Register on Anderson: "Times misquoted me - crypto expert"
You gotta love those scribes at the Register--take this comment on UK tabloid frenzy over alleged stego-hijinks of OBL and crew: "Since the Times' stablemates the Sun and the News of the World have allegedly been hiding news in pornographic content for several years, (although we've never found any news in either paper to substantiate that meme), the allegation doesn't surprise us. " XJ ----- The Times misquoted me - crypto expert http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/22102.html By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco Posted: 08/10/2001 at 17:43 GMT International cryptography expert Professor Ross Anderson has demanded a correction from the The Times for being misquoted on the subject of terrorists' use of email. With echoes of Phil Zimmermann's treatment by the Washington Post, which manufactured quotes by Zimmermann expressing "regret" for devising PGP encryption, Anderson says the Times journalist "was determined - or had been instructed - to write the story anyway". Anderson lambasts The Times for unquestioningly peddling the meme that terrorists communicate using information hidden in pornographic content. Since the Times' stablemates the Sun and the News of the World have allegedly been hiding news in pornographic content for several years, (although we've never found any news in either paper to substantiate that meme), the allegation doesn't surprise us. "It is unclear what national interest is served by security agencies propagating this lurid urban myth. Perhaps the goal is to manufacture an excuse for the failure to anticipate the events of September 11th. Perhaps it is preparing the ground for an attempt at bureaucratic empire-building via Internet regulation, as a diversionary activity from the much harder and less pleasant task of going after al-Qaida. "Perhaps the vision of bin Laden as cryptic pornographer is being spun to create a subconscious link, in the public mind, with the scare stories about child pornography that were used before September 11th to justify government plans for greater Internet regulation," writes Anderson. Anderson suggests the articles "should be read as a deliberate plant by MI5". You can read more here <http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/pipermail/ukcrypto/2001-October/01770 8.html> and here <http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/pipermail/ukcrypto/2001-October/01771 2.html>. .
Xeni Jardin wrote:
You gotta love those scribes at the Register--take this comment on UK tabloid frenzy over alleged stego-hijinks of OBL and crew:
"Since the Times' stablemates the Sun and the News of the World have allegedly been hiding news in pornographic content for several years, (although we've never found any news in either paper to substantiate that meme), the allegation doesn't surprise us. "
:-) The (London) Times is in a sad decline historical eminence as the paper of record since it was taken over by Murdoch. It is basically run as a loss-leader to preserve Murdoch's claim to respectability. The Sun is the archetypal contentless tabloid, where the methods of snide laddish journalism developed in Scotland and Australia in the 1950s and early 60s were honed into a money-making behemoth in the 1970s before being exported to the USA and other countries. Us Brits may not have invented rock & roll but we perfected the populist tabloid headline. To be fair the Sun has improved slightly in the past 4 or 5 years, but then it could hardly have got worse. If it had become any more pornographic the distributors would have moved it off the news shelves, if it had got any more cynical and thuggish it would have lost many of its readers. Ross Anderson's letter to the times appeared on the UKcrypto list. Which is archived, & therefore I guess crosspostable. Apologies in advance to Ross if he didn't want to see it here. The stuff after the "=====" is crossposted from UKcrypto. The implication has to be that the Times is no longer a newspaper in this context, but an instrument of government propaganda. Ken Brown ================================================== The Editor, The Times, Dear Sir: In Friday's article, `Secrets concealed by software' [1], you quoted me as saying that rather than using steganography, it was `likely that they [al-Qaida] sent thousands of innocent messages along with their live orders, so that the secret information was missed.' Your claim is untrue. I did not say that. Your reporter called me and told me he had had a briefing from the security services that al-Qaida were using steganography, that is, hiding messages inside other objects such as MP3 files or images. He asked me whether I thought this was plausible. I replied that although it was technically possible, it was unlikely; and that, according to the FBI, the hijackers had sent ordinary emails in English or Arabic. I explained that the main problem facing police communications intelligence is traffic selection - knowing which of the billions of emails to look at - rather than the possibility that the emails might be encrypted or otherwise camouflaged. A competent opponent is unlikely to draw attention to himself by being one of the few users of encryption or anonymity services. For just the same reason, he is unlikely to draw attention