50 US Senators Issued Satellite Phones (cbsnews.com) 115
Long-time Slashdot reader SonicSpike shared this report from CBS News:
Amid growing concerns of security risks to members of Congress, over 50 senators have been issued satellite phones for emergency communication, people familiar with the measures told CBS News... [Senate Sergeant at Arms] Gibson said satellite communication is being deployed "to ensure a redundant and secure means of communication during a disruptive event." Gibson said the phones are a security backstop in the case of an emergency that "takes out communications" in part of America.
Why (Score:5, Insightful)
The making or changing of laws is the last thing we want to be happening during, or soon after, a crisis. Remember last time? We got the PATRIOT ACT.
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"Remember last time?"
You mean Jan. 6? We definitely don't want Senators to be able to communicate then, right?
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Re: Why (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, the people who were "escorted" into the Capitol while attacking officers for three hours [cnn.com], who used pepper spray [cbsnews.com] on officers [nbcnews.com], who clubbed officers with fire extinguishers [cbsnews.com] and flag poles [cnbc.com], who tasered officers [cbsnews.com], who wore full combat gear [cbsnews.com] and zip ties [nbcnews.com], who chanted "Kill Mike Pence" [pbs.org] and wanted to kill Pelosi [nbcnews.com]. Yes, those people were most certainly "escorted into the capitol.
It's funny how liars like you so vehemently defend terrorists, but will brag about shooting anyone who tries to break into your home.
So they're probably was a bit of escorting (Score:2)
Re: Why (Score:2)
And I'm wondering why the ARMY was not guarding the building that day after Trump's "Stand By" thinly coded message and political experts warning about what was going to happen months before 1/6?
You can't tell me that they were that stupid. Something real foul is going on.
Re: Why (Score:5, Insightful)
And I'm wondering why the ARMY was not guarding the building
Because the Army has no authority for such operations. That falls to the National Guard who was hamstrung by Mark Meadows [cnn.com].
The committee notes that in one email Meadows sent to an individual about January 6, he said that “the National Guard would be present to ‘protect pro Trump people’ and that many more would be available on standby,” according to the report.
Also, Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller gave explicit orders [twitter.com] to the National Guard that nothing could be done without his approval including using any force on the terrorists, coordinating with police, or performing any duties whatsoever until he said so.
That's why nothing was done until hours had gone by. Miller was trying to protect the terrorists on the con artist's behalf.
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Re: Why (Score:2)
Re: Why (Score:2)
Miller needs to be strung up from the nearest lamp post. Treason, aiding and abetting in terrorist actions, I hope he ends up wearing stripes.
Re: Why (Score:3)
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Gee, you'd have thought the lawyers representing the people facing jail for their insurrection would have referenced your video in their defense. And the news organizations would have picked up on that like hotcakes. However, nada. Me thinks your video is bollocks.
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So what exactly would make the video bollocks? Are you suggesting Carlson had someone don some fur and a horned hat and walk around the Capitol for him? Or maybe he used AI to generate the video? Because I don't think it would be too difficult to count the fingers on the policemen.
I mean I admire the belief you place in US institutions, but if those institutions were working as well as you think they are, do you think the US would be half as fscked up as it is right now?
Re: Why (Score:5, Insightful)
It's just selectively edited to pick the parts that look most tame, Doesn't take a genius to realize that giving the video evidence to a team of people that regularly fabricate news isn't going to give you the most honest video of the event.
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So ok. The tame minute of the footage of the qshaman walking through the Capitol with police escort. What what kind of less tame material would there have been to cut out of it for us? Him beating up some cops? His escort standing by when he's doing it, or even helping? Killing Pence and Pelosi?
I am sure if there was anything of significance there he would have been charged with it, all with the police witnesses, video evidence and public pressure to put him away and such. Dude got convicted of an obstructi
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It's pretty easy to find footage of people not committing crimes. Even people engaging in insurrection often don't commit crimes. I guess if you want to ignore the violence, the assaulting law enforcement, the death threats, and pretend it was just a tour group, you're probably in your own fantasy land.
Another point is it doesn't matter if there were some police that didn't do their jobs. The people involved in the insurrection were still breaking the law. There was still violence and pretty much everyo
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Even people engaging in insurrection often don't commit crimes.
