Here's an important story coming out next Sunday in the NYTimes. It touches on the evolving form(s) of journalism and journalist security, both physical and digital.
-tom johnson ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Yes, very interesting. Certainly raises questions of to whom is a journalist responsible. To what extent should they be pursuing their own political agenda? To what extent should they be accorded protections because they are journalists?
George Duncan
georgeduncanart.com (505) 983-6895
Represented by ViVO Contemporary 725 Canyon Road
Santa Fe, NM 87501
Dynamic application of matrix order and luminous chaos. On Tue, Aug 13, 2013 at 3:05 PM, Tom Johnson <[hidden email]> wrote:
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Responsible to everyone for everything and always. (Or something like that.)
Your check arrived at the studio, so again we thank you. -t. On Tue, Aug 13, 2013 at 3:31 PM, George Duncan <[hidden email]> wrote:
-- ==========================================
J. T. Johnson Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) Twitter: jtjohnson ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
In reply to this post by Tom Johnson
I found the story about the encryption
negotiation between her and Snowden to be fascinating. It's also
interesting how independent they (Poitras and Greenwald) seem to
be from the Guardian. It's hard to imagine most journalists would
have the technological judo to make it work before being found out
and slapped down. But that's the our world now. It sure sounds
like she's got nerves of steel.. I find the argument "we can
document this" to be a perfectly acceptable reason for a
journalist to take a position -- once truth is established, ask
the next question..
On 8/13/13 3:05 PM, Tom Johnson wrote:
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Is it a coincidence that I'm watching
Terry Gilliam's "Brazil" just as I'm reading this (including
Greenwald living in Brazil) description of something NEARLY as
absurd as the movie!
The story on Poitras seemed a little like a "puff" piece, as much as one can "puff" a story/situation like this. While I still generally support Obama, it is absurd to claim that Snowden's disclosures were not responsible for a (hopefully serious) introspection by the administration on the current state of our SigInt programs regarding US Citizens (on US soil) (and maybe all of our Intell?). Obama's claim "we were already looking into this" reminds me sadly of my own "I wuz Gonna!" as a child when my mother had to remind me to do one of my chores.... it just comes up lame. If you was Gonna (Barack) then why didn'tcha already?
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
On 8/13/13 9:16 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
I'd say
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/798 section (a)/(3)
puts a reporter that aims to a break a story about govt.
agencies violating the 4th amendment at risk. It's not just
drama. Is "publish" intended to be a standalone condition or
must it also be constrained by the "safety or interest"
condition? I read it as a standalone condition. Who would want
to count on a judge in a secret court would side against the
State department for a reporter? Seriously? It seems to me
there's real danger for these two, esp. at the point they were
breaking the early stories about PRISM.
"(a) Whoever knowingly and willfully communicates, furnishes, transmits, or otherwise makes available to an unauthorized person, or publishes, or uses in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States or for the benefit of any foreign government to the detriment of the United States any classified information— (1) concerning the nature, preparation, or use of any code, cipher, or cryptographic system of the United States or any foreign government; or (2) concerning the design, construction, use, maintenance, or repair of any device, apparatus, or appliance used or prepared or planned for use by the United States or any foreign government for cryptographic or communication intelligence purposes; or (3) concerning the communication intelligence activities of the United States or any foreign government; or (4) obtained by the processes of communication intelligence from the communications of any foreign government, knowing the same to have been obtained by such processes— Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both." Marcus ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Administrator
|
Slightly off topic, but why didn't the Guardian give more protection to Snowden? I realize Ellsberg was a US citizen, but the NYTimes gave him a lot of help staying out of jail. Snowden isn't UK but wouldn't you expect the Guardian to somehow support him?
