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> The U.S. government concluded within the last two years that Israel was most likely behind > But unlike most other occasions I don't know if im spoiled by W

> The U.S. government concluded within the last two years that Israel was most likely behind > But unlike most other occasions I don't know if im spoiled by Wikipedia, or jaded from age, or wisened by age, or rightfully lost trust in the media, or wrongfully lost trust in the media, but i find myself entirely unwilling to accept to accept claims like this. Citation. Needed. In order to believe this article, i need to learn about this publication, and then learn about the author, and then learn about this article specifically. This shit is so much work. We need a new reporting format. Citationless articles are too infotainment-y for me now.

shliachtx 7y ago
Agreed. This is the same publication that insisted that a shadowy Jewish cabal is controlling Trump at Putin's behest. Edit: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/04/the-happy-go-lucky-jewish-group-that-connects-trump-and-putin-215007 https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/04/the-happy-go... (The original hero image has been changed to something less ominous) https://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/229930/politicos-dubious-chabad-story-receives-widespread-criticism https://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/229930/politicos-dubious-ch...
- jasonlotito 7y ago
  It's funny that you would post something like that without citation under a comment talking about citations.
  - shliachtx 7y ago
    You are right, I've updated my comment with sources.
- 9HZZRfNlpR 7y ago
  Unfortunately very standard cherry picking facts article, the sad part is that it matched with the conspiracies of jews running the world. Unfortunately a lot of journalism coming from the American left lately gives me those American right wing radio vibes where everyone's the enemy, connected, planning to get you. I'm not American but it seems the two party system is absolutely ripping your country and society apart, but then again people say that this has worked well in the history and things balance out. Hard to take a rational view when things are emotional all around the world, people connected more than ever.
  - Kaiyou 7y ago
    As the saying goes, it's not paranoia if they really are out to get you.
habnds 7y ago
Citations in journalism is a really interesting thing. Unlike science, where at least in theory, everything is built from the ground up using first principles or built upon raw data collected, the "raw data" of journalism is just various types of conversations with people the journalist then has to verify, and gauge the reliability of. In other cases it's the journalists first person experience of an event. Citations, (IMHO) aren't a solution to this because human judgement is inherent in explaining human behavior and events. I personally don't think efforts to "fix the news" as a result of facebook or whatever make a lot of sense in this context. Instead, consumers of news need to habitually engage in the process that you call too much work. I agree that it's a lot of work, but I don't see an alternative to critically engaging with reporting on human events.
- roenxi 7y ago
  Wikipedia does context amazingly well. If I go to the Wikipedia article on sandals I not only get information on sandals, I get information about why people might want to look at an article on sandals (eg, infectious disease control) and if I care to drill a little deeper a list of all the people who cared enough about sandals to edit the article. And a talk page to cover any controversies although sandals appear to be an uncontroversial subject. Jumping to this article however I lose 80% of that. This article is light on that data and metadata. I can't tell much about the author (I can see his last 5 articles though) and I certainly can't tell what is primary research or not. Did this journalist see the 'cell-phone surveillance devices'? Is he working off a press release? Are there challenges to this narrative viewpoint? Is this written more out of a sense of entertainment or is there an effort being made not to embellish facts? I'm going to guess that GP meant 'Citation needed' in a slightly broader sense than just name-the-source. There is a whole culture of open metadata and transparency that has grown up in the last two decades that is simply better than journalism. Wikipedia is trustworthy because the slightest suspicion can be investigated. It is frustrating to think that we are going to rely on journalism for political information when the articles are simply devoid of political context in the sense that is freely available on Wikipedia.
  - bakuninsbart 7y ago
Miner49er 7y ago
I think the source is the "former official". I'd imagine that most of the time when allies are caught spying on the U.S. the public doesn't get to know about it, so it might not be possible to source that claim without talking to someone with inside knowledge of this stuff.
jakelazaroff 7y ago
Both quotes cite their sources — “former senior U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter” — in the parts of the sentence you cut off: > The U.S. government concluded within the last two years that Israel was most likely behind the placement of cell-phone surveillance devices that were found near the White House and other sensitive locations around Washington, D.C., according to three former senior U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter. > But unlike most other occasions when flagrant incidents of foreign spying have been discovered on American soil, the Trump administration did not rebuke the Israeli government, and there were no consequences for Israel’s behavior, one of the former officials said. It’s not clear from the second quote alone that “unlike other occasions” is part of their sources comments or the author’s contextualizing. Luckily, they clarify later in the article: > The former senior intelligence official criticized how the administration handled the matter, remarking on the striking difference from past administrations, which likely would have at a very minimum issued a démarche, or formal diplomatic reprimand, to the foreign government condemning its actions. Whether or not you trust Politico is another thing. But don’t claim they’re not citing their sources when they very clearly are.
- creaghpatr 7y ago
  >according to three former senior U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter. It would matter if there were any substance to the claims, it might make sense. But instead, the article goes a step further as you quote here: >> The former senior intelligence official criticized how the administration handled the matter, remarking on the striking difference from past administrations, which likely would have at a very minimum issued a démarche, or formal diplomatic reprimand, to the foreign government condemning its actions. This take, of course, hinges on the premise being correct, which there is no substance to prove it is. This is classic oppo laundering.
  - dullgiulio 7y ago
    It is not so hard to imagine why the source would like to remain anonymous.
    - 7y ago
bhouston 7y ago
Nothing about this article seems untrustworthy. Politico is a highly trustworthy paper that had real reporters who talk to real people all over the US government and it references real events and people and papers all throughout this article. Your comment seems out of place.
- nosianu 7y ago
