Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 963

Apple's Plan to Change How You Watch TV Forever

Years of halting negotiations with cable companies haven’t gotten Apple much closer to its grand vision for television. But a newer strategy of talking directly to content providers seems more promising.

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Apple is negotiating with production studios and networks to provide content for a television set that would emphasize apps over cable TV, according to people familiar with those discussions. Among the companies that have talked to Apple are Disney’s ESPN, Time Warner’s HBO, and Viacom, which owns MTV Networks, Nickelodeon, and Comedy Central.

It’s unclear how close these deals are to fruition. Some people cautioned that, with the TV industry in such flux, “everybody is talking with everybody.” Any deal with an internet TV service like the one envisioned by Apple is likely to be under similar terms as the networks have negotiated with traditional cable companies.

Sources say Apple’s strategy could include forming its own pay TV service, essentially becoming a cable company itself, except with content delivered entirely over the internet. Intel, Sony, and Google are known to be pursuing similar tactics, and could launch their own pay TV services before Apple.

The difference is that Apple wants to release a full-fledged television set, seeking to control the entire experience of watching TV, according to sources. Apple already sells a small set-top box called Apple TV that plugs into the back of other televisions. It’s an add-on device for watching apps like Netflix and video purchased from Apple’s iTunes store. An Apple television set, by contrast, would attempt to usurp the role of the cable box in people’s living rooms.

Apple declined to comment. So did Viacom. ESPN spokesman Chris LaPlaca, referring to talks with all potential internet TV services, said, ”This is very, very exploratory in nature. There are no formal discussions taking place.” HBO spokesman Jeff Cusson said, “We see our current model as our best model for now and have no plans to go over the top or to enter these markets in a different way.”

The reference to going “over the top” points to a crucial distinction in the industry. Most new television programming is only available to people with pay TV subscriptions, which bundle together lots of networks for a monthly fee. Other ways of getting such content, like paying for shows a la carte, are considered over-the-top services. Streaming internet video companies like Netflix are also included in that category. But an internet-only pay TV service could occupy a gray area—not technically over-the-top, but still a threat to cable companies that fear becoming “dumb pipes” for other people’s programming.

Goodbye, channel-flipping

The main obstacle to an Apple television set has been content. It has mostly failed to convince cable companies to make their programming available through an Apple device. And cable companies have sought to prevent individual networks from signing distribution deals with Apple.

Sources say Apple has concluded that it doesn’t need all, even most, content providers on board before it can release a TV set that people would buy. It just needs enough good programming to distinguish the new product, which will try to simplify the experience of connecting internet video to the TV.

A deal with a top-tier content provider like ESPN or HBO could represent a tipping point that would encourage Apple to bring the product to market. Most networks, though, would be reluctant to strike deals without the participation of others, not wanting to upset their relationships with cable companies, which view Apple as a disruptive competitor.

Apple’s TV set could shift the paradigm of traditional television watching. Instead of organizing everything around channels, it would organize around apps from networks, studios, and others that own content. Other features, like search, might help eliminate the notion of channel-flipping altogether. Cable companies, in that scenario, could become just another app that consumers choose to pay for or not, rather than the core of the TV set.

Apple is still interested in striking deals with cable companies that would allow people to plug their cable lines into the back of the TV set, bypassing a cable box, sources say. But at least two years of negotiations haven’t progressed very far. The cable companies worry chiefly about losing control of their relationship with customers, as some believe happened to AT&T with the iPhone.

Apple is reportedly close to signing a deal with Time Warner Cable that would give the cable company’s subscribers an app on the existing Apple TV set-top box, which is about the size of a hockey puck and sells for $99.

It’s not clear what would happen to the current Apple TV if Apple also releases a TV set, which would cost much more. Apple’s desire to control all aspects of the experience is typical of the company, which puts a premium on aesthetics and ease of use, but it would still be a risk. TV sets are expensive, and people generally keep them longer than Apple’s other popular products, like computers and phones.

Picking the right moment

The existing Apple TV box is essentially a conduit for Apple’s own iTunes store, which sells and rents a large catalog of movies and TV shows. Apple has repeatedly downplayed the set-top box as a “hobby,” but sales have picked up recently. In May, Apple CEO Tim Cook said “about half” of the 13 million Apple TV’s ever sold had been purchased in the past year, and the product was recently upgraded to a “beloved hobby.”