to himself be sending unreasonably large numbers of messages as cover traffic. Instead, he will hide his messages among the huge numbers of quite innocuous messages that are sent anyway. Throwaway email accounts with service providers such as hotmail are the natural way to do this. Unfortunately, the story that bin Laden hides his secret messages in pornographic images on the net appears to be too good for the tabloids to pass up. It appears to have arisen from work done by Niels Provos at the University of Michigan. In November last year, he wrote in a technical report that he could find no evidence that messages were being hidden in online images. By February this year, this had been been conflated by USA Today, an American popular paper, with an earlier FBI briefing on cryptography into a tale that terrorists could be using steganography to hide messages [2]. Similar material has surfaced in a number of the racier areas of the net [3], despite being criticised a number of times by more technically informed writers [4]. It is unclear what national interest is served by security agencies propagating this lurid urban myth. Perhaps the goal is to manufacture an excuse for the failure to anticipate the events of November 11th. Perhaps it is preparaing the ground for an attempt at bureaucratic empire-building via Internet regulation, as a diversionary activity from the much harder and less pleasant task of going after al-Qaida. Perhaps the vision of bin Laden as cryptic pornographer is being spun to create a subconscious link, in the public mind, with the scare stories about child pornography that were used before September 11th to justify government plans for greater Internet regulation. Whatever the security services' motive, it is quite unclear to me why a `quality newspaper' should have run this story, even after its technical and operational implausibility were explained to you in detail (see also `Al-Qaeda hid coded messages on porn websites' [5]). Could you kindly publish this letter as a correction. Yours Faithfully Ross Anderson Reader in Security Engineering University of Cambridge [1] http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2001340010-2001345085,00.html [2] http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2001-02-05-binladen.htm [3] http://www.feedmag.com/templates/printer.php3?a_id=1624 [4] http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,41658,00.html [5] http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2001340010-2001345211,00.html ==================================================
On Tuesday, October 9, 2001, at 07:20 AM, Ken Brown wrote:
Whatever the security services' motive, it is quite unclear to me why a `quality newspaper' should have run this story, even after its technical and operational implausibility were explained to you in detail (see also `Al-Qaeda hid coded messages on porn websites' [5]).
Could you kindly publish this letter as a correction. Ross Anderson Reader in Security Engineering University of Cambridge
Insert here the usual quotes about "in war, the first casualty is truth." Why anyone expects scribblers to stick to the truth (even their flaky conceptions of it) in these strange times is beyond me. We have "Wired News" (not DM) nattering about "gun show loopholes," we have "Reason" opining that free speech is rilly, rilly scary and like, ya know, there are no libertarians in foxholes. I've had a couple of reporters try to reach me for "quotes." When I turned them down, they replied along the lines of "But it'll only take a minute of your time." All the worse, but they miss this point. The time for careful consideration of crypto, civil rights, stego, biowarfare, and other such issues was over the past decade or two. And these issues _have_ been beaten to death. But I guess a newspaper or magazine or even an online "newschat" service would not do well if it advised readers in 30-point type: READ THE FUCKING ARCHIVES! USE SEARCH ENGINES! And so the sheeple are given aerosol sprays of factoids and rumors. --Tim May, Citizen-unit of of the once free United States " The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. "--Thomas Jefferson, 1787
On Tue, Oct 09, 2001 at 10:09:25AM -0700, Tim May wrote:
I've had a couple of reporters try to reach me for "quotes." When I turned them down, they replied along the lines of "But it'll only take a minute of your time." All the worse, but they miss this point.
There is a tiny bit of room for negotiations. You could agree to do the interview on condition that they read you back the quotes (or email you back the quotes) that they're going to use in the article. Note I'm not saying you should give interviews to the press -- none of my business, really -- but there is a way to do it and avoid being misquoted. -Declan
At 02:29 PM 10/9/01 -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote:
On Tue, Oct 09, 2001 at 10:09:25AM -0700, Tim May wrote:
I've had a couple of reporters try to reach me for "quotes." When I turned them down, they replied along the lines of "But it'll only take a minute of your time." All the worse, but they miss this point.
There is a tiny bit of room for negotiations. You could agree to do the interview on condition that they read you back the quotes (or email you back the quotes) that they're going to use in the article.
