Talking To Strangers

We are a species driven by narrative and art is storytelling. We need to tell stories. We need to tell stories to pass along ideas and information and to try and make sense out of all this chaos. And sometimes, when you get a really good artist and a compelling story, you can almost achieve that thing that’s almost impossible which is entering the consciousness of another human being…so the experience is transformative.

What is it we want our maps to be now, if no longer a single authoritative view or the world?

Insofar as there’s a “scandal” here, it’s more about what is legal than what isn’t. The DoJ simply has extraordinary power, under existing law, to spy on ordinary citizens — members of the media included. The White House is trying to change existing law by encouraging Sen. Chuck Schumer to reintroduce the Media Shield Act. The Post’s Rachel Weiner has a good rundown of what the bill would do. It’s likely that the measure’s national security exemption would make it relatively toothless in this particular case, but if Congress is worried, they always can — and probably should — take that language out. Still, that legislation has been killed by Republicans before, and it’s likely to be killed by them again.

Now it’s time now for U.S. media companies and individual bloggers alike to recognize that they live in an environment in which their own government—not to mention criminal or corporate hackers—may well be using all of the tools at its considerable disposal, legal or not, to spy on them. They will increasingly need to practice their craft here at home as if they were independent journalists or dissidents living under an authoritarian regime.