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Can anyone explain for the uninformed how anything like surveillance affects Groklaw? I was under the (probably wrong) impression that most of what Groklaw did

Can anyone explain for the uninformed how anything like surveillance affects Groklaw? I was under the (probably wrong) impression that most of what Groklaw did was explain the law and court cases in simple terms.

mortov 13y ago
Groklaw started with some serious in-depth background knowledge of the whole SCO - Linux stuff (there's too much to describe it as anything else). That sort of information comes from having serious inside, in-depth background information. You know, the sort of stuff serious investigative journalists /used/ to do. Like the Washington Post in 1972 when they reported on illegal activity by the President (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal#Role_of_the_media http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal#Role_of_the_m...) rather than the Washington Post in 2013 when the report on Presidential Broccoli (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/07/09/president-obama-says-he-loves-broccoli/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/07...). We've seen a rare example of serious investigative journalism and how /our/ countries respond to it by targeting family and loved ones of the journalists. That's the way we used to say only the KGB or the Gestapo behaved in the Bad Old Days. Guess what ? The Bad Old Days are right here and right now. No wonder PJ is concerned that continuing Groklaw may expose her to serious risk from the authorities. Commenting on court cases and filling in the background through back-channel information from Deep Throat (or whatever pseudonym they use today) sure does not seem to be worth that risk to me. It's sad that any comment on this stuff makes it sound like you go around wearing a tin-foil hat.
- tzs 13y ago
  I may have missed it, but I don't recall any back channel information from Deep Throat type sources there. What I recall was a lot of documents readily available to lawyers but somewhat a pain in the ass for average people to track down and get copies of, especially for free. Note that I am not saying there were none...just that I never noticed them. Anyone have an example or two?
  - mortov 13y ago
    Sure, look at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/20/groklaw-shuts-nsa-surveillance http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/20/groklaw-sh... States explicitly "Groklaw relied in some cases on email tips from readers and other anonymous sources". Following the early days of the SCO reporting it was obvious there was unreleased information being shared. There was even lots of discussion about whether Groklaw was some secret group of IBM agents and stuff like that due to the knowledge and insight being displayed at the time.
gregd 13y ago
Jesus, it's only two, short sentences in, "The owner of Lavabit tells us that he's stopped using email and if we knew what he knew, we'd stop too. There is no way to do Groklaw without email. Therein lies the conundrum."
- brown9-2 13y ago
  The point I am confused about is why a legal analysis blog is worried about government surveillance, so I am wondering if my perception of what Groklaw actually does is incorrect.
  - dtanders 13y ago
    PJ doesn't (and likely never did) understand how email works.
indymike 13y ago
PJs coverage of several cases contained information that often found its way into the court room much to the chagrin of the Plaintiff. PJ was subject to a very nasty, dishonest expose by a shill for SCO at one point. PJ also regularly put out calls for prior art that resulted in patents being invalidated. A strategic leak of information by the government could be very damaging to some of Groklaw's contributors... even though the contributors likely did nothing they could go to jail for. Oh, and she did all of the above in simple terms. Groklaw is easily one of the best blogs ever. Sad day to see PJ go.

mortov 13y ago

Groklaw started with some serious in-depth background knowledge of the whole SCO - Linux stuff (there's too much to describe it as anything else). That sort of information comes from having serious inside, in-depth background information. You know, the sort of stuff serious investigative journalists /used/ to do. Like the Washington Post in 1972 when they reported on illegal activity by the President (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal#Role_of_the_media http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal#Role_of_the_m...) rather than the Washington Post in 2013 when the report on Presidential Broccoli (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/07/09/president-obama-says-he-loves-broccoli/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/07...). We've seen a rare example of serious investigative journalism and how /our/ countries respond to it by targeting family and loved ones of the journalists. That's the way we used to say only the KGB or the Gestapo behaved in the Bad Old Days. Guess what ? The Bad Old Days are right here and right now. No wonder PJ is concerned that continuing Groklaw may expose her to serious risk from the authorities. Commenting on court cases and filling in the background through back-channel information from Deep Throat (or whatever pseudonym they use today) sure does not seem to be worth that risk to me. It's sad that any comment on this stuff makes it sound like you go around wearing a tin-foil hat.

tzs 13y ago
I may have missed it, but I don't recall any back channel information from Deep Throat type sources there. What I recall was a lot of documents readily available to lawyers but somewhat a pain in the ass for average people to track down and get copies of, especially for free. Note that I am not saying there were none...just that I never noticed them. Anyone have an example or two?
- mortov 13y ago
  Sure, look at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/20/groklaw-shuts-nsa-surveillance http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/20/groklaw-sh... States explicitly "Groklaw relied in some cases on email tips from readers and other anonymous sources". Following the early days of the SCO reporting it was obvious there was unreleased information being shared. There was even lots of discussion about whether Groklaw was some secret group of IBM agents and stuff like that due to the knowledge and insight being displayed at the time.

gregd 13y ago

Jesus, it's only two, short sentences in, "The owner of Lavabit tells us that he's stopped using email and if we knew what he knew, we'd stop too. There is no way to do Groklaw without email. Therein lies the conundrum."

brown9-2 13y ago
The point I am confused about is why a legal analysis blog is worried about government surveillance, so I am wondering if my perception of what Groklaw actually does is incorrect.
- dtanders 13y ago
  PJ doesn't (and likely never did) understand how email works.

indymike 13y ago

PJs coverage of several cases contained information that often found its way into the court room much to the chagrin of the Plaintiff. PJ was subject to a very nasty, dishonest expose by a shill for SCO at one point. PJ also regularly put out calls for prior art that resulted in patents being invalidated. A strategic leak of information by the government could be very damaging to some of Groklaw's contributors... even though the contributors likely did nothing they could go to jail for. Oh, and she did all of the above in simple terms. Groklaw is easily one of the best blogs ever. Sad day to see PJ go.