  > Nothing about this article seems untrustworthy. You got it reversed. What about it seems trustworthy? Russel's teapot and all that, the one making claims has to prove it, not others have to disprove it. > Politico is a highly trustworthy paper Trust-proof should be per-concrete-article, not per publication. > Your comment seems out of place. [Citation needed] :-) -- Seriously, I don't see anything wrong. Okay, you dislike the opinion, I get it.
  - habnds 7y ago
    Isn't the reputation of a publication a legitimate part of evaluating an article? Your attitude seems very close to a position that we can never truly know anything.
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      No, GP's position seems to be closer to "actually being sure about something requires more evidence than has been given".
      - Faark 7y ago
        To me it feels more like "more evidence can ever realistically be available, especially on intelligence operations, thus i can just ignore articles with content I don't like". Especially the attack on reputation worries me, since this is pretty much the only thing left to go on for average humans without unlimited time.
        habnds 7y ago
SllX 7y ago
Quick and easy way to deal with this: disregard the daily news entirely unless it profits you. Israel left listening devices around the White House? Big if true, but we have the Department of State, Intelligence Community and Department of Defense to deal with this crap in approximately that order. If it turns into anything big or is part of something bigger, someday there will be a book about it. News in all its forms is a product. Either the product has value to you, or it doesn’t. If a piece of news has value to you, you will find a way to verify the claims, either personally or getting someone else to do the grunt work for you.
- Udik 7y ago
  > Big if true, but we have the Department of State, Intelligence Community and Department of Defense to deal with this crap in approximately that order. The big news here is that nothing happened and nothing is gonna happen. People should start getting some clues from what should happen, and yet doesn't. Edit: at the time of this edit, the news is already on the front page of the Guardian and the BBC. Completely absent from the NYTimes and Washington Post. Pay attention to what doesn't happen.
  - wbl 7y ago
    Spying is part of life. We do it, they do it, everybody foes it.
    - Udik 7y ago
      When was the last time that British or German spies were caught spying on the US president? And even in that case, the relationship between the US and Israel is a unique one: as one swears to be the best friend ever of the other, while enjoying lavish funding and unwavering political protection. While the president of the US can accuse people who vote for the opposition to be disloyal to Israel. That is, disloyal to a foreign country.
      - nradov 7y ago
        The UK is part of the "Five Eyes" intelligence alliance and as such has no real need to spy on the US president. I would assume that Germany is spying on the US but just hasn't been caught (at least not publicly).
Zenst 7y ago
When you have spy level investigations, the bias towards implicating a state actor over organised crime is most prevalent. Indeed in this case, they felt it was most likely without quantifying why they thought that was so. A trend we see play out many times. Then you add the government secrecy and just get the answer without any workings out. Hence it is right to question the answer. More so when it is often worked most gray by terms like "most likely". Then you always get some random official making a more solidified claim without any further evidence at all making a more solid case "“It was pretty clear that the Israelis were responsible,” said a former senior intelligence official." and the press will just roll with that. Did they do due diligence - yes they will say as they asked somebody else. Do we have definitive proof - nope. But this is a pattern that plays out many a time. It also ignores how such devices could of been used to spy upon others, found and then planted to cause embarrassment at a higher level - That's spycraft for you, happens. But the take away question I have is - why do reporters always fallback upon EX-staff members for quotes, how many did they ask until they got the answer they wanted? That is one area that totally erodes most credibility to the discerning eye and yet is often used by the media to support some direction or another.
aaron695 7y ago
This has been reported on before and it seems many countries possibly ran sting rays in Washington. It's maybe normal. The article might be both technically right and fake. Potential Spy Devices Which Track Cellphones, Intercept Calls Found All Over D.C., Md., Va. https://www.nbcwashington.com/investigations/Potential-Spy-Devices-Which-Track-Cellphones-Intercept-Calls-Found-All-Over-DC-Md-Va-482970231.html https://www.nbcwashington.com/investigations/Potential-Spy-D...
guelo 7y ago
What kind of citation would make you believe that the US government concluded it was Israel? Or about the other occasions? A lot of times when people don't like a story they shoot the messenger.
dev_dull 7y ago
And then learn about the technology, and learn about the attribution. If there’s anything I learned from the governments attribution of the DNC “hacking”, it’s that government attribution is crap. Go ahead and search for the actual evidence used in that attribution (good luck finding anything other than click bait MSM). It’s almost as laughable as the evidence in “trump tower server back channel to Russia”. For any security-minded folks it will be good for a laugh.
decoyworker 7y ago
It cites "three former senior U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter". Further down it cites a former senior intelligence official. Do you need me to explain why sources might not want to be named?
caseysoftware 7y ago
My rule of thumb for modern reporting is when they use the word "unprecedented" it probably isn't. And sure enough, if you look for it, similar things happened 5, 10, or 20 years ago. Whether the journalist is ignorant or lying, it doesn't matter. Their first job is to get the facts correct. If those are wrong, nothing else matters.
ur-whale 7y ago
Do a startup that puts news on the blockchain. Include SHA512 of pictures and video of eyewitnesses of said piece of news.
- shrimp_emoji 7y ago
  What if a deepfake got in your blockchain?
  - ur-whale 7y ago
    Good point, but at least for now, video deepfakes can still be detected via machine learning. Also, deepfakes work well for replacing faces, but not yet for synthesizing actual videos of complex scenes (like crowds) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMZkLVBhcig https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMZkLVBhcig But then you're right, it won't take long before that's possible. Whether we can continue sniffing out deepfakes with ML is unclear.
- chubasco 7y ago
  I actually had a similar idea to discourage certain news outlets from posting inflammatory but misleading or untrue headlines and articles for clicks, and then later changing them to something more factually correct after the damage has been done.
onetimemanytime 7y ago
No citation I think in such cases, unless Israel makes fools of USA and they leak what they have.
dlphn___xyz 7y ago
its doesn't seem too far fetched given the history of israeli spying in the US - citation or not.
not_a_cop75 7y ago
Here we go. The IDF will accept any article except ones that criticize Israel and then MUST require citation.