In recent months, Apple has made various small moves to build its presence in TV land. It just acquired startup Matcha.tv, which helps people find a particular program or movie on the internet. Apple also reportedly offered $280 million for the Israeli firm PrimeSense, which makes motion sensing technology that can be used as a gesture-control system for TV.

Meanwhile, competition from other set-top boxes in the US has increased. Microsoft is preparing to release a new version of the Xbox, which is used as much for watching video as playing video games. Roku recently raised $60 million of venture capital, and has struck deals with some cable companies, including Time Warner Cable, Comcast, and DirecTV. Google launched the Chromecast, a small device that plugs into the back of TV sets to stream video and music. And Amazon, not to be left out, is also working on its own set-top box.

The array of video that can be played on such devices is growing, too, and much of it doesn’t require a cable TV subscription. Americans today can watch many newly released films, day-old episodes of some popular TV shows, and live network television—all without paying anything to a cable company. That has led to predictions that consumers will cut their cable cords in favor of services like Netflix, iTunes, and Amazon Instant Video. And while the causes aren’t clear, subscriptions to pay TV services in the US are now at their lowest level in four years.​

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Still, cord-cutting isn’t happening in large numbers yet, largely because cable companies have managed to secure exclusive rights to hometown sporting events and other coveted programming. For instance, Apple TV recently added apps for Disney’s ESPN and Time Warner’s HBO, but both require a cable subscription to use. That’s partly why Apple was so keen to strike deals with cable companies before releasing a TV set.

If you can’t beat them…

One alternative being considered is that Apple could essentially become a cable company itself. Under that scenario, sources say, Apple would launch what is formally known as a virtual multichannel video programming distributor. MVPD is the catch-all term for pay TV services, whether delivered over cable lines, satellites, or otherwise. A virtual MVPD would offer such content entirely over the internet. Intel, Google, and Sony are known to be preparing virtual MVPDs of their own.

To consumers, virtual MVPDs might not seem much different than over-the-top services, but the technical distinction could help Apple and content companies in their negotiations. HBO wouldn’t technically be going over the top and possibly violating its existing contracts if it struck a deal with a virtual MVPD. Viacom seems to have followed that logic in reportedly agreeing (paywall) to let Sony carry its content on an internet TV service.

However Apple’s television service is formally regarded, it will still be seen as disrupting the TV industry. In its talks with content companies, say sources, Apple notes that it has nearly 600 million iTunes accounts and is good at getting people to pay for content. It made similar claims when it negotiated with companies in music and publishing, and it has indelibly changed those industries.

If Apple or other tech companies were successful at internet TV, cable companies could see their bargaining power diminish with both consumers and content owners. That would squeeze prices in unpredictable ways. More entertainment companies could start to see advantages in selling new shows direct to consumers. Production studios, which typically work with TV channels to distribute their shows, may prefer to negotiate distribution deals on their own. And sports leagues, which sell lucrative contracts to media companies, could instead choose to offer more of their own subscription services.

Consultants hired by one cable company to examine such a scenario concluded that “value would flow up river to the content companies and away from cable, probably irreversibly,” says someone involved in the study. Cable companies will, of course, attempt to prevent that from happening. They are aggressively battling Intel’s efforts, for instance.

Years in the making

“I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use,” former Apple CEO Steve Jobs is quoted saying in his biography, published in 2011 after he died. That was seen as a sign that Apple would soon release a TV set, but two years later, it hasn’t yet happened, stymied by complexities far greater than other industries Apple has entered.

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The same, in a sense, is true for HBO. The network has long been rumored to be preparing to sell subscriptions directly to consumers, instead of doing it entirely through cable companies. It has developed a well-regarded service called HBO Go, which provides nearly all of the network’s programming, including old shows, over the internet. HBO Go is only available to HBO subscribers, who also must be cable subscribers—but the network could easily use the service to cut out cable companies, if that strategy started to make more sense.

