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Richard Feynman's sprawling FBI file covers two-thirds of the physicist's legendary career, from drama over his invitation to speak at a Soviet science conference to an unnamed colleague citing his hobby of cracking safes at Los Alamos as evidence he was a "master of deception and enemy of America." But the file stops abruptly in 1958, and for a very Feynmanian reason: Feynman asked them to.
After decades of Bureau inquiries, it appears a fed-up Feynman simply pulled the "I made the atomic bomb" card and asked to be left alone.
To their credit (and perhaps due to Feynman's not inconsiderable clout), the FBI obeyed Feynman's wishes, with Hoover even writing a chastising memo reminding agents not to bother the man without a damn good reason.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 05 2017, @07:46PM
Invent some groundbreaking tech and you too can push around the FBI. Just kidding! Not anymore! We're all on a list of one sort or another... I bet asking them to stop will simply upgrade your threat level nowadays.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 05 2017, @07:48PM
If you got nothing to hide, you got nothing to fear
(I jest... I jest...!)
(Score: 3, Informative) by Zz9zZ on Thursday January 05 2017, @07:59PM
I still want to mod you down for even jesting about that so called "argument".
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bob_super on Thursday January 05 2017, @08:04PM
It is a very correct argument though, since the whole US economy is based on getting (or feeling that you have) as many things as possible so you can be trapped by the fear of losing them
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 05 2017, @10:56PM
US economy? That's just mortality.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 05 2017, @08:12PM
If you got nothing to hide, you got nothing to fear
(I jest... I jest...!)
Which is why we all opt to take a dump in the middle of mainstreet, in front of our friends, neighbors, and government officials, whenever our bowels urge us to. After all, we have nothing to hide.
(I just ... I jest ...! But only to provide an example for those oh-so-many who seem to think the above argument is a valid one as to why privacy has nothing to do with "having something to hide")
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 05 2017, @08:25PM
As per Glenn Greenwald:
Over the last 16 months, as I’ve debated this issue around the world, every single time somebody has said to me, “I don’t really worry about invasions of privacy because I don’t have anything to hide.” I always say the same thing to them. I get out a pen, I write down my email address. I say, “Here’s my email address. What I want you to do when you get home is email me the passwords to all of your email accounts, not just the nice, respectable work one in your name, but all of them, because I want to be able to just troll through what it is you’re doing online, read what I want to read and publish whatever I find interesting. After all, if you’re not a bad person, if you’re doing nothing wrong, you should have nothing to hide.” Not a single person has taken me up on that offer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 05 2017, @09:00PM
You can't cite Greenwald! He's part of The Matrix [soylentnews.org]!!!
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday January 06 2017, @02:36AM
I prefer to explain it as following you around in meatspace, everywhere you go except inside your house and when you go Inside your house I'm peeking through your windows and listening. If you have to use a public restroom I'm following you in there, too, just in case you're up to illegal activity.
Then I bring up the "privacy is a necessary dignity" line and say that without it we're just animals in a zoo.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 05 2017, @08:59PM
How about this? I'm not a socialist, so I have nothing to fear. I'm not a trade unionist, so I have nothing to fear. I'm not in the free shit army, so I have nothing to fear. I'm not a Moslem, so I have nothing to fear. I'm not a... wait, hopefully there's a category after that so I will continue having nothing to fear.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday January 05 2017, @10:46PM
This whole discussion reminds me of John Oliver's interview with Edward Snowden. Oliver went around and asked ordinary Americans if they knew who Snowden was or what he did (most either didn't know him at all or were totally confused about what he did). He also asked them questions about how far the government's spying went, and most Americans -- even after the Snowden coverage -- had no clue.
Basically, nobody knows or cares.
But then Oliver put questions to Snowden about whether, when, and how the government could see your "dick pics" on your phone. The interview isnkindbof hilarious, but also ingenious. For when Oliver asked the same Americans if they'd be concerned if the government could get access to their phones and view nude photos of themselves, these Americans were suddenly very concerned.
That's our problem -- we don't frame privacy questions in sufficiently extreme terms to make people realize what they're actually giving up.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Friday January 06 2017, @12:36AM
> That's our problem -- we don't frame privacy questions in sufficiently extreme terms to make people realize what they're actually giving up.
Not just privacy questions...
Ask people about repealing Obamacare, or Net Neutrality, and you will get very different responses than if you ask them about their individual components...
Just get your dirty government out of my medicare...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @05:10AM
we don't frame privacy questions in sufficiently extreme terms to make people realize what they're actually giving up.
Not to be a pedant, but it isn't about the extreme, people just write off the extreme stuff as unlikely.
It needs to be personal and relatable.
Kind of like that old saw, "All politics is local."
Field research on changing people's minds [npr.org] about transgender rights is a good demonstration of the principle. A more generic example is that very few of these assholes who are on the muslim hate train have ever actually met a muslim (that they knew of). When the harm that the policies cause is far away and impersonal its way easier to support those policies. But when people can relate to the suffering, they suddenly care a lot more.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 05 2017, @11:31PM
Invent some groundbreaking tech and you too can push around the FBI. Just kidding! Not anymore! We're all on a list of one sort or another... I bet asking them to stop will simply upgrade your threat level nowadays.
It's more like, "prove beyond a shadow of a doubt your faith in the government by eliminating an existential threat and known enemy to the US, and then you too can push around the FBI."
For example, imagine somebody were to have incontrovertible proof that they personally ended the North Korea and the Iran nuclear weapons programs through irreproachable means (in the US Government's opinion). Then, after a while of harassment, they told the FBI to leave them alone. I expect there is a decent chance they would be listened to.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @03:29AM
My cousin Usama tried to make atomic bomb. He was put *on* FBI wanted list instead. Maybe only works for American citizens?
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Saturday January 07 2017, @09:37PM
A bunch of immigrants developed our atomic and nuclear weapons...