The Terror of Fake News

[Parihaka]

extremely unlikely. it makes no sense to use the old executive building SCIF as a "one safe place to see documents" when Congress has numerous SCIFs of its own. (i still do not see how using a specific SCIF "hides" sources.)

nor does it make sense for a senior intel director of the NSC and a WH counsel to act simply as WH escort/SCIF personal security attendant.

You'd obviously know more than me, all I remember was the original stories talked of it being a secure server specific to the White House that couldn't be accessed by congress. Whether you needed to be on WH grounds to access this server or simply have the right logins from any SCIF is out of my range as I don't have specifics on architecture.

[Parihaka]

So you are saying that these 'White House staffers' (I think the names are revealed) shared classified information with Nunes about ongoing investigations into their Boss so he could give a press Conference about it? .

No.

[YellowFever]

YF,



lol OK. so we're talking about the Democratic Party acting like any other party, and suddenly you turn this into yet another screed against the media...just after you acknowledged that Flynn asking for immunity is possibly not fake news after all. :-)

No I am saying the Democrat party is much Much MUCH WORSE than the Republican party when it comes to playing dirty.

And the mainstream media is covering for them because 70-90 percent of journalists are lefties.

Let's get this out of the way before we continue and go round and round again because I want you on the record before we go on.

Do you think the mainstream media treats Republican and Democrats the same....yes or no?

[astralis]

YF,

No I am saying the Democrat party is much Much MUCH WORSE than the Republican party when it comes to playing dirty.

yes, i know you think that. but what i was referring to was the original argument that you think Republicans wouldn't have played politics if the Flynn affair happened under a Democrat.

your riposte deflected this onto the media, not the political party.

[astralis]

pari,

You'd obviously know more than me, all I remember was the original stories talked of it being a secure server specific to the White House that couldn't be accessed by congress. Whether you needed to be on WH grounds to access this server or simply have the right logins from any SCIF is out of my range as I don't have specifics on architecture.

i wouldn't be able to speak to the architecture as 1. I've not worked in the WH, and 2. i'm not an IT guy. nor would i want to discuss it, if i knew.

however, i have worked in enough SCIFs and in the national security field long enough to know that a story which involves fairly senior staffers acting solely as escorts makes little sense. and the idea that a congressional investigation that involves the executive branch would require the committee head to go to WH grounds, ask for a WH escort, and use a WH SCIF makes even less sense.

bottom-line, Nunes ruined his own credibility to run a non-partisan investigation with his actions. even if his motives were completely innocent-- and i highly, highly doubt it-- the optics alone screwed the pooch.

at this point, all of DC realizes this, which is why Nunes is awfully quiet nowadays and the Senate investigation committee is trying to demonstrate just how non-partisan it is. because the next alternative is an independent investigative commission.

[Parihaka]

bottom-line, Nunes ruined his own credibility to run a non-partisan investigation with his actions. even if his motives were completely innocent-- and i highly, highly doubt it-- the optics alone screwed the pooch.

It's not nore ever has been non-partisan so I'm not seeing any significant change. Nunes has done enough to smear the previous admin that apart from Schiff masturbating publicly because he believes he can get chairmanship of the HIC (nobody claims sanity in Washington apparently) it's a bit of a stalemate, both sides fielding nothingburgers.
Next and onwards is investigations into who the leakers were/are. Interesting to see Katie Walsh given the short walk.

[astralis]

pari,

t's not nore ever has been non-partisan

to an extent, yes. it's simply impossible to be strictly non-partisan in a democratic system. however, there's still general boundaries, with Nunes' behavior so out of the pale that one couldn't even keep up the pretense.

Next and onwards is investigations into who the leakers were/are.

that was where some of the Republicans (particularly Nunes) would have liked to aim the investigations, yes. however, now that Nunes has been so thoroughly discredited, I doubt that this will be the main focus in the near future for either the House or the Senate investigative committees.

most likely the next step is a wider search into Russian influence on the other candidates-- Marco Rubio has been saying that the Russians tried to hack his campaign apparatus as well. medium-term, much of the oxygen will focus on the FBI investigation into possible collusion between Trump campaign officials and the Russians.

[Parihaka]

pari,



to an extent, yes. it's simply impossible to be strictly non-partisan in a democratic system. however, there's still general boundaries, with Nunes' behavior so out of the pale that one couldn't even keep up the pretense.



that was where some of the Republicans (particularly Nunes) would have liked to aim the investigations, yes. however, now that Nunes has been so thoroughly discredited, I doubt that this will be the main focus in the near future for either the House or the Senate investigative committees.

most likely the next step is a wider search into Russian influence on the other candidates-- Marco Rubio has been saying that the Russians tried to hack his campaign apparatus as well. medium-term, much of the oxygen will focus on the FBI investigation into possible collusion between Trump campaign officials and the Russians.

THe up until now semingly non existent inquiry that Comey refuses to comment on other than to confirm its existence? The one that's been going on for over eight months but which has most definitely NOT been monitoring Trump or his campaign in any way shape or form? The one that apparently bases all it's enquiries on the golden shower documents and what they (the FBI) have read in the morning papers, given Comey insists they've in no way shape or form been monitoring Trump or his campaign? That one? ;)

[astralis]

pari,

yes, yes, please refer to my post in the other thread.

The one that's been going on for over eight months but which has most definitely NOT been monitoring Trump or his campaign in any way shape or form?

