Ex-CBS Reporter Claims Government Agency Bugged Her Computer 235
RoccamOccam writes A former CBS News reporter who quit the network over claims it kills stories that put President Obama in a bad light says she was spied on by a "government-related entity" that planted classified documents on her computer. In her new memoir, Sharyl Attkisson says a source who arranged to have her laptop checked for spyware in 2013 was "shocked" and "flabbergasted" at what the analysis revealed. "This is outrageous. Worse than anything Nixon ever did. I wouldn't have believed something like this could happen in the United States of America," Attkisson quotes the source saying.
Journalist Runs Malwarebytes - Slashdot Front Page (Score:4, Funny)
It says SPYware right there in the search results. Obviously made by spies.
Honestly. (Score:3, Insightful)
"And as I was typing and working on questions for a Benghazi-related story, the data started wiping kind of at hyperspeed"
Look, this isn't what hacking looks like, unless it's being done by a 14yo who installed VNC on your machine and is just fucking with you. Why would a super seekrit Obummer conspiracy go to the effort to plant spyware on her computer and then use it by PRESSING BACKSPACE? While she was editing? That's beyond nutty.
Re:Honestly. (Score:5, Informative)
It was described to me by the computer experts I consulted with afterwards that that was purely an attempt to let me know that they could do that, that they were watching, that they were in my computer.
But it seems like you would have to read the book to get more details on who these experts were.
Re:Honestly. (Score:4, Interesting)
That seems kinda stupid. Why announce that they're 'watching you' and give you evidence that they're doing so?
"Hey Agent P, I got a great idea. Let's h4xx0r her laptop, wipe out data, and let her know we're watching her. A member of the press would take that as a warning and not report on it, right?"
"Cool. *type type type*"
If you look at any person's laptop you'll find it absolutely coated with spyware. I run PC cleaning workshops for my church. Some of the stuff that comes in should really be nuked from orbit they're so bad. I'm starting to advocate people just start getting Chromebooks because there's not much of an OS to hack and 90% of what people do can be done from a web browser.
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If they want to scare her they wake her up in the middle of the night with 4 people in her bedroom and quietly tell her that if she keeps it up bad things might happen. Then they proceed to make themselves visible at times, for example show up and do the same thing to their mother, let her see them talking to someone she cares about, etc.. It's far more intimidating, far more effective and completely deniable. She doesn't listen and she ends up in a "car accident" or commits "suicide".
The people that would
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That sort of thing leads to amusing (or tragic) tangles with armed professional law enforcement, and the toy soldiers do not cope well with such situations.
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Do you actually believe they couldn't simply have the police guarding their exit? That they couldn't taint some food so she would be sure to be sound asleep? The people we're talking about have unlimited resources, the ability to silence any witnesses and even the ability to have law enforcement protect them while they do it.
She's attributing cartoonish technical prowess (a stuck key for gods sake) and ignoring the simple fact that if they actually wanted her out of the way she would be out of the way. Putt
Re:Honestly. (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you really think spooks want professional law enforcement to watch while they carry out extralegal operations? Many Police actually think laws are worth enforcing and don't want to see a "might makes right" system such as in China or Soviet Russian - they demand "inconvenient" things like due process.
The truly amusing thing here is you are being critical of someone's suspicions of a conspiracy but suggesting a Pinochet style system in it's place - we're not yet anywhere near the stage of setting off car bombs in Washington to silence inconvenient people. You've accused someone of having a wild fantasy and suggested something far wilder.
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Of course, the obvious solution is she got spyware on her laptop the normal way.
On the other hand, she was probably on a first name basis with some White House types that very well could make that happen.
So, it's not really right to use a probability for this scenario. Your chances of being murdered are probably 10,000 to 1 in general, but if you personally pissed off the mob enough, your probabilities start getting a lot more... probable.
I really don't know what to think about this story. I have to admit
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Realistically, I give a one in ten billion chance that her machine was black-bagged specifically, and far less odds in the manner that she described.
