U.S. has withdrawn its request to identify a Trump critic
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
Based on how fast the government dropped their request, it seems very clear that this was nothing more than an attempt at stifling dissent. How disturbing.
Either way, I'm glad to see the negative attention the request received and even more glad to see the request withdrawn.
Dissenters, or at least supposed dissenting federal employees now know they're considered suspect. This attempt died, but in light of this do you, anonymous federal employee considering speaking out against the direction of your department, want to risk being next?
yes, actually. this is encouraging exactly that. the government withdrawing its request in less than 24 hours because it didn't have a leg to stand on means that even in Trumpistan the constitution still means something. that said, encryption and anonymity seem more important now than ever.
Is there any evidence the White House was involved?
1: https://www.scribd.com/document/344292934/Twitter-Filing paragraph 42
As a general rule, I am not in favor of terminating someone's employment because they made a bad call. You can't expect people to take risks & try bold things when their failure means unemployment. People need to be able to learn from their mistakes.
This is a branch of the government and law enforcements, whose responsibilities, powers and limitations are codified in writing. This is not a scrappy little startup - there are edicts in place about how to do things, not to "be bold" when you have such power behind you.
Say an Islamaphobic Congress passes a law that bans wearing turbans, and that becomes extremely popular. A bold for someone in the executive branch could be actively defying that law, challenging it in the court system. Someone has to fight the good fight, and I hope government has people like this.
At the end of the day, it's hard to imagine how governments or for that matter businesses could operate if employees were immune to being fired for their job performance. There would be little motivation for actual work and little penalty for taking outsized risks. Seems hopelessly naive.
Of course this might make fighting the good fight harder sometimes, but that's how it is. If doing the right thing were always easy, everyone would do it.
And better training (or retraining) for CBP agents on the proper scope of the law?
That twitter account and others form what they call the "alt gov", and they invite followers to follow other alt gov accounts.
At the end of this exchange, the alt gov people won many followers. The government actually unintentionally helped them with free publicity.
Take the opportunity to list malcontents in case it's needed later? Narrow the search space in case something come up on down the line? Starting at these nodes who knows what kind of interesting trees might unfold?
I image after all they most likely could identify the person if they _really_ wanted to. Twitter's well publicized "stand" aside.
That was seriously what the subpoena was made about, a "critic"? No wonder moderates feel totally detached from this kind of alt-left (or in other cases alt-right) echo chambers.
Journalism these days...
Either that was really the real motive of the officials that made the subpoena or not (my guess is actually not btw), is certainly not up to the lousy journalist that wrote that title to decide.
Journalists are allowed to interpret. In fact, that's a core part of journalism.
The core part of journalism is to present facts and let the interpretation up to the reader.
Journalism should be about illuminating a topic, including providing context.
I have my gripes with journalism that misuses facts and statistics to spin an alternate reality, but I don't think this was the case.
The twitter account never pretended to be a US official, it's always been clear that they are an "alt" account.
So for you to claim (someone who, if I'm not mistaken, has zero first hand knowledge about the situation) that your interpretation is more accurate than a "lousy" journalist who actually researched the issue is to my mind a little weird.
BTW, I'm sure you're aware that editors write headlines, not journalists right?
No, like a scientific paper. Have you ever tried to read one and understand this alien concept on how you can actually present facts without giving leeway to your personal politic views and fantasies?
The journalist's job is:
..to report a factual event that happened and give the reader enough factual context and analysis for that report to be useful.
Not:
..to convince the reader of one position or another
..to expound on their own political beliefs or opinions
I find that many self-described journalists are able to avoid the second problem but hold up the first as if it were a virtue.
And does the 1st amendment not grant both government officials and civilians the right to anonymous free speech?
Headlines designed to promote an agenda rather than inform should be called out for exactly what they are.
This is true no matter how much you might agree with the agenda being promoted.
Give way to the thought police... but only in their online echo chambers, cause in the real world the majority really doesn't care about their imaginary safe spaces.