-- Owen
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
On 8/14/13 5:20 PM, Owen Densmore
wrote:
Did the NYTimes do more than protect their source? (It was Sidney Zion that named Ellsberg.) I'm just guessing, but one reason why a newspaper wouldn't provide support (monetary, logistical) would be limit themselves to reporting the news rather than being the news. A less abstract reason would be to not put extra scrutiny on government officials that give off-the-record information. Also, the Guardian was a second choice (see below), so it's not like he'd necessarily be considered an exclusive asset. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/code-name-verax-snowden-in-exchanges-with-post-reporter-made-clear-he-knew-risks/2013/06/09/c9a25b54-d14c-11e2-9f1a-1a7cdee20287_print.html Marcus ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
In reply to this post by Owen Densmore
Hi, Tom, from Amman. I'm facilitating a meeting. Chaos all around. That's all I'm gonna say! Thanks for this wonderful article. For those of you, especially you, George, who aren't already Clay Shirkey fans, let me recommend his book, "Here Comes Everybody". Outsider journalism, outsider diplomacy, outsider everything is the new norm. The age of elite expertise is over, and good riddance. Control of insight and information has always been an illusion.
On Wed, Aug 14, 2013 at 5:20 PM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote:
Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D. President, Center for Emergent Diplomacy Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA [hidden email] mobile: (303) 859-5609 skype: merlelefkoff ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
This brings up a great point, one that hits me close to home, since I'm adequate at lots of things but not really good at anything. We have a local wacko who was recently elected to head the Republican party here in Oregon. This was my introduction to him: http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/art-robinson Being a skeptic of everything, myself, I sensed a bit of bias in Maddow's log posts. So, I decided to try to find out if Robinson is/was actually a "good" scientist. Turns out he does have some pretty strong credentials. And, that lead me to a brief biography of Linus Pauling in the Atlantic trashing Pauling's zealous advocacy of vitamin C: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/07/the-vitamin-myth-why-we-think-we-need-supplements/277947/ The info about Robinson also brings up the (lack of) credibility issues surrounding climate deniers ... and pseudo-scientific efforts like those of the Discovery Institute. (I only learned about David Berlinski's association with the Discovry Institute _after_ I'd read and thought highly of his book "Newton's Gift".) Anyway, IN-credible nonsense often seems to accompany credible people. And it's not always merely when the credible person (e.g. David Deutsch) steps outside their domain of expertise. One final point. I've noticed lots of people abusing the fallacy of ad hominem lately. I've always found that examining the source of information to be a good way of estimating how trustable that information is. When the source is a system like a corporation or news outlet, most people seem to agree. But when the source is a person, any attempt to discuss or criticize them, as a source of some particular factoid, results in the accusation of ad hominem. A good example might be Edward Snowden, who I still don't trust ... for reasons I still can't articulate. 8^) But I don't think my critique of his actions or affect is ad hominem. I think such a critique is necessary. So, finally, here's my question. In this age of "outsider everything", shouldn't we be seeing (and methodically classifying) a diversity of trust establishing methods? What new measures of trust do, say, the millenials (or younger) use? Or are we older folk doomed to tsk tsking and yelling "get off my lawn"? Merle Lefkoff wrote at 08/15/2013 03:01 AM: > Outsider journalism, outsider diplomacy, outsider > everything is the new norm. The age of elite expertise is over, and good > riddance. Control of insight and information has always been an illusion. -- ⇒⇐ glen e. p. ropella Oil of love, swimming in a zodiac ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Administrator
|
In reply to this post by Merle Lefkoff-2
Er.. was that a response to the Guardian's lack of support? -- Owen On Thu, Aug 15, 2013 at 4:01 AM, Merle Lefkoff <[hidden email]> wrote:
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
In reply to this post by glen ropella
On 8/15/13 9:41 AM, glen wrote:
