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The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed the initial suits, suing for information related to Hillary Clinton's e-mails. Then they w

The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed the initial suits, suing for information related to Hillary Clinton's e-mails. Then they were taken over by Clinton acolyte and hatchet-man David Brock, using his super PAC money. They have since had a, um, strategic restructuring. Incredibly, this line of inquiry has been dropped by CREW.

DanielBMarkham 10y ago
If you're interested in corruption in government, the CREW story is incredibly interesting. Most of these agencies have internal quality control and feedback systems, notably the Inspectors General. In many cases these systems are no longer working like they should. NGOs tried taking over that role. Now we're seeing the NGOs being "strategically restructured" Who's left? The press? They suck up to whomever is in power. If they don't, they get locked out. SV? All they care about is keeping the money machine going. I'm looking around and not seeing much of an answer.
- blowski 10y ago
  Perhaps forums like HN and /r/politics genuinely are the best we have.
  - DanielBMarkham 10y ago
    I think you are correct. My concern is that in the near future we're going to start seeing citizens scored on how much of a threat they are to the government. The scoring will be driven by comments in forums such as these. And that scoring system will not distinguish folks who are peaceful yet very angry from folks who are very angry and could become violent. Combine that with automated enforcement of laws and we could be in a real world of shit. I don't care which party runs the government. I'll even say screw it about how big the government is. We can have that fight another day. But over the last decade or two we're seeing the feedback systems break down. That's totally fucked. (For comparison, think about the political tornado that happened in the 70s when the U.S. intelligence services were caught screwing up. Now compare that to them being caught doing as bad or worse things over the last few years.)
    - whatok 10y ago
      Might want to take a look at this https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-future/chinas-nightmarish-citizen-scores-are-warning-americans https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-future/chinas-nightmarish-cit...
    - woodman 10y ago
      Such scoring already occurs, the most obvious example I can think of is the security clearance process. It can be argued that such a filtering is necessary in order to keep those no good commies out, but consider the sort of self protecting cultural feedback loop that creates. I always had to stifle laughter when the question was asked "Have you ever belonged to an organization that advocates the overthrow of the USG?" I'm not laughing anymore, because depending on the interpretation of a couple of words, you can face some pretty serious consequences. US Code 18 § 2385 specifies "by force or violence", but I've never heard that qualifier used. The gulf between the interviewer and interviewee has grown to the point that Janet Napolitano's report, advising LEAs of the domestic terrorism risk posed by veterans, caused a lot of soul searching among law enforcement. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2385 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2385
  - TheRealDunkirk 10y ago
    Seriously? The prevailing biases of both, while not making them completely useless, prevent them from being a useful feedback mechanism. /r/politics sure isn't going to hold HRC accountable for an illegal email server. It's why /r/the_donald has become what it is.
    - llamataboot 10y ago
      My general feeling about r/the_donald is that it is a perfect example of Poe's Law [1] driving a feedback cycle of continued irrational extremism. I used to think i had a pretty good eye/ear for spotting subtle sarcasm and trolling, but I honestly haven't been able to tell what is a serious post in that subreddit for months now. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
      - Karunamon 10y ago
        I think you may be reading it the wrong way. I've been in their IRC channel a few times - there is very little trolling happening in there, lots of genuine enthusiasm. ..combined with a stated and enforced policy of zero tolerance for public dissent, mostly as a defense mechanism from the divide-and-conquer concern trolls who tend to infest political communities. They characterize it as a "24x7 Trump Rally", and that's exactly what it is. If you're more interested in the discussion than the echo chamber, there's /r/asktrumpsupporters. You'll find little of value on the main subreddit unless you actually support the guy.
    - blowski 10y ago
      The parent asked "What's the best we have?" and I think perhaps internet forums are probably the best tool we have for holding public figures to account right now. I can definitely imagine better tools, but I don't see any that actually exist.
    - vectorpush 10y ago
