CBS Explanation for Document Switch

Fri, Jan 14, 2005 at 5:28:08 pm PST

Sisyphean Musings submitted a request for information to CBS News about their replacement of the original CBS Report with a version that disallowed copy and paste, and received a reply today: CBS Explanation for Document Switch. (Hat tip: Rathergate.com.)

To allow copying of text to applications such as Word would allow anyone to create a modified or falsified report, which we cannot allow. The law firm hired by the Independent Panel insists that the report not be available in a format that can be altered, and we agree with that decision.

So Dick Thornburgh’s law firm insisted on the changes. OK, fair enough. It demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the blogosphere and internet, which would quickly debunk any attempt to pass off falsified documents as genuine (hello? does that ring any bells at CBS News?), but we’ll let that go for now.

But how tone-deaf do you have to be to: 1) release the report and all appendices in an unprotected format, then 2) replace all the files with protected versions a few days later, with no indication at all that they’ve been altered?