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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: 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.