shliachtx 7y ago

Agreed. This is the same publication that insisted that a shadowy Jewish cabal is controlling Trump at Putin's behest. Edit: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/04/the-happy-go-lucky-jewish-group-that-connects-trump-and-putin-215007 https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/04/the-happy-go... (The original hero image has been changed to something less ominous) https://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/229930/politicos-dubious-chabad-story-receives-widespread-criticism https://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/229930/politicos-dubious-ch...

jasonlotito 7y ago
It's funny that you would post something like that without citation under a comment talking about citations.
- shliachtx 7y ago
  You are right, I've updated my comment with sources.
9HZZRfNlpR 7y ago
Unfortunately very standard cherry picking facts article, the sad part is that it matched with the conspiracies of jews running the world. Unfortunately a lot of journalism coming from the American left lately gives me those American right wing radio vibes where everyone's the enemy, connected, planning to get you. I'm not American but it seems the two party system is absolutely ripping your country and society apart, but then again people say that this has worked well in the history and things balance out. Hard to take a rational view when things are emotional all around the world, people connected more than ever.
- Kaiyou 7y ago
  As the saying goes, it's not paranoia if they really are out to get you.

habnds 7y ago

Citations in journalism is a really interesting thing. Unlike science, where at least in theory, everything is built from the ground up using first principles or built upon raw data collected, the "raw data" of journalism is just various types of conversations with people the journalist then has to verify, and gauge the reliability of. In other cases it's the journalists first person experience of an event. Citations, (IMHO) aren't a solution to this because human judgement is inherent in explaining human behavior and events. I personally don't think efforts to "fix the news" as a result of facebook or whatever make a lot of sense in this context. Instead, consumers of news need to habitually engage in the process that you call too much work. I agree that it's a lot of work, but I don't see an alternative to critically engaging with reporting on human events.

