Comment by bobwaycott | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bobwaycott | Hacker News Reader

Exactly this.

As I've commented elsewhere, words matter. They matter a lot. Especially when discussing the critical issues at play in this situation. Almost zero media outlets are asking the right questions. Instead, they all appear to be asking questions that specifically serve the talking points that were leaked a few days ago.

Perhaps media outlets and their journalists should start treating political actors the way prosecutors treat defendents--ask the right questions, vary them, alter the wording, etc., in an effort to suss out the truth and leave as little wiggle room for interpretation as one possibly can.

When shit like this hits the fan, the press must stop treating politicians with kid gloves, only levying inquiries that serve the established talking points. Go on the offensive. Ask something that hasn't already been sound-bited and parroted by everyone involved. Ask the right goddamned questions.

A few things worth asking:

1. Is the government storing, parsing, analyzing, transcribing, recording, translating, or any other type of data-gathering and/or analysis actions on the private communications of any persons who are not covered by a standing warrant. Be specific about the words chosen in the question. Even better: ask the question repeatedly, substituting each word in place of the prior one asked.

2. If so, what is the legal reasoning and constitutional authority by which the Congress has legislated such actions?

3. If so, what is the legal reasoning and constitutional authority by which the Executive is interpretating Congressional legislation to permit these programs to exist?

4. If not, what is the legal reasoning and constitutional authority that proscribes such programs from existing?

5. Carefully and completely delineate how Americans are to understand their Fourth Amendment rights in light of these programs. What does the government believe to be their papers in 2013? What level of security and privacy can Americans reasonably expect to have, against which intelligence programs will not and do not transgress?

Etc.

Their talking points seem to be sticking close to these two phrases: "We do not listen to your telephone calls," and "We do not target your emails."[1] Interpreted the way the intelligence community interprets these words, listening to telephone calls and targeting your emails probably does not include:

* listening to your Skype conversations

* storing your emails (it's already legal for them to access emails older than 180 days w/o a warrant) [1]

* auto-translating your emails and generating summaries [2]

Getting more cynical/paranoid:

* using these summaries and data to flag communications based on some 'suspicion' heuristic[3]

* auto-generate and robo-sign a subpoena

* emailing it to the FISA court

Given our known capabilities in these areas, and the intelligence and diligence of those in our intelligence community, it's not unlikely that they are automating a great deal of the analysis they conduct, using software that yields results by methods we'd have called artificial intelligence a decade a go.

I would love to know if it is legal for machine learning and intelligence to generate enough suspicion for a warrant. Given what happened in the finance industry with robo-signing, is it going to far to suspect that the same process might be automating the generation and approval of individualized warrants?

[1] Yesterday in an Obama in an interview said, "What I can say unequivocally is that if you are a U.S. person, the NSA cannot listen to your telephone calls, and the NSA cannot target your emails … and have not". Then seconds later repeated: "if you’re a U.S. person, then NSA is not listening to your phone calls and it’s not targeting your emails unless it’s getting an individualized court order". Why use the same words to be vague when different phrasing would have clarified?

[2] 'FBI Documents Suggest Feds Read Emails Without a Warrant', ACLU: http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security-technology-and-li...

[3] e.g., "John Smith and someone probably his wife had a conversation about a party with James, Linda, and Osama Bin Laden on October 1st"

Yep, you're right on it. This is exactly what I've been discussing in most of my comments over the last few days. You hear, just as in every other media-saturated issue, the same key phrases being repeated to absurdity, so as to both shape public opinion and debate and to divert attention away from asking more pointed questions and having to discuss the real reach of the programs.

I think the argument goes one level further: can we allow private companies to store such data? There's no use in regulating what the government can store if they can simply seize 30 years of history from a private company's database.

This whole storyline is making me believe that data aggregation imposes a negative externality upon society. Regardless of the original intention, the threat of misuse will loom so long as the data set persists.

Excellent point worthy of further consideration and discussion for sure.

"data aggregation imposes a negative externality upon society"

This is obviously true. It is also obviously true that data aggregation imparts a (perhaps equally) significant positive externality to society.

How is that obvious?

So you're suggesting journalists to do their job? Nonsense!

Recently in Spain a comedian surfaced as a journalist, "El Follonero" (free translation: The Trouble-Maker).

It all began as a TV comedy programme about the spanish elections, where El Follonero (actually Jordi Évole, he's no longer El Follonero) asked uncomfortable questions. It eventually became a full programme, not much about comedy but with lots investigative journalism and uncomfortable interviews.

A comedian saving journalism.

Meanwhile, traditional media is just parroting the official views of the established power.

Thanks for the tip on that. I'll certainly have to look El Follonero up. Sounds interesting.

The US has this as well

Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and the Onion.

Sadly, they're some of the best journalism happening in the country at present, though I'll give a hat tip to Glenn Greenwald (though he's not in the country), Democracy Now, and a very few others.

And, sadly, jester as truth teller is an ancient tradition.

Much of the political (national) and business press have long since sold out their morals and credibility for the golden ticket of "access". I include PBS and NPR on this bill of indictment.

He's actually not like Colbert or The Onion.

We also have lots of comedians doing that kind of political satire, but most of them just scratch the surface and comedy often blurs the real issues.

Jordi Évole is no longer a comedian, though he started his career as one. Now he does serious interviews and, even if comedy is still present (he's just funny and charismatic), his programme is actual journalism and not just satirical interviews and puns.

I think what gives him the edge over traditional journalism is how he approaches interviews. He looks like the average Joe and is not very knowledgeable, but he asks the questions that matter. Being very charismatic and polite, their interviewees feel confident with him, which he uses to his advantage (lots of slips from interviewees).

He also questions like a lawyer would, asking again and again until he gets an acceptable answer instead of the common PR crap that politicians are used to vomit.

The comedians I names are among the better known, and are just given as current examples. There are others, including those who spoof the news (the Yes Men for example), or who would critique it (George Carlin, Lenny Bruce).

The more general point is that humor can sweeten the bitter pill of truth.

And then there's Beppo Grillo and his Five Star movement in Italy.

This is exactly why I created Techendo (http://techendo.co -- shameless plug) . Honestly, I was fed up with journalist covering tech, who knew nothing about tech and had no technical background. We need a media source for technical news that actually understands what it's covering.

The problem is balance. Balancing both covering in-depth technical news, and also providing content worth coming back to and sharing. I'm still unsure of how to do this -- as we're still doing a ton of discovery currently.

Except police/prosecutors can grill subjects of investigations for hours. Annoy a politician or public official and a journalist's interview is over. An interview is a chess match: It has to be strategic, and even if the subject anticiaptes a trap you still have to lead him there. In the case of a draw (most typical outcome) the journalist loses.

Yep, this is unfortunately true. This raises the odd question in my head of how much more interesting our campy republic would be if elected officials could not schedule & control their usage of the media, but instead were required (as part of the job description) to submit to such questioning by the press.

The problem, I think, lies in the ways that these interviews typically are organized around pre-defined and submitted questions that control the conversation and allow for preparation.

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