I give even odds that her "source" is the one responsible (since they actually had access to the machine). The source may have done so for the federal government (for which I give a lot more than 1 in 10 billion odds) or to exploit a gullible reporter for personal gain.
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But it seems like you would have to read the book to get more details on who these experts were.
Geek Squad strikes again!
Re:Honestly. (Score:4, Insightful)
"unless it's being done by a 14yo who installed VNC on your machine and is just fucking with you"
Which is probably what it was. My guess is: Some 14yo didn't like her political views and decided to fuck with her, and used some social engineering tricks to make her think it was the big bad gubmint.
Betcha the classified documents came from Wikileaks or were forgeries.
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No 14 year old gives that much of a shit. The symptoms she describes sound more like user error than someone "fucking with her".
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So...she was fucking with herself....the implications are mind boggling...sort of like Zaphod Beeblebrox isolating part of his brain from himself.
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Her description of the location of the classified documents sounds like something my computer illiterate grandmother would say trying to relate the plot of "War Games" or "The Net."
What IT person do you know in this world that says shit like that?
And this quote. (Score:2)
So the software is "commercial" but also "proprietary to a government agency" that cannot be identified.
I think that she does not understand the meaning of the words she is using.
But I also think that our government probably was spying on her. And lots of other people. Just not in the way she descri
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I'm telling you Commander, that if we make it look like some pre-teen script kiddie, nobody will believe that it was NSA that erased her story.
Now she'll have to type it in all over again.
Next time let's encrypt the file and demand that she ransom it with her credit card, OK?
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It's a good way to scare someone into stopping what they are doing, and appears to have worked. If they just deleted a few files now and then or edited the odd story she would soon figure it out anyway, so might as well just scare her into giving up.
It reminds me of the goons from GCHQ/MI5 who visited the Guardian to watch them destroy some hard drives. Completely pointless, didn't do anything to stop the leaks, but it certainly made their position clear to the journalists.
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It's a good way to scare someone into stopping what they are doing, and appears to have worked.
How did it stop her when she is writing a whole book about it?
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From what Snowden released that seems to be the mentality of parts of the sprawling outsourced clusterfuck that is the NSA, right up to the top with an operations room based on a fucking TV show and laid out by a Hollywood set designer.
Lame claim to fame (Score:2, Funny)
Colonel Mustard: Why is J. Edgar Hoover on your phone?
Wadsworth: I don't know, he's on everybody else's, why shouldn't he be on mine?
What are you talking about Willis? (Score:4, Funny)
A former CBS News reporter who quit the network over claims it kills stories that put President Obama in a bad light ...
There are News organizations that manipulate, encourage or suppress stories that may make a President look good or bad? When did this happen?
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When did this happen?
Post-9/11 America. If you weren't with the United States, you were with the terrorists. No reporter wanted an exclusive jailhouse interview from Gitmo.
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Yeah, let's turn gitmo from a civil rights tragedy into a conspiracist boogeyman which you pretend is used for the elimination of the free press. It's a prison. It's a prison where horrible things have happened. It's a prison where horrible things have happened circumventing due process. But that's all. That's the end. That's bad enough, and you don't need to bake in conspiracy theories to make it worse.
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It's a prison where horrible things had to happen to prevent ever more horrible things from happening.
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A former CBS News reporter who quit the network over claims it kills stories that put President Obama in a bad light ...
There are News organizations that manipulate, encourage or suppress stories that may make a President look good or bad? When did this happen?
I think back in the Grant administration.
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You forgot the sarcasm tag and there are lots of people that don't get sarcasm. Expect lots of serious replies.
Needs better proof (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't doubt this kind of thing is happening. The government has been moving itself into ever darker shadows of secrecy to avoid oversight, while at the same time has been violating privacy rights of its citizens ever more egregiously. This is not a problem with any particular party or political viewpoint. This is just the nature of power. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The powerful elite will always consolidate and expand. In this country, the One Ring of Power is the law system, and the magic is provided by technology. I believe Ms. Attkisson.
Having said that, she is going to need much better proof than she has or nothing will come of this. There has to be a smoking gun in the had of an actual federal agent. In this case that would be an actual order to spy, provably given by someone who is high enough to be responsible for their decisions. She will never have that.
