4 ms·

Well... maybe. If a company brings in new anti-sexual-assault training and a bunch of people quit around the same time that doesn't necessarily suggest the prob

by roenxi 1y ago

Well... maybe. If a company brings in new anti-sexual-assault training and a bunch of people quit around the same time that doesn't necessarily suggest the problem is the outrageous training. I'd quite like to actually see what the rules are, but this is just a complex one. On the one hand, obviously the US military would probably have an easier time securing classified info if unreliable people aren't wandering through the building. On the other hand, the US people do benefit from random people wandering the building and would get more out of looser requirements on who can get in. Making it easy to keep information classified has always been a strategic error that has probably done a lot of damage to the US.

jacquesm 1y ago
[flagged]
- roenxi 1y ago
  If you want me to try explaining something more clearly you should include a rough outline of what you think I said. Otherwise I've basically got nothing to do but repeat myself. Hopefully this helps. The journalists and the generals can presumably still talk to each other over drinks after work. The journalists were only ever going to be tolerated in the building because US leadership thinks they are helping them achieve military propaganda aims which are rarely noble things. There isn't much at stake here beyond classified information. US classified information has been a bit of a disaster for them. It just means the government is slowly escaping accountability for what it does. They have that massive spying program on US citizens and the last I heard of the story was they can't sue anyone over it because the courts aren't allowed to believe it exists.
  - jacquesm 1y ago
    This isn't about security at all. This is about control of the narrative. Hegseth and co would like you to believe it is about security. But there is absolutely no indication that there was an urgent issue that needs resolution.
    - roenxi 1y ago
      The reason they were in the building in the first place was to give the US government control over the narrative. We're moving from a state where the government was trying to control the narrative to the same state. That is what makes it an interestingly complex issue. We have to form an opinion on whether it is likely to be a "better" narrative with the journalists in the building or in a building a few blocks away. That isn't an obvious one and it largely hinges on what access they were getting in the building that they weren't officially supposed to have and what they then did with it.
      - xocnad 1y ago
        Access is what allows them to form the relationships and contacts that let them report information that counters the propaganda. It is a two way street. The NPR reporter you mentioned, Tom Bowman, is not OANN and has reported many times very critically of the military.
      - ericmay 1y ago
        > The reason they were in the building in the first place was to give the US government control over the narrative. At that point you can just claim everyone working in the government is doing the same, or given the fact that they are working for the government it’s even worse since they’re employed full time (or were) to advance the government’s agenda! Except that the government’s agenda is by and large the agenda of the people that it represents. Not only is the point of view you’re expressing uselessly cynical, you’re depriving others of agency as well. It’s still a free country - press access doesn’t mean “government mouthpiece”. There are lots of news organizations and journalists with differing levels of professional standing and points of view and you can read all about them for yourself.
        roenxi 1y ago
        > Except that the government’s agenda is by and large the agenda of the people that it represents. In this case the government's agenda is that these journalists should either get Hegseth to stamp their articles or pack their cardboard boxes and get out of the building. Make of that what you will.
- AlecSchueler 1y ago
  Without giving any indication of the issues you found, your comment is entirely unhelpful and unproductive.
  - ffsm8 1y ago
    Roenxi implied that the real perpetrators/bad people are the journalists that left. And that they left because the government started to prosecute their crimes. Does that really need an in-depth analysis to point out how dumb that idea is?
    - roenxi 1y ago
