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US Spy Agencies See Bloggers as Journalists
Sniper223 writes with a link to ABC's Blotter blog. That site observes that at least in the realm of US intelligence gathering, the 'are bloggers journalists' question is already decided. "Despite the rap that bloggers simply 'bloviate' and 'don't try to find things out,' as conservative newspaper columnist Robert Novak once sniffed, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA) have altered policies to indicate they're taking blogs seriously, and a growing number of public offices are actively reaching out to the blogosphere. The CIA recently updated its policies on Freedom of Information Act requests to allow bloggers to qualify for special treatment once reserved for old-school reporters. And last August, the NSA issued a directive to its employees to report leaks of classified information to the media — "including blogs," the order said."
The greatest strength of the web is that anyone can publish to a worldwide audience. The greatest weakness of the web is that anyone can publish to a worldwide audience. However, this is only a minor weakness. I'm not forced at gun point to read everybody else's blogs, I get to pick and choose what I read and when I read it.
And this is what the old media don't like about the rise of the blog. They no longer get to control content and the blogs are eating in to what used to be their advertising revenue.
A leak, however it happens, is a leak. I don't think the fact they mentioned blogs means much. If people started leaking by carrier pigeon I'm sure that would get included in such a directive as well.
Simon.
No, next up will probably be: Now that bloggers are journalists, anonymous blogging will be made illegal. Closely followed by: Everyone posting a comment on the internet is a blogger.
They don't want more "free speech" or more information protection. Quite the opposite.
The reason is simply that they want people to tell when they have inside knowledge. Without protection, people would beat around the bush until someone from law enforcement picks it up and starts looking into it, all without the blogger actually being responsible for it. He just posted hints and allegations.
With protection, he'll simply state the fact that something's going wrong in a company. This allows more efficiency. To prosecure or to cover up, depending on circumstances...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
... for this is something along the lines of: "Hey, if we recognise them as journalists, and give them equal access, maybe they'll regurgitate the same junk we feed the mass media."
Please excuse my cynicism of an organisation (i.e. the CIA) that relies on disinformation, propaganda, and psychological warfare, and uses the mass media and journalists to spread it.
'If Christ had tweeted the sermon on the mount, it might have lasted until nightfall.' - John Perry Barlow
Good because maybe they'll finally get the rights and protections everyone so rightly deserves.
Bad because it only further validates that you can only be a journalist (and thus have those previously mentioned rights and protections) if the federal gov'ment says you are a journalist.
Other countries might have similar laws. However, probably only running a 'blog counts (arguably even MySpace) because that's like having a regular newpaper column. You could probably argue successfully that posting to a 'blog is nothing more than a letter-to-the-editor which doesn't make anyone a journalist. But if the posts get too regular and come to be expected (localroger on K5) then you might be considered a journalist.
The concept of the 'real journalist' is just a modern construct, however. Up until the late 20th century, people reported on the news and they rose through the ranks through news organizations. There was no select cadre of 'journalists' who were professionally trained to 'report the news.' Many of the historic classic 'reporters' started out in the news industry as copy boys and clerks.
These days, you flunk out of calculus, decide you can't be an engineer, and the English department is too snooty (you'd have to READ BOOKS and all that awful stuff), so you transfer to J-School. And become part of the 'News Elite.'
Thank goodness that whole sheen is melting away.
Microsoft says legacy (serial/parallel) ports are bad. They don't obfuscate the hardware enough.
At first i thought it was a blogging-related buzzword run amok, but apparently it is a real word.
You learn something every day.
What?
Of course there is. Want to count the number of free wireless APs out there? Or hijackable open/WEP ones? There are plenty of venues for anonymous internet access out there, legal and illegal. Just reset your MAC beforehand, and use Tor to really obscure things.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
Grabs a tabloid
JAY: These are the hot sheets?
KAY:Best damn investigative reporting on the planet.
Wow. Opinion being treated as fact. That's a new one for this administration. But there's certainly some opportunities here. How about a blog describing Alberto Gonzales homosexual adventures with a known Al-Queda operative living in his basement, complete with photoshopped pix? How about blogging the truth behind Dick Cheney's rumored drug addiction and child molestation tendencies? And Condoleezza Rice's three abortions and stem-cell derived facial treatments (funded by Ansar al-Islam)? All these accusations can be proven via anonymous sources whispering pseudo-facts. Truth is in the eye of the beholder, or so it seems.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
Who's using Tor?
Oh you mean the person using a machine with it's NIC's MAC address set to some arbitrary value and connected via an unsecure wireless access point not under his control? As intimated by the post you're replying to?
When the MIB are knocking on John Q. Lawabide's front door with rubber-gloves donned and electric truth-probes brandished, the real ne'er-do-well will have rolled further down the road, changed his MAC address and hijacked Sally P. Honestface's wireless access point.
The example you refer to is at a University, where the professor was likely connected either from his office, or from a laptop with a MAC address that the IT staff knew (I suspect wireless access is controlled by MAC address at universities). Secondly, his first hop was therefore within the university's network, under their control, and being monitored for suspicious activity/heavy usage.
When "fake but accurate" is acceptable to the highest, most successful journalists, you better believe that there are some real idiots in the dregs of the profession.
Because your standards for a blogger to be a journalist are higher than Dan Rather could meet, are higher than the the reporters who caved and revealed their sources in the Plame affair, and they're higher than those "journalists" at The New Republic who swallowed Scott Thomas Beauchamp's fantasies hook, line, and sinker, never bothering to corroborate his story and despite the fact they knew that Beauchamp's story was being investigated and that he had signed some sort of statement regarding the veracity of his claims. Yet they ran the story anyway.
So, by your own standards for bloggers, Dan Rather, NY Times writers who've won Pulitzer Prizes, and the biased fools at The New Republic are NOT journalists.
So does that mean bloggers will have to apply for a "journalist's visa" or face deportation on enterting the US?
(The US being one of a handful of countries requiring it, the others being Iran, North Korea, Zimbabwe, and Cube)
Source: Guardian