This agreement isn't enforcable, is it? Even if it were, by the time you've sued them for damage to your rep for misquoting, its too late. Cf Mischaracterization of Zimmermann and Anderson. Yes future search engines will look for retractions, as will diligent historians, but those investing less effort will be misled. Through no fault of the person with the misquoted opinion. It would be better for Tim (etc) to do a writeup, post it, and point to it. Then others could find the original and compare reporters' more-widely-read interpretations. If Q & A are useful, add the decent ones to your site, possibly after giving the reporter time to publish (if they help generate content they have earned this; but your opinions shouldn't be monopolized by the reporter if possible.) We do this source checking normally, when a reporter is useful enough to include a source URL and makes far-out claims, even if we trust the reporter.
At 06:31 PM 10/9/01 -0700, David Honig wrote:
This agreement isn't enforcable, is it? Even if it were, by the time you've sued them for damage to your rep for misquoting, its too late.
Agreements similar to this that sources make with media organizations have been held by courts to be enforceable, yes. I suspect this one would be too. Too late? How about damages.
It would be better for Tim (etc) to do a writeup, post it, and point to it. Then others could find the original and compare reporters'
No, reporters will want to ask questions on the phone, or, more rarely, in person for audio or video taping. (There are many good reasons for this.) An essay by Tim isn't good enough for those reasons and also, frankly, for more parochial reasons of "exclusivity." -Declan
At 10:04 PM 10/9/01 -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote:
At 06:31 PM 10/9/01 -0700, David Honig wrote:
This agreement isn't enforcable, is it? Even if it were, by the time you've sued them for damage to your rep for misquoting, its too late.
Agreements similar to this that sources make with media organizations have been held by courts to be enforceable, yes. I suspect this one would be too.
Too late? How about damages.
It would be better for Tim (etc) to do a writeup, post it, and point to it. Then others could find the original and compare reporters'
No, reporters will want to ask questions on the phone, or, more rarely, in person for audio or video taping. (There are many good reasons for this.) An essay by Tim isn't good enough for those reasons and also, frankly, for more parochial reasons of "exclusivity."
-Declan
Ok. I was trying to use tech to solve a social problem. ...... "As a mental experiment, lets go along with FBI director Freeh and try to envisage what might ahve happened if those bombers had actually succeeded in toppling both towers of New York's World Trade Center, killing tens of thousands." --David Brin, _The Transparent Society_
That's always an engineer's problem. :) Tech may be a partial solution. Tim could tape-record the conversation (or, if there were sufficient market demand, conference in a neutral party to do the recording) and damage the reporter's reputation capital by posting the audio clip if he ends up misquoted. This obviously requires more effort than he appears willing to spend. But some PR flacks do record conversations with journalists for precisely this reason. (Less so damaging reputation capital, more so obtaining a clarification/editor's note if something goes awry.) -Declan At 07:20 PM 10/9/01 -0700, David Honig wrote:
Ok. I was trying to use tech to solve a social problem.
On Tuesday, October 9, 2001, at 07:59 PM, Declan McCullagh wrote:
That's always an engineer's problem. :)
Tech may be a partial solution. Tim could tape-record the conversation (or, if there were sufficient market demand, conference in a neutral party to do the recording) and damage the reporter's reputation capital by posting the audio clip if he ends up misquoted.
This obviously requires more effort than he appears willing to spend. But some PR flacks do record conversations with journalists for precisely this reason. (Less so damaging reputation capital, more so obtaining a clarification/editor's note if something goes awry.)
Declan and others know this well, but it bears repeating: -- the main reason people give interviews is to get their name out in the press, to drum up business. This is why people will drive 20 miles to get to a television studio to appear for 70 seconds on CNBC or CNN. All they want is the exposure. Ditto for most telephone interviews. Most people quoted are selling something, either a product or a consulting business or just want exposure for future uses. There are a very few journalists who are actually doing in-depth coverage of some topic. These journalist cultivate a handful of sources, sources who are not necessarily interested in getting 25 seconds of "face time" on a network. --Tim May "You don't expect governments to obey the law because of some higher moral development. You expect them to obey the law because they know that if they don't, those who aren't shot will be hanged." - -Michael Shirley
On Tue, Oct 09, 2001 at 08:22:50PM -0700, Tim May wrote:
-- the main reason people give interviews is to get their name out in the press, to drum up business.
This is why people will drive 20 miles to get to a television studio to appear for 70 seconds on CNBC or CNN. All they want is the exposure.