HBO has made small steps in that direction, selling HBO Go directly to consumers in the Nordic countries. But it has repeatedly said it doesn’t make sense to do the same in the United States. Cable companies handle some payment processing, marketing, and customer service on behalf of HBO, which reduces costs. It’s also not clear how cable companies would react if HBO or other premium networks, like CBS’s Showtime, struck deals with Apple or other competitors.

ESPN is in a similar situation. Its WatchESPN apps and ESPN3 service allow some cable subscribers to view live programming over the internet. But it hasn’t gone further in that direction because Disney is reluctant to risk the lucrative revenue its able to extract from cable companies for the right to carry ESPN networks—about $5 per subscriber per month, even if some of those subscribers aren’t sports fans. Still, with pay TV subscriptions flatlining in the US, a new customer like Apple or another internet TV provider could prove appealing.

Another complicating factor in Apple’s quest to release a television is internet bandwidth. Cable companies generally own the pipes that deliver their programming and are best at optimizing their performance. Internet-only services, like Netflix, have run into bandwidth problems that can cause delays at busy times. (Netflix says it has improved performance considerably.) That’s another reason Apple is still interested in working with cable companies, according to one source, though internet speeds and bandwidth optimization may have improved enough in some parts of the US for Apple to go it alone.

       

Scott Rasmussen Leaves Rasmussen Reports to Become a GOP Pundit

Scott Rasmussen no longer works for the polling company that he founded, Rasmussen Reports said in a statement on Thursday. No longer content with putting out polls that critics like Nate Silver have analyzed as consistently right-leaning, Scott Rasmussen will move into Republican punditry at his new Rasmussen Media Group. That means that the man whose polls were once used to support conservative punditry will now do the punditry himself.

The Rasmussen Reports company release cites "disagreements over company business strategies" in its reasoning for the departure. There are some hints as to what those disagreements were, as the release cites a desire to "expand the business beyond the fields of politics and public affairs," though the statement does signal a continuance of their "polling methodologies and protocols, widely acknowledged as among the most accurate and reliable in the industry."

But while the polling company might move away from politics, Scott Rasmussen will dive in deeper as he positions himself as a Republican commentator in his new media group. "This new venture reflects a transition from Rasmussen's role as a scorekeeper in the nation's political dialogue to becoming a more active participant," reads the new group's statement.

[image error]Rasmussen has long claimed to be an independent. But he wrote a book on self-governance, popular among conservatives, and was a guest on a cruise sponsored by The National Review. In 2010, Jonathan Chait called Rasmussen "a right-wing celebrity" in The New Republic. FiveThirtyEight blogger and statistics star Nate Silver found Rasmussen's polls erred in favor of Republicans both in 2010 and in the presidential election of 2012 (Silver's chart at right). Getting a different result than everybody else doesn't necessarily mean a pollster is wrong. But in 2012, Silver found Rasmussen was the third-least accurate of the 23 polls examined.

Rasmussen's polls were sometimes valuable to conservative pundits, who could point to them as hard evidence that a bit of conventional wisdom favoring liberals was wrong — that, for example, despite most polls to the contrary, Romney was really winning. ("Final Gallup, Rasmussen Polls: Romney 49, Obama 48," the conservative site Townhall said November 5. Or, "Rasmussen: Wisconsin tied, Romney up 1 in Iowa," the conservative blog Hot Air said November 1. Obama won Wisconsin by 7 points, Iowa by 5.) But accuracy won't matter much in punditry — as Silver has argued, pundits are "completely useless" — so Rasmussen should be on solid ground there.

       

ESPN Pulls Out of PBS Partnership for Project on NFL Concussions

ESPN has backed out of a partnership with PBS's Frontline on an investigative project into concussions in NFL players, according to a note posted to the "Frontline" website this evening. The note, titled "Frontline: ESPN and 'League of Denial'", explains why the mammoth sports cable network's name suddenly disappeared from the websites for the upcoming film League of Denial and Concussion Watch, a companion project that tracks concussions sustained by NFL players. "We will no longer use their logos and collaboration credit on these sites and on our upcoming film League of Denial," Frontline executives wrote, indicating that the change was at the network's request. 