      Actually, the prevailing /r/politics groupthink overwhelmingly despises HRC. You'd be forgiven for mistaking /r/politics for a Fox News discussion board were it not for all the Bernie spam. I'm not a Clinton supporter, but I think it's funny how quickly they tossed her under the bus once they caught a whiff of the bern; it's shameless. https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/search?q=clinton&restrict_sr=on&t=year https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/search?q=clinton&restrict_...
  - lobotryas 10y ago
    I hope you are joking. Popular/big subreddits are astroturfed like crazy and often have mods devoted to controlling the narrative. Example: you'll have to search long and hard before finding anything positive about Trump in r/politics. Re: HN. The comparatively smaller size and narrower focus helps. Good luck to anyone that says anything out of line with the site's group-think, however. Even if you are as respectful as possible you'll be downvoted at a minimum. Keep it up and you'll be shadowbanned in favor of "keeping the peace".
    - pg_is_a_butt 10y ago
      you're an idiot
    - jhall1468 10y ago
      > I hope you are joking. Popular/big subreddits are astroturfed like crazy and often have mods devoted to controlling the narrative. Example: you'll have to search long and hard before finding anything positive about Trump in r/politics. Astroturfing definitely explains the heavy Sanders biases at /r/politics, but the anti-Trump bias there doesn't even require astroturfing. Reddit is overwhelmingly left-leaning, significantly harder than the general public. Add that to the fact that Trump doesn't even do well in the general public, the anti-Trump narrative in /r/politics isn't even surprising.
      - tanderson92 10y ago
        I wouldn't be so quick to call the pro-Sanders bias of /r/politics astroturfing. If /r/politics is truly as left-leaning as you say (I agree), then it is expected that they would prefer Sanders ideologically over Clinton (who, 30 years ago, would be considered a moderate Republican). And that is before issues with her record come into play: the internet is exceptional at revealing politicians' flip-flops and lies. This hurts Clinton, so you'd expect more bias against her. So there is definitely a bias, but remember, this is a community which celebrates 4/20. That they'd oppose a candidate who wants to keep the consumption of marijuana as a felony should not be considered artificial.
  - woodman 10y ago
    Putting a lot of weight on the "like" part of that statement, I agree - but likely for very different reasons. I look forward to the continued trend of balkanization in political and moral thought, because the lauding of compromise has brought us to the point where we've got two parties bickering over distinctions without a difference. One is statist and the other is corporatist, both equally self protecting and resistant to social change. Looking at the GOP blessed candidates over the past several years it is easy to see why republicans have basically strapped on a dynamite vest this election cycle. I look forward to seeing the democrat equivalent who, being similarly extreme, would either be Mussolini or Jefferson.
huac 10y ago
Brock's Wikipedia article is impressively anti-Brock for someone who's spending a million dollars on pro-Clinton internet messaging.
- tanderson92 10y ago
  My hot take is that a medium like Wikipedia with its naïve penchant for sourcing and attribution is not the best place for astro-turfing and, ironically, un-Correcting The Record. Selective sourcing and misdirection is easier on twitter than on a collaborative resource like Wikipedia.
  - Torgo 10y ago
    There are ways to do it, and it is done regularly. If you have a badtruth that you want to share, you don't put it in the main article. You put it in a related article where it mentions the subject tangentially. It can fly under the radar of ideologues for a long time that way. Honestly though, this isn't an astroturfing move as much as it's a defense against the people that camp on articles removing anything that they think makes whatever their political position is look bad.
  - huac 10y ago
    Wikipedians are often wrong, but have learned to be more vigilant regarding claims about public officials. Selective sourcing and misdirection are even easier when you own the "media" outlet. Brock's takeover of Blue Nation Review is a shameless reshaping of liberal media to fit the Clinton agenda - a super PAC aligned with a candidate owning a "news" source. It's probably a smart political move this election, but along with the $1M Correct the Record push for online messaging, shows how Clinton can't gather the kind of young grassroots support that Obama and Sanders could.
    - tanderson92 10y ago
      The "organic" "cross-pollination" is perhaps the most amusing. For example, the non-organic Brock-funded "Bros 4 Hillary" group receives coverage in the Blue Nation Review, and then lauds its accomplishments in grass-roots organizing. Enough to be published even! It's nearly Kafkaesque.
toomuchtodo 10y ago
What resources are necessary to get this spun back up?
- tanderson92 10y ago
  At this point the natural successor is investigative journalism like The Intercept. Otherwise, you would need a combination of financial backing and access to the humans with correct connections to do the digging. At the moment, The Intercept fulfills this niche, but it isn't a true successor to NGOs like CREW.

