The plain brown envelope does not leave an electronic trail but intelligence can track the source -- 1. If the envelope was closed by licking it, there are DNA traces. 2. If the source did not use gloves, there are fingerprints and other forensic clues on the envelope and contents. 3. The handwriting sample can be analyzed. 4. The postal service is said to scan all packages, and computers can ID similar handwriting, even if sent from another zip code to hide the source's geographical location. The NYT can find the source but the question is, why? Journalism depends on secret but reliable sources.
Can you provide this kind of background information for your political reporting? Why transparency here but zero transparency for your political reporting?
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Truly sad that a man that accomplished a stellar feat wanted no part of notoriety and decided to live a life of loneliness. His own wife divorced him and one wonders did having the title of first man to have walked on the Moon destroy him and his life of privacy that he wanted, but America would not let him have. Buzz should have gotten out of the LEM first.
So many news stories have their own fascinating behind-the-scenes stories of their own. Thanks for sharing.
Those boys left me speechless
You have to love old school!! What have we gained with facial recognition, technology, tracking, email hacks, instant texts? Some convenience, sure, but think of the freedom we have lost. The ability to disappear in the world. Kids without their own iphones could taste the delicious freedom of an afternoon untethered and unreachable, taste the first hints of adulthood and independence. No wonder we have adults living at home now, and helicopter parents.
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In addition to shining a spotlight on the errors of the hospital/hospital staff, the underlying story was the greed of the descendants. How much of that six million dollar settlement went to any entity of "greater good" (a scholarship in Armstrong's name? the funding of 'rocket' camps for underprivileged kids?) - if the settlement was used for anything other than personal profit, it wasn't reported on. This, coupled with the auction of his memorabilia, is a sad testament to the legacy of a great man.
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HA!
"Unlike some newer technologies, the plain brown envelope leaves no electronic trail."
Yep..and as the write-up makes clear it's all the more reason why such an august tome as the NY Times should never give short shift to the department responsible for filtering and analyzing all that comes to them in that fashion, eh? Nor discount the training of skills necessary to insure its successful use. Skills sometimes, and somewhat, unique from the digital.
Anonymity is a a necessary component in a functioning Democracy. This probably explains why so many of the powerful in our society, what I call the Digital cognoscenti, are continually assaulting it by inventing (and using) every mechanism possible to penetrate our lives and personal spheres.
They use the logic that is it aides us, to seduce us. They say it makes things more efficient (while padding their wallets of course); yet at heart the goal is to eliminate that which is feared the most, the anonymous.
And if successful it will signal the ultimate death of Democracy in its current form, because history proves the ruling classes are never above the allure of abusing such power.
So keep it up gray Lady; keep it up.
John~
American Net'Zen
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Well that is not true anymore. All US mail pieces are photographed and bar coded these days. So there is an electronic trail, albeit incomplete. And of course fingerprints can be discovered and the paper manufacture's origin analyzed and traced.
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@Dan Broe, I disagree. Putting aside the whole fingerprint thing (there was no no crime committed to justify that, and anyway that sort of thing is more “tv police procedural” than real life), mail can be dropped at any mailbox, post office, office building outbox, etc. It may get photographed and barcoded when it’s processed, but all that tells anyone is the place where it was mailed. Even if I dropped mail at the little rural post office near me, there is no security camera there and the mail is not processed on site. It’s trucked to a processing center in the city. And a lot of mail goes through that processing center.
A worthy story-behind-the-story - with a completely satisfying last sentence. As with many things in life, just because something is old - doesn't mean it has no merit.
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"The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and secret proceedings..." JFK.
For saying that among other things, that’s why he got killed.
‘’ Sealing ‘’ (hide from citizen scrutiny) justice decision is rampant hence we are not a free and open society like some politicians and illiterate patriots want us to believe.
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Yes this was a great and sad story, a "Scoop" for the NYT and for all of us ....nothing can be kept secret when made public or as a private agreement, nothing.
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Au contraire, mon frere.