I've been doing semi-regular appearances on CNN for about four years. They'll send a car for you if you ask, no need to drive. But I suppose I fall into the above category. I do TV interviews primarily because, in no particular order: (a) it's good experience; (b) it raises my profile and the profile of my employer; (c) management likes it; (d) I can try to inject some substance into what are typically superficial discussions. Not saying I generally succeed, of course. I find that radio shows are better for more in-depth discussions. Usually, with the exception of NPR, you can do them from home. I did NBC network evening news not long ago. I didn't feel like going into their bureau (about 15-20 minutes away),l so I had them come to my home. It took them about four hours from the time they arrived to the time they left, mostly lighting and setup. A large portion was B-roll of me typing dummy entries into Microsoft Passport, punctuated by me talking to their reporter in NYC via a speakerphone sitting on a chair while I pretended to look straight ahead, as if I were looking her in the eye. Sigh. They used about 7 seconds of what I said. -Declan
At 12:12 AM 10/10/01 -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote:
On Tue, Oct 09, 2001 at 08:22:50PM -0700, Tim May wrote:
-- the main reason people give interviews is to get their name out in the press, to drum up business.
This is why people will drive 20 miles to get to a television studio to appear for 70 seconds on CNBC or CNN. All they want is the exposure.
I've been doing semi-regular appearances on CNN for about four years. They'll send a car for you if you ask, no need to drive.
But I suppose I fall into the above category. I do TV interviews primarily because, in no particular order: (a) it's good experience; (b) it raises my profile and the profile of my employer; (c) management likes it; (d) I can try to inject some substance into what are typically superficial discussions.
Yes, what's cool is that others benefit besides you and the broadcasters who sell your bits. Similarly with Tim's output, whether its here or elsewhere. Certainly no one has an obligation to clue others in, but its good when they choose to[1], especially when its a side effect of their own benefit. [1] If of course I agree with them :-)
On Tuesday, October 9, 2001, at 09:12 PM, Declan McCullagh wrote:
I've been doing semi-regular appearances on CNN for about four years. They'll send a car for you if you ask, no need to drive.
Which shows? When/ I'm a frequent watcher of CNN (though not CNN-FN or Lou Dobbs), and yet the only time I have seen you on t.v. was on an episode of Geraldo a year or two ago.
But I suppose I fall into the above category. I do TV interviews primarily because, in no particular order: (a) it's good experience; (b) it raises my profile and the profile of my employer; (c) management likes it; (d) I can try to inject some substance into what are typically superficial discussions.
Yes, I'd say you fit the profile.
I did NBC network evening news not long ago. I didn't feel like going into their bureau (about 15-20 minutes away),l so I had them come to my home. It took them about four hours from the time they arrived to the time they left, mostly lighting and setup. A large portion was B-roll of me typing dummy entries into Microsoft Passport, punctuated by me talking to their reporter in NYC via a speakerphone sitting on a chair while I pretended to look straight ahead, as if I were looking her in the eye. Sigh. They used about 7 seconds of what I said.
About right. Four hours of your time for 7 seconds of commentary. No wonder the networks are gradually going broke. "Typing dummy entries." Typical. Faking the news. (I had a sort of similar experience in '95 when the BBC wanted to interview me. I had to get up at 5 am for an 8 am flight to LA (I live an hour away from the airport), take a series of buses and shuttles to a hoity toity hotel in Hollywood, wait for 3 hours for Alvin and Heidi Toffler to be interviewed, then submit to their "let's have you do some fake stuff!" producer directions. I resisted doing the fake stuff, but they insisted. I pretended to be doing something crypto-like. They ended up using about a second of this elaborately-faked session. And they lifted my comments in such a way as to misrepresent what I said. I finally made my way back to LAX around 6, caught a late flight to SJO, and arrived back at my home around midnight. All for a meaningless snippet on a meaningless t.v. show seen by a few thousands Brits. Of course, were I a journalist or other such person, I would prominently list this in my resume. What a joke.) --Tim May, Corralitos, California Quote of the Month: "It is said that there are no atheists in foxholes; perhaps there are no true libertarians in times of terrorist attacks." --Cathy Young, "Reason Magazine," both enemies of liberty.
At 10:59 PM 10/9/01 -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote:
That's always an engineer's problem. :)
Tech may be a partial solution. Tim could tape-record the conversation (or, if there were sufficient market demand, conference in a neutral party to do the recording) and damage the reporter's reputation capital by posting the audio clip if he ends up misquoted.