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To be honest. I'm not sure what to make of this. CBS had the issue with Bush and the National Guard. They got creamed on it. It pretty much caused Dan Rather to have to retire in a bit of shame. It's entirely possible that CBS heads are "unless we have 100% proof, spike it, we got burned before".
There may be censorship, but may be more self-censorship. Rather "self" as in "corporate head censorship".
Re:Needs better proof (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, figuring that the head of CBS News is the brother to one of the Obama admins National Security Advisors also plays into things.
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I don't doubt this kind of thing is happening.
Nor do I, but the mere existence of spyware on someone's computer even a "journalist" is not evidence of Three Letter Agency spying. I'm *not* saying it didn't happen, but both stories referenced in the write-up sound very paranoid without a lot of (any?) hard evidence of government involvement.
Partisan bickering (Score:2, Insightful)
I can't wait to see the partisan reactions. Fox News and the Glenn Beck empire will crow about how this is worst presidential act in history, MSNBC will dismiss it as a looney conspiracy theory, and people will approach the story with their biases.
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I can't wait to see the partisan reactions. Fox News and the Glenn Beck empire will crow about how this is worst presidential act in history, MSNBC will dismiss it as a looney conspiracy theory, and people will approach the story with their biases.
Here's the rub. I don't believe for one second she had her computer second, but I don't doubt for one second that CBS s**tcanned negative stories about Obama.
Sure it was Obama? (Score:3)
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The presence US classified documents implies US government. It's not proof, but that's probably what she's thinking. It may be other news agencies, competitive journalists, people she's pissed off, foreign governments, all just checking up on what's she's doing and ready to set her up for arrest.
Its CBS the network that gave us Dan Rather (Score:3, Insightful)
Aka Mr. Whats the frequency kevin ?
Aka Mr. I don't need the documents authenticated I know they are real.
Aka Mr. Why don't I turn my news network into a complete partisan embarrassment ?
Seeing as he was de facto running the news network there for quite a bit, it wouldn't surprise me at all if their culture had taken a turn into lala land.
As to being shocked at the spyware on her computer, i'd suggest "Number one" (seriously ?), I am hardly shocked at anything I see in the way of malware, especially if you let kids use a computer.
Re:Its CBS the network that gave us Dan Rather (Score:5, Informative)
"What is the frequency" refers to Rather getting punched by a loon who several years later murdered an NBC stage hand. How this reflects badly on CBS, I don't know.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D... [wikipedia.org]
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I'd need more than that article, There's nothing there that says the alleged perpetrator was even charged with this crime. Consider D.A. Morgenthau was a bad joke, the kind of prosecutor that has Americans fearing their courts. I'd imagine he would have certainly tacked on the charges if he could actually make a case.
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I haven't watched CBS news for a very long time. I don't care if you lean left or you lean right, you shouldn't want your news outlet trying to lead you by the nose.
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More than half the internet is serving malware. If you visit random websites with IE on windows you will be loaded to the gills with malware in less than an hour. The existence of malware does not tie it to the government. It simply means the user doesn't understand the risks and how to avoid those infections.
Oxymoron spoiler alert ... (Score:2)
" ... a sophisticated entity that used commercial, nonattributable spyware that’s proprietary to a government agency ..."
The government is selling that shit?
She's just doing Chicken Little to sell her book.
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She's Also An Anti-Vax Hack (Score:5, Informative)
She's well known for her anti-vax "reporting," so she's got more than a smidge of a credibility deficit.
http://www.sciencebasedmedicin... [sciencebasedmedicine.org]
If some bad Obama stories were spiked... (Score:3)
...I can't imagine how bad it would have been if not. He's had a lot of bad press recently. When it comes to bad news, some Presidents are Teflon (Reagan), some Presidents are Velcro (Carter). Obama is more on the Velcro side than the Teflon side.
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You can't get much more teflon than selling weapons to a country you've loudly proclaimed is an enemy (Iran) to provide funding to insurgents that routinely murder innocent people (Contras) and you get away with it because you tell everyone you don't remember.