      The idea that these journalists suddenly found a spine is also dumb [0]. It was an example about as far on the other end of the spectrum from what jacquesm said as I could think of; obviously it is dumb too. It's an extreme example. That doesn't make it confused though, and this is the thing about explaining what you read. If you comment about what you think got said directly it is easier for people to clear up misunderstandings. [0] If they're sitting in the same office as the US military, they're propagandists. Their job is to spread propaganda. They aren't going to suddenly catch a case of principles now. This is the class of people that keeps cheer-leading every disastrous military expedition the US goes on.
      - jacquesm 1y ago
        > If they're sitting in the same office as the US military, they're propagandists. You package that as a statement of fact, but it is just your opinion. > Their job is to spread propaganda. Then why are they not paid by the government? > They aren't going to suddenly catch a case of principles now. Indeed, you could reasonably assume that they had a case of principles all along and that this violates those principles. > This is the class of people that keeps cheer-leading every disastrous military expedition the US goes on. Except... they don't. That's why they walked out, because they want to be free to write whatever they want to write. You are just parroting the usual 'luegenpresse' shit.
- uselesswords 1y ago
  Comments like this are snarky, shallowly dismissive, and do little to add to a discussion all of which are against HN guidelines.
  - jacquesm 1y ago
    On the contrary, it is perfectly on point, the poster in fact admits further down below that it was a stupid comment. It is so confused that I can't make heads or tails of it but after some more back-and-forth (which if you had read the thread you would have known, rather than put in your uselesswords here) it became more clear: they really don't understand the comment did not make any sense.
- pcdoodle 1y ago
  Comments like these ruin the comments sections. I with there was an "original thought" button that just showed root comments.
  - jacquesm 1y ago
    > Comments like these ruin the comments sections. Unlike yours, which are off topic and do not contribute at all. > I with there was an "original thought" button that just showed root comments. I think you meant 'wish', there is a little - mark at the beginning of each comment thread, if you click that the comments will collapse, there is also a 'start with collapsed comments' setting that only appears above 200K karma.
Terr_ 1y ago
> would probably have an easier time securing Hold up, that's starting to conflate two very different ideas of what's going on: 1. "We cannot tolerate any outside visitors because it could possibly give them an opportunity to commit espionage and other serious federal crimes. 2. "We cannot tolerate specific vetted reporters that haven't promised us control over what they write and how they write it." We can tell this isn't a (#1) concern over actual security. If it were, this (#2) "deal" would never be offered at all. This is about controlling messages and opinions, rather than securing specific facts.
squigz 1y ago
This clearly has nothing to do with security, but do you really believe journalists are just "wandering" around the Pentagon and getting into classified materials?
- roenxi 1y ago
  Yeah. I don't know if you've ever played at office politics but information that isn't supposed to get around gets around like mad once people are in the same room for any length of time. There is no way they aren't finding out about classified info except if they, the journalist, are purposefully trying not to know. And we're dealing with a group of professionally chatty, snoopy people. They're not all going to be keeping their noses clean. Some of them probably will turn out to be full on spies.
  - riffraff 1y ago
    there are separate issues * whether you need to limit people learning something * whether you need to limit people publishing something "they might be spies" is an issue for the first, but the new rules infringe on the last one too. 1 has to do with secrecy levels, and those were already there, cause you don't want people to look at top secret files even if they are not journalists. You do want journalists to raise issues on newspapers tho.
  - michaelt 1y ago
    The people dealing with classified military secrets are such Chatty Cathys they can't help but blab about upcoming airstrikes to random strangers, so we need to prevent them from talking to strangers? If that's the case, shouldn't we also ban the top brass from restaurants, bars, churches and golf courses lest they encounter strangers there?
    - roenxi 1y ago
      Why bother? It hasn't caused a major problem so far. This isn't new, it is how the world has worked for all of military history. I know classified US secrets, the leaks around the Snowden era were pretty interesting. Guarantee you the people in the building know more than me. The NOFORN stuff actually tends to be the spiciest if you feel an urge to go look at something.