> But I don't think my critique of his actions or affect is ad hominem. > I think such a critique is necessary. Hmm, I often think "here we go again -- mythical man month" when people are added to a project -- in general you can expect things to slow down not speed up. Organizations are dumb. And leaders often aren't any smarter than the non-leaders, they 1) are time-tested individuals that have been observed not to screw things up terribly, 2) just the sort that like the satisfaction of giving directives and seek that gratification 3) are social people and `consensus builders' 4) have poor impulse control and it is mistaken for `leadership' (here thinking someone like Eliot Spizer or Anthony Weiner), or 5) somewhere up on the scale of psychopathic personality traits. My impression is that individual faults are analyzed to death in the media just because an individual has some tractability and expectation of self-consistency. One personality is a specific thing to discuss, not a complicated contradictory system, like a corporation that no one has an expectations of other than, say, quarterly profits and shiny T.V. ads. Also, one person is vulnerable. I think there's a tendency to focus on the decisions of a person makes because they can be perceived as correctable. In contrast, if a pharmaceutical company puts out dangerous compounds and through a sustained and expensive campaign, when people start experiencing life threatening side effects, no one blames their CEO. It's just a fact of life. The `system' which is `good' did it. Meanwhile, Snowden or Cheney or Weiner are people we can all talk about, but I argue the criticism should be focused at those decisions of those at the top, and those decisions should be held to a higher standard. > So, finally, here's my question. In this age of "outsider > everything", shouldn't we be seeing (and methodically classifying) a > diversity of trust establishing methods? What new measures of trust > do, say, the millenials (or younger) use? Or are we older folk doomed > to tsk tsking and yelling "get off my lawn"? Well, I don't really trust. I just accept that I'm often powerless. To the extent I can identify bad arguments, I avoid or try to stop the kind of people that make them over and over. If there is no story a person can rationalize or falsify, it's all just guesswork anyway. Marcus ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Marcus G. Daniels wrote at 08/15/2013 06:00 PM:
> I think there's a tendency to focus on the decisions of a person makes because they can be perceived as correctable. In contrast, if a pharmaceutical company puts out dangerous compounds and through a sustained and expensive campaign, when people start experiencing life threatening side effects, no one blames their CEO. It's just a fact of life. The `system' which is `good' did it. Meanwhile, Snowden or Cheney or Weiner are people we can all talk about, but I argue the criticism should be focused at those decisions of those at the top, and those decisions should be held to a higher > standard. OK. I can see that when talking about for-profits or even disorganized (or nefarious) non-profits. But with someone like Linus Pauling ... or, hell, Roger Penrose for that matter (witness the beating he took for advocating non-computational components in the doing of mathematics by mathematicians) ... I tend to think of an organization (even if it's a corporation) as being _more_ stable, more trustworthy, because there are checks and balances built in. When evaluating an individual, we tend to presume a dictatorship... Roger Penrose was the decider and he decided to advocate for non-computational consciousness ... or Linus Pauling was the decider and he decided to advocate for vitamin C. But if we examine something like the Washington Post, as owned by Bezos, it will be a more trustworthy organization than Bezos, as an individual, will be ... I think, anyway. > Well, I don't really trust. I just accept that I'm often powerless. To the extent I can identify bad arguments, I avoid or try to stop the kind of people that make them over and over. If there is no story a person can rationalize or falsify, it's all just guesswork anyway. Yeah, I fall closer to that approach, myself. But most of the people I know don't do that. Most people seem almost incapable of skepticism. Or perhaps they just really really _want_ to trust someone or some group. Even if they call themselves "anarchists", they seem to be incapable of dissecting the opinions of other "trusted" "anarchists" in their group. I first ran into this problem when a group of people, perhaps 10-15 years younger than me, began identifying various places as "bro-" and people as "bros" ... e.g. "That's a bro-bar" or "She's such a bro." I tried to tease out their meaning and, in the end, it was similar to "hipster". One false move and you, too, could be instantly recategorized as "them" .... a bro or hipster. E.g. if you happen to like ultimate fighting, you might be a bro. Or maybe you wear funny hats, you might be a hipster. There are some mechanisms of trust at work, here. And they are fundamentally different from mine and from those used by my elders. I just can't nail them down. -- ⇒⇐ glen e. p. ropella Every day I wake up we drink a lot of coffee and watch the CNN ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
On 8/16/13 4:14 PM, glen wrote:
