Justice Department, FBI Are Investigating Cambridge Analytica (cbsnews.com) 139
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBS News: The Justice Department and FBI are investigating Cambridge Analytica, the now-shuttered political data firm that was once used by the Trump campaign and came under scrutiny for harvesting data of millions of users, The New York Times reported on Tuesday. The Times, citing a U.S. official and people familiar with the inquiry, reported federal investigators have looked to question former employees and banks connected to the firm.
The Times reports prosecutors have informed potential witnesses there is an open investigation into the firm, whose profiles of voters were intended to help with elections. One source tells CBS News correspondent Paula Reid prosecutors are investigating the firm for possible financial crimes. A company that has that much regulatory scrutiny is almost guaranteed to have federal prosecutors interested, Reid was told. Christopher Wylie, a former Cambridge Analytica employee who spoke out about the data sharing practices, told the Times federal investigators had contacted him. The American official told the Times investigators have also contacted Facebook as a part of the probe.
The Times reports prosecutors have informed potential witnesses there is an open investigation into the firm, whose profiles of voters were intended to help with elections. One source tells CBS News correspondent Paula Reid prosecutors are investigating the firm for possible financial crimes. A company that has that much regulatory scrutiny is almost guaranteed to have federal prosecutors interested, Reid was told. Christopher Wylie, a former Cambridge Analytica employee who spoke out about the data sharing practices, told the Times federal investigators had contacted him. The American official told the Times investigators have also contacted Facebook as a part of the probe.
Investigate What exactly? (Score:1)
That they don't like the outcome?
That its ok for commercial purposes, but not in elections?
Clear proof that voters can get accurate targeted information that alters 'default' vote patterns.
That the info/dirt can be used from other countries, legally if the lawyers do their bit properly.
Phoenix operations. Next time there will be the same manipulation from wherever. The issue cannot be resolved as data is global.
Unless the USA enacts data privacy laws, it will remain the wild west, and the best funded party
What was visionary in 2012 is a crime in 2016 (Score:2, Insightful)
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He got some people to finally care about privacy.
FTFY. 20M people quit Facebook which isn't even a tenth of the number of fools that have signed up in the US.
People weren't only indifferent. They were slobbering in ecstasy over the likes of google and obama for vacuuming all their PI everyday. Trump changed all of this.
Exposing the depths (and more importantly the success) of manipulation by Cambridge Analytica is what woke some people up. However, this is just a repeat of the same old selfish pattern: people don't really care about some issue until it affects them personally. Do you think Trump voters suddenly cares about their privacy? I'm betting they are as indifferent as ever.
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I signed up with a fake account simply to watch my kid's concerts which were streamed on Facebook.
It's also fun to post crazy shit and troll various organizations. As long as you don't go over the top, all you are doing is fucking up FB's data and also give people a few laughs and you stay under the FB radar.
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So are you willfully ignorant of the whole contract violation part that Cambridge Analytica engaged in that the others didn't? Or are you just that clueless?
Re: What was visionary in 2012 is a crime in 2016 (Score:1)
Anonymous Cowards are crapflooding that. It's boring and disappointing. The older non-political crapflooding was at least a little amusing. But rendering 'impeach' as a word with similar weight and meaning as 'benghazi!' is productive, so carry on with your tedious role.
Shuttered? (Score:2)
Didn't they just change their name? Or am I thinking of some other association of shysters?
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That's what I remember, too. We should stop calling them by their old name, as that only plays into their game of trying to dissociate themselves from their past actions.
Re:Shuttered? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's Emerdata now.
They will probably do a second namechange later on like Blackwater / Xe Services / Academi did. (Founded by Betsy DeVos brother b.t.w.)
The name is just marketing anyway, keep track of the people behind it instead:
Jennifer and Rebekah Mercer are directors of Emerdata, and are the daughters of ultra-wealthy businessman Robert Mercer who created and bankrolled Cambridge Analytica.
Source: cambridge analytica shutdown [theregister.co.uk]
It doesn't matter how many companies they have or what they name them. If you see those names behind it it is probably part of organized crime.
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Re: Shuttered? (Score:1, Troll)
Or am I thinking of some other association of shysters?
The Democratic National Committee has too much long-term name recognition value to just change their name because of some indiscrete email leaks.
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Y'know, there's a pretty big difference between "please give us your personal information so we can use it to build our statistical models to improve our chances at winning an election" and "take this vapid quiz while we hoover up all your info and all your friends' info without you knowing."
Two people agreeing to have sex is fine. One person sneaking in to another person's house after they run into each other at the grocery store and proceeding to fuck them while they're asleep pointedly is not fine. Sure,
Re: Trump Hillary (Score:1)
Data mining is data mining. A checkoff box to provide some form of 'consent' is just an excuse. The fact that Facebook was approving of Obama to the point of being deep up his rear so that the data miners could enter through the Front Door is really irrelevant.
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Also the Hillary strategy was to get people to send messages to specific friends. Like they had to actually approve sending a message.
Cambridge Analytica literally stole their data, against Facebook's rules.