roenxi 7y ago
Wikipedia does context amazingly well. If I go to the Wikipedia article on sandals I not only get information on sandals, I get information about why people might want to look at an article on sandals (eg, infectious disease control) and if I care to drill a little deeper a list of all the people who cared enough about sandals to edit the article. And a talk page to cover any controversies although sandals appear to be an uncontroversial subject. Jumping to this article however I lose 80% of that. This article is light on that data and metadata. I can't tell much about the author (I can see his last 5 articles though) and I certainly can't tell what is primary research or not. Did this journalist see the 'cell-phone surveillance devices'? Is he working off a press release? Are there challenges to this narrative viewpoint? Is this written more out of a sense of entertainment or is there an effort being made not to embellish facts? I'm going to guess that GP meant 'Citation needed' in a slightly broader sense than just name-the-source. There is a whole culture of open metadata and transparency that has grown up in the last two decades that is simply better than journalism. Wikipedia is trustworthy because the slightest suspicion can be investigated. It is frustrating to think that we are going to rely on journalism for political information when the articles are simply devoid of political context in the sense that is freely available on Wikipedia.
- bakuninsbart 7y ago

Miner49er 7y ago

I think the source is the "former official". I'd imagine that most of the time when allies are caught spying on the U.S. the public doesn't get to know about it, so it might not be possible to source that claim without talking to someone with inside knowledge of this stuff.

jakelazaroff 7y ago

Both quotes cite their sources — “former senior U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter” — in the parts of the sentence you cut off: > The U.S. government concluded within the last two years that Israel was most likely behind the placement of cell-phone surveillance devices that were found near the White House and other sensitive locations around Washington, D.C., according to three former senior U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter. > But unlike most other occasions when flagrant incidents of foreign spying have been discovered on American soil, the Trump administration did not rebuke the Israeli government, and there were no consequences for Israel’s behavior, one of the former officials said. It’s not clear from the second quote alone that “unlike other occasions” is part of their sources comments or the author’s contextualizing. Luckily, they clarify later in the article: > The former senior intelligence official criticized how the administration handled the matter, remarking on the striking difference from past administrations, which likely would have at a very minimum issued a démarche, or formal diplomatic reprimand, to the foreign government condemning its actions. Whether or not you trust Politico is another thing. But don’t claim they’re not citing their sources when they very clearly are.

creaghpatr 7y ago
>according to three former senior U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter. It would matter if there were any substance to the claims, it might make sense. But instead, the article goes a step further as you quote here: >> The former senior intelligence official criticized how the administration handled the matter, remarking on the striking difference from past administrations, which likely would have at a very minimum issued a démarche, or formal diplomatic reprimand, to the foreign government condemning its actions. This take, of course, hinges on the premise being correct, which there is no substance to prove it is. This is classic oppo laundering.
- dullgiulio 7y ago
  It is not so hard to imagine why the source would like to remain anonymous.
  - 7y ago

bhouston 7y ago

Nothing about this article seems untrustworthy. Politico is a highly trustworthy paper that had real reporters who talk to real people all over the US government and it references real events and people and papers all throughout this article. Your comment seems out of place.

nosianu 7y ago
> Nothing about this article seems untrustworthy. You got it reversed. What about it seems trustworthy? Russel's teapot and all that, the one making claims has to prove it, not others have to disprove it. > Politico is a highly trustworthy paper Trust-proof should be per-concrete-article, not per publication. > Your comment seems out of place. [Citation needed] :-) -- Seriously, I don't see anything wrong. Okay, you dislike the opinion, I get it.
- habnds 7y ago
  Isn't the reputation of a publication a legitimate part of evaluating an article? Your attitude seems very close to a position that we can never truly know anything.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    No, GP's position seems to be closer to "actually being sure about something requires more evidence than has been given".
    - Faark 7y ago
      To me it feels more like "more evidence can ever realistically be available, especially on intelligence operations, thus i can just ignore articles with content I don't like". Especially the attack on reputation worries me, since this is pretty much the only thing left to go on for average humans without unlimited time.
      - habnds 7y ago

SllX 7y ago

Quick and easy way to deal with this: disregard the daily news entirely unless it profits you. Israel left listening devices around the White House? Big if true, but we have the Department of State, Intelligence Community and Department of Defense to deal with this crap in approximately that order. If it turns into anything big or is part of something bigger, someday there will be a book about it. News in all its forms is a product. Either the product has value to you, or it doesn’t. If a piece of news has value to you, you will find a way to verify the claims, either personally or getting someone else to do the grunt work for you.

