlie Savage wrote a story that printed Lamos accusations and erroneously said that the private server and encrypted chat room weren't discussed in the logs. Wired responded the next day, saying those were covered in the logs. Lamo has made further assertions and he says those weren't in the logs and learned them from talking to other people (the physical drop).

On Christmas (a Saturday) Greenwald sends an email asking Poulsen to clarify what was already in the Wired.com piece. On Monday, Greenwald drops a piece that slimes Poulsen, including all sorts of innuendo, adding to the ongoing conspiracy theory that Poulsen is an FBI informant, while Greenwald uses little asides to say "there's no proof of anything" so as to have a defense that he's not using Glenn Beck-like tactics. For instance the Rasch stuff is just bizarre. He wrote two things for Wired magazine BEFORE Conde Nast bought Wired.com back, and even now the two sites have separate editorial control. And Greenwald's suggestion that Poulsen got off lightly is bizarre, he did five years plus, and had three years of parole, including 18 months when he wasn't allowed to use the internet. Greenwald seems to think that courts should have also banned him from life from writing about hackers, a oddly statist position that wouldn't even be consitutional.

I just don't see it.

It's not as if Manning isn't going to get the logs, and Greenwald and Firedoglake all silently skip mentioning this bit of the transcripts that leaked out as well.

http://boingboing.net/2010/06/20/was-alleged-wikileak.html

Seriously, what exact malfeasance is going on?

From where I sit, Wired.com is acting with integrity. We could have easily given into the mob and published the logs, damn the consequences. Instead, we're taking the heat -- perhaps acting as the necessary scapegoat for those who need someone to punish for Manning being too dumb to keep his mouth shut and choosing the wrong person to confide in.

And I think Greenwald's using slimy tactics and being an asshole in order to bully Wired.com into publishing the logs.

But maybe I'm missing something. But I am serious, what exactly has Wired.com done wrong?

And yes, next time I make to L.A. I'd still love to meet up.

Best -

RS

On Fri, Dec 31, 2010 at 9:49 AM, Robert Green <robertogreen@gmail.com> wrote:

hey vasshole, how's it?

so, here's my two cents, for what it worth, not that you asked, and not that you need to hear it from me (after all, you don't really know me): so with that preamble, i'm going to ask you to pretend that i'm someone of significant intellectual heft, with a background in contextualization across all kinds of capital both financial, spiritual and intellectual such that i am giving IMPORTANT advice

k?

k.

when faced with a boss acting in bad faith, and when faced with fellow workers who are acting in bad faith, you come to a crossroads whether you like it or not. yours is simple: here are two people who for the sake of this monologue i will assume you like/respect/believe in. i don't know evan--all i know about wired is how awful they have been to my wife over the years, but that's hardly evan's fault, that's a problem at the conde nast level--so i have no reason to give him any benefit or deficit--i'm going off of his behavior in the whole fiasco. and his behavior has been execrable and shameful. personal attacks, serial strawman arguments that are embarrassingly third grade level (and i paraphrase here, but it's something like "glenn was mean to me at recess and pulled my pants down so he's wrong when he says the sky is blue. which it isn't [ed. note: it is blue, i just looked]") plus just plain piss poor disingenuousness that is so fucking plain it is like day, if day is plain. i'm told it is.

as for poulsen: look, you like the guy. you've said so in print. so i get that. you know him well and personally. i don't. and that puts me at an advantage to you relative to his behavior. in terms of full disclosure, you should be aware i helped joe dante develop a movie about mitnick about 10 years ago and heard some things about kevin p that made me think that he is in no way trustworthy, but that was filtered through someone else's prism, so who knows? and it doesn't matter.

here's the nub: your boss and your friend have juxtaposed themselves into the most important news story of the year, if not the decade. and they have done so in a way that brings shame to Wired, to journalism, and to elementary fairness. in my opinion they have so squandered the good will built up by wired that they have destroyed it as long as they work there. and now that they have been called out on being totally unethical and immoral (two very different things--you went to the same fancy school i did so we can table that discussion) they are acting like petty thugs and schoolchildren.

