9 ms·

Is this the only news outlet with this story? How credible is this publication? Before I get worked up about this story, I'd like to know it's not bullshit.

by sauravc 13y ago

doktrin 13y ago
I agree. It sounds utterly implausible on just about every conceivable level.
- 1morepassword 13y ago
  What's the "utterly implausible" part? In the past we've had verified incidents of people being refused entry because of things posted on for instance public Twitter feeds. So we know that the monitoring of social media, collating that with the identity of incoming travelers and passing that on to officials at the border is an existing practice. We also know that once monitoring starts for one purpose, it rapidly expands to other use case. This pattern repeats itself around the world. The only part open to debate is the suggestion of monitoring private Facebook communication. So you're suggesting that everything published about the nature of US surveillance until this very day, including the recent PRISM-related publications, is all "utterly implausible"? Because everything else I read in that article is perfectly consistent with what we already know as fact, and therefor completely plausible, albeit suspiciously thin on concrete facts.
  - untog 13y ago
    So we know that the monitoring of social media, collating that with the identity of incoming travelers and passing that on to officials at the border is an existing practice. By the NSA, for national security reasons. Not for visa fraud. Don't get me wrong, it's possible. But if NSA data was being used to monitor au pair activity and provided to border control agents it would be a step beyond what we currently know.
  - icebraining 13y ago
    The only part open to debate is the suggestion of monitoring private Facebook communication. No, part open to debate is whether they'd risk getting the project discovered by giving a bunch of border officers (probably without any clearance) the tools for accessing, printing out and showing to travelers their private Facebook messages, when they could have: 1. Not use it for visa clearance. 2. Use data-mining to create no-entry-lists without exposing the source. 3. Have secure facilities (rooms in some building, not necessarily Top-Secret hideouts) where the PM investigation would happen, to avoid leaks like officers showing evidence to regular civilians.
    - danielweber 13y ago
      officers showing evidence to regular civilians Not even American citizens, at that.
  - doktrin 13y ago
    > Because everything else I read in that article is perfectly consistent with what we already know as fact, and therefor completely plausible It's completely in-consistent with logic. We're making a couple assumptions here : 1. The NSA, via PRISM, can search FB private messages at will (this is a stretch) 2. They are sharing this ability with customs & border patrol (highly implausible) 3. Customs is using this ability in routine border checks, and/or monitoring 18 year old german girls for weeks (highly implausible. seriously.) 4. Customs officials are in turn sharing this with their suspects when they have no reason to. (highly implausible) Yes, this is utterly implausible. I expect more common sense out of HN.
jhh 13y ago
WAZ is a mainstream newspaper with wide circulation in western Germany. It has better reputation than a tabloid, worse than a top tier newspaper like NYT or Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
uh_oh 13y ago
It is certainly not one of the big newspapers, but still the largest regional one.
WalterSear 13y ago
Where's the fun in that?
kriro 13y ago
Der Westen/WAZ is usually pretty credible. However I think it's likely that they misconstructed the story (not on purpose but because they made some bad assumptions). Pretty likely that this is yet another "routine check sniffing through social media etc. after the person acted suspicious in some way" ... which in itself is noteworthy but pretty different. Not unlikely that the sources reported the story a tad wrong.
- lukashed 13y ago
  I don't agree on the credibility part. In my opinion they quite often write sensational judgemental stories, at least on local topics. Also they rarely indicate their sources. Same with this article. No source, nothing. If a viral story (though there's no direct mention of Prism, the NSA etc, the 'related articles' are all about this and it's clear that it's the same topic) was their aim: Mission accomplished. Not only the massive traffic from HN, but also more than 3 times as many Facebook shares for this article as the next-most-shared-one. There are some critical comments on the site, which are blocked and removed quickly by the moderators (have seen this a couple of times now).

Is this the only news outlet with this story? How credible is this publication? Before I get worked up about this story, I'd like to know it's not bullshit.

by sauravc 13y ago

Is this the only news outlet with this story? How credible is this publication? Before I get worked up about this story, I'd like to know it's not bullshit.

doktrin 13y ago

I agree. It sounds utterly implausible on just about every conceivable level.

1morepassword 13y ago
What's the "utterly implausible" part? In the past we've had verified incidents of people being refused entry because of things posted on for instance public Twitter feeds. So we know that the monitoring of social media, collating that with the identity of incoming travelers and passing that on to officials at the border is an existing practice. We also know that once monitoring starts for one purpose, it rapidly expands to other use case. This pattern repeats itself around the world. The only part open to debate is the suggestion of monitoring private Facebook communication. So you're suggesting that everything published about the nature of US surveillance until this very day, including the recent PRISM-related publications, is all "utterly implausible"? Because everything else I read in that article is perfectly consistent with what we already know as fact, and therefor completely plausible, albeit suspiciously thin on concrete facts.
- untog 13y ago
  So we know that the monitoring of social media, collating that with the identity of incoming travelers and passing that on to officials at the border is an existing practice. By the NSA, for national security reasons. Not for visa fraud. Don't get me wrong, it's possible. But if NSA data was being used to monitor au pair activity and provided to border control agents it would be a step beyond what we currently know.
- icebraining 13y ago
  The only part open to debate is the suggestion of monitoring private Facebook communication. No, part open to debate is whether they'd risk getting the project discovered by giving a bunch of border officers (probably without any clearance) the tools for accessing, printing out and showing to travelers their private Facebook messages, when they could have: 1. Not use it for visa clearance. 2. Use data-mining to create no-entry-lists without exposing the source. 3. Have secure facilities (rooms in some building, not necessarily Top-Secret hideouts) where the PM investigation would happen, to avoid leaks like officers showing evidence to regular civilians.
  - danielweber 13y ago
    officers showing evidence to regular civilians Not even American citizens, at that.
- doktrin 13y ago
  > Because everything else I read in that article is perfectly consistent with what we already know as fact, and therefor completely plausible It's completely in-consistent with logic. We're making a couple assumptions here : 1. The NSA, via PRISM, can search FB private messages at will (this is a stretch) 2. They are sharing this ability with customs & border patrol (highly implausible) 3. Customs is using this ability in routine border checks, and/or monitoring 18 year old german girls for weeks (highly implausible. seriously.) 4. Customs officials are in turn sharing this with their suspects when they have no reason to. (highly implausible) Yes, this is utterly implausible. I expect more common sense out of HN.

jhh 13y ago

WAZ is a mainstream newspaper with wide circulation in western Germany. It has better reputation than a tabloid, worse than a top tier newspaper like NYT or Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

uh_oh 13y ago

It is certainly not one of the big newspapers, but still the largest regional one.

WalterSear 13y ago

Where's the fun in that?

kriro 13y ago

Der Westen/WAZ is usually pretty credible. However I think it's likely that they misconstructed the story (not on purpose but because they made some bad assumptions). Pretty likely that this is yet another "routine check sniffing through social media etc. after the person acted suspicious in some way" ... which in itself is noteworthy but pretty different. Not unlikely that the sources reported the story a tad wrong.

lukashed 13y ago
I don't agree on the credibility part. In my opinion they quite often write sensational judgemental stories, at least on local topics. Also they rarely indicate their sources. Same with this article. No source, nothing. If a viral story (though there's no direct mention of Prism, the NSA etc, the 'related articles' are all about this and it's clear that it's the same topic) was their aim: Mission accomplished. Not only the massive traffic from HN, but also more than 3 times as many Facebook shares for this article as the next-most-shared-one. There are some critical comments on the site, which are blocked and removed quickly by the moderators (have seen this a couple of times now).