Hokey (Score:5, Insightful)
What is...
used commercial, nonattributable spyware thatâ(TM)s proprietary to a government agency
There are just so many things that are hokey about this story.
The spyware included programs that Attkisson says monitored her every keystroke and gave the snoops access to all her e-mails and the passwords to her financial accounts.
Happens all the time to people that open random emails and follow unknown linkys.
Attkisson says her source â" identified only as âoeNumber One"...
Good grief. In other news, let's talk about "chemtrails"!
Expect it and enjoy (Score:2)
They just want to know how the gov or mil is trending in real time and ensure no staff are talking to the press in their own time
So what can the press do?
If you have a contact meet in a deep underground car park. That stops most look down views tracking top staff as two car pull up next to each other.
Dont bring a phone, even removing a battery before a meeting can be tracked back in time with with
Right Wing Meme (Score:2)
One of the features of this mindset is that they assume that they are the only targets of bad government behavior. Spy on the left wing/Muslims/black people/Occupy Wall Street/anti-war/etc is great. By their lights, we are not doing enough of this, and it is always justified no matter what.
Of course the so called intelligence community is spying on everyon
Peekaboo (Score:2)
Nixon... (Score:2)
Re:She's.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes.
"And as I was typing and working on questions for a Benghazi-related story, the data started wiping kind of at hyperspeed"
Not how someone with remote control over a computer would wipe data. Not deleting it in the fucking editor. A quick console deltree "My Documents/Bengazi" while the computer is idle is easier and less obvious to the user.
She almost certainly held down control and backspace by accident and blamed it on the government. Classic paranoid ideation.
Re:She's.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually. Better theory. She was on a laptop, didn't have the touchpad disabled, and accidentally highlighted some text while typing. Poof gone, and happens to all over us.
Re:She's.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Even better, she was on a Lenovo Thinkpad, docking station, and lid closed. Known defect, the lid presses the delete key. It took us a while to track this one down where I work. Lots of deleted everything. Why, they even have a BIOS update for this. Apparently that was easier than fixing the manufacturing defect.
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On a MacBook Pro, the first symptom of a failing battery is sometimes that the Q key stops working. Apparently it's right over the most common first place for the battery to start bulging.
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Or the delete key stuck down for one of numerous reasons. More than once I've had vi starts beeping like crazy because I've shifted the keyboard and the escape key has wedged under the monitor.
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Re:She's.. (Score:5, Interesting)
And as I was typing and working on questions for a Benghazi-related story, the data started wiping kind of at hyperspeed
I've done that to people before. Remote log in and start keyboard presses like delete as a prank. It may not have been to delete the data so much as to drive them crazy. If she was hacked by specific people to cause problems, that's a very logical tactic.
Re:She's.. (Score:5, Funny)
Absolutely. Remember Back Orifice? A roommate's hosebeast of a girlfriend would come over and sit on the spare computer in the living room muttering under her breath and making random sounds while chatting on ICQ (Yeah, that long ago...). I installed BO on it and then would use my laptop to send deletes, backspaces and when I got really bored, send program closes to it until she would get fed up and leave to go smoke on the deck and complain to her bf about the "possessed" computer.
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Yup. It's almost like there's a reason she's a former CBS reporter. But on the bright side, maybe she can get a job working for Alex Jones or Orly Taitz.
Re:She's.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes.
"And as I was typing and working on questions for a Benghazi-related story, the data started wiping kind of at hyperspeed"
Not how someone with remote control over a computer would wipe data. Not deleting it in the fucking editor. A quick console deltree "My Documents/Bengazi" while the computer is idle is easier and less obvious to the user.
She almost certainly held down control and backspace by accident and blamed it on the government. Classic paranoid ideation.
Later in the same article "It was described to me by the computer experts I consulted with afterwards that that was purely an attempt to let me know that they could do that, that they were watching, that they were in my computer."
You're right, nobody would break into a computer that way, unless, perhaps, if they were powerfully arrogant, and wanted to make a point.