Frontline's announcement is bound to raise some eyebrows. For one thing, the forthcoming documentary League of Denial: The NFL’s Concussion Crisis, is more or less based on the work of Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru, two investigative reporters who work for ESPN. The title of their forthcoming book? League of Denial.  

Curious if ESPN will now distance itself from “League of Denial,” written by two of its investigative reporters: http://t.co/sxAry9sWoE

— Erik Malinowski (@erikmal) August 22, 2013

Thinking about @markfwespn and @SteveFainaru today. Men on an journalism island. Stay strong, brothers.

— Richard Deitsch (@richarddeitsch) August 22, 2013

ESPN has previously faced criticism over its coverage of the impact of concussions and head injuries on NFL players. Because the network makes a lot of money from broadcasting NFL games, there is concern of an acute conflict of interest going on between the editorial and business sides of the Connecticut-based company. In fact, the network often cited its collaboration as a rebuttal to that line of questioning: Earlier in August, ESPN senior coordinating producer Dwayne Bray told reporters that "ESPN has been covering this subject for almost two decades,” adding (via ThinkProgress): 

“Our journalism has been very strong on this issue, so strong that we partner with Frontline. Frontline is the gold standard for long-form documentaries…ESPN and other media entities are being educated as well. I think we’ve shown a lot of restraint especially in recent years, in showing the big hits…We don’t show any of that footage willy-nilly. There is a lot of thought and discussion that goes into our highlights.”

Shortly after Frontline made today's announcement, ESPN released a statement (via Deadspin): 

Because ESPN is neither producing nor exercising editorial control over the Frontline documentaries, there will be no co-branding involving ESPN on the documentaries or their marketing materials. The use of ESPN's marks could incorrectly imply that we have editorial control. As we have in the past, we will continue to cover the concussion story through our own reporting.

Here's the full note from Frontline:

You may notice some changes to our League of Denial and Concussion Watch websites. From now on, at ESPN’s request, we will no longer use their logos and collaboration credit on these sites and on our upcoming film League of Denial, which investigates the NFL’s response to head injuries among football players.

We don’t normally comment on investigative projects in progress, but we regret ESPN’s decision to end a collaboration that has spanned the last 15 months and is based on the work of ESPN reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru, as well as Frontline’s own original journalism.

Over that time, we’ve enjoyed a productive partnership with ESPN’s investigative program,Outside the Lines, jointly publishing and co-branding several ground-breaking articles on our respective websites and on their broadcast. We’ve been in sync on the goals of our reporting: to present the deepest accounting so far of the league’s handling of questions around the long-term impact of concussions. This editorial partnership was similar to our many other collaborations with news organizations over the years.

ESPN’s decision will in no way affect the content, production or October release of Frontline’s League of Denial: The NFL’s Concussion Crisis. The film is grounded in the Fainaru brothers’ forthcoming book, also titled League of Denial, and the authors will continue to participate in the production and be featured in the documentary.

The film is still being edited and has not been seen by ESPN news executives, although we were on schedule to share it with them for their editorial input. The two-hour documentary and accompanying digital reporting will honor Frontline’s rigorous standards of fairness, accuracy, transparency and depth.

David Fanning, Executive Producer
Raney Aronson, Deputy Executive Producer

       

African Americans Feel Mistreated by Almost Every Major Civic Institution

[image error]With the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech approaching next week, Pew released today a new survey on public perception of the progress blacks have made in America since then. The top-level finding is unsurprising: African-Americans are much more pessimistic than whites are in rating the extent to which they still face inequality and unfairness in American society. And they're significantly more likely to say that a lot of work still needs to be done.

(The Daily Show recently captured these same awkwardly diverging views of reality with a less scientific survey.)

Economic and demographic indicators suggest that blacks in fact have not closed many of the divides that existed half a century ago when Dr. King spoke in Washington. Gaps between blacks and whites in household income and household wealth have actually widened since then. And gaps in poverty and homeownership rates have remained largely unchanged.

Of particular note are a set of questions posed in the survey about how blacks are treated today by some of the most important civic institutions in society: police departments, the justice system, public schools. Pew asked 2,231 nationally representative adults if they believed blacks in their communities were treated less fairly than whites by these and other elements of the community, including restaurants and stores.

