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This is extraordinarily irresponsible and probably criminal. Is the NY Times now in a competition with Trump to see who can feed the Russians the most classified information?
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“Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.” - Groucho Marx -
And this should be of serious concern if the Chinese have an asset in place that can swipe NSA tools.
I don't think another wave of Trump Taxes On American Businesses & Consumers is going to make any difference.
“Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.” - Groucho MarxComment
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“Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.” - Groucho MarxComment
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The Times piece says they ran the article past at least three different offices and at a minimum, the National Security Council told them they had no national security concerns over its publication.Originally posted by Ghengis Jon View PostThis is extraordinarily irresponsible and probably criminal. Is the NY Times now in a competition with Trump to see who can feed the Russians the most classified information?
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Of course this has not stopped Trump from declaring the Times to have committed a "virtual act of treason" by publishing secret info he says is also NOT TRUE! One suspects he is most pissed about the part of the story that says the national security apparatus was hiding this from Trump because he might shut the program down or even blurt it out to the Russians. Which, if it's true there are spy programs that the President isn't being told about, is a problem.
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I know where Jon is coming from on this so, I get his concerns .........
I was assigned to the NSA temporarily for about 3 months while I was on active duty in the late 80s. I can guarantee you there are literally thousands of compartmentalized or black programs that the president is unaware of. This is probably one of them.
Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act (FISA) authorizes a broad range of surveillance activities under which the NSA can undertake activities. I really don't think there are some kind of new broad authorizations the president gave the NSA but the article mentions this. It could have been the routine re-authorization of parts of 702 that are reviewed by Congress every couple of years.
After Edward Snowden released information on two domestic NSA surveillance programs in 2013, Congress rightfully became concerned about surveillance being undertaken by the NSA of American citizens and aspects of the FISA were tightened up a bit to limit what the NSA could surveill when it came to US citizens. But when it comes to foreigners or foreign governments, the general public has no idea of the extent of US capabilities to gather signals intelligence to include any kind of information in the entire RF spectrum including both voice and data.
The ability to wage Cyber Warfare is a critical element of the US's national defense strategy. Since the advent of electronic communications in all it's forms, the game of cat and mouse in peace time and out-right Cyber attack and exploitation of SIGINT in war has been a major component of our military's arsenal of tools to wage war or protect the peace. I would suspect that there is a cat and mouse game going on between the US and most of it's adversaries to include Russia, China, NK and Iran. That the US has demonstrated it can hack into Russia's power grid is simply a routine response to Russian's known attempts, successful or unsuccessful, to do the same to us. No, gasp, surprise there. I'm also pretty sure that whoever disclosed the story to the NYTs had authorization to do it. Part of the game.
I'd surmise that the intrusion of Russian networks, regardless of their function, is SOP for the NSA. Pretty sure the NSA is authorized to undertake such activity in accordance with their mission statement and the president isn't going to know shit about it and the public isn't or shouldn't either. But this is a titillating story. It's James Bond, Tom Cruise spy shit interesting and the public is going to lap it up. So, that explains the NYTs publishing it. Circulation. It's stupid for Trump to tweet about it but what's new. The rest of the speculation in the story and its implications are irrelevant ..... but the speculation resonates. I can hear all of the trump haters nodding their heads vigorously and muttering, uhh, huhh more evidence that our president is an imbecile.Mission to CFB's National Championship accomplished. But the shine on the NC Trophy is embarrassingly wearing off. It's M B-Ball ..... or hockey or volley ball or name your college sport favorite time ...... until next year.Comment
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Deep thoughts
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Trump campaign is firing some of its pollsters after internal polling that showed Trump doing badly against Biden were leaked to the press.
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Early polls often end up being meaningless but...
Fox News Poll shows Biden beating Trump by 10 points. FAKE NEWS. When will the lying, corrupt media stop its corrupt lies?
Also note, among Democratic primary voters "steady leadership" is consider more important than a "bold new agenda" by an almost 3 to 1 margin. That's probably a positive for Biden.
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Don't upset the Czar.Comment
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Originally posted by Jeff Buchanan View Post
No further evidence required on THAT score.
I understand the need for leaks and disinformation. All part of the Great Game. But this one is puzzling. Agreed, Trump likely did not know the specifics of the operation. But to actively increase the intensity/depth of cyber attacks against a nuclear armed adversary is not a decision I would think would be left to the DCI. A decision of that gravity would have to come from a higher pay grade. Everyone probes everyone else's cyber weaknesses in their power grids, second only to military/governmental targets. So why come out and say we're messing with your grid? Certainly the Russians know we're doing the same thing that they are. We're doing it, you're doing it, you know that we know, as we know you know. So everybody in the shadow world knows. Who gains an advantage by publicly releasing "secret" information?