DanielBMarkham 10y ago

If you're interested in corruption in government, the CREW story is incredibly interesting. Most of these agencies have internal quality control and feedback systems, notably the Inspectors General. In many cases these systems are no longer working like they should. NGOs tried taking over that role. Now we're seeing the NGOs being "strategically restructured" Who's left? The press? They suck up to whomever is in power. If they don't, they get locked out. SV? All they care about is keeping the money machine going. I'm looking around and not seeing much of an answer.

blowski 10y ago
Perhaps forums like HN and /r/politics genuinely are the best we have.
- DanielBMarkham 10y ago
  I think you are correct. My concern is that in the near future we're going to start seeing citizens scored on how much of a threat they are to the government. The scoring will be driven by comments in forums such as these. And that scoring system will not distinguish folks who are peaceful yet very angry from folks who are very angry and could become violent. Combine that with automated enforcement of laws and we could be in a real world of shit. I don't care which party runs the government. I'll even say screw it about how big the government is. We can have that fight another day. But over the last decade or two we're seeing the feedback systems break down. That's totally fucked. (For comparison, think about the political tornado that happened in the 70s when the U.S. intelligence services were caught screwing up. Now compare that to them being caught doing as bad or worse things over the last few years.)
  - whatok 10y ago
    Might want to take a look at this https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-future/chinas-nightmarish-citizen-scores-are-warning-americans https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-future/chinas-nightmarish-cit...
  - woodman 10y ago
    Such scoring already occurs, the most obvious example I can think of is the security clearance process. It can be argued that such a filtering is necessary in order to keep those no good commies out, but consider the sort of self protecting cultural feedback loop that creates. I always had to stifle laughter when the question was asked "Have you ever belonged to an organization that advocates the overthrow of the USG?" I'm not laughing anymore, because depending on the interpretation of a couple of words, you can face some pretty serious consequences. US Code 18 § 2385 specifies "by force or violence", but I've never heard that qualifier used. The gulf between the interviewer and interviewee has grown to the point that Janet Napolitano's report, advising LEAs of the domestic terrorism risk posed by veterans, caused a lot of soul searching among law enforcement. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2385 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2385
- TheRealDunkirk 10y ago
  Seriously? The prevailing biases of both, while not making them completely useless, prevent them from being a useful feedback mechanism. /r/politics sure isn't going to hold HRC accountable for an illegal email server. It's why /r/the_donald has become what it is.
  - llamataboot 10y ago
    My general feeling about r/the_donald is that it is a perfect example of Poe's Law [1] driving a feedback cycle of continued irrational extremism. I used to think i had a pretty good eye/ear for spotting subtle sarcasm and trolling, but I honestly haven't been able to tell what is a serious post in that subreddit for months now. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
    - Karunamon 10y ago
      I think you may be reading it the wrong way. I've been in their IRC channel a few times - there is very little trolling happening in there, lots of genuine enthusiasm. ..combined with a stated and enforced policy of zero tolerance for public dissent, mostly as a defense mechanism from the divide-and-conquer concern trolls who tend to infest political communities. They characterize it as a "24x7 Trump Rally", and that's exactly what it is. If you're more interested in the discussion than the echo chamber, there's /r/asktrumpsupporters. You'll find little of value on the main subreddit unless you actually support the guy.
  - blowski 10y ago
    The parent asked "What's the best we have?" and I think perhaps internet forums are probably the best tool we have for holding public figures to account right now. I can definitely imagine better tools, but I don't see any that actually exist.
  - vectorpush 10y ago
    Actually, the prevailing /r/politics groupthink overwhelmingly despises HRC. You'd be forgiven for mistaking /r/politics for a Fox News discussion board were it not for all the Bernie spam. I'm not a Clinton supporter, but I think it's funny how quickly they tossed her under the bus once they caught a whiff of the bern; it's shameless. https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/search?q=clinton&restrict_sr=on&t=year https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/search?q=clinton&restrict_...
- lobotryas 10y ago
  I hope you are joking. Popular/big subreddits are astroturfed like crazy and often have mods devoted to controlling the narrative. Example: you'll have to search long and hard before finding anything positive about Trump in r/politics. Re: HN. The comparatively smaller size and narrower focus helps. Good luck to anyone that says anything out of line with the site's group-think, however. Even if you are as respectful as possible you'll be downvoted at a minimum. Keep it up and you'll be shadowbanned in favor of "keeping the peace".
  - pg_is_a_butt 10y ago
    you're an idiot
  - jhall1468 10y ago
    > I hope you are joking. Popular/big subreddits are astroturfed like crazy and often have mods devoted to controlling the narrative. Example: you'll have to search long and hard before finding anything positive about Trump in r/politics. Astroturfing definitely explains the heavy Sanders biases at /r/politics, but the anti-Trump bias there doesn't even require astroturfing. Reddit is overwhelmingly left-leaning, significantly harder than the general public. Add that to the fact that Trump doesn't even do well in the general public, the anti-Trump narrative in /r/politics isn't even surprising.
    - tanderson92 10y ago
      I wouldn't be so quick to call the pro-Sanders bias of /r/politics astroturfing. If /r/politics is truly as left-leaning as you say (I agree), then it is expected that they would prefer Sanders ideologically over Clinton (who, 30 years ago, would be considered a moderate Republican). And that is before issues with her record come into play: the internet is exceptional at revealing politicians' flip-flops and lies. This hurts Clinton, so you'd expect more bias against her. So there is definitely a bias, but remember, this is a community which celebrates 4/20. That they'd oppose a candidate who wants to keep the consumption of marijuana as a felony should not be considered artificial.
- woodman 10y ago
  Putting a lot of weight on the "like" part of that statement, I agree - but likely for very different reasons. I look forward to the continued trend of balkanization in political and moral thought, because the lauding of compromise has brought us to the point where we've got two parties bickering over distinctions without a difference. One is statist and the other is corporatist, both equally self protecting and resistant to social change. Looking at the GOP blessed candidates over the past several years it is easy to see why republicans have basically strapped on a dynamite vest this election cycle. I look forward to seeing the democrat equivalent who, being similarly extreme, would either be Mussolini or Jefferson.

