

Press Fails To Ask Any NSA Questions At President Obama’s NSA Press Conference - applecore
http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/09/press-corps-fails-to-ask-any-nsa-questions-at-obamas-nsa-press-conference/

======
milesf
Let's not whine about this. We all know the press, politicians, military and
corporations are all in cahoots with each other. Let's figure out a way to
solve the problem, the same way SOPA was defeated, by swaying public opinion
with creative campaigns.

We need to be forcing the issues, equipping people to ask the right questions
at every opportunity.

Techs need to get into the political arena and fight the same way the NRA
does, with votes in the booth and dollars in the coffers. Otherwise we're
going to have our careers sidelined by suits who still think the Internet can
be controlled and censored.

I for one am ready to get behind someone we as techs all trust, who can lead
the debate and rally the troops. Who are some names? Shirkey? Lessig? Notch?
:)

~~~
nazgulnarsil
MSM is a branch of government. Understanding this simplifies quite a bit.

~~~
hga
Well, Fox News isn't entirely, e.g. I saw them reporting on I think Silent
Circle and Lavabit while my father was cooking today. See e.g.
[https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Afoxnews.com+lavabit+s...](https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Afoxnews.com+lavabit+silent+circle)

I don't know who works for who, were any of their reporters called on in the
press conference?

------
malandrew
I want to know when politicians are finally going to start holding
crowdsourced press conferences where the questions asked are determined by the
audience tuning in to listen to the politician talk. I want a reddit/HN/digg
style platform where all the questions are submitted, voted on and then only
revealed to the politician at the last minute so they don't have time to
carefully prepare an answer.

Richard Nixon was caught off guard by the impact of television when he debated
live on TV against John F Kennedy. We need that same moment but for Internet
journalism and social audience interaction like the audience voting for what
it collectively cares about.

This old media bullshit is quite frankly getting old. Maybe Bezos can shake up
things by using the WaPo as the old guard avenue for letting democratic
internet processes in to the party.

~~~
Sauer_Kraut
Someone is terribly mad at sane suggestions and commentary today. Yet another
seemingly reasonable comment down-voted.

~~~
hga
" _seemingly_ reasonable" is the key, I down voted it because it wasted my
time.

What could possibly motivate politicians in the current system to engage in
such a forum??? Look at what happened after the cited example of Nixon in the
1960 debate, such as what didn't happen in this press conference.

Echoing my other comment, I'll bet there was a Fox reporter in the group (I
think I would have heard if the Obama had totally shut them out). Was he
called?

~~~
hga
To both current replies: because a detailed answer would have wasted even more
of my time. But not so much after others wondered.

There are far too many items where the author simply isn't thinking through to
give detailed answers to ([http://xkcd.com/386/](http://xkcd.com/386/)), and
downvotes are explicitly OK for this, last time I checked the rules.

~~~
Sauer_Kraut
Right, it is called disengaging, but that is not what you did. You yourself
choose to waste your time and energy on this.

------
e3pi
Loud silence of largest(?) factor why Obama/Putin summit canceled, is a
critical topic inversely proportional at 189 decibels, sycophants awkwardly
ignoring the big elephant crowding everyone into the corner, cordially with
deference exchanging pleasantries.

------
Sauer_Kraut
A better suited title would be: 'Press Paid To Fail To Ask Any NSA Questions
At President Obama’s NSA Press Conference'

This fits entirely into the US government putting a noose on what journalists
are and how they must act:

"The person also must intend to report on the news at the start of obtaining
any protected information and must plan to publish that news."

"Feinstein suggested that the definition comprise only journalists who make
salaries, saying it should be applied just to "real reporters."[1]"

[1] [http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130807/13153224102/sen-
fe...](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130807/13153224102/sen-feinstein-
during-shield-law-debate-real-journalists-draw-salaries.shtml)

edit: Amused myself by imaging a panicked Glenn Greenwald clutching a bunch of
print-outs, shouting to a camera that he doesn't know what these are but by
god they are SOMETHING.

~~~
malandrew
Well he does plan on publishing that protected information as soon as it
becomes newsworthy by virtue of demonstrating that some politician or
bureaucrat is lying to the American people. The politicians are just holding
things up by not lying sooner.

~~~
Sauer_Kraut
Naturally my mind went to how investigations need to brew after data
acquisition, but withholding bits of an investigation for those reasons is
entirely proper as well.

In an era of journalism changing to be more distributed and less structured
there is a multitude of ways the US government's revising seems foul. This is
of course completely aside from what you said above, letting officials and
others lie themselves into a box.

It seems rather dire that dissemination of information is being attacked on
several fronts by what seems to be a wounded beast of a government lashing out
at those around it, persons/careers/activists/even methods themselves.