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Seventy percent of blacks felt this way about the police (no wonder). Meanwhile, only 37 percent of whites felt blacks were treated unfairly by police. Suspicion among blacks (and a stark divide in opinion with whites) remains notably high for elections as well (ahem).

The rest of the results are below.

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And here's that Daily Show segment:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook

 

       

Mayor Bloomberg Can't Stop Override of Veto on NYPD Oversight

New York's City Council overrode two of Mayor Bloomberg's vetos on Thursday, paving the way for increased oversight of the NYPD as the three term mayor prepares to leave office. (Bloomberg, along with Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, believes that any limitations on the city's controversial stop-and-frisk program are dangerous.)

As Capital New York points out, the mayor failed to change the mind of a single council member on the more controversial of the two bills, which will make it easier for New York residents to sue the NYPD for profiling and bias. The bill originally passed 34 votes, just enough to overturn a veto, and was re-passed today by the same number. Among the "no" votes? Council speaker Christine C. Quinn, who's currently running to replace Bloomberg as mayor. 

The second of the two bills will commission an independent inspector general for the NYPD who will have subpoena power to investigate the department's practices in order to recommend changes. That bill, which passed 39 to 10 today, did get Quinn's vote. Despite her split vote on the issue, Quinn focused on the positives of the politically popular move to increase police oversight in a statement to reporters. 

“We’ve seen in this city policies and practices in the Police Department that have gotten out of hand. This is a practice that needs immediate reform. We are getting it done.”

The
    

Changing Demographics in Virginia Are Making Republicans Nervous

If things keep going the way they have in Virginia for the past 36 years, Ken Cuccinelli will win the governor's race. As The New York Times pointed out Thursday, the party that occupies the White House consistently loses the governor's mansion in Virginia. In 2013, however, the state's changing demographics are giving Democratic contender Terry McAuliffe an advantage. He knows this, and he's running on it.

Right now, McAuliffe is leading Cuccinelli 48 percent to 42 percent, according to a Quinnipac poll released Wednesday. The poll also showed that more Democratic voters intend to vote in this midterm election than usual — likely Democratic voters outnumber Republicans 39 percent to 32 percent. The Washington Post notes that's the same split that caused the state to swing for Obama in 2012. 

The Times reports that there's been a decrease in white voters in Virginia since 2009 — from 78 percent to 75 percent. Suburban, minority voters make up more of the electorate than ever before. And the makeup of white voters is also changing — more of them are young, recent college grads, who are more likely to vote for a Democrat because of the party's stance social issues. 

Republicans are naturally worried about these shifting demographics, and Democrats are trying to ride the wave. The same phenomenon has been happening nationally — whites were only 72 percent of the vote in 2012 — which has spurred GOP leaders to embrace immigration reform. In Virginia, McAuliffe has especially reached out to Latino voters. At a July campaign stop in Woodbridge, he met with Todos Supermarket owner Carlos Castro, and called him an example of the "American Dream":

We can’t grow our economy unless we ensure that Virginia is an open and welcoming state to everyone. I’d love to see thousands of more Carloses by the end of my term as governor. We need to help the Carloses of the future grow and diversify this economy.

McAuliffe has vowed to enact a state-level DREAM Act. He also also campaigned to Asian-American groups, and he hasn't been shy about calling out his opponent's often less-tolerant party. McAuliffe told Politico earlier in August:

This is probably the starkest difference you’ve had between two candidates running for governor. My opponent is on a social-ideological agenda. In my bones, you cannot grow an economy and diversify it when you have these hate-filled statements — as it relates to women’s health centers, gay Virginians, the issues on immigration . . . I want to stop all that.

Cuccinelli, meanwhile, wants to bring back anti-sodomy laws and once compared immigration policy to D.C.'s pest control policy.  

Still, Republicans realize they need to reach out to minority voters, and Cuccinelli is trying to. He's attended festivals and outreach events for various minority groups, all while trying to downplay the idea that there are less white voters than there were before. He told Politico in July:

I’ve been in the biggest melting pot in Virginia. It’s just been kind of something I’ve grown up with. It doesn’t strike me as all that unusual. One of the things that frustrates me about the Republican Party is, you know, all the hand-wringing and everything else after 2012. ‘Oh, we’ve got to do this, we’ve got to do that.’ I’ve been doing it.