huac 10y ago

Brock's Wikipedia article is impressively anti-Brock for someone who's spending a million dollars on pro-Clinton internet messaging.

tanderson92 10y ago
My hot take is that a medium like Wikipedia with its naïve penchant for sourcing and attribution is not the best place for astro-turfing and, ironically, un-Correcting The Record. Selective sourcing and misdirection is easier on twitter than on a collaborative resource like Wikipedia.
- Torgo 10y ago
  There are ways to do it, and it is done regularly. If you have a badtruth that you want to share, you don't put it in the main article. You put it in a related article where it mentions the subject tangentially. It can fly under the radar of ideologues for a long time that way. Honestly though, this isn't an astroturfing move as much as it's a defense against the people that camp on articles removing anything that they think makes whatever their political position is look bad.
- huac 10y ago
  Wikipedians are often wrong, but have learned to be more vigilant regarding claims about public officials. Selective sourcing and misdirection are even easier when you own the "media" outlet. Brock's takeover of Blue Nation Review is a shameless reshaping of liberal media to fit the Clinton agenda - a super PAC aligned with a candidate owning a "news" source. It's probably a smart political move this election, but along with the $1M Correct the Record push for online messaging, shows how Clinton can't gather the kind of young grassroots support that Obama and Sanders could.
  - tanderson92 10y ago
    The "organic" "cross-pollination" is perhaps the most amusing. For example, the non-organic Brock-funded "Bros 4 Hillary" group receives coverage in the Blue Nation Review, and then lauds its accomplishments in grass-roots organizing. Enough to be published even! It's nearly Kafkaesque.

toomuchtodo 10y ago

What resources are necessary to get this spun back up?

tanderson92 10y ago
At this point the natural successor is investigative journalism like The Intercept. Otherwise, you would need a combination of financial backing and access to the humans with correct connections to do the digging. At the moment, The Intercept fulfills this niche, but it isn't a true successor to NGOs like CREW.