Comey worded his testimony quite carefully. he said there was no wiretapping or electronic surveillance of Trump/his campaign and that the President could not unilaterally order such wiretapping or surveillance.

he said nothing of foreign actors, of course, so it's not too hard to guess where the surveillance actually is.

as for the inquiries, neither you nor i know what the basis of the FBI investigation is, of course. either way, as i said, when the results come out it'll certainly be the centerpiece of the investigative committees-- not the search for the leakers as you surmise.

[Parihaka]

pari,

yes, yes, please refer to my post in the other thread.

So for this to be effective, rather than redacting the names and identifiers of wiretapped conversations that include Americans, said Americans are positively identified and search algorithms tasked with searching Trump and Trump associates are run, results forwarded to Comey. Very interesting, thanks Eric.

Comey worded his testimony quite carefully. he said there was no wiretapping or electronic surveillance of Trump/his campaign and that the President could not unilaterally order such wiretapping or surveillance.

he said nothing of foreign actors, of course, so it's not too hard to guess where the surveillance actually is.

The only way it could work of course, given the literally millions of calls made per day, is as I outlined above.

[astralis]

So for this to be effective, rather than redacting the names and identifiers of wiretapped conversations that include Americans, said Americans are positively identified and search algorithms tasked with searching Trump and Trump associates are run, results forwarded to Comey.

The only way it could work of course, given the literally millions of calls made per day, is as I outlined above.

all of this is conjecture. there is almost certainly other forms of intelligence or investigative leads that would allow for manageable monitoring of foreign nationals. or as you say, certain people might be unmasked if they are part of the investigation (there are senior officials with the power to do so).

we don't know, nor am i interested in discussing the details here. suffice it to say that when the FBI concludes its investigation, there will likely be multiple threads for the investigative committee to look at.

in any case, on a broader note, i think Mark Cuban generally has the right idea:

https://twitter.com/mcuban/status/848275160721502209

[Parihaka]

all of this is conjecture. there is almost certainly other forms of intelligence or investigative leads that would allow for manageable monitoring of foreign nationals. or as you say, certain people might be unmasked if they are part of the investigation (there are senior officials with the power to do so).

we don't know, nor am i interested in discussing the details here. suffice it to say that when the FBI concludes its investigation, there will likely be multiple threads for the investigative committee to look at.

in any case, on a broader note, i think Mark Cuban generally has the right idea:

https://twitter.com/mcuban/status/848275160721502209

You'll just have to trust me on this. There's far to much recording done to use humans to monitor conversations or who called who. There has to be algorithms in place to pick out names, numbers and keywords. Then then has to be a secondary process to filter those conversations that are pertinent to the FBI investigation. The Obama admin provided the NSA the ability to pass on those intercepts to the FBI and others without masking US citizens. None of it is illegal because it's monitoring foreign nationals, the only grey area is the use of the term "incidental". It's not incidental when there's a software command to identify Trump Inc. members, Flynn being a case in point. His phone conversations would not have been picked up unless there was an instruction to pick them up.

[DOR]

Time to raise our game, Wabbits.

I don’t know which is more fun (or, more depressing): watching the 45th Administration step on its own dick on a daily basis, or judging the gymnastic agility with which its knee-jerk reactionary friends try to defend it.

But, the tone is decidedly unWabbit. Time to raise our game, folks, and get out of the name calling.

[YellowFever]

YF,



yes, i know you think that. but what i was referring to was the original argument that you think Republicans wouldn't have played politics if the Flynn affair happened under a Democrat.

your riposte deflected this onto the media, not the political party.

I thought I answered you but I apologize if my answer was not clear enough.

Of course I think the Republicans would have played politics. I'm the one that called the parties "Assholes" and 'Assholes-light".

The difference is whatever bullshit the Republicans pull out is identified as such clearly and rapidly by the mainstream media and dismissed but that is not happening when the Democrats drag out the bullshit because of their biases. It's the main reason why the Russian/Trump thing is continuing.

I wish all journalists treated every politicans like trash (i.e.Dubya) instead of treating some like the messiah (i.e. Obama)

It's ultimagely not good for the Republicans, Democrats and the U.S..

Some people seem to be blinded to that fact because of the Trump Derangment Syndrome.

[Parihaka]

Looks like the media walls are crumbling

White House lawyers last month discovered that the former national security adviser Susan Rice requested the identities of U.S. persons in raw intelligence reports on dozens of occasions that connect to the Donald Trump transition and campaign, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

The pattern of Rice's requests was discovered in a National Security Council review of the government's policy on "unmasking" the identities of individuals in the U.S. who are not targets of electronic eavesdropping, but whose communications are collected incidentally. Normally those names are redacted from summaries of monitored conversations and appear in reports as something like "U.S. Person One."

The National Security Council's senior director for intelligence, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, was conducting the review, according to two U.S. officials who spoke with Bloomberg View on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly. In February Cohen-Watnick discovered Rice's multiple requests to unmask U.S. persons in intelligence reports that related to Trump transition activities. He brought this to the attention of the White House General Counsel's office, who reviewed more of Rice's requests and instructed him to end his own research into the unmasking policy.

Continues

After Mike Cernovich went to press Bloomburg followed. Cernovich also outed Maggie Haberman of the NYT as having sat on the story for at least 48 hours, she's since started confirming the story whilst adding the spin (it's Trumps fault!) the NYT is so known for.