so that leaves you in a tough position: do you a) support your boss privately AND publicly? b) do you support your boss publicly but privately harbor/discuss your doubts? c) do you publicly excoriate your boss after trying to get him to cop to the problems but still try to keep your job? d) do you just say "fuck you guys, you aren't taking my ethics down with yours, i'm writing my angry screed and i'm quitting?

me, i'm saying d) is the way to go if you want to keep self-respect. YMMV.

here's what NOT germane to this discussion: the secret stuff that only you and evan and kevin know that PROVES how right you guys are. that's horseshit. you have a blog, a magazine, and a worldwide forum. if you guys couldn't come up with the goods by now it's because you have an agenda that is, as i already said, unethical and anti-journalism.

that's my two cents/dollars/euro.

all of that aside, i do still hope whatever you do we get a chance to meet. i have some ideas i'd like to discuss with you that i think you would find interesting.

RG

Robert Green
robertogreen@gmail.com
Another Green World Productions
310-860-8910 office
310-804-1812 cell

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1299657/
http://twitter.com/robogreen

On Aug 20, 2010, at 12:40 AM, Ryan Singel wrote:

Oh, I'd love to see your house. And yes, the not piss off Verizon thing is so typical.

BTW, your slideshow is really persuasive. It's got a few stylistic inconsistencies, and if it's something you all still use, send me the originals. I've got a new copy editing company (I run, but don't edit) called The Universal Desk and my editors can fix it up in no time (and for free for you).

Talk soon,

RS

On Fri, Aug 20, 2010 at 12:00 AM, Robert Green <robertogreen@gmail.com> wrote:

Please hit me up when you are down here. You should come by the house for a drink4 years making this place into the ultimate green palace (waiting on our LEED rating, hopefully platinum) and Im finally ready to show it off.

The s monica thing is depressing because of the verizon angle. Nowhere is it clearer to whom the future belongs than when it comes to private fucking companies telling municipalities what they can and cannot do WITH FUCKING BANDFUCKINGWIDTH. I mean jesus christ. Not that I care but damn is that an article that would be both great and roundly ignored. By people who are paid not to understand, to paraphrase.

http://www.slideshare.net/strategicproductions/stp-overview-4853388

Is us.

Best

RG

On 8/19/10 11:54 PM, "Ryan Singel" <ryansingel@gmail.com> wrote:

Oh hell, Robert -- sounds like you and Amy are doing it right.

As for the mag covers, well, if the Web is Dead story didn't make it clear enough, the online side and the mag side have totally separate editorial operations and I can't help your wife or the mag with their cover choices. Man, that's a fun story there.

As for Lamo/Wired.com, that's a fucking clusterfuck for sure, and it's a story I'm happy to tell you over a coffee or a beer sometime. Short version - it's a lot less nefarious and more twisted than most assume. That said, Wikileaks is now a movement and there's no arguing reason with a movement.

I might get down to LA in September to check out Santa Monica's municipal fiber network, which is astoundingly badass and nobody knows about it, mainly since it's only available commercially so as not to piss off Verizon. But if I do get down there, let's meet up and talk some internet, media and a dash of Brewers.

Nice to hear from you. I guess this linked in thing is alright.

RS

On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 11:42 PM, Robert Green <robertogreen@gmail.com> wrote:

Whats up?

Im doing a ton of web virals with amy rubin, class of 06, cuz rose and grey, or gray, whatever, the point is that is how I roll.

Did one of andrew breitbart fucking a goat, that was on funny or die. It was funny. I wrote/produced and my wife directed. Who, I might add, no longer seems to shoot your magazine covers, meaning that they now suck where once they were brilliant. Wireds loss.

Also did this grizzly mama thing for emilys list that has blown way up. Amy and I are doing a bunch of press (shes writing an article for huffpo, and Im getting a ton of requests) and Id like to talk to you about that and introduce you to amy if you are so inclined.

Been following your lamo/manning story with open eyes. Not sure Im cool with what happened, but then I cant for the life of me figure out what DID happen. Im guessing you might know whats up.

As always, I love to read your work.

Best,

Robert Green
Another Green World
310-804-1812 phone
323-446-7639 fax

twitter.com/robogreen <http://twitter.com/robogreen>
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1299657/

Best,

Robert Green
Another Green World
310-804-1812 phone
323-446-7639 fax
twitter.com/robogreen
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1299657/