Did our own Mistress of the Universe seek witnesses on craigslist?

By adamg on Wed, 04/01/2009 - 3:14pm

You know, the woman at Logan. Lookee here.

Via the Globe.

Innocent, etc.

Topics:

Crime

Free tagging:

Logan Airport

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Comments

Dumbfounded

By Sock_Puppet on Wed, 04/01/2009 - 3:31pm.

Well, ah, I guess the state can enter that into evidence.

Do you think her lawyer realizes she's busy incriminating herself on an online forum? Yeah, anonymous and whatnot, but you can subpoena the server logs and figure out where it came from.

This lady is the comedy gift who keeps on giving.

Yes but did the Reporter Check?

By GradStudent on Thu, 04/02/2009 - 11:35am.

As President Obama pointed out below, anyone can impersonate anyone on the internet. Did the reporter actually do the investigative steps you pointed out before writing up the story? No such steps to confirm the identity of the poster are described. The reporter gives little to no indication that there should be doubt as to whether or not this is the same woman as at Logan. Seems like very irresponsible reporting to me.

Occam's Razor?

By Dave on Thu, 04/02/2009 - 1:26pm.

While the Globe's article is not an example of great journalism, the evidence seems to point to Matron really being her.:

The Logan incident happened around 9 PM on Sunday.
The Craigslist postings originated about 6 hours after that.
The other posters in the thread don't seem to have seen any news reports - they're reacting to Matron's posts
The earliest news report that shows up in Google News is from Channel 5's website around noon on Tuesday. (Although maybe it hit the TV before that?)
Matron deleted some but not all of her posts in the thread in apparent sobriety-induced embarrassment.

Not Exactly

By Barack Obama on Thu, 04/02/2009 - 4:50pm.

Those posts originated around 7am local time, the time stamp on those posts is PST.

This story was first reported on news stations during their morning broadcasts at 6am about the incident the night before at the Airport.

Matron is not capable of deleting anything on Craigslist, the only way those were deleted were by the site administrators, probably after they were contacted by other posters about the likelihood of them being false.

They were troll posts, an attempt to get a reaction from people, nothing more, and anyone who believes them to be real, or really here, well I have a bridge from Charlestown to Chelsea to sell you.

Re: Not Exactly

By Dave on Thu, 04/02/2009 - 11:41pm.

IMAGE(http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/8572/prompty.jpg)

I've never used Craig's List, so I'll take your word for it about the time difference. I think maybe I'd have to see the redacted posts first, but the simplest explanation--that a drunken sWellesley politician/Harvard grad
IMAGE(http://nt0.ggpht.com/news?imgefp=VIAEH2B8rz2fXM&imgtype=0) could be the author of the posts by "Matron"--doesn't sound as far-fetched as you claim, Mr. President.

Here is the post in question

By adamg on Wed, 04/01/2009 - 3:47pm.

For when it's deleted (it's already been moved to an "Island of Misfit Threads" forum):

The Mass State Police frightened me. <Matron> 03/30 09:06:20
The officer in question was very aggressive with me,and I was scared to death. He asked me to move my car, and when I tried to comply, he started by banging on my hood, so he could give me a ticket. I know what it must have looked like on the outside, but try to see it from my point of view, alone in the car and a great big cop starts pounding on my hood, and then tries to grab me out of the car. This whole police-state-at-the-airport business has gotten way out of hand.

Get it while you can

By Sock_Puppet on Wed, 04/01/2009 - 3:54pm.

Someone's going through and deleting the Matron's posts.

I was freaked out and traveling at 50. § < Matron > 03/30 13:30:52

I wanted to go home. < Matron > 03/30 13:42:41

The chase was slow speed, and required five state cruisers.

and you, "golf22", if that is your real name...

By Spatch on Wed, 04/01/2009 - 4:00pm.

I like how, when quoting Craigslist posters, the Globe decided to put the names "justanotherpost" and "golf22" in quotes, but Mr_Twister is quoted without any doubts cast upon the legitimacy of his name!

Also fun

By adamg on Wed, 04/01/2009 - 4:02pm.

How the Globe reporter used APreporter as his screen name.

well it is nice...

By bandit on Wed, 04/01/2009 - 4:22pm.

... to see craigslist being mentioned in the news for something *other* than hookers!

What about the hubby?

By J258 on Wed, 04/01/2009 - 4:25pm.

"newforumhandle123 " makes a good point. Did she leave her husband at Logan?

Really?

By Barack Obama on Wed, 04/01/2009 - 4:59pm.

You people have to be kidding right? Do you not realize that anyone can pretend to be anyone else online right?

To use a forum post from any website as any kind of evidence or research for anything else is completely ridiculous and only mocks any type of journalistic integrity that a reporter might have had.

Believe me

By Kaz on Wed, 04/01/2009 - 5:31pm.

The President is right. He may not have the best grip on our economic crisis right now, but he's right in his assessment of this craigslist discussion.

Thank you, sir. Stay safe.

(Next up for Andrew Ryan: "President Obama chats with residents regarding online identities at Universalhub.com")

(No subject)

By Dave on Wed, 04/01/2009 - 5:43pm.

IMAGE(http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/8572/prompty.jpg)

Two different questions

By Sock_Puppet on Thu, 04/02/2009 - 4:44pm.

You've got your research... and then you've got your evidence.

Yeah, sure, anonymous posting is pretty bad for research in terms of journalism. It's hardly conclusive.

Evidence on the other hand, if you're talking about the kind of things that the police gather with a subpoena... Well, your anonymity has its limits. If the police really want to know who posted something anonymously on a forum, they can find out.

What they file is called a Doe subpoena. First they get the server logs from Craigslist. Then they get the logs from the ISP showing who that IP address belonged to at the time.

So to recap: research no, evidence yes -- with a subpoena. I'd be surprised if they haven't already done it in this case.

You know, assuming that Matron didn't use a good anonymizer and all. I'd say that's a pretty fair assumption, because so far she seems utterly clueless.

I was speaking just of the journalist

By Barack Obama on Thu, 04/02/2009 - 4:55pm.

I was speaking only of the journalist, they have no power of subpoena.

The end result here is really this, it's a piss poor job of "reporting" by the globe staff to even bring up a post on a craigslist message forum, go take a stroll through them someday, if you think what is posted there is newsworthy, then I pity the future of this country.

It was a troll trying to get a reaction from people, and to be honest, they did an excellent job because they got a Boston Globe blog to pay attention and report on it as if it were actual news.