Re:She's.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes. "And as I was typing and working on questions for a Benghazi-related story, the data started wiping kind of at hyperspeed"
Not how someone with remote control over a computer would wipe data. Not deleting it in the fucking editor. A quick console deltree "My Documents/Bengazi" while the computer is idle is easier and less obvious to the user.
She almost certainly held down control and backspace by accident and blamed it on the government. Classic paranoid ideation.
The other option being: read the story.
Per her source, the deletion of data while she was using it was a warning. Warnings don't work that well when they're less obvious to the user. (I think Tom Clancy actually invented that move originally).
Knowing tech, ya, her story sounds like fiction. But then again a few years ago, so did dragnet surveillance, warrant-less/trial-less asset seizures, and drones executing US Citizens without trials With stuff like that, the known illegal spying, secret courts, secret laws, and fighting terrorism for the sake of the children, who could have predicted most of what is going on these days besides the likes of Grisham & Clancy?
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The reference I remember was in Doctor Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, when it's revealed that the Soviets have a doomsday weapon that'll destroy the world if a nuke goes off in their territory, and the Americans comment how a deterrent weapon is only good if it's known.
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"And as I was typing and working on questions for a Benghazi-related story, the data started wiping kind of at hyperspeed"
Sounds like a scene from the first episode of Torchwood. In fact, the whole story sounds like a failed pilot TV show.
My favorite quote from the story:
But the most shocking finding, she says, was the discovery of three classified documents that Number One told her were “buried deep in your operating system. In a place that, unless you’re a some kind of computer whiz specialist, you wouldn’t even know exists.
"They probably planted them to be able to accuse you of having classified documents if they ever needed to do that at some point,” Number One added.
Documents magically being deleted at hyperspeed, other documents planted "deep in the operating system"... yeah, right.
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The incredibility of such actions are one of the reasons why they are done, so I wouldn't discount her story so easily. The Stasi did similar things [wikipedia.org] (well, of course, not on laptops but in the same spirit). It's very sad and hard to believe for halway decent folks but some people are extremely evil.
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Uh-oh, I think they are onto us. I think we better come clean with some of the secret documents:
1. Steve_Ballmer.pdf - reveals that he starches his shorts
2. Zune - details the dastardly scheme to make Americans hate music
3. Word - shows insanity producing psychological warfare
I'm sure you all know some more. Tell her now before it is too late!! She's quite important.
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> "deep in the operating system"... yeah, right.
DLLs in the system32 folder (why system32, am I one of 32 people being spied on?!?!) are seen as precisely that by the majority of people. So yeah, probably.
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The article continues:
"It was described to me by the computer experts I consulted with afterwards that that was purely an attempt to let me know that they could do that, that they were watching, that they were in my computer."
Not saying that interpretation is correct, but it does seem reasonable to point out that she does in fact have a response to your objection.
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I believe TFA said the point of deleting in that fashion *was* to be obvious,
Re:She's.. (Score:5, Insightful)
A quick console deltree "My Documents/Bengazi" while the computer is idle is easier and less obvious to the user.
From the article, quoting Ms. Attkisson:
She's not a computer expert and this part of the story I would want more proof before I buy it. I'd like to know who looked at her computer: what exactly this person's qualifications were and what exactly this person found.
She said that the malware found on her laptop was commonly used by the government... what was it exactly? Is there any malware in the world that is effective but isn't used by anyone except U.S. government agencies? From the article:
Slashdot collectively knows a lot about computers. Has anyone heard of spyware that matches the above description?
If I were a government spook and I was trying to crack a reporter's computer, I would use an off-the-shelf exploit, not something that pointed straight back at the government. I presume that computer spooks know where the black-hat marketplaces are, and thus where to buy new cracks as they go up for sale.
As for the classified documents, again I want more evidence. She should have gone to the FBI immediately with those documents if they really were classified. On the one hand that seems like a far-fetched thing, but on the other hand, the current Presidential administration is the first administration ever to prosecute journalists as spies [slate.com].
