WhoWhatWhy author page can be found here.
Does Mass Surveillance Change the Way We Behave?
Longform piece about how mass surveillance — and perhaps more importantly, knowledge of that surveillance — can lead to quantifiable modifications in our behavior. The inspiration for the piece was a study I came across called the Helsinki Privacy Experiment, where researchers monitored subjects' browsing histories, credit card usage, calls, texts, and pretty much everything else for an entire year. Sure enough, when the subjects knew they were being watched, the way they behaved changed. I then linked this study to how the NSA's surveillance apparatus works as a sort of large-scale version of the experiment, but with the American populace as the subjects. |
Obama Administration Controls the Message
Piece about the discrepancy between Obama's initial claims that his administration would be the most transparent ever and the difficulty journalists face when trying to get substantive answers from government agencies. I interviewed an environmental journalist who experienced firsthand the tight message control of federal agencies, a transparency advocate, and a journalist who met with the White House press secretary about the issue. |