So Cuccinelli will keep pretending demographics are no big deal, and McAuliffe will continue to call for more "Carloses." And with the white vote shrinking nationwide, what happens in Virginia in 2013 could be a peek at what's to come nationally in 2016.

       

'Guardians of the Galaxy' Is Going to Be a Very Silly Movie

Today in show business news: Bradley Cooper might be playing a very funny role in Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, Randy Jackson is not done with American Idol, and more of Jon Snow's abs. 

Move over, Star-Lord and Groot and Drax the Destroyer. There's a new silliest person in town. Or, rather, in the galaxy. There are reports today that Bradley Cooper is in talks to voice a character in Marvel's next big franchise hopeful, Guardians of the Galaxy. That character? An animated raccoon named Rocket Raccoon. Yes. I'll say it again: An animated raccoon named Rocket Raccoon, voiced by Bradley Cooper, that Marvel is planning on putting in a movie that they hope will do very, very well. Look, there's nothing wrong with a little silliness, but this sounds almost Binksian. As in Jar Jar. I know Rocket Raccoon has been in the comics for a while and isn't just some dumb invention for the movie, but still. Is there a gas leak in the Marvel offices or something? What is happening? Rocket Raccoon. OK, whatever! Should be fun. [The Wrap]

He just can't stay away. Or the producers just couldn't handle any more of his begging. Whatever the reason, Randy Jackson is possibly heading back to American Idol. His departure as a judge was announced this past spring, and everyone figured that he and the show were parting ways for good. But no. See, Jimmy Iovine has been pushed out as the contestants' mentor, the guy who works with them during a rehearsal and then gives video feedback during the results show. The thinking is that Randy could step in and do that, so we'd still get his hootin' and dawgin', just not on the live shows. That seems fine to me. Everyone wins, right? Randy still has a job, but the show gets to freshen up its judges panel with new people. (Well, actually, erm, one new person. Keith Urban is onboard for his second season and Jennifer Lopez is returning for her third after a season-long break.) Will you be happy to see King Bowser back on American Idol? Will you be watching American Idol? Sigh. I'm worried I will be. [Deadline]

Elisabeth Hasselbeck is set to start her new cohosting gig on Fox News's No Exit-style morning show Fox & Friends on September 16. She'll be joining Brian "Chuckles" Kilmeade and Steve "Not Quite Sure Where I Am Right New" Doocy, while former blonde lady host Gretchen Carlson walks back and forth in a dark closet until someone finds her and lets her out goes to anchor her own news block on the network. Are you excited? Are you already setting your DVRs? If you are, would you mind telling Steve how to do that, he just can't figure that dang thing out. [Entertainment Weekly]

Oh dear lord. Jean-Pierre Jeunet's adorable but aggressively quirky romantic comedy Amélie, the movie that made Audrey Tautou a star, is going to become a Broadway musical. Yes, Craig Lucas is working on the book while a guy from a Brooklyn band is working on the score. This could be serious, folks. I mean, can you imagine a bunch of New York musical theater actresses walking around with that haircut, practicing being all cutesy so they can win the part of Amélie? Stay outta Hell's Kitchen, is all I'm saying. Stay far, far away from that place. Actually, avoid everything about 14th street and below 125th for a while. It's probably the safest thing. [The Hollywood Reporter]

It's a nerd supernova! Game of Thrones actress Natalie Dormer has been cast in the next Hunger Games movie as Cressida. Take deep breaths! [Lionsgate]

Here is a trailer for Pompeii, the Paul W.S. Anderson movie about the eruption of Vesu — abs —vius in 79 A — absss — D. It looks as though they've invented some kind of battle story — absssss — line and — absssssss. All right! OK, I hear you. Yes, Kit Harrington from Game of Thrones is in it and he's got some abs. Duly noted. Now can we please have a serious discussion about this fil—Ah, what the hell, absssss.

       

I Read the Ron Paul Reddit AMA. Ask Me Anything.

If you have any questions about Ron Paul's Reddit "Ask Me Anything," in which the former congressman fielded questions from Reddit users, shoot. (This user has been verified by The Atlantic Wire staff.)