P.S. Ms. Attkisson's first-hand stories about her bosses spiking stories, White House staff yelling at her for not being "reasonable", and all the rest of it are completely plausible to me (and fall within her area of expertise).
Re:She's.. (Score:5, Insightful)
"commercial, nonattributable spyware that's proprietary to a government agency"
You can't parse that and have it make sense.
Commercial spyware that's somehow unable to be attributed to a person or organization? That defies the whole point of a commercial software product.
Commercial yet proprietary to a small group of government agencies? Again, that's not really the definition of commercial.
I can believe she had some sort of breach on her machine, most likely malware. Hell, I'd even be willing to believe there was some sort of spearphishing attack against her by someone who wanted data off a well-known reporter's computer but the rest of it just reads like a bad movie about the internet.
Re:She's.. (Score:5, Informative)
It's really simple. There are commercial products (both hardware and software) that are offered for sale only to government agencies. You literally can't buy them if you don't work for some government entity, or if you don't have a direct and explicit authorization from a government entity. They are nonattributable to any particular government agency, but everyone in the know knows what company makes the product. The fact that you know the manufacturer doesn't make it attributable.
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They weren't interested in exfiltrating information off her computer.
If you were a apparatchik and wanted to Send A Message, you'd use whatever you had conveniently available and was ready to use, and not
yes (Score:2)
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See Polonium poisoning as the least subtle current way of a government (Russian government obviously) deliberately doing something that points back to them as a fear tactic. This could be a more subtle way of "sending a message".
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Not deleting it in the fucking editor.
If you're sniffing key strokes, then it's not that much additional effort to insert your own key strokes in. I'd also look at the "computer experts" and "sources" that she consulted as the potential originators of the problem.
She almost certainly held down control and backspace by accident and blamed it on the government.
Or a keyboard or software malfunction. It need not be an ID10T problem in order to be innocuous. I think this story would be far less frivolous if we actually were told what spyware was al
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Yeah, probably nothing to see here. If they wanted to wreck her work they'd just crash the machine and it would come back up with a corrupted file system. Nobody would think there was a conspiracy about a hard-drive crash.
Especially since there's been so many high-profile hard drive crashes recently.
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i kan reed is a paid DNC shill that posts to /. He doesn't understand any of the actual tech stories and sounds like a complete idiot when he does post to them. However, a political story comes up between 8am and 5pm on Monday through Friday and he will post about 50 times to it citing DNC talking points to the letter. He has been called out numerous times and doesn't even deny it.
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Because you know via your magic psychic powers that there's nothing interesting to report when the US left men behind to die when an embassy got overrun. It's not even possible someone in the chain of command made a newsworthy mistake, says your magic psychic powers?
This is why she quit - she was tired of being told they don't run stories that would reflect badly on the wrong people or causes, regardless of facts. This is also why "only old people" watch the broadcast news or read the newspaper for news -
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The events have been well documented.
The events were not at all well represented by the press.
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Ah, so it sounds like there would be an interesting story there then, although it's a bit late for it to be "news" I guess. I'd sure like to read a non-sensationalized report on where the ball was actually dropped, given how embarrassing the outcome was for the US.
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You really think she's clinically insane?
Explanations more likely than insanity:
- she is non-technical and may be mistaken
- she's lying to sell books
- she's telling the truth
- she said something different and was misquoted or edited in some misleading way, possibly by accident
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Hey, it happened in New Zealand and slightly more than a third of the people lapped it up happily. Of the remainder, but bulk didn't vote because they were sick of it.
So, in another New Zealand first, we re-elected someone who learned from Nixon, got caught, and didn't care.
Re:Both are bad but not comparable. (Score:5, Interesting)
Whether the motive is political or personal does not justify crime. This is suppression of information for the purpose of affecting an election. Nixon was stealing information for the purpose of affecting an election. The difference is minor.
Journalism based on political gain is propaganda, and all over in the news. It's hard to believe any one news source these days, they're all biased one direction or another. Get your news from as many sources as possible, get the facts, and make an educated assessment. It's the best way to remove the journalists' biases.