by roenxi 1y ago

jacquesm 1y ago

[flagged]

roenxi 1y ago
If you want me to try explaining something more clearly you should include a rough outline of what you think I said. Otherwise I've basically got nothing to do but repeat myself. Hopefully this helps. The journalists and the generals can presumably still talk to each other over drinks after work. The journalists were only ever going to be tolerated in the building because US leadership thinks they are helping them achieve military propaganda aims which are rarely noble things. There isn't much at stake here beyond classified information. US classified information has been a bit of a disaster for them. It just means the government is slowly escaping accountability for what it does. They have that massive spying program on US citizens and the last I heard of the story was they can't sue anyone over it because the courts aren't allowed to believe it exists.
- jacquesm 1y ago
  This isn't about security at all. This is about control of the narrative. Hegseth and co would like you to believe it is about security. But there is absolutely no indication that there was an urgent issue that needs resolution.
  - roenxi 1y ago
    The reason they were in the building in the first place was to give the US government control over the narrative. We're moving from a state where the government was trying to control the narrative to the same state. That is what makes it an interestingly complex issue. We have to form an opinion on whether it is likely to be a "better" narrative with the journalists in the building or in a building a few blocks away. That isn't an obvious one and it largely hinges on what access they were getting in the building that they weren't officially supposed to have and what they then did with it.
    - xocnad 1y ago
      Access is what allows them to form the relationships and contacts that let them report information that counters the propaganda. It is a two way street. The NPR reporter you mentioned, Tom Bowman, is not OANN and has reported many times very critically of the military.
    - ericmay 1y ago
      > The reason they were in the building in the first place was to give the US government control over the narrative. At that point you can just claim everyone working in the government is doing the same, or given the fact that they are working for the government it’s even worse since they’re employed full time (or were) to advance the government’s agenda! Except that the government’s agenda is by and large the agenda of the people that it represents. Not only is the point of view you’re expressing uselessly cynical, you’re depriving others of agency as well. It’s still a free country - press access doesn’t mean “government mouthpiece”. There are lots of news organizations and journalists with differing levels of professional standing and points of view and you can read all about them for yourself.
      - roenxi 1y ago
        > Except that the government’s agenda is by and large the agenda of the people that it represents. In this case the government's agenda is that these journalists should either get Hegseth to stamp their articles or pack their cardboard boxes and get out of the building. Make of that what you will.
AlecSchueler 1y ago
Without giving any indication of the issues you found, your comment is entirely unhelpful and unproductive.
- ffsm8 1y ago
  Roenxi implied that the real perpetrators/bad people are the journalists that left. And that they left because the government started to prosecute their crimes. Does that really need an in-depth analysis to point out how dumb that idea is?
  - roenxi 1y ago
    The idea that these journalists suddenly found a spine is also dumb [0]. It was an example about as far on the other end of the spectrum from what jacquesm said as I could think of; obviously it is dumb too. It's an extreme example. That doesn't make it confused though, and this is the thing about explaining what you read. If you comment about what you think got said directly it is easier for people to clear up misunderstandings. [0] If they're sitting in the same office as the US military, they're propagandists. Their job is to spread propaganda. They aren't going to suddenly catch a case of principles now. This is the class of people that keeps cheer-leading every disastrous military expedition the US goes on.
    - jacquesm 1y ago
      > If they're sitting in the same office as the US military, they're propagandists. You package that as a statement of fact, but it is just your opinion. > Their job is to spread propaganda. Then why are they not paid by the government? > They aren't going to suddenly catch a case of principles now. Indeed, you could reasonably assume that they had a case of principles all along and that this violates those principles. > This is the class of people that keeps cheer-leading every disastrous military expedition the US goes on. Except... they don't. That's why they walked out, because they want to be free to write whatever they want to write. You are just parroting the usual 'luegenpresse' shit.
uselesswords 1y ago
Comments like this are snarky, shallowly dismissive, and do little to add to a discussion all of which are against HN guidelines.
- jacquesm 1y ago
  On the contrary, it is perfectly on point, the poster in fact admits further down below that it was a stupid comment. It is so confused that I can't make heads or tails of it but after some more back-and-forth (which if you had read the thread you would have known, rather than put in your uselesswords here) it became more clear: they really don't understand the comment did not make any sense.
pcdoodle 1y ago
Comments like these ruin the comments sections. I with there was an "original thought" button that just showed root comments.
- jacquesm 1y ago
  > Comments like these ruin the comments sections. Unlike yours, which are off topic and do not contribute at all. > I with there was an "original thought" button that just showed root comments. I think you meant 'wish', there is a little - mark at the beginning of each comment thread, if you click that the comments will collapse, there is also a 'start with collapsed comments' setting that only appears above 200K karma.

Terr_ 1y ago

> would probably have an easier time securing Hold up, that's starting to conflate two very different ideas of what's going on: 1. "We cannot tolerate any outside visitors because it could possibly give them an opportunity to commit espionage and other serious federal crimes. 2. "We cannot tolerate specific vetted reporters that haven't promised us control over what they write and how they write it." We can tell this isn't a (#1) concern over actual security. If it were, this (#2) "deal" would never be offered at all. This is about controlling messages and opinions, rather than securing specific facts.

squigz 1y ago

This clearly has nothing to do with security, but do you really believe journalists are just "wandering" around the Pentagon and getting into classified materials?

roenxi 1y ago
Yeah. I don't know if you've ever played at office politics but information that isn't supposed to get around gets around like mad once people are in the same room for any length of time. There is no way they aren't finding out about classified info except if they, the journalist, are purposefully trying not to know. And we're dealing with a group of professionally chatty, snoopy people. They're not all going to be keeping their noses clean. Some of them probably will turn out to be full on spies.
- riffraff 1y ago
  there are separate issues * whether you need to limit people learning something * whether you need to limit people publishing something "they might be spies" is an issue for the first, but the new rules infringe on the last one too. 1 has to do with secrecy levels, and those were already there, cause you don't want people to look at top secret files even if they are not journalists. You do want journalists to raise issues on newspapers tho.
- michaelt 1y ago
  The people dealing with classified military secrets are such Chatty Cathys they can't help but blab about upcoming airstrikes to random strangers, so we need to prevent them from talking to strangers? If that's the case, shouldn't we also ban the top brass from restaurants, bars, churches and golf courses lest they encounter strangers there?
  - roenxi 1y ago
    Why bother? It hasn't caused a major problem so far. This isn't new, it is how the world has worked for all of military history. I know classified US secrets, the leaks around the Snowden era were pretty interesting. Guarantee you the people in the building know more than me. The NOFORN stuff actually tends to be the spiciest if you feel an urge to go look at something.