6 ms·

Greenwald: The secret services are spying on politicians with oversight roles

trompetenaccoun 5y ago
I'm curious why this is left up but another post containing a similar link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJeDVgmcKJI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJeDVgmcKJI) was almost immediately removed earlier today. Are political topics allowed/removed based on personal preference?
- skrebbel 5y ago
  Likely it got flagged too much too quickly. I have no clue how it went down, I'm just a rando HN commenter, but don't ascribe to careless human moderation that which can be adequately explained by automated moderation. There's definitely a sizable crowd that prefers HN to be more about hacking and less about politics, let alone divisive discussions about intelligence services, the person of Glenn Greenwald and so on. Also I wouldn't be surprised if HN has a lower flag->dead threshold for video links.
  - trompetenaccoun 5y ago
    So when posts get flagged to much they get auto-removed? If true that seems like a questionable policy. It puts the judgement over right or wrong in the hands of the majority mob, while it's very important for a mind or community to get exposed to contrarian points of view. I'm newish to HN so it's a genuine question, I've not observed enough moderation here to really know how it works. It's the first time I've seen a post disappear and since this is the kind of topic that gets censored on other social media sites it made me suspicious.
    - torstenvl 5y ago
      It puts the judgment over right or wrong for Hacker News in the hands of the majority of people on Hacker News. I'm pretty sure being-on-the-front-page-of-HN is not a measure of moral judgment.
      - trompetenaccoun 5y ago
        Think might be a misunderstanding. I'm referring to a post that got removed, not one that was simply unpopular. There is no issue with the voting mechanism.
        krapp 5y ago
        Flagging of articles is done by users, not moderators, and it takes very little effort to flag an article, by design. Many people here consider politics categorically off topic (which it really isn't) and will flag such articles on principle.
        trompetenaccoun 5y ago
        Ok, apparently flagging can lead to automatic removal, I understand that now. But how exactly? It's not explained anywhere. How many flags are needed for a submission to get auto-removed? >and it takes very little effort to flag an article, by design. I'm sure I don't have to tell anyone on HN how such a design can be easily abused. A single entity could get undesirable submissions removed by running multiple accounts.
        krapp 5y ago
        >But how exactly? It's not explained anywhere. How many flags are needed for a submission to get auto-removed? Nothing is really removed from HN, only marked invisible. You can see it if you turn the showdead option on in your profile. And you can contact the mods in the email field below but they tend not to give specific details. >A single entity could get undesirable submissions removed by running multiple accounts. Sure, but this forum is so aggressively moderated that it really wouldn't matter. If the mods feel a story doesn't deserve to be flagged, they'll unflag it. If they feel it doesn't deserve to be as popular as it is, they'll sink it. Users will flag and downvote for any number of reasons (since there are no guidelines for voting here.) There are so many invisible strings being pulled on these threads that it's impossible to read any specific motive into anything.
      - 5y ago
    - loopz 5y ago
      HN is pretty selective with what gets scored high and not flagged. Guidelines explain most of it for starters (read links at bottom of HN page): https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html 3 letter agencies can be interesting, though spying is not news in general.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- hulitu 5y ago
  There are a lot of 3 letter agencies employees employed to sanitize the image of the agencies very active (also) on HN.
  - alisonkisk 5y ago
    This is absurd. The alleged perpetrators are doing an absolutely terrible job.
    - MichaelMoser123 5y ago
      i am not sure they are doing a bad job, this story was up on the front page for half and hour and then it got flagged.
      - krapp 5y ago
        Hacker News criticizes to outright rants against three letter agencies, governments, the media and the military industrial complex all the time. The fact that we're in such a thread openly discussing a flagged article demonstrates that any attempts to "sanitize" or suppress information aren't really working.
- BrianOnHN 5y ago
  You can track this here https://upvotetracker.com/ https://upvotetracker.com/
- dang 5y ago
  Users flagged both of them. If you see an A which goes one way and B which goes another way, don't forget randomness as a possible explanation—it's actually the leading factor. Not all political submissions are off topic on HN, but most are. Many past explanations of how we approach this question are at https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=political%20overlap%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so....
busymom0 5y ago
From the NYTimes 2014 archives: https://archive.is/H31EB https://archive.is/H31EB > Inquiry by C.I.A. Affirms It Spied on Senate Panel — An internal investigation by the C.I.A. has found that its officers penetrated a computer network used by the Senate Intelligence Committee in preparing its damning report on the C.I.A.’s detention and interrogation program. > The report by the agency’s inspector general also found that C.I.A. officers read the emails of the Senate investigators and sent a criminal referral to the Justice Department based on false information, according to a summary of findings made public on Thursday. One official with knowledge of the report’s conclusions said the investigation also discovered that the officers created a false online identity to gain access on more than one occasion to computers used by the committee staff.
- fundad 5y ago
  DOJ also spied on Dem lawmakers and unmasked their family members. Glad to see Republicans pretending to care about this.
  - busymom0 5y ago
    Obama spied on multiple journalists including associated press and fox news. Obama's DOJ spied on Trump, his family and his campaign associates and unmasked them. He along with Biden also unmasked General Flynn. Kevin Clinesmith, an FBI lawyer, fabricated emails to get FISA warrants on Carter Page and spied on them. Clinesmith didn't even get any prison sentence and is going back to practicing law next month. Adam Schiff published the phone records of the president's personal attorneys, a journalist, a fellow lawmaker, a National Security Council aide, and others. As of last week, Biden's doj spied, unmasked and leaked Tucker Carlson's email to Axios. So lets not be partisans and pretend that this is a Republican specific thing.
seniorivn 5y ago
it seems everybody on HN would already know this
- convery 5y ago
  Well, ye, it's not news. But it'll keep happening and be reported on over and over as no politician wants to be the next JFK.
- MichaelMoser123 5y ago
  if they spy on each other then they might enter infinite recursion, until they run out of stack space.
  - Yoric 5y ago
    Well, given that spying involves lots of tailing, one can hope that the recursion is optimized away.
    - MichaelMoser123 5y ago
      not if they do it in python.
dogsboywonder 5y ago
For anyone who’s dealt with political systems - locally, statewide, federal - corruption and private interest at every level of these organizations are ubiquitous.
- JohnDeHope 5y ago
  For anyone who’s dealt with human systems, corruption and private interest at every level is ubiquitous.
  - Yoofie 5y ago
    Especially where others have broad power or control over others, such as local, state & federal governments.
Traster 5y ago
A 30 second clip from fox news really isn't HN material.
- MichaelMoser123 5y ago
  even if Glenn Greenwald is doing the talking? He broke the story on Edward Snowden, he even got the Pulitzer price for that.
  - Brian_K_White 5y ago
    Yes. And correctly. Find any other packaging of Greenwald's important message. Surely Greenwald did not choose to release an important message only through Fox or Carlson. Greenwald is on Fox to speak to people who would otherwise never hear a message from anyone like Greenwald. Not so that a reasonable person can conclude that Fox is as valid a source of info as any other.
  - bb88 5y ago
    To be fair, Snowden reached out to Greenwald according to the documentary. That said, Greenwald's reporting on it was excellent. What I found disappointing, is that Greenwald published the story without making sure Snowden had a place to land outside the reach of US jurisdiction -- regardless of any decision made between the two. Breaking the story is one thing, but doing the right thing for your source is another -- even if it means not being able to break the story first.

