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A comment on Ex-U.S. agent gets over six years for Bitcoin theft in Silk Road probe.

Re:Ex-U.S. agent gets over six years for Bitcoin theft in Si... by meric on Tuesday October 20, 2015 @02:00AM (#10417665)
The title should be U.S. Agent (now Ex-) gets over six years for Bitcoin theft in Silk Road probe.. Reuters try to emphasise the agent is not government to distance the agent from the authorities, but I think we'd be blind to pretend elsewhere police don't confiscate people's money for their own pensions or salaries, where dogs get shot for sport, where senators accept cushy jobs after their tenure in return for having a certain stance, government paying way too much for screws and toilet seats. This is one rare case where an agent abused their position actually got caught.
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Re:Ex-U.S. agent gets over six years for Bitcoin theft in Si... by Pyxl101 on Tuesday October 20, 2015 @02:05AM (#10417675)
Indeed. The title should be "US Agent gets six years" if he was a US Agent up until he was tried and convicted for the crime we're discussing.

A description like "ex US Agent" should be applied only to a person whose crimes were committed after their service as an agent and with no connection. It seems like this agent committed their crimes while working as an agent, and it would be more appropriate to describe them as "US Agent".

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Re:Ex-U.S. agent gets over six years for Bitcoin theft in Si... by culturestate on Tuesday October 20, 2015 @07:08AM (#10418460)
I understand where you're coming from, but accusing Reuters of manipulating the headline to suit some kind of political agenda is a bit disingenuous. Remember that news organizations have style guides and (mostly) adhere to them strictly -- you wouldn't say "MLB player Pete Rose reinstated after 25-year ban for gambling" because Pete Rose is not an active MLB player, so why would you do so here?

From the Reuters Handbook [1]:

>ex-

Make sure this prefix is hyphenated to the word it limits. Note the difference between a Conservative ex-minister and an ex-Conservative minister. Prefer “former” in written text , e.g., “Former Brazilian finance minister Jorge Braga was killed on Tuesday when...” “Ex-” may be used for brevity in headlines, e.g., “Ex-minister killed in Brazil air crash.”

1. http://handbook.reuters.com/?title=E#ex-

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Re:Ex-U.S. agent gets over six years for Bitcoin theft in Si... by meric on Tuesday October 20, 2015 @04:23PM (#10421579)
Is he an Ex-minister because he's dead and no longer a minister?

The agent was still an agent when he performed the crime. It is disgenuous to say he's an ex-U.S. agent when he lost his title because of the incident.

You wouldn't say Ex-president Obama was impeached, that's just weird.

There are academic papers pointing out Reuters propaganda. http://blogs.roosevelt.edu/hsilverman/files/2011/11/Reuters-...

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Re:Ex-U.S. agent gets over six years for Bitcoin theft in Si... by culturestate on Tuesday October 20, 2015 @05:11PM (#10421835)
As another reply said, the President cannot be impeached once he's out of office, but congressmen are convicted of crimes relatively regularly and receive the same treatment, e.g.:

"Ex-Rep. Jefferson (D-La.) gets 13 years in freezer cash case" by the Washington Post [1]

"Ex-Congressman Gets 8-Year Term in Bribery Case" by the New York Times [2]

Each of these convictions related to things that happened while they were still Members of Congress. I'm quite happy that news outlets treat government officials the same way they'd treat a baseball player -- to do otherwise would just be a different form of "propaganda."

1. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11... 2. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/04/politics/04cunningham.html

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Re:Ex-U.S. agent gets over six years for Bitcoin theft in Si... by dragonwriter on Tuesday October 20, 2015 @04:29PM (#10421607)
> The agent was still an agent when he performed the crime.

Which would be relevant if the headline was about the commission of the crime, and not the conviction. He was not an agent at the time of his conviction, and had not been for some time. Reporting on the conviction, "former agent" or "ex-agent" is accurate, and anything else would be inaccurate.

> You wouldn't say Ex-president Obama was impeached, that's just weird.

Well, yeah, because an ex-President can't be impeached (unless they are now in another impeachable office.)

Impeachment happens while you are in office, and doesn't remove you from office (it is the formal initiation of a process which might, with conviction, result in removal from office.)

So, its not really a comparable thing.

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Re:Ex-U.S. agent gets over six years for Bitcoin theft in Si... by rurban on Tuesday October 20, 2015 @09:38AM (#10419005)
not only dogs
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