Thread by @EricRWeinstein

Thank you James for this question. Let me answer this as honestly as I can.

We have a William Tell problem. Aim too high and you miss the story. Aim too low and you kill the impact due to the uncomfortable methods.

In my opinion, you are aiming too low and I am aiming too high.

https://twitter.com/JamesOKeefeIII/status/1232729139829972995

I dislike 'Gotcha' journalism in general It's not peculiar to you or your project. The idea of screaming "It's perfectly legal in the state of X to record a conversation without alerting the other party." is a form of 'Gotcha' for people who accept the 'whatever is legal' game.

My objection here is not mainly legal. It is cultural where there isn't a clear line.

But none of us want our brainfarts, our boasts, our drunken musings and our intimate moments used against us by a lawyer who is spending her or his time looking up the exact limits of the law.

I don't the "Simon Says" game w/ regular legacy journalists either who try to pretend to be a newbie's friend to lure her into revealing things, only to shout "YOU DIDN'T SAY OFF-THE-RECORD!!", then sanctimoniously claiming "Journalism is printing what people don't want printed."

As you may know, many stories you break do not have the impact they should. You have uncovered many things (where I too have had advanced knowledge in some but not all cases). I then watch the story dismissed too often because of the techniques/politics of Project Veritas.

I want the valid stories here to be *bipartisan* apolitical stories about mindcontrol and propoganda that CANNOT be so easily dismissed. That is just my preference, but I see you paying a very high price for techniques, ethics and assumed politics.

But I am also not succeeding.

I would be willing to invite you on my show and ask you to explain your thinking. I am open to having my mind changed.

But I believe we all say many things with an expectation of them being ephemeral without checking the legal state-by-state rules as part of human culture.

With that said, I have had journalists at the @nytimes and @WSJ try to play similar games and I have had a similar reaction. I am not a fan of personal destruction.

I do remain open. I don't know what to do about this moment of digital control of the many by the few. I'm trying.

What I'm truly interested in, is bringing out-of-control *institutions*...including biased news organizations hiding behind journalism...to account to individuals. I'm much less keen to destroy individuals w/ their own revelations.

ALL of us can be destroyed by these techniques.