This obviously requires more effort than he appears willing to spend. But some PR flacks do record conversations with journalists for precisely this reason. (Less so damaging reputation capital, more so obtaining a clarification/editor's note if something goes awry.)
-Declan
At 07:20 PM 10/9/01 -0700, David Honig wrote:
Ok. I was trying to use tech to solve a social problem.
Audio recording takes essentially zero resources these days. In Calif, IIRC, he'd have to get permission, but presumably *that's* ok with you reporter-types :-)
On Tuesday, October 9, 2001, at 08:49 PM, David Honig wrote:
At 10:59 PM 10/9/01 -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote:
That's always an engineer's problem. :)
Tech may be a partial solution. Tim could tape-record the conversation (or, if there were sufficient market demand, conference in a neutral party to do the recording) and damage the reporter's reputation capital by posting the audio clip if he ends up misquoted.
This obviously requires more effort than he appears willing to spend. But some PR flacks do record conversations with journalists for precisely this reason. (Less so damaging reputation capital, more so obtaining a clarification/editor's note if something goes awry.)
-Declan
At 07:20 PM 10/9/01 -0700, David Honig wrote:
Ok. I was trying to use tech to solve a social problem.
Audio recording takes essentially zero resources these days. In Calif, IIRC, he'd have to get permission, but presumably *that's* ok with you reporter-types :-)
No, you're missing the real issue. Having a tape of what was said is meaningless for two main reasons: 1. Selective quoting. Out of a typical interview, the reporter can extract the juiciest quotes, even if misleading and out of context. 2. Enforcement. Having a tape is not very useful. (Declan says some court rulings say that verbal agreements are binding, but this presumes that one would bother to sue, hire the lawyers, and see it through. I know I wouldn't. I'd rather pay $5000 to have a lying journalist whacked than spend a hundred thousand bucks fighting AOL Time Warner or General Electric and, probably, losing.) --Tim May "Gun Control: The theory that a woman found dead in an alley, raped and strangled with her panty hose, is somehow morally superior to a woman explaining to police how her attacker got that fatal bullet wound"
At 09:30 PM 10/9/01 -0700, Tim May wrote:
2. Enforcement. Having a tape is not very useful. (Declan says some court rulings say that verbal agreements are binding, but this presumes that one would bother to sue, hire the lawyers, and see it through. I know I wouldn't. I'd rather pay $5000 to have a lying journalist whacked than spend a hundred thousand bucks fighting AOL Time Warner or General Electric and, probably, losing.)
Yes in general it sounds about as much fun as a subpeona to Washington state in winter.
On Tuesday, October 9, 2001, at 07:04 PM, Declan McCullagh wrote:
At 06:31 PM 10/9/01 -0700, David Honig wrote:
It would be better for Tim (etc) to do a writeup, post it, and point to it. Then others could find the original and compare reporters'
No, reporters will want to ask questions on the phone, or, more rarely, in person for audio or video taping. (There are many good reasons for this.) An essay by Tim isn't good enough for those reasons and also, frankly, for more parochial reasons of "exclusivity."