Udik 7y ago
> Big if true, but we have the Department of State, Intelligence Community and Department of Defense to deal with this crap in approximately that order. The big news here is that nothing happened and nothing is gonna happen. People should start getting some clues from what should happen, and yet doesn't. Edit: at the time of this edit, the news is already on the front page of the Guardian and the BBC. Completely absent from the NYTimes and Washington Post. Pay attention to what doesn't happen.
- wbl 7y ago
  Spying is part of life. We do it, they do it, everybody foes it.
  - Udik 7y ago
    When was the last time that British or German spies were caught spying on the US president? And even in that case, the relationship between the US and Israel is a unique one: as one swears to be the best friend ever of the other, while enjoying lavish funding and unwavering political protection. While the president of the US can accuse people who vote for the opposition to be disloyal to Israel. That is, disloyal to a foreign country.
    - nradov 7y ago
      The UK is part of the "Five Eyes" intelligence alliance and as such has no real need to spy on the US president. I would assume that Germany is spying on the US but just hasn't been caught (at least not publicly).

Zenst 7y ago

When you have spy level investigations, the bias towards implicating a state actor over organised crime is most prevalent. Indeed in this case, they felt it was most likely without quantifying why they thought that was so. A trend we see play out many times. Then you add the government secrecy and just get the answer without any workings out. Hence it is right to question the answer. More so when it is often worked most gray by terms like "most likely". Then you always get some random official making a more solidified claim without any further evidence at all making a more solid case "“It was pretty clear that the Israelis were responsible,” said a former senior intelligence official." and the press will just roll with that. Did they do due diligence - yes they will say as they asked somebody else. Do we have definitive proof - nope. But this is a pattern that plays out many a time. It also ignores how such devices could of been used to spy upon others, found and then planted to cause embarrassment at a higher level - That's spycraft for you, happens. But the take away question I have is - why do reporters always fallback upon EX-staff members for quotes, how many did they ask until they got the answer they wanted? That is one area that totally erodes most credibility to the discerning eye and yet is often used by the media to support some direction or another.

aaron695 7y ago

This has been reported on before and it seems many countries possibly ran sting rays in Washington. It's maybe normal. The article might be both technically right and fake. Potential Spy Devices Which Track Cellphones, Intercept Calls Found All Over D.C., Md., Va. https://www.nbcwashington.com/investigations/Potential-Spy-Devices-Which-Track-Cellphones-Intercept-Calls-Found-All-Over-DC-Md-Va-482970231.html https://www.nbcwashington.com/investigations/Potential-Spy-D...

guelo 7y ago

What kind of citation would make you believe that the US government concluded it was Israel? Or about the other occasions? A lot of times when people don't like a story they shoot the messenger.

dev_dull 7y ago

And then learn about the technology, and learn about the attribution. If there’s anything I learned from the governments attribution of the DNC “hacking”, it’s that government attribution is crap. Go ahead and search for the actual evidence used in that attribution (good luck finding anything other than click bait MSM). It’s almost as laughable as the evidence in “trump tower server back channel to Russia”. For any security-minded folks it will be good for a laugh.

decoyworker 7y ago

It cites "three former senior U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter". Further down it cites a former senior intelligence official. Do you need me to explain why sources might not want to be named?

caseysoftware 7y ago

My rule of thumb for modern reporting is when they use the word "unprecedented" it probably isn't. And sure enough, if you look for it, similar things happened 5, 10, or 20 years ago. Whether the journalist is ignorant or lying, it doesn't matter. Their first job is to get the facts correct. If those are wrong, nothing else matters.

ur-whale 7y ago

Do a startup that puts news on the blockchain. Include SHA512 of pictures and video of eyewitnesses of said piece of news.

shrimp_emoji 7y ago
What if a deepfake got in your blockchain?
- ur-whale 7y ago
  Good point, but at least for now, video deepfakes can still be detected via machine learning. Also, deepfakes work well for replacing faces, but not yet for synthesizing actual videos of complex scenes (like crowds) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMZkLVBhcig https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMZkLVBhcig But then you're right, it won't take long before that's possible. Whether we can continue sniffing out deepfakes with ML is unclear.
chubasco 7y ago
I actually had a similar idea to discourage certain news outlets from posting inflammatory but misleading or untrue headlines and articles for clicks, and then later changing them to something more factually correct after the damage has been done.

onetimemanytime 7y ago

No citation I think in such cases, unless Israel makes fools of USA and they leak what they have.

dlphn___xyz 7y ago

its doesn't seem too far fetched given the history of israeli spying in the US - citation or not.

not_a_cop75 7y ago

Here we go. The IDF will accept any article except ones that criticize Israel and then MUST require citation.