Those printed pages might have small, almost invisible yellow marks on them from the printers used to make them.
Those marks can help trace the printer, which can help trace the Printer, if you know what I mean.
Happens al lthe time.
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I used to work for an engineering company that made the electronics for implantable pacemakers and defibrillators.
I would never have one of their devices put in my chest, or anyone's chest that I know.
They used grey market microprocessors, of which the manufacturer specifically stated "were not to be used in implantable devices", and continued to design products with the same processors.
In fact, the NYTs did a story about the manufacturer years ago.
There is a lot of shady business in the medical industry beyond the business of hospitals...
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The tipster did the right thing. The half that's choosing to follow in Neil Armstrong's non-monetized footsteps are doing the right thing. And those monetizing the tangible assets of their inheritance get to make that choice, too. Some things have a price, and some things really don't, and there is much that all the money in the world cannot buy. I hope that the money the sellers get is 'enough,' but there are some things it will never be able to buy.
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The probate papers were public info, but the emails from the lawyers were not. The use of the word “we” in the typed note suggests there is more than just one tipster. Sure sounds like a family member or two with an axe to grind.
Why would anyone want this info to be made public, especially when the national spotlight was being shown on the space program and Neil Armstrong’s legacy? Was it really so that others can be saved, or was it a grand publicity stunt? The timing is suspect and the rationale sounded more vindictive rather than expressing any kind of noble concern for others.
It may have been scoop, but came off as a story fit for the tabloids.
@Barbara the story of malpractice that killed one of this country’s greatest heroes had been effectively buried. Only the close knit medical and legal community in this area had heard the story, but no local newspaper would touch it - and find out if a local hospital had taken a local and world hero before his time, much less publish that story.
Thank you tipster and thank you New York Times!
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@Barbara, I agree with much of your post. I was uncomfortable reading the reporting on the Armstrong family’s seemingly greedy lawsuit (a shakedown, really). I, too, suspect that the anon tipster is in the family. But I disagree that the story was not appropriate for the NYT. The coverup of the alleged medical malpractice was certainly reportable. Some of the other family stuff was a bit sensational, it’s true, but it supports the story that the family took a huge settlement to say nothing. The entire thing is very sad.
I think there is plenty of unnecessary, misguided and/or incompetent cardiac treatment going on out there. If you require heart surgery, choose your hospital and surgeon very carefully.
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Actually the USPTO images all those mail items-- I get a report every day of inbound mail, with a picture of the envelope. (I don't do this due to an actual need for the information, but signed on to block anyone else from saying they are my address and obtaining the information).
So, while literally there isn't a picture of the person depositing the mail item (probably, yet), and there is a postmark in this case, and fingerprints and DNA for the paranoid, realistically the anonymity is fairly good compared to any electronic method including TOR and Signal.
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I would welcome an article that explored the sealing of records. My interest is not how widespread is the practice, but rather the reasons for sealing records and why the court accepts those reasons. The subject piqued my interest in a NYT article involving investigations of police-caused deaths. The article related that not only are records sealed, but the reasons for sealing the records are also sealed. How's that again? And why does it pass muster? If I wanted to pry the records open, would I have to file an FOIA on the reason for the reason for the reason for sealing the records? This gets nuts very quickly.
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@Jim Some records are sealed pursuant to state laws--such as some personnel records. Some records are sealed in accordance with a court settlement, and a court could go along with it for several reasons, including the privacy of the people involved, public interest (if it involved a victim of a sexual assault, e.g.). And yes, to see a sealed agreement, you would probably have to file a motion to unseal, and the court would review the records in camera to determine why they were sealed in the first place.
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Most importantly, such seals—like forced arbitration—deprive the judicial system of precedent, and in turn deprives us of potential remedies against the megacorps that demand the seals.
That's why I increasingly think philanthropists are better off creating LLCs for us all. We may as well play by their outlaw rules until we have a Sane government in place.
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I have been following the outstanding NYT coverage of anniversary of this historic event.
