Journalism Archives - Page 6 of 6 - Kit O'Connell: Approximately 8,000 Words

An orange and white cat leaps through the air in a typical living room. (Flickr / Darron BirgonHeier)

March 2, 2016

A new direction for my journalism

Posted in Archive, Journalism, MintPress News, and SXSW

SXSW is known for the amazing diversity of talent it features, but also gets a bad rap for being corporate dominated and inaccessible to many people. It deserves a lot of that criticism, honestly. But, since I have access to essentially every part of it, I should take advantage of that and share it with all of you.

I want to give you my unique gonzo perspective on the event, and report on some of the weirdest, most interesting, or just unfairly overlooked panels, artists, and films. SXSW takes place this year from March 11-19. Here’s a small sample of what I’m looking forward to covering:

A New Look For Approx. 8,000 Words

Tthe sun rises over the Colorado River as seen from Longhorn Dam in Austin, Texas, in this October 11, 2011 photograph. (Flickr / Marcus Calderon)

February 12, 2016

Kit

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A New Look For Approx. 8,000 Words

Posted in Journalism, Life, and Website

If this isn’t your first visit, you may notice that my website changed in the past month.

I created this website when I finally got tired of keeping a LiveJournal and decided it was time to launch a real online identity. I’ve been a writer in various genres since my teens, but 8 years ago I was mostly focused on writing fiction. In 2008, I designed Approximately 8,000 Words to look like an old-fashioned manuscript format submission that a writer might send to an editor.

It’s halfway through a new decade, and I’m now working full time as a journalist. My homepage was overdue for a new look. I’m still fine-tuning things, and slowly crossposting most of my reports for MintPress News and other sites, but I hope you enjoy what you see.

How Glenn Greenwald & Facebook Learned To Stop Worrying & Love Encryption

File: A USB data stick with features from a bank safe, including a combination wheel, added. (Flickr / Stockmonkeys.com)

June 5, 2015

Kit

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How Glenn Greenwald & Facebook Learned To Stop Worrying & Love Encryption

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

Facebook now offers users the ability to encrypt their notification emails using PGP, a freely available encryption method proven to thwart NSA surveillance. It’s the latest attempt by social media and other Internet providers to offer increased privacy to their users in the wake of the Edward Snowden leaks.

PGP, which stands for “Pretty Good Privacy,” is a freely available encryption standard that’s been available for decades. PGP encryption works through a technique called asymmetric encryption. Users of the software create both a private and a public encryption key. The public key can be shared freely with anyone who wants to send encrypted messages, and those messages can only be read by the person who holds the private key and its associated password.

The new feature, launched Monday, offers users the option to upload a public PGP key to Facebook. With this feature enabled, Facebook notification emails will only be legible to their intended recipient, using the corresponding password and private encryption key. Without encryption, anyone with access to a user’s email (potentially including hackers, police, or government agencies) could read the contents of private messages included in some notification emails.

Department Of Justice Flying Secret Airplane Fleet Over American Cities

A Cessna airplane like the one being used by the U.S. Marshal Service to trick the cell phones of thousands, or perhaps millions, of Americans to give over their private data. (Flickr / Joao Carlos Medau)

May 27, 2015

Kit

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Department Of Justice Flying Secret Airplane Fleet Over American Cities

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

When a friend happened to spot a surveillance flight over his neighborhood, it led Sam Richards, an independent journalist, to uncover a fleet of secret airplanes registered to fake corporations apparently created by the Department of Justice.

While their purpose remains unknown, Richards has uncovered 100 of the aircraft and traced regular flights over major American cities.

Richards, who writes under the nom de plume Sam Renegade, first published his findings on his Twitter account, @MinneapoliSam, before gathering them into a report on Medium. In his report, published on Monday, he outlines how each of the planes is registered to a fake corporation with a three-letter acronym for a name, such as “OBR Leasing,” which doesn’t seem to otherwise exist as a viable business from Internet or public records searches. Richards reveals that dozens of these aircraft, from front corporations like “FVX Research” and “KQM Aviation,” are registered at the same Bristow, Virginia, post office boxes used for planes which are openly registered to the DOJ.

How Seymour Hersh Became One Of Today’s Greatest, Most Controversial Journalists

Seymour Hersh accepts the Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award in 2004. (Institute for Policy Studies)

May 12, 2015

Kit

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How Seymour Hersh Became One Of Today’s Greatest, Most Controversial Journalists

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

At 78 years old, Seymour Hersh remains one of the most important, controversial, and even cutting-edge voices in journalism. His newest report, which criticizes the official narrative of the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden, is just one revelation in a long history of undermining government propaganda through investigative reporting.

In the bin Laden report, published this month in the London Review of Books, Hersh accuses the United States of collaborating with Pakistan to orchestrate bin Laden’s capture and then covering up the real story with a tale of all-American heroism. Hersh’s account makes it clear that bin Laden was a pawn the Pakistani government traded to the U.S. in return for military aid, and the terrorist leader’s capture an almost theatrical event carefully managed by both governments for maximum positive publicity.

The White House previously maintained that the mission was carried out using only U.S. intelligence and troops, as mythologized in the Oscar-winning film “Zero Dark Thirty.” The Obama administration strongly denies the claims of collaboration, but already the mainstream media is confirming part of Hersh’s story.

Al Jazeera on Occupy, with Kit!