Talk About Tennis 2.0

ti-amie wrote: ↑Fri Jan 27, 2023 1:31 am Is +/- 4% still considered a pretty high margin of error?

It is to me, but I consider all polls to have a margin of error that skews it far enough from accurate that I tend not to use them for much.

ti-amie wrote: ↑Fri Jan 27, 2023 1:31 am Is +/- 4% still considered a pretty high margin of error?

Normally, it would, but when the result is 75%, it is not relevant.

This morning's NT Times e-newsletter focused on the plethora of classified documents being found in the possession of, or turned over by, former presidents, vice presidents, and other high-ranking government officials.

It raised an interesting point I had not thought about--the Federal Government classifies far too many documents, more than 50 million per year.

::

Good morning. The U.S. government classifies tens of millions of documents a year, and experts say the practice is excessive.

Not so confidential
Classified documents keep turning up in the homes of former presidents and vice presidents. First, law enforcement found hundreds of them in Donald Trump’s home. President Biden’s aides recently gave back classified documents that were found in his office and home, dating to his time as vice president and senator. And last week, Mike Pence’s aides found classified documents in his home.

After all of these discoveries, the National Archives asked former presidents and vice presidents yesterday to look through their personal records for any documents that should not be there.

The three cases have important differences. Notably, Trump resisted efforts to retrieve the documents, while Biden and Pence returned them voluntarily. But they have all raised the public’s awareness of what has long been a government phenomenon: Current and former officials at all levels discover and turn over classified documents several times a year, The Associated Press reported.

Why does this keep happening? One possible reason, experts say, is that too many documents are classified in the first place. The federal government classifies more than 50 million documents a year. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to keep track of all of them. Some get lost and found years later — and many more are likely still out there.

Today’s newsletter will look at how the over-classification of government documents became so widespread.

Playing it safe
The government classifies all kinds of information, including informants’ identities, war plans and diplomatic cables. There are three broad categories of classification: confidential, secret and top secret. Technically, the president decides what is classified. But the job is delegated to cabinet and agency heads, who further delegate, through agency guidelines, to lower-ranked officials.

That system effectively encourages federal officials to take a better-safe-than-sorry approach to classification. The classification of a document reduces the risk that important secret information leaks and leads to trouble, particularly when it concerns national security. But if a document is not classified and is obtained by America’s enemies or competitors, the people who originally handled that information could lose their jobs, or worse.

In many agencies, officials “face no downsides for over-classifying something,” said Oona Hathaway, a professor at Yale Law School and former special counsel at the Pentagon. “But if you under-classify something, really dire consequences could come for you.”

So officials tend to play it safe. Of the more than 50 million documents classified every year, just 5 to 10 percent warrant the classification, Hathaway estimated, based on her experience at the Pentagon.

One example of the extremes of classification: In a cable leaked by Chelsea Manning, an official marked details of wedding rituals in the Russian region of Dagestan as “confidential” — as if most such details were not already well known in a region of more than three million people.

Presidents have criticized the classification system, too. “There’s classified, and then there’s classified,” Barack Obama said in 2016. “There’s stuff that is really top-secret top-secret, and there’s stuff that is being presented to the president or the secretary of state that you might not want on the transom, or going out over the wire, but is basically stuff that you could get in open-source.”

In 2010, Obama signed the Reducing Over-Classification Act. It didn’t solve the problem, experts said.

The downsides
So what’s the harm? Experts say there are several potential dangers to over-classification.

For one, it keeps potentially relevant information from the public, making it harder for voters and journalists to hold their leaders accountable. One example: Starting in the 2000s, the U.S. ran a highly classified drone program to identify, locate and hunt down suspected terrorists in the Middle East and South Asia. The program’s existence was well known, and the destruction it caused was widely reported. Yet elected officials, including members of Congress briefed on the program, could answer few questions from constituents or reporters about it because the details were classified.

Over-classification can also make it difficult for agencies to share information with others, whether they are other U.S. agencies or foreign partners. “There are national security concerns — in terms of information not getting shared that should be,” said Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program.

And, of course, the recent discoveries show how hard it can be to track all of these classified documents. “We’ve just overloaded the system,” Goitein said. “And that makes slippage inevitable.”

The difference still remains that all of these papers/documents being found are being turned over with little to no fuss. The one glaring exception still remains...

But it still changes his case. If he took classified material but was the same kind as those of others, the "crime" is not as complex.
He remains a total shame, but he has to be treated like all the others.

Today in "George Santos"

Sunday with "George Santos"

A fishing expedition by any other name...

Why are we calling the liar George Santos a fabulist? Fabulist sounds like a charming little moniker for Upper East Side women who lunch with their gay male friend who's trying to become them.

Owendonovan wrote: ↑Tue Jan 31, 2023 12:42 am Why are we calling the liar George Santos a fabulist? Fabulist sounds like a charming little moniker for Upper East Side women who lunch with their gay male friend who's trying to become them.

I totally agree. It's like how the NYTimes had to be shamed into calling tfg a liar.

Because of the US's legal system? You call him a liar, he sues you for defamation, the case go to trial, it takes years to determine and in the meantime you cannot publish anything on him because you are in litigation?

Just asking.

Today in "George Santos"

We can call him a liar here though right?

I'll believe it when I see it.

ti-amie wrote: ↑Tue Jan 31, 2023 6:45 pm Today in "George Santos"

We can call him a liar here though right?

I'll believe it when I see it.

Here? Liar, POS, psycho, a** hole, whatever you want. If they tell you to stop it (whomever "they" may be), tell them to go find that "Evil P" in Colombia, and shut down out server in Lithuania.
Most likely (if they are republicans) they won't even know where the countries are (guaranteed they will go to D.C., because of "Columbia")

More "George Santos" news today



I worked with many people from Long Island - meaning Nassau and Suffolk counties not Brooklyn and Queens - and I've known for a long time that the GOP, at least there, operates like a gang. If you want decent services from your town or county you have to be a registered Republican. It's been like that for years and years. This Nancy Marks woman has been at the center of things for a very long time. It should also be noted that Elise Stefanik from upstate New York was a strong backer of "George Santos".

Just my opinion but if they've "asked" him to step down from his committee assignments and Marks has resigned from his "campaign" something is about to hit the fan big time. I could be wrong - timing is never sure with these people - but if he was just a money laundering front...or not a born or naturalized US citizen... it can get very interesting.