As a space buff and a Caltech aeronautical engineer - I thank NYT for this coverage which deserves a Pulitzer.
To one of these stories, I had written a comment about family rivalries and complexities - motivations to seek such financial settlement.
And I had said, to paraphrase Pope Benedict "who are we to judge?"
I had also written that I am amazed NASA does not have a special team of medical experts, facilities etc to look after these dozen of men who are truly exceptional.
And they are more than Americas family heirlooms.
I had compared Mr. Armstrong's medical treatment to as if George Washington - in those days - being taken to a quack or worse because there were no facilities - or the Federalists could care less - in Mount Vernon.
Regardless of all this soap opera, Mr. Armstrong "first man on the moon and first in the hearts of people the world over."
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"I had also written that I am amazed NASA does not have a special team of medical experts, facilities etc to look after these dozen of men who are truly exceptional."
That requires a vastly better-funded NASA, which in turn means blockading briefcases bound for the tax-optional Caymans.[1] You would think a bureau forged in the height of Cold War missile fears to make our rocketry look better than the Russians' (Wernher von Braun, for Mayor Pete's sake!) would get DOD-level funds; but NASA's instead just treated as the family tech gofer, "paid" with extra scraps. Sad.
[1] Which, really, is the simplest retort to the milquetoast "we can't pay for all that" excuse for "center"-rightism.
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@Neil
Actually, it is not unlikely that the doctors who treated Washington in his final sickness either hastened his death or caused it. The medical profession at the time was almost quack medicine, rife with ancient myths and taught, not scientifically, but by apprenticeship in a guild of basically witch doctors. It is likely Washington died of pneumonia, which there was no treatment for, but he might have gotten pneumonia because the doctors weakened him by bleeding him, as doctors were still operating on the theory of 'bad humors' that had been around probably a thousand years at that point, they took a lot of blood, not good for someone fighting off what started as a bad cold.
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@Neil Just a slight correction: it was Pope Francis, not Pope Benedict, who said, “who am I to judge?”
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I have been following the outstanding NYT coverage of anniversary of this historic event.
As a space buff and a Caltech aeronautical engineer - I thank NYT for this coverage which deserves a Pulitzer.
To one of these stories, I had written a comment about family rivalries and complexities - motivations to seek such financial settlement.
And I had said, to paraphrase Pope Benedict "who are we to judge?"
I had also written that I am amazed NASA does not have a special team of medical experts, facilities etc to look after these dozen of men who are truly exceptional.
And they are more than Americas family heirlooms.
I had compared Mr. Armstrong's medical treatment to as if George Washington - in those days - being taken to a quack or worse because there were no facilities - or the Federalists could care less - in Mount Vernon.
Regardless of all this soap opera, Mr. Armstrong "first man on the moon and first in the hearts of people the world over."
i hope you protect the anonymity of the sender. They might have left DNA on the envelope, stamps, or touched the papers. The doctors & hospital might try to use a subpoena to find out if someone violated their agreement not to talk about the settlement. Maybe far fetched, but out of an abundance of caution I suggest you shred or burn all the original documents
15
I have been following the outstanding NYT coverage of anniversary of this historic event.
As a space buff and a Caltech aeronautical engineer - I thank NYT for this coverage which deserves a Pulitzer.
To one of these stories, I had written a comment about family rivalries and complexities - motivations to seek such financial settlement.
And I had said, to paraphrase Pope Benedict "who are we to judge?"
I had also written that I am amazed NASA does not have a special team of medical experts, facilities etc to look after these dozen of men who are truly exceptional.
And they are more than Americas family heirlooms.
I had compared Mr. Armstrong's medical treatment to as if George Washington - in those days - being taken to a quack or worse because there were no facilities - or the Federalists could care less - in Mount Vernon.
Regardless of all this soap opera, Mr. Armstrong "first man on the moon and first in the hearts of people the world over."
Selling his teddy bear ???
Blew my mind.
So sad.
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