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The Judicial Conference of the United States is neither a "little-known committee" or in any way secretive or shady, unless one is totally ignorant of how the j

The Judicial Conference of the United States is neither a "little-known committee" or in any way secretive or shady, unless one is totally ignorant of how the judicial system works. The EFF certainly is not. The conference is composed of: "the Chief Justice of the United States, the chief judge of each court of appeals federal regional circuit, a district court judge from various federal judicial districts, and the chief judge of the United States Court of International Trade." [0] You can disagree with their decisions, but don't try and imply that they are duplicitous. I expect better of the EFF. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_Conference_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_Conference_of_the_Uni...

mmf 10y ago
Little known implies that if you ask 100 randomly selected people if they know if it exists, what it is and what it does, a small number, say less than 10 or so (little) will know. Did you take your educated guess at that fraction?
- ___ab___ 10y ago
  Most concepts posted about on HN, and for that matter, discussed by the EFF, are "little-known." The inclusion of that description in the headline is obviously intended to make the reader believe that the committee is up to no good in secret, not that most people simply don't know of it.
  - pdkl95 10y ago
    Why are you pretending that the EFF is writing headlines for HN? We are not the (only) intended audience. I find it very unlikely that you don't understand this.
    - justratsinacoat 10y ago
      Oh well -- the EFF knows that if they write for themselves, there'll be lower-brow comment-threads full of 'lol wtf bbq' and no one will take them seriously because they won't understand. Write accessibly, and well-read nitpickers of a HN-like brow alignment will pick apart their clickbait headlines. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
  - studentrob 10y ago
    Agreed. Many things in news are little known. That's often what makes it news.
- rtpg 10y ago
  I don't think that's what it means in this context. I bet if you ask 100 random people, not 10 would know what Stripe is. Not 10 would know what Angular is. But would you ever describe either of those as "little known"? I think in this situation it implies that even if you're in the domain you aren't aware... and on this it's not really the case right?
  - tommyman 10y ago
    and the top of this thread is now a stupid meaningless argument about a word in the title instead of talking about the issue. Well done. Can you guys take that rubbish to reddit or voat or somewhere crappy? I like reading HN, please don't make it a waste of my time. and since I'm here now I'll throw out my opinion on the meat of the story. I use Tor a lot and am not based in the US and am nor american. If America gives itself the legal ability to hack anyone, anywhere regardless of what they are doing then all american networks/nodes/people are open to hacking and posting publicly. That includes all private people, public people, everything from correspondence to baby monitor cameras. It calls for an open season against those countries whereby we air every single persons dirty laundry in as public a way as possible. It is similar to europeans like UK, where certain people there think they can hack all people everywhere, legally, with complete immunity. Excuse my parlance but fuck everything about that. That is a system balanced way too far in one direction. but hey, that guy said 'little-known' about the Judicial Conference of the United States. That's what is important to americans... Posted without Tor because I still live in a free country and am not afraid of speak up.
    - anon1385 10y ago
      If the EFF was able to write posts that weren't full of gross hyperbole and flat out untruths then every comment thread about an EFF statement wouldn't require discussion about how the EFF is misleading people. They know perfectly well what they are doing. They know it leads to people talking about the stuff they exaggerated rather than the actual issue. They know that it turns away reasonable people. They are gambling that they can whip up an ignorant mob as with SOPA. The difference there was that a bunch of high profile corporations and capitalists had a financial interest in that fight and were happy to fuel the outrage machine to get their way.
rtpg 10y ago
I agree with most of the goals of the EFF, but their blog is basically one misleading description after another for these things. A comment like yours ends up being the top comment for any links to the blog. Someone might comment that the gov't does the same thing, but that's no excuse for such intellectual dishonesty.
- vcarl 10y ago
  Agreed, as much as I support the ideals of the EFF, this kind of misleading scare tactic really rubs me the wrong way. It feels like they're compromising the moral high ground in order to elicit a larger response--which I understand might be the straightest path to accomplishing their goals, but it feels dirty.
guelo 10y ago
I consider myself well read and politically savvy but I had never heard of this body. When was the last time they made news outside of maybe the narrow interests of federal trial lawyers?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- ___ab___ 10y ago
  My point is that the EFF (and whoever was drafting this press release) certainly knows what the Judicial Conference is, and are (is) willfully misrepresenting them through careful word choice.
  - pdkl95 10y ago
    The only misrepresentation going on is this nonsense that a headline's language should be based on the knowledge of the author instead of the intended audience.
- rayiner 10y ago
  Java isn't something a guy on the street would recognize, but if you were writing to a lay audience, would you describe the Oracle v. Google as involving a "little known programming language? That wouldn't be good journalism. It would give the reader an inaccurate depiction of what the lawsuit is really about. It would be good lawyering, depending on which side you are on. A classic lawyering tactic is to use the most favorable (to your side) characterization of something you can justify.
  - studentrob 10y ago
    > It would give the reader an inaccurate depiction of what the lawsuit is really about Yeah. Part of the EFF's job is educating us. When they add such slant they lose credibility in my book. They're still great at keeping tabs on government actions that impact tech.
    - 10y ago
DanielBMarkham 10y ago
Ok, ok. Let's get honest here. Bloggers exaggerate. And commenters like to point that out. Sometimes I hear that commenters even like to overreact to things. Got it. Now, I've been following this issue. I did not know about this committee. I daresay I could pull 100 hackers from a room and most of them wouldn't know of it either. So for purposes of "legal people", yes, you are correct. What a overstatement! But that's not the audience here, and the headline works -- and it is not an exaggeration.
- drivingmenuts 10y ago
  If you're a lawyer, this committee is probably common knowledge. I'd bet 99 out of 100 non-lawyers wouldn't have a clue about this group of people.
nxzero 10y ago
Honestly, sounds like you might have a conflict of interest in the matter, or haven't done your research. Only 36 percent of Americans can actually name the three branches of government the Constitution created.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  That lack of interest is what makes the EFF framing so ridiculous. There's nothing mysterious about the committee, it's just an implementation detail of the justice system. Calling it little known implies that people who don't even know what to call the judicial branch should for some reason know about the committee.
nxzero 10y ago
Sorry, I missed where the meeting notes where posted online. Or maybe it's that you mean secrets, when legally kept, are not secrets. Please explain.
esbranson 10y ago
> The Judicial Conference of the United States is neither a "little-known committee" or in any way secretive or shady, unless one is totally ignorant of how the judicial system works. The Judicial Conference is currently the subject of a lawsuit for being secretive, shady and duplicitous. (A serious lawsuit on a serious issue, with a serious chance of success.) So I think this statement is a bit subjective.