> I tend to think of an organization (even if it's a corporation) as > being _more_ stable, more trustworthy, because there are checks and > balances built in. I'd say stability and trustworthiness are different things. Stability arises almost necessarily because there are different individuals competing for power within the organization. An overseer may technically have authority over others, but if the others form coalitions, at some point they may be able to vote the overseer off the island, or at least discredit the overseer in the eyes of his/her overseer. For this reason, the overseer must be cautious about being dictatorial or inflexible. Once a structure like this becomes stable, the the organization can become immune from the truth. No one in the lower ranks has an incentive any more to rock the boat -- everything becomes about internal political signaling. There is no reason to be trustworthy in any universal sense because the incentives for survival within the organization follow a different set of rules. For example, almost everyone can hate Congress, but because a voter is only choosing between bad and worse, the incumbent just needs to qualify as bad. In the case of the NSA, a concern is what manager has any incentive to enforce their supposed no-US-persons rules? If, as a set of upper level managers, they all come to believe the only important thing is showing how signals intelligence can catch violent Islamic extremists, and that will justify a steadily growing budget, then they just need to design a plausible-but-weak-self-enforcement mechanism that have no real teeth. They can invent secret best practices that they can wave in front of Congress, FISA, courts, etc. and have policies that say Employee may not do X, but have no actual strong technical mechanisms to be sure that happens. Tabulate some plausible tables about "analyst typo involving entering in phone numbers (oops)" and "insubordinate employee", and it's pretty much bulletproof to scrutiny. Marcus ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
On 08/16/2013 04:00 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote:
> I'd say stability and trustworthiness are different things. Stability > arises almost necessarily because there are different individuals > competing for power within the organization. [...] > > Once a structure like this becomes stable, the the organization can > become immune from the truth. No one in the lower ranks has an > incentive any more to rock the boat -- everything becomes about internal > political signaling. There is no reason to be trustworthy in any > universal sense because the incentives for survival within the > organization follow a different set of rules. I'm not convinced of the difference between stability and trustworthiness. I suppose it depends on what one means by "trust". I trust people like Penrose to behave in Penrosian ways. And I trust the Washington Post to behave in Wapovian ways. That's what I mean by trust. The point being that if I hear something from, say Rush Limbaugh, I should be able to make a fast estimation of that thing. I expect it to be Limbaugh-like. So, to me, trust is less about some universal Truth according to a grand unified theory of the universe. It's more about model-ability. > In the case of the NSA, a concern is what manager has any incentive to > enforce their supposed no-US-persons rules? If, as a set of upper > level managers, they all come to believe the only important thing is > showing how signals intelligence can catch violent Islamic extremists, > and that will justify a steadily growing budget, then they just need to > design a plausible-but-weak-self-enforcement mechanism that have no real > teeth. I agree to some extent. But you're ignoring the fact that these people often do have lives outside their work. And those lives often interfere, cognitively, with their more robot-like optimization methods within their work. Of course, as more and more of us _linearize_ and self-select our interactions via tools like facebook, or on-line dating, etc., then those less linear parts of their lives will have less chance to interfere. -- ⇒⇐ glen e. p. ropella I have gazed beyond today ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
On 8/17/13 3:47 PM, glen wrote:
> But you're ignoring the fact that these people often do have lives > outside their work. And those lives often interfere, cognitively, with > their more robot-like optimization methods within their work. For some reason I remember this random instant of my life. Years ago, over a busy weekend, I got an e-mail from a collaborator as a deadline approached. The individual indicated that they were stepping away to stop by church. It wasn't a terribly important project, at least for me. So, instead of reviewing my heuristics for estimating the priorities of my collaborators, I reflected on how social systems grow up around the frailties of the community and concluded (something like) that social systems can just as well reinforce the robot-like optimization methods as they stigmatize them. Here's a fun document from 1955. The NSA conduct guide! http://cryptome.org/2013/07/nsa-conduct-guide-1955.pdf Marcus ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
In reply to this post by glen ropella
Glen -