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Maybe "literally stole" is a bit strong, but "illegally acquired"
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The fuss is because it rests on data that wasn't given permission to be used in this manner - unlike before with Obama - and therefore everything that happened with the data is part of this crime - (and it does count as a crime on the UK, where the academic and CA are based).
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If the American people that Obama's level of activity was illegal, you should act on that too.
Re: Trump Hillary (Score:2)
It's more relevant (slightly) today to study what the email leaks reveal about the DNC. That is the proper equivalent to the 'truth' about what C.A. did in the election. Little Debbie and her snack cakes are rather odious, to be honest.
Re: This will be missing piece Mueller needs (Score:1)
Sexual Harassment in the workplace does not reduce to 'a blow job' you sexist pos.
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Please read a history book before publicly showing your ignorance.
Bill Clinton was being sued by Paula Jones for sexual harassment Bill committed while Governor of Arkansas. Bill was questioned about similar behavior in other work environments. Specifically, he was asked, under oath, about having an affair with an intern in the White House while acting as President. Bill Clinton LIED about that...under oath. That is a crime that we call 'perjury', which Bill Clinton was convicted of.
Re: This will be missing piece Mueller needs (Score:1)
More left wing mythology. It wasn't about a blow job it was about forcing an intern to lie to a grand jury. An actual crime was committed.
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You are correct. Bill did the lying himself.
CA Are Not The Problem. The Problem is FB (Score:5, Insightful)
Facebook have access to data on ALL their users. They have the complete history of all their users. They have a vast trove of information about what their users do when they are not on the Facebook platform, thanks to a combination of cookies delivered by their servers and the beacons they place all across the Internet, courtesy of Facebook "Like" buttons on popular web sites.
Cambridge Analytica are only getting this level of scrutiny because Christopher Wylie basically left regulators with no choice, after publicly telling the world what CA had the ability to do. An equivalent FB insider, anyone who chose to reveal the full scope of what FB can do, would scare most people silly.
It's amazing to think that people are getting worked up about this relatively small data set obtained by this relatively tiny company, when the data is being held by this behemoth call Facebook, run by a guy who makes no secret of his political ambitions. Talk about elephant in the room.
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The NSA taps into Google, Facebook, Yahoo etc. were only required because the government did not have access to the same level of data that these companies do. The outrage at the Snowden leaks was not insignificant. What I find difficult to understand is why so many are more frightened by their own government (which has little incentive to harm them other than to maintain its own power and is mostly designed to facilitate services and infrastructure they need.) than they are of multi-national corporations w
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What about when that government that you seem so enamored with is bought and paid for by those multi-nationals that you seem to despise?
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The thing to bear in mind here is that Cambridge Analytica managed to obtain only a relatively small percentage of information about Facebook Users. The information it managed to obtain was either information voluntarily provided by users in response to a survey, or publicly-visible information carried by "friends" of the relatively small number of users who took their survey.
and Friends of Friends... and? The numbers I heard were 53 people took the survey in Australia, and exposed the data of more than 300,000 individuals.
That's some good leverage.
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Second, your argument amounts to 'whataboutism'. If Facebook is acting unscrupulously on an even larger scale, we should fight that too. You don't get away with murder by saying "but that guy killed 10 people!".
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The thing to bear in mind here is that Cambridge Analytica managed to obtain only a relatively small percentage of information about Facebook Users. The information it managed to obtain was either information voluntarily provided by users in response to a survey, or publicly-visible information carried by "friends" of the relatively small number of users who took their survey.
You're underplaying the significance of what was "voluntarily provided" in a survey. The API did not allow any fine grained permissions. What was actually provided by undertaking the survey users handed over their survey answers, their complete private profile, their history, likes, affiliations, locations, as well as trusted information by friends which itself is not considered public information. Facebook already handed over far more than users had in their profiles, and certainly far more than their frie
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"It's amazing to think that people are getting worked up about this relatively small data set obtained by this relatively tiny company"
Not really. We've had a 2 year multimillion dollar investigation into a president based on no actual evidence, just supposition and speculation by people who ardently were opposed to him.
Support Trump, you'll be punished beyond the full extent of the law for being on the "wrong side". It's almost like religion.
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Both cases entered shadowy legal area, the former was probably in violation of FB use of data the latter was clearly in violation of FB agreement with the scientist making the survey.
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And almost all of those pleas and indictments are for process crimes (perjury) or events that happened years ago and had nothing to do with the Presidential election. The biggest plea so far, Flynn, is already in legal trouble as released FBI documents show that none of the investigators believe he perjured himself during their meeting and the charges were only later created out of thin air to apply pressure. It was only after they threatened to go after his son for similar trumped up charges and almost b
Re:The deep state doesn't exist (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet another angle is that Trump and his sons have explicitly stated they've borrowed large amounts from Russian banks, which could potentially give them significant leverage over our President on one end, and probably involves laundering on the other. These are critical to investigate.
