SubJeff on 11/9/2013 at 01:56

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I know (hope) you're partly joking but your posts do reek of someone who has never had any real responsibility.

Whilst CCC's "I knows secrethththths" posts were pretty silly he does have a point re: breaking rules over electronic media.

You'll never understand this.

CCCToad on 11/9/2013 at 03:47

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More than just breaking rules. If you'll notice, NONE of the pictures that I've posted show any significant amount of infrastructure...and if you examine the metadata will they show as having been taken on an old camera with no location data embedded. There's been instances in the past where both of this things were successfully exploited. In one instance, the Iraqis downloaded some photos from a social media site and were able to use the GPS location data to deliver an accurate mortar attack against a new base.

edit: also, wasn't just me. Our S2 (intelligence section) guys were always extremely paranoid about what people put up on the internet. One of the guys I knew said some things to the effect that "Iran absolutely loves it when people talk about what's going on over Skype".

june gloom on 11/9/2013 at 03:53

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Formerly employed at the Cincinnati Enquirer as a copy editor. They let me go in a disastrously ill-advised attempt to split up the workload between Cincinnati and an office in Louisville, which is like 200 miles away. It hasn't gone well at all, and unfortunately there are zero other jobs here for my skillset. I was trained as a journalist in a city that ignores the arts as liberal namby-pamby tax-eating waste and regards the only paper as being a raving left-wing bleeding heart rag despite in all actuality being like an alternate universe version of the Daily Mail where it's calm and rational and not geared towards Joe Fuckface Sportsbar (but that's apparently not right-wing enough even though it predictably endorses almost entirely Republicans for office.) Cincinnati is a black hole for careers unless you work in a scientific or technological field, and even then there's better places to go. And unfortunately I can't leave.

june gloom on 11/9/2013 at 07:29

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Assuming you believe his claims of being in the military in the first place, but let's just say he is for the sake of argument.

Ethics plays a big part in journalistic training, especially when dealing with classified material (such as matters of state, or military action.) It's a generally understood rule that major details are left out when reporting on something such as troop movements. At times I've seen in my work as a copy editor major portions of a story simply redlined but not outright deleted by the time it gets to my desk. It's not supposed to get that far, but sometimes it does, especially one that's been worked on for some time and has multiple contributors and multiple edits.

There's a lot of damage one could do with that. But I do my job and forget about it.

Related: There was a story I heard about journalists in World War II who, frustrated with the military's tight-lipped attitude on war activity, would leak whatever they could get their hands on, often sensitive data, sometimes resulting in major intelligence issues resulting in scrubbed missions, etc. The brass didn't like this, but they knew the newsmen wouldn't let go. So they got representatives from all the major news outlets together and gave them a complete briefing on an upcoming operation. To a man, all of the outlets released a story about the op, but left out the important details that were supposed to be top-secret.

It's all about knowing what to print. Legitimately top-secret stuff (as opposed to cover-ups of massacres or embezzling or whatever), the names of rape victims (as well as rapists who have not been formally charged), et cetera -- no newspaper with a solid sense of journalistic ethics prints that shit.

faetal on 11/9/2013 at 09:05

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“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.” - Christopher Hitchens

So CCCToad, while things you say may very well be true, if you do not have the means to back them up, just don't raise them. It's the fact that you say X is true, but I can't back it up because of rules that is so annoying. It serves no purpose because it is indistinguishable in every practical way from just making stuff up. Imagine if we all just trusted everything which was said online? You may be wheat, but there's too much chaff for that to be a valuable route to information.

This is why I immediately call all manner of bullshit every time governments say things like "we're going to war based on intelligence we can't share with you". So you're stuck with thinking "ok then, FUCK going to war on my behalf if you won't say why, you dictator motherfuckers" or "ok gubmint, we trust you" - neither of which feel particularly steady on any kind of logic, though admittedly the former would cost fewer lives.