On Tuesday, I wrote a post about the questionable New York Times privacy story from July 30th involving the disclosure of Census Bureau information to the Department of Homeland Security. As I noted then, the story oddly did not mention the fact that all of the information disclosed was already publicly available from the Census Bureau website.
I e-mailed my post to the Times Public Editor, Daniel Okrent, and received a call yesterday from the author of the Times story, Lynette Clemetson. She informed me that her original version of the story noted that all of the information was publicly available. Unfortunately, however, a copy editor cut down the story (apparently for space reasons), and took that paragraph out. As a result, the story went to press missing the part about the information being publicly available.
The Times has another story on the disclosure today, available here. Today’s story clearly states that the information was publicly available.
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