I'm curious why this is left up but another post containing a similar link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJeDVgmcKJI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJeDVgmcKJI) was almost immediately removed earlier today. Are political topics allowed/removed based on personal preference?

skrebbel 5y ago
Likely it got flagged too much too quickly. I have no clue how it went down, I'm just a rando HN commenter, but don't ascribe to careless human moderation that which can be adequately explained by automated moderation. There's definitely a sizable crowd that prefers HN to be more about hacking and less about politics, let alone divisive discussions about intelligence services, the person of Glenn Greenwald and so on. Also I wouldn't be surprised if HN has a lower flag->dead threshold for video links.
- trompetenaccoun 5y ago
  So when posts get flagged to much they get auto-removed? If true that seems like a questionable policy. It puts the judgement over right or wrong in the hands of the majority mob, while it's very important for a mind or community to get exposed to contrarian points of view. I'm newish to HN so it's a genuine question, I've not observed enough moderation here to really know how it works. It's the first time I've seen a post disappear and since this is the kind of topic that gets censored on other social media sites it made me suspicious.
  - torstenvl 5y ago
    It puts the judgment over right or wrong for Hacker News in the hands of the majority of people on Hacker News. I'm pretty sure being-on-the-front-page-of-HN is not a measure of moral judgment.
    - trompetenaccoun 5y ago
      Think might be a misunderstanding. I'm referring to a post that got removed, not one that was simply unpopular. There is no issue with the voting mechanism.
      - krapp 5y ago
        Flagging of articles is done by users, not moderators, and it takes very little effort to flag an article, by design. Many people here consider politics categorically off topic (which it really isn't) and will flag such articles on principle.
        trompetenaccoun 5y ago
        Ok, apparently flagging can lead to automatic removal, I understand that now. But how exactly? It's not explained anywhere. How many flags are needed for a submission to get auto-removed? >and it takes very little effort to flag an article, by design. I'm sure I don't have to tell anyone on HN how such a design can be easily abused. A single entity could get undesirable submissions removed by running multiple accounts.
        krapp 5y ago
        >But how exactly? It's not explained anywhere. How many flags are needed for a submission to get auto-removed? Nothing is really removed from HN, only marked invisible. You can see it if you turn the showdead option on in your profile. And you can contact the mods in the email field below but they tend not to give specific details. >A single entity could get undesirable submissions removed by running multiple accounts. Sure, but this forum is so aggressively moderated that it really wouldn't matter. If the mods feel a story doesn't deserve to be flagged, they'll unflag it. If they feel it doesn't deserve to be as popular as it is, they'll sink it. Users will flag and downvote for any number of reasons (since there are no guidelines for voting here.) There are so many invisible strings being pulled on these threads that it's impossible to read any specific motive into anything.
    - 5y ago
  - loopz 5y ago
    HN is pretty selective with what gets scored high and not flagged. Guidelines explain most of it for starters (read links at bottom of HN page): https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html 3 letter agencies can be interesting, though spying is not news in general.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
hulitu 5y ago
There are a lot of 3 letter agencies employees employed to sanitize the image of the agencies very active (also) on HN.
- alisonkisk 5y ago
  This is absurd. The alleged perpetrators are doing an absolutely terrible job.
  - MichaelMoser123 5y ago
    i am not sure they are doing a bad job, this story was up on the front page for half and hour and then it got flagged.
    - krapp 5y ago
      Hacker News criticizes to outright rants against three letter agencies, governments, the media and the military industrial complex all the time. The fact that we're in such a thread openly discussing a flagged article demonstrates that any attempts to "sanitize" or suppress information aren't really working.
BrianOnHN 5y ago
You can track this here https://upvotetracker.com/ https://upvotetracker.com/
dang 5y ago
Users flagged both of them. If you see an A which goes one way and B which goes another way, don't forget randomness as a possible explanation—it's actually the leading factor. Not all political submissions are off topic on HN, but most are. Many past explanations of how we approach this question are at https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=political%20overlap%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so....

