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Comment by forgotAgain | Hacker News Reader

This strikes me as a very thin story with a lot of filler added. A red flag for me with the article is that the headline uses the word "tell" while quotes from anonymous sources use the word "request". There's nothing wrong with the government asking for access to a user account if they have a legitimate (ie. named) court order.

This is the most important story for this country since 9/11. Third rate journalism won't be part of the solution.

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There's been a few articles like this recently. The problem is, it's so easy to flip a world like "request" to "tell", or drum up a government looking document asking for xyz. There's just no way to determine the validity of this stuff.

Over-reliance on anonymous sources is always a red flag for me.

His main sources are "...one internet industry source" and "...a person who has worked at a large Silicon Valley Company."

That's about as vague and unverifiable as you can get for the foundation of a story like this.

For the general public this type of article works well. The filler is useful because a lot of people are coming to the issue for the first time. Hopefully NBC &c. will also fill in pertinent background information as they bring their audiences up to speed.

I'm well aware of Journalism's yellow history, I feel like things have devolved quickly and depressingly in the era of the blog and the pageview/story break Twitter one-upsmanship that exists today.

You do recognise the author, right? It's not some random hack - Declan M has a long history and a good reputation. I'd take his word over some random HN doubter any time.

Good reporting isn't about taking someone's word for something. It's about facts. The story has little substance to it. Who wrote it is besides the point.

It's so frustrating to see the vast majority of comments here take this seriously. Thank you for having the guts to call it like it is.

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