As the Deaf One used to say, "mega dittos." When I used to give some interviews, or answer questions, essentially none of those who interviewed me had ever bothered to read anything I had written prior to the interview. Every time I consent to an interview, I regret it. The most recent time was earlier this year for a French journalist doing a piece on Freenet, Napster, peer-to-peer, Gnutellla, and related technologies. He contacted me by e-mail and said he wanted to get my comments on the significance of these technologies. I agreed and made myself available for his phone call. He promised he would send me a copy of the French magazine the piece was to run in. Our interview lasted an hour. A frustrating hour, as he was not knowledgeable about crypto, anonymity, or political issues. "But wouldn't this interfere with police investigations?" The worst was yet to come. He sent me e-mail saying his tape machine had somehow not been running, or something along these lines, and could I please do the interview _again_. "Sigh." I stupidly made myself available a second time. It was much worse. Apparently the implications of crypto anarchy had sunk in, and he spent most of the 45 minutes or so debating me about what "chaos" would mean. Including the old chestnut about "what would happen to taxes? Who would help the poor?" I tried to tell him about market economies, the ubiquitousness of anarchies all around us, Hayek, Friedman, etc., but it was clear these were all things he had never thought about. (Sort of the way airheads like Cathy Young write for "Reason" without ever having thought about their alleged beliefs.) This second interview went nowhere, due to getting bogged down in his utter disbelief that anyone could advocate such "libertarian" ideas (I assume libertarian ideas have not taken root in France--they like the trappings of radicalism, but they are actually very bourgois.). I never received a copy from him of the magazine article, or any further e-mail communication, so I don't even know if it ever got published. I hear the magazine business is going into a steep dive this year, especially after 911. Apparently not a lot of people are shelling out real money to buy most of the thousand or so junky mags. ("Oracle 8i World, the magazine for Oracle 8i consumer-units," "Interior Southwestern Homes, the design magazine for pueblo reconstruction advertising," "Lesbigay Travel, the monthly for active lesbigays") If we can knock off "Reason" and "Wired," it'll have been a good year. --Tim May, Citizen-unit of of the once free United States " The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. "--Thomas Jefferson, 1787
On Tue, Oct 09, 2001 at 07:33:58PM -0700, Tim May wrote:
Every time I consent to an interview, I regret it. The most recent time was earlier this year for a French journalist doing a piece on Freenet,
Come, now. There are different grades of journalist: Some are reasonably clueful and write frequently about these topics, and others are dilettantes told by their editors to "find something new about P2P to write about." I remember that Steven Levy from Newsweek went out to interview you, the content of which made its way into a chapter of his Crypto book, which you've recommended. -Declan
On Tuesday, October 9, 2001, at 06:31 PM, David Honig wrote:
At 02:29 PM 10/9/01 -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote:
On Tue, Oct 09, 2001 at 10:09:25AM -0700, Tim May wrote:
I've had a couple of reporters try to reach me for "quotes." When I turned them down, they replied along the lines of "But it'll only take a minute of your time." All the worse, but they miss this point.
There is a tiny bit of room for negotiations. You could agree to do the interview on condition that they read you back the quotes (or email you back the quotes) that they're going to use in the article.
This agreement isn't enforcable, is it? Even if it were, by the time you've sued them for damage to your rep for misquoting, its too late.
You can always tell them that if they willfully and substantively misquote you, you will visit their home, wait until they are are away, kill their wife and children, wait until they return home, force them to the floor at gunpoint, put tape around their mouth and nylon tie wraps around their hands, let them see what has been done to their family, let them think about it for 10 minutes, then put tape over their nose and wait for them to suffocate. The danger is in telling them. It may be best to not tell them, but then to carry out punishment some appropriate time later.
--Tim May, Corralitos, California Quote of the Month: "It is said that there are no atheists in foxholes; perhaps there are no true libertarians in times of terrorist attacks." --Cathy Young, "Reason Magazine," both enemies of liberty.
At 07:09 PM 10/9/01 -0700, Tim May wrote:
You can always tell them that if they willfully and substantively misquote you, you will visit their home, wait until they are are away, kill their wife and children, wait until they return home, force them to the floor at gunpoint, put tape around their mouth and nylon tie wraps around their hands, let them see what has been done to their family, let them think about it for 10 minutes, then put tape over their nose and wait for them to suffocate.
Ah, channelling Keyzer-Soze now? Or wiretapping Janet Reno's fantasy life? .... Good timing: the dude who flew his ultralight into the Statue of Liberty while you could do that and not get a missile up your butt.
On Tuesday, October 9, 2001, at 07:25 PM, David Honig wrote:
At 07:09 PM 10/9/01 -0700, Tim May wrote:
You can always tell them that if they willfully and substantively misquote you, you will visit their home, wait until they are are away, kill their wife and children, wait until they return home, force them to the floor at gunpoint, put tape around their mouth and nylon tie wraps around their hands, let them see what has been done to their family, let them think about it for 10 minutes, then put tape over their nose and wait for them to suffocate.
Ah, channelling Keyzer-Soze now?
Or wiretapping Janet Reno's fantasy life?
.... Good timing: the dude who flew his ultralight into the Statue of Liberty while you could do that and not get a missile up your butt.
Expressing my belief about what should be done to many people. Deal with it, or don't. --Tim May, Occupied America "They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759.
participants (5)
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David Honig -
Declan McCullagh -
Ken Brown -
Tim May -
Xeni Jardin