Not that any of this will matter to you, no matter what is presented when Mueller actually reveals his findings, you'll still think he's innocent, it's a witch hunt, Trump Did No Wrong, it's all a partisan hit job, and on and on to protect your boy.
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So to keep things equal, we should impeach trump over Stormy Daniels.
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One important difference, In Clinton's case the investigation shifted FAR from criminal matters. The whole Daniels investigation surrounds potential violations of campaign finance law. That is, the payoff on the downlow, not the alleged affair and not lying or not about the affair.
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Campaign finance laws aren't really criminal matters either. At worst this is a violation to the tune of $130,000. Obama's campaign was found guilty of violations in the millions and, as is pretty par for the course, paid a small fine and life continued.
Trumps image was hardly squeaky clean to begin with so the revelations that he had an affair with a porn star would have hardly rocked the boat. John Edwards had a similar case during his presidential run and was easily able to claim it was a payoff for p
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There were significant issues with timely donation disclosures and refunds of excess donations, but Trump is in it for PERSONAL comingling of funds and mis-use of campaign funds.
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what is this until anyone can nonsense, thats ALL it has been so far!
Evidence to the contrary (Score:3, Insightful)
Not that any of this will matter to you, no matter what is presented when Mueller actually reveals his findings, you'll still think he's innocent, it's a witch hunt, Trump Did No Wrong, it's all a partisan hit job, and on and on to protect your boy.
I'm actually good with believing he's innocent, until there's evidence.
I absolutely *hate* it when some police force make a flashy claim about someone - all the guns confiscated during the search, all the electronic devices taken from the home, nebulous "tip from an informant" - everything is being tried in the court of public opinion nowadays. None of that is evidence of a crime.
Let's not forget that after 9/11 someone was sending anthrax letters to people (remember those?) and Mueller - the lead investiga [realclearpolitics.com]
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Looking into the wrong person in one high profile case with intense pressure to find someone is hardly grounds to suggest he's any less competent than any other prosecutor. Don't put words in my mouth either please, I have never expressed any sentiment that would indicate I think Mueller is 'unimpeachable, honorable'; I would never describe any prosecutor in that manner. On those measures
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Ya, my guess is that you'd have no problems with Trump dating your daughter or loaning him money.
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It's their job to enforce technicalities.
As for the collusion investigation, we don't know what' they've got yet, because unlike the White House the Mueller team doesn't leak very much. But it's not surprising to see peripheral pressure being put on the President's associates; that's the way prosecutors work. The way you take down a mob boss isn't that you go straight for him; you put pressure on his associates using whatever you can find.
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Yet, it seems that a judge isn't to happy with this particular technique.
NY Times is saying otherwise (Score:2)
May 16, 2018
Code Name Crossfire Hurricane: The Secret Origins of the Trump Investigation
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/16/us/politics/crossfire-hurricane-trump-russia-fbi-mueller-investigation.html
Smokescreen (Score:2)
The company has morhped already:
https://www.metro.us/news/the-... [metro.us]
They are really catching the discarded skin of the snake.
Probably will result in BS technicality charges (Score:3, Interesting)
These never seem to go anywhere. There's never enough evidence to convict any significant decision maker of a crime, especially when they have enough resources for counsel that is able to obfuscate sufficiently.
At best you see some kind of vague conspiracy charge -- which really, anyone could be charged with -- or real bullshit stuff, like mid-level flunkies who get convicted of something like "lying to the FBI", which seems to make a serious felony out of either honest people's inadvertent "lies by omission" or the natural reaction people have to the intimidation of being questioned by a serious law enforcement organization.
So a handful of people might wind up scapegoats on technicality charges since prosecutors don't like failure publicity. No film at 11, you can find this story buried on the back of the sports section.
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Why don't you wait until the investigation is completed before making silly pronouncements on its outcome.
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Because I'm fifty-fucking-one years old and I've seen this dumb movie remade 100 times. The ending never changes just because the cast does.
So what? (Score:2)
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They're a foreign firm. Who cares?
Those of us who don't want them do it again.
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They're a foreign firm. Who cares?
Those of us who don't want them do it again.
Give them a billion dollar punitive fine and it won't happen again.
Whoa !! This could distract them ! (Score:1)
Full story here... (Score:2)
qanonposts.com
Double standard (Score:1)
So why wasn't Obama investigated by them in 2012?.
The Obama’s reelection team was “building a vast digital data operation that for the first time combines a unified database on millions of Americans with the power of Facebook to target individual voters to a degree never achieved before.” Obama’s new database would be gathered by asking individual volunteers to log into Obama’s reelection site using their Facebook credentials. “Consciously or otherwise,” “th
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Bwa ha ha, Someone using "The View" as a standard for political accuracy.
Go away, you a f-ng useless.
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Yes, but only biased genocidal maniac feminist fact checkers.
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I still don't understand how what Cambridge Analytica was doing is any different than any other modern marketing campaign.
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What about when WalMart does it? Or Starbucks? Or your college alumni association? Face it, privacy has been gone for more than 20 years now. The only difference is that facebook is a one-stop-shopping-center for gross analytical data and specific targeted marketing.