>> I'd say stability and trustworthiness are different things. Stability >> arises almost necessarily because there are different individuals >> competing for power within the organization. [...] >> >> Once a structure like this becomes stable, the the organization can >> become immune from the truth. No one in the lower ranks has an >> incentive any more to rock the boat -- everything becomes about internal >> political signaling. There is no reason to be trustworthy in any >> universal sense because the incentives for survival within the >> organization follow a different set of rules. > I'm not convinced of the difference between stability and > trustworthiness. I suppose it depends on what one means by "trust". I > trust people like Penrose to behave in Penrosian ways. And I trust the > Washington Post to behave in Wapovian ways. That's what I mean by > trust. The point being that if I hear something from, say Rush > Limbaugh, I should be able to make a fast estimation of that thing. I > expect it to be Limbaugh-like. So, to me, trust is less about some > universal Truth according to a grand unified theory of the universe. > It's more about model-ability. this in the extreme. I don't give a flying flip what someone elses' propensities and proclivities are, as long as I have a good model of them, even if my model is that they are total whack-jobs (high variance in their behaviour). However, my humanist personality (yet another, which seems to be somewhat at odds with the libertarian one) wants to narrow the model of human behaviour down to include a measure of empathic response. I would say I "trust" people more who I believe to have an empathic response to me, and in general I believe that this is a resonant phenomena, that those whom I am empathetic with, are also more empathetic with me, etc. So a strong empathetic bond with someone leads me to "trust" them in a different way than I trust Rush Limbaugh (or Roger Penrose). My wife, my children, even Steve Guerin (when we are drinking together anyway). - Steve ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
In reply to this post by Marcus G. Daniels
On 8/17/13 4:23 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote:
> > > Here's a fun document from 1955. The NSA conduct guide! > > http://cryptome.org/2013/07/nsa-conduct-guide-1955.pdf Thanks for the link... I read through it and found it to be a great piece of nostalgia every bit as interesting as episodes of Mad Men or a Formica and Chrome kitchen table. It harkens to a time of innocence that I do miss... lots of fairly plain speaking and appeal to pride and honor as much as threats of dire personal consequence. While my security briefings during 30 year spanning the new millenium had the same underlying basis, there was a much less innocent tone which equally saddened and offended me. The passage about keeping a personal diary struck me. Today, I believe I could fairly effectively keep a personal diary in a very effectively encrypted form. On one hand, the chances of the information contained being discovered by a "bad guy" is incredibly low and on the other, so is being discovered in breaking this rule (including sensitive info in my diary) similarly low. It seems that the idea of encrypting (mirror writing ala Da Vinci?) one's personal notes is not a new one. - Steve ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
In reply to this post by Steve Smith
On 8/17/13 5:40 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
> I would say I "trust" people more who I believe to have an empathic > response to me, and in general I believe that this is a resonant > phenomena, that those whom I am empathetic with, are also more > empathetic with me, etc. A third definition of "trust" is that, whenever something seems "high variance" for the model of the individual, that it can explained directly or indirectly by the trusted person. That there will be an interesting self-consistent explanation or argument that is somehow more penetrating for a new situation that merely being consistent with a previous situation. That person's values may change or evolve -- they are not superficially consistent -- but you can be sure their function applied to those values will be an informative or even novel result. One can trust that their time is not being wasted. Marcus ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
In reply to this post by Steve Smith
Marcus -
I remember in the mid 90's that one of the overhashed topics around security / clearances was the euphamisms about having sex with foreign nationals. There was a clause about having to report any "ongoing intimate relations" with foreign nationals (especially from sensitive countries which I seem to remember *any* country which was known to have nuclear capability, and a longer list of countries known to be "inimical" to the US). The guideline we were given (only verbally I'm pretty sure) was that "ongoing" meant more than a single incident... so effectively, we were free to have one night stands with just about anyone and only had to report such if there was A) indication they were pumping us for information (pillow talk?) or B) if you went back for more. By those rules, I think we could be as chummy as we liked with Israelis (their nuclear capability was and still is treated as an open secret) but don't you dare take a roll in the hay (or even stay up all night talking?) with a french or british woman (or man?) in any "intimate way" more than once. Once was ok... but after that you had to ask "mother may I". In the new millenium, I think that includes sex-chat online? Careful boys (and girls)! - Steve ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Free forum by Nabble | Edit this page |