mmf 10y ago

Little known implies that if you ask 100 randomly selected people if they know if it exists, what it is and what it does, a small number, say less than 10 or so (little) will know. Did you take your educated guess at that fraction?

___ab___ 10y ago
Most concepts posted about on HN, and for that matter, discussed by the EFF, are "little-known." The inclusion of that description in the headline is obviously intended to make the reader believe that the committee is up to no good in secret, not that most people simply don't know of it.
- pdkl95 10y ago
  Why are you pretending that the EFF is writing headlines for HN? We are not the (only) intended audience. I find it very unlikely that you don't understand this.
  - justratsinacoat 10y ago
    Oh well -- the EFF knows that if they write for themselves, there'll be lower-brow comment-threads full of 'lol wtf bbq' and no one will take them seriously because they won't understand. Write accessibly, and well-read nitpickers of a HN-like brow alignment will pick apart their clickbait headlines. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
- studentrob 10y ago
  Agreed. Many things in news are little known. That's often what makes it news.
rtpg 10y ago
I don't think that's what it means in this context. I bet if you ask 100 random people, not 10 would know what Stripe is. Not 10 would know what Angular is. But would you ever describe either of those as "little known"? I think in this situation it implies that even if you're in the domain you aren't aware... and on this it's not really the case right?
- tommyman 10y ago
  and the top of this thread is now a stupid meaningless argument about a word in the title instead of talking about the issue. Well done. Can you guys take that rubbish to reddit or voat or somewhere crappy? I like reading HN, please don't make it a waste of my time. and since I'm here now I'll throw out my opinion on the meat of the story. I use Tor a lot and am not based in the US and am nor american. If America gives itself the legal ability to hack anyone, anywhere regardless of what they are doing then all american networks/nodes/people are open to hacking and posting publicly. That includes all private people, public people, everything from correspondence to baby monitor cameras. It calls for an open season against those countries whereby we air every single persons dirty laundry in as public a way as possible. It is similar to europeans like UK, where certain people there think they can hack all people everywhere, legally, with complete immunity. Excuse my parlance but fuck everything about that. That is a system balanced way too far in one direction. but hey, that guy said 'little-known' about the Judicial Conference of the United States. That's what is important to americans... Posted without Tor because I still live in a free country and am not afraid of speak up.
  - anon1385 10y ago
    If the EFF was able to write posts that weren't full of gross hyperbole and flat out untruths then every comment thread about an EFF statement wouldn't require discussion about how the EFF is misleading people. They know perfectly well what they are doing. They know it leads to people talking about the stuff they exaggerated rather than the actual issue. They know that it turns away reasonable people. They are gambling that they can whip up an ignorant mob as with SOPA. The difference there was that a bunch of high profile corporations and capitalists had a financial interest in that fight and were happy to fuel the outrage machine to get their way.