busymom0 5y ago

From the NYTimes 2014 archives: https://archive.is/H31EB https://archive.is/H31EB > Inquiry by C.I.A. Affirms It Spied on Senate Panel — An internal investigation by the C.I.A. has found that its officers penetrated a computer network used by the Senate Intelligence Committee in preparing its damning report on the C.I.A.’s detention and interrogation program. > The report by the agency’s inspector general also found that C.I.A. officers read the emails of the Senate investigators and sent a criminal referral to the Justice Department based on false information, according to a summary of findings made public on Thursday. One official with knowledge of the report’s conclusions said the investigation also discovered that the officers created a false online identity to gain access on more than one occasion to computers used by the committee staff.

fundad 5y ago
DOJ also spied on Dem lawmakers and unmasked their family members. Glad to see Republicans pretending to care about this.
- busymom0 5y ago
  Obama spied on multiple journalists including associated press and fox news. Obama's DOJ spied on Trump, his family and his campaign associates and unmasked them. He along with Biden also unmasked General Flynn. Kevin Clinesmith, an FBI lawyer, fabricated emails to get FISA warrants on Carter Page and spied on them. Clinesmith didn't even get any prison sentence and is going back to practicing law next month. Adam Schiff published the phone records of the president's personal attorneys, a journalist, a fellow lawmaker, a National Security Council aide, and others. As of last week, Biden's doj spied, unmasked and leaked Tucker Carlson's email to Axios. So lets not be partisans and pretend that this is a Republican specific thing.

seniorivn 5y ago

it seems everybody on HN would already know this

convery 5y ago
Well, ye, it's not news. But it'll keep happening and be reported on over and over as no politician wants to be the next JFK.
MichaelMoser123 5y ago
if they spy on each other then they might enter infinite recursion, until they run out of stack space.
- Yoric 5y ago
  Well, given that spying involves lots of tailing, one can hope that the recursion is optimized away.
  - MichaelMoser123 5y ago
    not if they do it in python.

dogsboywonder 5y ago

For anyone who’s dealt with political systems - locally, statewide, federal - corruption and private interest at every level of these organizations are ubiquitous.

JohnDeHope 5y ago
For anyone who’s dealt with human systems, corruption and private interest at every level is ubiquitous.
- Yoofie 5y ago
  Especially where others have broad power or control over others, such as local, state & federal governments.

Traster 5y ago

A 30 second clip from fox news really isn't HN material.

MichaelMoser123 5y ago
even if Glenn Greenwald is doing the talking? He broke the story on Edward Snowden, he even got the Pulitzer price for that.
- Brian_K_White 5y ago
  Yes. And correctly. Find any other packaging of Greenwald's important message. Surely Greenwald did not choose to release an important message only through Fox or Carlson. Greenwald is on Fox to speak to people who would otherwise never hear a message from anyone like Greenwald. Not so that a reasonable person can conclude that Fox is as valid a source of info as any other.
- bb88 5y ago
  To be fair, Snowden reached out to Greenwald according to the documentary. That said, Greenwald's reporting on it was excellent. What I found disappointing, is that Greenwald published the story without making sure Snowden had a place to land outside the reach of US jurisdiction -- regardless of any decision made between the two. Breaking the story is one thing, but doing the right thing for your source is another -- even if it means not being able to break the story first.