

Reuters swaps story about NSA hacking the UN for NSA fluff piece. - tomelders

The article in question is here: U.S. Spy agency edges into the light after Snowden revalations<p>http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reuters.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;comments&#x2F;idUSBRE97O08120130825<p>The original article is here (Uk Site): U.S. spy agency bugged U.N. headquarters - Germany&#x27;s Spiegel<p>http:&#x2F;&#x2F;uk.reuters.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;2013&#x2F;08&#x2F;25&#x2F;uk-usa-security-nsa-idUKBRE97O08B20130825<p>The story was linked to on Reddit<p>http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;politics&#x2F;comments&#x2F;1l22ie&#x2F;us_spy_agency_bugged_un_headquarters_reuters_the&#x2F;<p>Read the comments in the US version of the article, and there&#x27;s a handful of comments on Reddit about it, but no one on Reuters seems to be acknowledging that the article has been swapped.
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eli
The story isn't gone off the US site, it's here:
[http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/25/us-usa-security-
ns...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/25/us-usa-security-nsa-un-
idUSBRE97O0DD20130825)

The Reuters website is terrible. Half the time the article content doesn't
load and I just get sidebars. (They make money selling their feed to news
outlets, not by attracting visitors to reuters.com.) Occam's Razor suggests
someone fat-fingered an update, not a conspiracy.

~~~
darkxanthos
The OP didn't say gone he said swapped and judging by one of the other
comments it appears to be true.

~~~
eli
You think the NSA pressured Reuters to swap two URLs in a ham fisted attempt
to... what exactly?

Someone with access to the full feed could probably answer this better, but my
guess is that "U.S. spy agency edges into the light" was written first (the
dateline seems to confirm this) and the "NSA bugged UN" story was originally
an update to that story (wire services often put out updates as a story is
breaking) before Reuters decided it was important enough to spin off as a new
story at a new URL.

~~~
darkxanthos
I didn't say it was the NSA or even for nefarious reasons. Just that it was
swapped.

~~~
eli
A news site goofing their URLs typically isn't front page news, so at least
_some_ people think there's something interesting going on here. (I think
they're probably wrong)

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mcmarshall
This is true. I have the original text saved in Readability. When I clink on
the link to the actual article, it brings me to a totally different one.

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tomelders
irrespective of wether or not this was accidental or on purpose, I do find the
content of the "edges into the light" article quite offensive.

The official stance appears to be "It's OK for us to break the law as long as
we do it by accident", which is not just an incredibly weak argument, it's a
dangerous precedent. Who defines 'accidental'? It seems to me that if used
exactly as intended, PRISM breaks the law.

We now have the whole LOVEINT angle, where the incursions were absolutely not
accidental, but we're somehow meant to be ok with it because the very fact the
the NSA knew about it happening somehow proves that they're on the case. They
also feel it is something that the US public does not need to know about.

My brain hurts trying do the mental gymnastics required in order to see this
whole debacle from the intelligence communities point of view. No matter how I
look at it, they're bad people doing bad things and telling us to like it
without offering a shred of evidence to justify their actions.

------
Terretta
NSA named their tumblr "I con the record"? What the hell.

~~~
slouch
IC on the record

~~~
ccarter84
yea, or they were having some fun with the whole 'two options for
interpretation' bit...

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jacquesm
Malice, incompetence etc.

~~~
WayneDB
Einstein is quoted as saying the same, adding "but don't rule out malice."

Hanlon's Razor is a nice sounding quote and all, but where is there any
evidence that it's accurate?

~~~
eli
That Einstein quote really sounds apocryphal

~~~
WayneDB
My point is that this is a bullshit quote that people use to shore up their
opinion without actually having to think.

If it didn't sound apocryphal to you, would it _really_ change the fact that
Hanlon's/Heinlein's razor is nothing more than a non-scientific personal
philosophical statement?

In any case look at Wikipedia - other smart people are quoted saying the same
thing that was attributed to Einstein:

"...misunderstandings and neglect create more confusion in this world than
trickery and malice. At any rate, the last two are certainly much less
frequent." — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1774) -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor)

Malice does exist. It's just good old common sense to never rule it out.

~~~
eli
OK. In this particular case I'd be very, very surprised if malice played any
role. And assuming mistakes are malicious by default is more wrong than than
the opposite, IMHO.

~~~
WayneDB
Is it more the nature of the mistake or the trustworthyness of the Reuters
organization that influences your opinion (or something else)?

I'm not saying this wasn't a mistake, but knowledge of things like "Operation
Mockingbird" do carry weight with me. Do you know about this? It's crazy...
(There's very much out there to read on this but here's the summary.)

"According to Alex Constantine (Mockingbird: The Subversion Of The Free Press
By The CIA), in the 1950s, "some 3,000 salaried and contract CIA employees
were eventually engaged in propaganda efforts". Wisner was able to constrain
newspapers from reporting about certain events, including the CIA plots to
overthrow the governments of Iran (see: Operation Ajax) and Guatemala (see:
Operation PBSUCCESS)." \-
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird)

If you're thinking that the mistake is such a small transgression that - "who
would care?" Well...little tiny almost imperceivable things do matter,
particularly to propagandists and to Pavlov's dog :) (Again - not saying that
"I know" anything, but a non-infinitesimal possibility is definite IMO :)