Hey. Thanks for doing this. Does Ron Paul think he's brave?

Happy to be here!

Well, user gerudo_pirate asked exactly that: "Dr. Paul, what is the bravest thing you've ever done?" And Paul answered.

To tell you the truth, I've never thought about it. I've never thought of me doing a whole lot that I would categorize as brave. Other people have said that what I do standing up to the establishment and speaking my piece of mind and not backing down as being something brave, but I don't think of it in that manner.

So his answer was basically: if you think so.

I had a question. Do Reddit users think he's brave?

Yes, pretty much all of them. The word "brave" appears about 40 times in the comments.

I've always wondered if Ron Paul was logically consistent. Did he give any indication?

He did, actually. He was asked by a user what Redditors (people who use Reddit, I guess) could do to pushback on NSA surveillance. Paul's answer:

One is to become very well educated, to understand how they came about and how terrible they are.

The next thing we do is we have to get other people to agree with us, which means we have to educate other people to know that it's important and in their best interest to know about them.

Because that's important: once you present people with facts, you can convince them that you are correct. Basic psychology.

Then someone asked how Paul would fight climate change. Paul said:

Regarding pollution, nobody has the right to pollute their neighbor's property. But when I look at the history of the issues, temperatures have gone up and temperatures have gone down, a long time even before the industrial age, so I would not claim that I had any unique ability to regulate the climate.

Hm. OK.

So I'm a big Ron Paul fan and I would like to give him money but also I am a big Bitcoin fan. Any insights in the AMA?

Yep. The very first question Paul answered dealt with Bitcoin. He's all for Bitcoin, any currency really, and doesn't think the government should be involved "if there's no fraud."

And if you want to give him money, more good news! There is a weird Reddit account, bitcointip, which apparently allows you to give people on Reddit Bitcoin. As of writing, people have given Paul about five bucks in Bitcoin, so that's nice. One commenter worried that this would be a headache for his political reporting team. It probably won't, though, because he doesn't have one any more.

Sometimes there are funny unrelated threads on Reddit. Where there any in this case?

This one was pretty good.

EnglishMunichFan: Will Rand Paul run in 2016?

Grizmoblust: Rand paul != Ron Paul. Rand is a neocon.

prideofthepeaches: But maybe Ron Paul knows because their names are similar

tehgreatist: rand is his son.

I was wondering what the longest question that hasn't been answered was? Did it have a lot of parts?

Great question. Yes. It's this one. It is a 10-part question. Then the guy asked more questions.

I am a big Grover Cleveland fan and was wondering if Rep. Paul had any thoughts on Grover Cleveland. (And thanks for doing this AMA!)

Ron Paul only had a few pictures in his office — but one was of Grover Cleveland! "He was a man of principle, who believed in the Constitution," Paul explained, "and the Gold Standard."

Can you tell me what Ron Paul thinks of this GIF?

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As far as the image you shared, I am delighted to be here!

       

Bob Filner Reaches a Deal With San Diego

On the same day that an 18th woman accused Bob Filner of sexual misconduct, the troubled San Diego mayor reportedly reached a mediation deal with the city. The details of that deal, reached after three days of negotiation, are going to stay under wraps until Friday, according to CNN. At that point, the city council will vote on the negotiation in a closed session. 

While the unfolding scandal of San Diego's first progressive mayor in decades has been anything but predictable, there are a couple educated guesses out there on what might happen next. As the Atlantic Wire reported on Monday, the mayor might offer his resignation in exchange for immunity or a lighter punishment in the face of any charges filed against him (he's already being sued by one former employee). Filner, and his legal team, have walked a fine line between admission and denial: the mayor has indicated that he conducted himself inappropriately, but denies that his actions constitute sexual harassment legally. In any case, the pressure to resign — which he's resisted so far — only mounted after Filner took three weeks away from city hall, in part for therapy related to the sexual harassment accusations. Filner is currently the subject of a recall petition, which started circulating around San Diego on Sunday. Even if that recall succeeds, and Filner's opponents get to elect a new mayor, the whole recall process would take months. 