rtpg 10y ago

I agree with most of the goals of the EFF, but their blog is basically one misleading description after another for these things. A comment like yours ends up being the top comment for any links to the blog. Someone might comment that the gov't does the same thing, but that's no excuse for such intellectual dishonesty.

vcarl 10y ago
Agreed, as much as I support the ideals of the EFF, this kind of misleading scare tactic really rubs me the wrong way. It feels like they're compromising the moral high ground in order to elicit a larger response--which I understand might be the straightest path to accomplishing their goals, but it feels dirty.

guelo 10y ago

I consider myself well read and politically savvy but I had never heard of this body. When was the last time they made news outside of maybe the narrow interests of federal trial lawyers?

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
___ab___ 10y ago
My point is that the EFF (and whoever was drafting this press release) certainly knows what the Judicial Conference is, and are (is) willfully misrepresenting them through careful word choice.
- pdkl95 10y ago
  The only misrepresentation going on is this nonsense that a headline's language should be based on the knowledge of the author instead of the intended audience.
rayiner 10y ago
Java isn't something a guy on the street would recognize, but if you were writing to a lay audience, would you describe the Oracle v. Google as involving a "little known programming language? That wouldn't be good journalism. It would give the reader an inaccurate depiction of what the lawsuit is really about. It would be good lawyering, depending on which side you are on. A classic lawyering tactic is to use the most favorable (to your side) characterization of something you can justify.
- studentrob 10y ago
  > It would give the reader an inaccurate depiction of what the lawsuit is really about Yeah. Part of the EFF's job is educating us. When they add such slant they lose credibility in my book. They're still great at keeping tabs on government actions that impact tech.
  - 10y ago

DanielBMarkham 10y ago

Ok, ok. Let's get honest here. Bloggers exaggerate. And commenters like to point that out. Sometimes I hear that commenters even like to overreact to things. Got it. Now, I've been following this issue. I did not know about this committee. I daresay I could pull 100 hackers from a room and most of them wouldn't know of it either. So for purposes of "legal people", yes, you are correct. What a overstatement! But that's not the audience here, and the headline works -- and it is not an exaggeration.

drivingmenuts 10y ago
If you're a lawyer, this committee is probably common knowledge. I'd bet 99 out of 100 non-lawyers wouldn't have a clue about this group of people.

nxzero 10y ago

Honestly, sounds like you might have a conflict of interest in the matter, or haven't done your research. Only 36 percent of Americans can actually name the three branches of government the Constitution created.

maxerickson 10y ago
That lack of interest is what makes the EFF framing so ridiculous. There's nothing mysterious about the committee, it's just an implementation detail of the justice system. Calling it little known implies that people who don't even know what to call the judicial branch should for some reason know about the committee.

nxzero 10y ago

Sorry, I missed where the meeting notes where posted online. Or maybe it's that you mean secrets, when legally kept, are not secrets. Please explain.

esbranson 10y ago

> The Judicial Conference of the United States is neither a "little-known committee" or in any way secretive or shady, unless one is totally ignorant of how the judicial system works. The Judicial Conference is currently the subject of a lawsuit for being secretive, shady and duplicitous. (A serious lawsuit on a serious issue, with a serious chance of success.) So I think this statement is a bit subjective.