Re:F.D.A. Surveillance of Scientists Spread to Outside Critics
by tokenadult on Saturday July 14, 2012 @06:15PM
(#4245517)
Read the source HTML on New York Times articles, and scan the New York Times front page online from time to time to see the variety of ways that headlines can appear on the same article from the New York Times. I sometimes see a headline first as link text that leads me to the article, and then see a different headline as the article itself displays in my browswer. If I like the article and then think about submitting it here on HN, I have to think about which submission headline will be give readers an idea of what the article is about and what aspect of a hacker's intellectual curiosity the article might gratify.
To sum up, there is not always a one-to-one correspondence between articles and headlines as the New York Times is hosted on the Web.
Re:F.D.A. Surveillance of Scientists Spread to Outside Critics
by stfu on Saturday July 14, 2012 @04:53PM
(#4245313)
They might be running some automated A/B testing to find the most effective headline. Currently the headline is for me "Vast Effort by F.D.A. Spied on E-Mails of Its Own Scientists", while the page title is still the "F.D.A. Surveillance of Scientists Spread to Outside Critics".
Re:F.D.A. Surveillance of Scientists Spread to Outside Critics
by _delirium on Saturday July 14, 2012 @05:50PM
(#4245457)
Curious. Disappointing if they really are doing A/B testing! Those headlines all have significantly different connotations, so it would seriously lower my opinion of the NYTimes' journalism if they're choosing them based on linkbait potential, and not taking into account accuracy.
Re:F.D.A. Surveillance of Scientists Spread to Outside Critics
by wib on Saturday July 14, 2012 @10:34PM
(#4245919)
Headlines were bait before there were hyperlinks. Nothing new there—you're just seeing the process for the first time. Also, this doesn't take away from the substance of a very well-reported article.
Re:F.D.A. Surveillance of Scientists Spread to Outside Critics
by pcrh on Saturday July 14, 2012 @06:40PM
(#4245565)
They might be doing A/B testing and SEO optimization as described for HuffPo here:
Re:F.D.A. Surveillance of Scientists Spread to Outside Critics
by Locke1689 on Saturday July 14, 2012 @05:09PM
(#4245356)
Storing attorney-client communication seems pretty illegal to me.
Re:F.D.A. Surveillance of Scientists Spread to Outside Critics
by _delirium on Saturday July 14, 2012 @05:17PM
(#4245380)
Seems questionable to me also, but my understanding was that it's legal (and common) for employers to routinely read communications that take place on company-owned equipment. Do they have to stop reading it if they realize that the employee is communicating with an attorney? Or is it up to the employee to avoid using employer equipment for such purposes?
edit: Some searching digs up that the ABA model code of conduct suggests to attorneys that, as part of their duty of confidentiality, they should warn clients not to email them from their employer's email address. So it seems that the ABA is at least wary of whether such email would be confidential.
Re:F.D.A. Surveillance of Scientists Spread to Outside Critics
by Locke1689 on Saturday July 14, 2012 @05:33PM
(#4245413)
This is more complicated because their employer is an agency of the United States federal government.
Re:F.D.A. Surveillance of Scientists Spread to Outside Critics
by _delirium on Saturday July 14, 2012 @05:48PM
(#4245449)
True, that does complicate it a bit. I'm not an expert in this area by any stretch, but from what I've read, employees' rights are still pretty strongly curtailed. The courts have generally held that the government acting in its role as employer, rather than its police-power role, has roughly the same authority as a private employer would have with respect to its employees. The test for which role it's acting in at a given time is basically whether the search could reasonably be considered work-related. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_v._Quon was a recent case.
Re:F.D.A. Surveillance of Scientists Spread to Outside Critics
by jamesbritt on Saturday July 14, 2012 @06:46PM
(#4245572)
It's common for what appears as the NYT article title to differ from what appears in the title element.
I use a bookmarklet to submit articles and it automagically grabs the title element content. I leave it as-is if it's close enough.
The new title seems more accurate. It's still no good at all (obviously), but it doesn't appear that they monitored any computers except their own employees' computers. Of course, that ends up intercepting both sides of any conversation, which may often include non-employees; but that's generally the case when any employer monitors their employees' email (as many do). The questionable part would be whether this violated whistleblower protections, i.e. it was done in retaliation for a complaint.
(I'm more generally wary of employers reading their employees' email, but afaict it's widespread and legal, if not done in some kind of prohibited retaliatory manner. At least, that's the case in the U.S.; I believe some other countries may have privacy laws that restrict what employers can read.)