Today marked Filner's first public appearance since his break from office. After stopping at his offices, the mayor left for the negotiating session at another location. 10 News has a few more details on those negotiations, noting that they seem to include attorney Gloria Allred, who is representing Filner's former communications director Irene McCormack Jackson in a suit: 

Sources have told Team 10 that Filner's resignation was part of the talks. Meanwhile, U-T San Diego reported that a key point in the discussion surrounded limiting the amount of money that the taxpayers and the city would have to pay McCormack Jackson.

Meanwhile, it looks like the Democratic National Committee is getting ready to throw their weight behind any effort to remove Filner from office. Yesterday, the DNC indicated that they were ready to vote on a resolution calling for his resignation, and would support the current recall campaign should the mayor refuse. 

Eighteen women, three of whom are former employees, have accused the mayor of everything ranging from inappropriate comments to groping and kissing without consent. Filner, 70, served in congress for two decades before becoming San Diego's mayor at the beginning of this year. 

       

What Can We Learn from the Numbers That Slipped by NSA Censors?

As part of its ongoing push to increase transparency, the Director of National Intelligence on Wednesday evening released the latest compliance report it submitted to Congress. For the most part, the actual data is obscured behind black bars — except on one pie chart, left unredacted, that appears to give more information on the program than the NSA has ever released publicly.

Particularly following a similar report leaked to The Washington Post, the question of how often the government exceeds the rules on data collection have become a subject of enormous debate. In a report released earlier this month, the agency downplayed the frequency of those errors, implying that they occurred only a small fraction of the time. Considering that such violations could mean violations of the constitutional rights of Americans, however, civil liberties groups like the ACLU worry that the thousands of known violations — even if a small percentage of the total uses of the data — are already excessive.

The report released on Wednesday was part of the DNI's effort to assuage concerns about those violations. You can see the entire document at the bottom of this article. The only number that the DNI clearly left visible was this one — which, as you might expect, offers only the percentage of incidents. The actual number is hidden.

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The visible figure shows that only 0.49 percent of the times in which the agency reviewed material was there a compliance incident — in other words, a review that exceeded the agency's authority. That figure, we'll note, is higher than the 0.197 percent of violations that triggered a 2011 critique from the surveillance system's governing court.

[image error]Some of those incidents that added up to 0.49 percent included failure to report the violation on time. Take those out, and the trend looks like this by reporting period.

Outside of the context of the number of total searches, as the ACLU notes, this loses meaning. If you were offered one percent of someone's money, you'd be far happier about getting one percent of a billion dollars than one percent of a buck.

However, a separate chart appears to slip, revealing actual figures pertaining to the incidents.

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If the numbers shown on the slices are the raw numbers — the labels match the terms described in a previous section "Categories of Compliance Incidents" — then in the six-month period covered by the report, there were 338 violations. That appears to be fewer than the violations reported for any quarter in the Washington Post's data last week. More than half of the violations in the most recent report were delays (yellow) as indicated in the first chart above. Most of the rest were "tasking" (inappropriate identification of an American as an appropriate target) or "detasking" (failure to stop tracking someone identified as American) errors.

But that total number also gives us a sense of scale of the NSA's surveillance — or at least the scale covered by this report: there were about 69,000 total queries during those six months (338 divided by 0.49 percent).

We've reached out to the DNI for more information about these figures. If the number of non-delay-related violations is indeed 126 over this period, that is a lower rate than for any quarter detailed in the Post's article. But it's still hard to tell what is or should be acceptable. There is very little context to the figures — what those 69,000 queries were; what happened the 48 times an American was improperly targeted. Without that sort of detail — which it's not clear is given to the members of Congress who receive this report — it's hard to know how to consider the numbers.

There's one last bit of data in the report: compliance trends by agency. The number of violations identified by the CIA has gone down. The number of selectors — targets of data collection — identified by the FBI has continuously increased. And the DNI expects it to increase more, as the "FBI has made its nomination process more widely available to its field office personnel." (The FBI also maintains its own database of data collected under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.)

What the DNI hoped people would take away from this document is that the oversight of surveillance programs is robust and effective. Instead, we're left with more questions than before — including some about the skill of the government's redactors.

Photo: Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. (AP)