Washington Post Now Claims "Authorized" to Access MD4BUSH Account

Saturday, November 5, 2005 | Kristinn

[kristinn]

After yesterday's press conference in front of The Washington Post building in downtown Washington, D.C. that criticized The Post for violating their sourcing guidelines and for accessing a FreeRepublic.com account in possible violation of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, an editor for The Post is now claiming authorization to log-in to the account of MD4BUSH.

Earlier this week, Post Maryland editor R.B. Brenner made statements that reporter Matthew Mosk had logged in to MD4BUSH's account "two or three times" after being given the password by an "intermediary" in order to authenticate private messages sent between MD4BUSH and NCPAC on Free Republic.

Brenner has maintained that The Post does not know who MD4BUSH is.

Brenner is reported to have made the following statement to The Post for their story today about the press conference:

"As part of our reporting, we needed to verify that the chat room postings were authentic. We were authorized to view them, and it was appropriate to do so under the circumstances."

Link to Post article here.

[Quilla]

Dagnabbit - meant to say "Thank you for your time..." in that first sentence. My apologies.

[Quilla]

MD4BUSHs very first post is to NCPAC. NCPAC was targeted. MD4BUSH is a post reporter.

I agree and am guessing either John Wagner, Matthew Mosk, or David Snyder. They were the writers/contributors to the WaPo article referenced in red in the center of post 200. They covered a news conference given by Gov. Ehrlich and attended by NAPAC.

[shutup_you_idiot]

And also note that not only did they post on the one thread, they all opened their FR accounts within one week of each other (last week of July 04) - some on the same day....  The statistical odds of that happening by sheer coincidence on a single thread of just 100 posts are beyond calculation.

Yeah, well, I have another "statistical anomaly" for you. Well, I don't, but someone who FReepmailed me does.

From my post at 192:  One of the suspects is "genevaz." 

On a purely unrelated topic, I'm sure, how do you pronounce the "s" in the last name of "Overholser?"  That's not a name that sounds very familiar to me.

You know... for example, as in "Geneva Overholser" of the Washington Post.

Not that I'm insinuating anything, of course.  Coincidences like this happen all the time, I'm sure.

[KC Burke]

Steffen has all the standing he needs.

I agree. Steffen's chosen career path was iretrievably damaged, he lost his job, and he was goaded into private comments, apparently, by a WP/Demo-Actist Cabool. I think a good attorney could look at the deep pockets at the post and make himself and Steffen about 4 to 8 million.

I'd buy the popcorn to watch that one.

[Quilla]

I have no knowledge of another thread on FR that has been pushed by drive-by posters like that one.

Here they are. All these screen names are active (i.e., they haven't been banned), they have nothing on their home page, and, with the exception of MD4BUSH, they've only made one post. They haven't posted anything since this thread.

Incredible discovery and detective work! Thank you.

[generationfixit]

I am obviously very late to this topic but a few thoughts come to mind that I have not seen.

As we anylize the timeframe of the posts and the nature of the posts in general...could this not be suicide for the MSM in general. Freepers have constantly tried to prove the bias of the press and now they have proof because the posts are not interpretations but actual comments typed freely by those who logged on.

As far as the MD4Bush stuff...it puts it all into perspective. Those in the MSM have just proven what we have all known. Not only are they arrogant...I would suggest they are simpletons. They really can't see past their collective noses and now we get to call them on it.

[shutup_you_idiot]

see 203

[darkangel82]

Also, if you read the posts, they all say almost the same thing. The "posters" are all the same person, and a check of the IP logs will confirm that.

[VRWCTexan]

Excellent catch!

Certainly dumb on the part of Ms. "genevaz"....???

I did a "dogpile" search and get only 77 hits total on the www - one of those being her page here at FR

[Annie Gram]

Speculation of course, but one has to wonder if the "intermediary" could possibly be someone on the Baltimore Sun's payroll - perhaps Michael Olesker or David Nitkin?

[topher]

I wonder if a class action lawsuit by Freepers and Lurkers could be brought against:

1. MD4Bush
2. The Maryland Democratic Party
3. The Washington Post
4. The Washington Post Editor
5. The Washington Post Reporters involved

Not saying it is or is not possible, just wondering.

Since the Washington Post shoved Copyright laws down certain people's throats, maybe turnabout is fair play...

A wonder if being a long time poster gets one a larger chunk of the Class Action rewards points... Just a thought... I am not a lawyer and know very little about such things...

[nunya bidness]

If Ryan O'Doherty is MD4Bush then it's probable that his brother Damian is the "intermediary". Damian is a lawyer and he works for Jim Smith, whose name was on the original email.

I still think another interesting angle to this story will be the identity of the mysterious Steve from the email. If it's Steve Kearney from the Mayor's office then this little soap opera will have come full circle.

[VRWCTexan]

OK - try this on for size "MrEd1964"

Leonard Downie, Jr. was named executive editor of The Washington Post on Sept. 1, 1991, after serving as managing editor for seven years.

Downie joined The Post as a summer intern in 1964.

He soon became a well-known local investigative reporter in....

From

http://washpost.com/news_ed/news/edit_bio.shtml

[topher]

Just wish you would have put block quotes around the quotes from another thread. It must makes your post hard to read...

[decal]

Holy Smokes!

Hard to believe these people could be this densely transparent, but who knows...

[VRWCTexan]

Also "ChloeC" - Chloe is the name of a hot DC hang-out that is written up in more that one WaPo story or blog:

Editorial Review
Waiting for Chloe? Get in Line
By Fritz Hahn
Washington Post Weekend Section
Friday, April 8, 2005

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?node=cityguide/profile&id=1107055

[shutup_you_idiot]

Lol! Oh, man. That must be the mother of all coincidences. Great catch.

[VRWCTexan]

Here is one more re: "Bug10"

http://www.uclick.com/client/wpc/td/

Tom the Dancing "Bug" by Ruben Bolling - WaPO comic cartoons slaming Bush

[VRWCTexan]

Really what are the odds - has to be high!!!