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If it's done for personal gain, it's always a crime, but that is not always the case for other kinds of intents. A prime example: f a cop kills a man because he hated him it's a lot different than when a cop kills a man because he was kidnapping a little boy.
Even when a random person kill someone by accident, is a different and lesser crime than killing some
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Both of these crimes are malicious actions for political gain, not accidents or a cop defending an innocent. Neither are justified by motive or by result.
Re:Both are bad but not comparable. (Score:5, Insightful)
What are you talking about? Nixon could only have wet dreams over what the US Government can and does do now.
The only two extenuating circumstances is that Obama certainly didn't build all this up on his own, nor was the first president to do so, but was in the building for many decades. The second being that the entire government is in on it.
Nixon is a great big boogie man to hold up, but his crimes pale against modern day government.
If the government was truly of the people, and concern with the 4th amendment - it would have decades ago ensured secure protocols and encryptions instead of backdoors into everything. But the concentrated shouts of law enforcement and the planners in power is typically louder than the diffused power of the majority. And instead of doing the right thing, it always choosing the lesser of 2 evils at that very moment (and there is always some "crisis), guess what? It still went bad.
The only point of your post is to act as an apologist. Sure, in the days of Nixon, when the government had its shoes covered in shit, and Nixon ankle deep in it appeared to be the worst guy out there. But now that the government is knee high in it, that point is long moot and gone.
And I say this all because we already experienced a guy who had the reach in his day somewhat comparable to today. Hoover. That guy had info on everyone and stayed in power so long because of it. I can't even guess at all the behind-the-scenes crimes he committed but since he wasn't a figurehead president and doesn't appear to have a party badge affixed to him, no one brings him up or attack him for shortterm gain.
Now the NSA is in the same position. And they have way more power to affect elections or politicians than Nixon ever had. Some Senator wants to defund the agency? Slip a brown envelope under her door full of her browsing history with a note saying "No $ Already?" and she'll get the message.
All it needs is the wrong director.
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> Nixon could only have wet dreams over what the US Government can and does do now.
And probably does, in whatever hell he resides.
Re:Both are bad but not comparable. (Score:5, Insightful)
I just read a book about Watergate and it mostly makes you think Nixon was a rank amateur. Bungled, dirt-digging expeditions that were mostly designed to dig up embassing, low-rent scandals, conducted by second-tier political operatives outside of Nixon's actual control or direction.
It seems like just an evolution of the usual political chicanery employed up to this day.
The rest of the Nixon mystique just seems like hysteria. You can't tell me every administration since hasn't had a poitical enemies list or attempted to obfuscate their scandals and errors and suppress leaks. Nixon just happened to be caught in the tide of poltical and social upheavel of his time. It's winner's history.
Today's political skullduggery seems much scarier given the technology and powers the government has it didn't then, from the Patriot Act, National Security Letters to civil forfeiture.
Re:Both are bad but not comparable. (Score:5, Insightful)
The first article of Impeachment against Nixon was for attempting (but failing) to use the IRS as a weapon against his powerful political enemies. Obama DID use the IRS as a political weapon, but not against the powerful who could fight back but the small and innocent, who only committed the sin of opposing a lightworker. Not plotted, not consipred, all sides admit Lois Lerner DID use the IRS against enemies of the administration, Lerner was a high Party offficial with frequent access to the White House.
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Ever talk to a "Tea party group"? They would certainly describe themselves as rabid enemies of the administration.
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501(c)4 is different and you can engage in political stuff (apparently) as long as it's not the primary focus.
Moveon.org is an example of an existing 501(c)4.
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What's scary is that what got Nixon on the brink of impeachment would today easily be squelched in a few days citing national security and the rest is swept aside with the reporters being labeled terrorists.
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what got Nixon on the brink of impeachment
Note that articles of impeachment were drafted in the U.S. House of Representatives and a committee meeting held to draft the legislation needed to bring the issue in front of the entire U.S. House of Representatives. That was far more than simply being on the brink.... it most certainly would have happened. The only thing that kept Nixon from being impeached was his resignation that made such an effort moot.