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Mar 15 • 4 tweets • 4 min read
SCOOP: A Maryland couple was arrested last year for trying to sell American nuclear secrets to a foreign nation.

For months, that country has been a secret. Then we figured it out.

It was Brazil.

w/ @julianbarnes, @andrespigariol & @adamgoldmanNYT:
nytimes.com/2022/03/15/us/…
@julianbarnes @andrespigariol @adamgoldmanNYT But the couple's plan backfired. When the U.S. Navy engineer sent a letter to Brazil offering classified documents, Brazilian officials passed it to the FBI.

Then the FBI posed as a Brazilian official -- with the help of Brazil. nytimes.com/2022/03/15/us/…
@julianbarnes @andrespigariol @adamgoldmanNYT When the engineer wanted assurance he was talking to Brazil, someone put a signal in a Brazilian government building in DC to convince him.

It worked. He then hid an SD card with classified info in a peanut butter sandwich and left it for his contact. He was later arrested.
The U.S. and Brazil sought to shield Brazil's involvement in the case. We were able to confirm it with people briefed on the investigation and a senior Brazilian official.

For the full story of bumbling international espionage, please read our piece:
nytimes.com/2022/03/15/us/…

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More from @jacknicas

Jack Nicas Profile picture
Mar 3
Let me take you to Brazil, where it's been a strange Carnival.

This year, Rio banned "blocos," the bands that fuel the freewheeling street parties. In their place? Private, paid parties. Many weren't happy.

Then the blocos fought back. Follow along 🧵-->
nytimes.com/2022/03/03/wor…
Let's start on Friday, the first official night. Police had vowed to shut down any bloco, so people were crowded outside bars and in private events.

But I heard one makeshift bloco planned to challenge the ban. I found the resistance assembling next to a Chinese noodle stand.
A man in a leotard with a trumpet. A shirtless drummer in a wizard hat. A tuba player in a leopard-skin bra.

They had formed days earlier on WhatsApp, all from canceled blocos. They called themselves "Repressed Demand," and they were here to break the rules and start a party.
Read 12 tweets
Jack Nicas Profile picture
Feb 14
Falei com @monark sobre seus comentários problemáticos – e as consequências.

“Não sou nazista”, ele me disse. “Por favor escrevam que vocês perceberam que eu não sou nada disso.”

Hoje, no New York Times:
nytimes.com/2022/02/13/wor…
Como estadunidense, fiquei surpreso com a semelhança entre Monark e Joe Rogan. Os dois são talvez os podcasters mais ouvidos nos países deles. Fazem entrevistas por horas. Às vezes ficam chapados durante. E estão agora no meio de controvérsias sobre seus comentários.
Rogan era um apresentador de TV que colocava a cabeça das pessoas em caixas de tarântulas, enquanto Monark ficou famoso jogando um videogame popular entre as crianças. Agora se tornaram umas das vozes mais influentes de seus países. Mas ainda estão dizendo coisas questionáveis.
Read 4 tweets
Jack Nicas Profile picture
Nov 11, 2021
NEW: Brazil's president has already begun claiming fraud in next year's elections. He's had some help from the U.S.

Fresh off disputing the 2020 election, Donald Trump and his allies are exporting their strategy to Latin America’s largest democracy.
nytimes.com/2021/11/11/wor…
To understand this, let's examine what transpired in Brazil over just a few days in September.

On Sept. 4, more than 1,000 conservatives attended CPAC Brasil, a conference organized by President Bolsonaro's son, Eduardo, & the American Conservative Union.
The headliner was Donald Trump Jr., who told the crowd that if they didn’t think the Chinese were aiming to undermine Brazil's election, “you haven’t been watching.”

His comments were dubbed into Portuguese and viewed hundreds of thousands of times.
Read 13 tweets
Jack Nicas Profile picture
Aug 27, 2021
I really disagree with the framing around the tech press tonight that Apple's new settlement with developers represents a big concession.

I don't see how this changes much. Some companies pretty much already do what Apple says it is suddenly allowing.
nytimes.com/2021/08/27/tec…
An Apple exec told reporters tonight that it was a huge concession that Apple will now let companies tell people in emails that they can buy their services outside their apps.

But Apple will still ban them from telling people that in the app itself.

Here's the current policy.
That does not feel like Apple is giving up much.

First of all, it seems like a self-own that Apple is publicly declaring that they have long restricted what other companies can say in private communications with prospective customers, completely outside of Apple's ecosystem.
Read 7 tweets
Jack Nicas Profile picture
Aug 7, 2021
So here's a funny, feel-good story.

In 2019, I wrote an essay for the @nytimes defending the widely ridiculed Oakland Coliseum.

nytimes.com/2019/10/02/spo…
In it, I called the Coliseum "baseball's last dive bar."

The piece went mildly viral in the baseball and Bay Area corners of the internet.
Hours after we published the piece, the Coliseum hosted its first @Athletics playoff game in years.

When I got there, I realized fans in the bleachers had already hung a sign referencing the essay!

Photo: @Tyska
Read 10 tweets
Jack Nicas Profile picture
May 17, 2021
🚨NEW: Apple is jeopardizing its Chinese users’ data and augmenting the Chinese government’s censorship to placate authorities and keep its business running.

Here is our multiyear investigation into Apple's Faustian bargain in China: nytimes.com/2021/05/17/tec…
Let’s start in Guiyang, a city in southwestern China where a building a quarter-mile long has the flags of Apple and China flying out front.

Inside, Apple is preparing to store its Chinese users' data on computers owned and run by the Chinese government.

Photo: @KeithBradsher
Tim Cook has said the data is safe. We found that Apple has largely ceded control to the government.

State employees physically manage the servers; Apple stores the encryption keys on those servers; and it ditched the encryption it uses elsewhere after China wouldn't allow it.
Read 20 tweets

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