My first suspicion would be Trumpsters manipulating the NYT into releasing a story that would feed into 's narrative of the press being an enemy of the people. But I doubt this as I don't think the NYT is so stupid as be led by nose ring by, well, mere Trumpsters.
Perhaps it is little more than yellow journalling. Taking a play out of Trump's playbook in which any attention, good or bad, is always welcome. I'd like to see the NYT editor tasked with explaining why release the story if it has, bottom line, no real value. Who gains an advantage? I don't think this bumps their circulation in any way so I doubt that's the reason. It's puzzling, and annoying that such a story would be released.
“Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.” - Groucho MarxComment
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DSL, I read a couple of on-line resources regarding Bismarck's 30 year hold on the German Chancellorship. They were all English Translations of German historians. Ughhh. Bismarck was clearly a tough political infighter both nationally and internationally. I never got the feeling in the little reading I did that he was regarded by his political enemies (mostly leftists and socialists) as an imbecile as Trump's opponents regard him.
It's also tough to compare German, Russian, French, British Imperial culture of the 19th century to anything resembling the culture of North American and Western European Democracies along with that of Socialist Russia of the 21st - it is within that significant difference that I would argue there's nothing about Bismarck's tenure politically that can be compared to Trump's ..... but that wasn't your point. You offered that Bismarck stabbed everyone in the back (I assume internationally) and that resulted in a diminution of his and Germany's international stature and ultimately his dismissal by Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1890.
Again, very different times with the whole of Imperial Europe striving to maintain power and failing starting with the French Revolution in 1848. Rightfully, Bismarck saw threats to the German Throne in France's path to self rule and the French Republic. Even though France returned to empire after Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte's return (1852-1870), that empire was distinctively different and much more liberal than his uncle Napoleon's empire, Germany under Bismarck's Chancellorship eyed what was going on there with suspicion, particularly because it was liberal and particularly because after the Franco-Prussian war and the end of Louis Napoleon's rule in 1870, France became a permanent self-ruled-republic. Anathema to the Imperials. So that was the back drop of Bismark's FP and in that time it was all about forming alliances for self preservation of the Crowns.
I'm pretty sure the very cursory research on Bismarck I did wasn't going to reveal any kind of evidence, like you might have been referring to in comparing Trump's backstabbing of traditional allies now to Bismarck doing that to his allies during the height of his power in the mid and later 1800s. Clearly he was suspicious of the French and worked assiduously to form alliances with the Austro-Hungarians, Russians and Italians directed to protect German Interests v. France and Russia's v. Great Britain. He also played a mediating hand, at least that is how he was portrayed in what I read, in the Balkans, no back-stabbing there just good statesmanship on Germany's behalf. In that regard he was considered a very effective Chancellor.
What brought Bismarck down was political infighting inside Germany between the right and the left, liberal democrats and socialists. He couldn't maintain the majority of conservatives in the Reichstag he needed to implement policy favorable to the Throne so, Kaiser Wilhelm II told him to take a hike and like the good soldier he was, he did ..... and died 8 years later at 83. Anyway, I enjoyed the study and concluded your analogy between Bismarck and Trump a shitty one and certainly irrelevant to our contrary viewpoints on US FP. Heh.Mission to CFB's National Championship accomplished. But the shine on the NC Trophy is embarrassingly wearing off. It's M B-Ball ..... or hockey or volley ball or name your college sport favorite time ...... until next year.Comment
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"Perhaps it is little more than yellow journalling. Taking a play out of Trump's playbook in which any attention, good or bad, is always welcome."
Probably ...... it would be interesting to hear what motivated the NYT's editor to publish the story as I agree with you it's an advantage to no one, it would seem, except, perhaps, to the concept that the press, operating as the 5th column, is really important.Mission to CFB's National Championship accomplished. But the shine on the NC Trophy is embarrassingly wearing off. It's M B-Ball ..... or hockey or volley ball or name your college sport favorite time ...... until next year.Comment
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Bismarck and Trump are in no way similar because Bismarck was brilliant and Trump is a jackass. I was simply pointing out that even a brilliant man like Bismarck eventually alienated enough people that no one would would speak up for him when Kaiser Wilhelm wanted him gone,Originally posted by Jeff Buchanan View Post
If a genius like Bismarck could not stave off the inevitable, do you have confidence that imbeciles like Trump and Pence are better than him?
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