US journalist Tim Burke indicted for accessing unaired footage of Tucker Carlson and others at Fox News
US journalist Tim Burke indicted for accessing unaired footage of Tucker Carlson and others at Fox News
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Burke’s lawyers said in that filing that he had merely used publicly available login credentials to access LiveU’s feed, after a “confidential source” showed him where to find the details
Doesn’t sound like they were all that publicly available
Burke’s attorneys called his work “intrepid and perfectly legal,” comparing his use of the login credentials to the sharing of a Netflix password.
I only know literally what I just read in this story, and I’m happy about bro spreading the word about anything nuts that Kanye or Tucker are doing, but this to me doesn’t sound like a real airtight way of justifying that what he did was legal.
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The credentials were published publicly and freely available on the open internet.
Maybe the person who published them did something illegal, if they themselves did not have permission to share, but it could have also been an accident or on purpose. At most they violated an NDA, but that doesn’t have criminal consequences.
The journalist who later used them would seem like they should br in the clear.
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A key under a doormat is freely available to anyone who knows to pick up the mat. Does that mean it's automatically legal to pick up the mat, find the key, use it to open up the house, and go inside?
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People regularly post credential dumps on Pastebin, which can be publicly and freely seen, but that doesn't make those credentials legal to use.
If the journalist had received copies of the video that someone else had downloaded, he'd be in the clear, and that other person would be on the hook.
If the credentials were posted publicly by the news site as a shared login, and the site simply didn't realize that these videos were accessible with those credentials, he would likely prevail. Otherwise, he is likely guilty of hacking under current US laws.
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Nah, if you steal a wallet because it was publicly available, that's still a theft.
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It's illegal under funeral law to access a computer system that you have not been authorized to use. It's intentionally vague like that, but unless you are given access by the system owner you are breaking the law
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🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles: ::: spoiler Click here to see the summary Federal prosecutors indicted freelance journalist Tim Burke on Thursday for accessing internal video footage from Fox News and other media companies, in an unusual case that his attorneys say threatens freedom of the press.
Burke, a former employee of the Daily Beast and Deadspin, gained renown for his ability to obtain timely television clips — such as uncensored footage of Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the 2022 Academy Awards, or an eerie montage of anchors for local stations owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group all reading from the same script.
But in an indictment laying out 14 counts against Burke that include conspiracy and wiretapping, prosecutors allege that the journalist went too far by tapping into a streaming feed site where he acquired unbroadcast video clips of former Fox News star Tucker Carlson and other personalities.
Vice and Media Matters later published some of the footage obtained by Burke, including outtakes from an interview with Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, making antisemitic remarks and rambling about “fake children” living in his home — scenes that undermined Carlson’s on-air attempts to present the MAGA-friendly star as thoughtful and levelheaded.
In an interview with The Washington Post in August, Burke compared the video streams to the digital versions of the feeds once broadcast from satellite news trucks, arguing that he hadn’t broken any law by accessing the footage.
Seth Stern, director of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said the indictment seemed to create a “problematic” requirement for journalists like Burke to get approval from public figures before publishing potentially damaging information.
Saved 58% of original text. :::
15 comments
I mean some officials think opening the dev tools in a web browser is hacking sooooooo. Sad to say I dont think the gov is going to catch up in law making to clarify for this case.
Especially since this seems like something that was freely accessible
Sounds almost like Elon threatening people who post his flight logs, when the flight logs are freely accessible...