Someone with an IP address registered to the U.S. Senate has twice tried to edit the Wikipedia article on the CIA Torture Report, Mashable is reporting .
The article in question contains a paragraph that suggests the CIA had been using the phrase “enhanced interrogation techniques” as a euphemism for torture.
“The CIA Torture Report… is a report compiled by the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) about the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)’s Detention and Interrogation Program and its use of various forms of torture (described in U.S. government communiqués as “enhanced interrogation techniques”) on detainees between 2001 and 2006.”
The unidentified Senate staffer twice tried to edit that paragraph to exclude the word “torture,” according to Huffington Post , under the guise of “removing bias.” Both times, the edit was overruled by other Wikipedia editors.
Mashable has provided a screen capture of the attempted edits.
The attempted Wikipedia edits were brought to the attention of the media via the Twitter account @Congressedits , which is a “bot” (that is, an automated computer program) that scours Wikipedia for attempted edits to entries from IP addresses belonging to the U.S. Senate or U.S. House of Representatives, and then automatically tweets those attempted edits.
I’m a bot that tweets anonymous Wikipedia edits that are made from IP addresses in the US Congress.”
Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture Wikipedia article edited anonymously from US Senate http://t.co/Bj4q8Naed1
— congress-edits (@congressedits) December 9, 2014
Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture Wikipedia article edited anonymously from US Senate http://t.co/gCbKRlBvdw — congress-edits (@congressedits) December 10, 2014
Throughout its existence, the @Congressedits bot has reported on attempted Wikipedia edits from Congressional IP addresses on a variety of topics, including some that seem unlikely to be of interest to lawmakers, such as Gamergate , Baby Farming, and The Lord of the Rings .
The Lord of the Rings Wikipedia article edited anonymously from US House of Representatives http://t.co/5i87Sz0xDF
— congress-edits (@congressedits) August 29, 2014
As of this post, it is not known who in the U.S. Senate’s employ attempted to edit the Wikipedia article on the CIA torture report. Besides the U.S. Senators themselves, several hundred people potentially have access to the Senate’s IP, including all of the Senators’ staffers plus various secretaries and other support personnel that work within the Senate.
Who do you believe is responsible for trying to edit the Wikipedia torture report article from within the U.S. Senate?
[Images courtesy of: Belfast Telegraph , Mashable ]