I would think that people engaging in insurrection always commit the crime of insurrection, by definition?
I guess if you want to ignore the violence, the assaulting law enforcement, the death threats, and pretend it was just a tour group, you're probably in your own fantasy land.
I do not want to ignore anything. That's exactly my point. Let's go up a few posts where the thread started. The blue crowd is talking about the violence and the red crowd is talking about the tour guides. How about we manage to admit that both of these happened, so we can maybe get some common ground and heal the nation a bit? Instead of, you know, the blue crowd ignoring what the red crowd has on thei
Re: Why (Score:3)
"I guess if you want to ignore the violence, the assaulting law enforcement, the death threats, and pretend it was just a tour group, you're probably in your own fantasy land."
Sorry, this sounds like you'd thought that *wasn't* the case at some point? You aren't going to get reality out of a person who thinks that traitors and terrorists were doing the right thing. You're wasting your time. Folks like this started huffing Trump brand lead paint the minute he said we was running and have yet to stop.
Basical
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. The blue crowd is talking about the violence and the red crowd is talking about the tour guides. How about we manage to admit that both of these happened, so we can maybe get some common ground and heal the nation a bit?
Alright, let's talk about it. Do you care about tour guides? No? Neither do I. That's some common ground. Do you care about free and fair elections? Yes? Me too!
Now let's make sure the criminals that tried to subvert democracy are put in jail so something like this doesn't happen again. Maybe we should also go after the ones that encouraged the insurrection using lies about how the election was stolen since that's the root of the problem.
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Yes, but also, no.
I do care about the tour guides. Not in the way that the red crowd cares about them, but in the way a sociologist cares about them. The tour guides pose a question to me - is the contemporary US society actually able to accept factual reality or not? And I guess I have my answer here - four posts in a row modded troll, for arguing that something that happened, happened. I get it, the thing is a public trauma. But that makes it even more important to deal with it. Any progress is always dep
Re: Why (Score:2)
If the later released videos show tame events, then what does it say about the initially released videos? Doesn't that make THOSE selective edited in the first place? Avoiding selective edits seems important to you, after all. Shouldn't you question why the entire library of recordings were suppressed from public view for so long and had to be leaked to Carlson?
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No, tame events aren't news worthy, the most extreme ones are what matters. The videos also weren't leaked, the GOP just gave them to him legitimately.
Re: Why (Score:2)
If the tame events are not newsworthy, then the common criticism of conservative news coverage of, say, antifa protests is no longer valid. Would you say that's true? A focus on the violence surrounding those protests would, according your views, not constitute biased reporting.
Re: Why (Score:2)
In the days and weeks after June 4th, 1989, Chinese state television played only videos of anti-government violence around Tiananmen square, along with the aftermath of burned out vehicles and injured policemen. Were they correct to exclude footage of peaceful demonstrators?
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That's correct, but considering antifa is largely an imaginary group (aside from a few isolated counter protests), it hasn't come up. Perhaps you're thinking of the BLM protests where there were some cases that violent mobs showed up after dark and caused trouble? That was extremely well documented in the media
Protests in themselves can be newsworthy, but in this case the violent insurrection completely overshadowed any peaceful people (protesting fair democracy?).
Re: Why (Score:2)
Re: Why (Score:4, Insightful)
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TBF, there is enough video material of police walking peacefully along with the protesters and opening doors for them.
I think it's a mistake to assume these people aren't fully aware, they're just biding time pushing through more policies designed to kill you and yours and playing dumb in the meantime because you all keep falling for it and trying to explain things to them.
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"Your honor! Look at all the people my client DIDN'T murder"
The problem is the violent insurrectionists, not the peaceful protesters outside.
Re: Why (Score:2)
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Say friend you have a lot of thoughtful responses to your one line turd. Seeing as how you made this post it seems you’d want to stand by your words and explain why they’re mistaken?
Come on tell us why we’re wrong.
January 6th (Score:1, Troll)
The media's acting like this is some sort of Doomsday protection. In particular there's a lot of right-wing media trying to fear monger about Russia going nuclear if we don't let them roll over Ukraine (and eventually Poland). So instead of sensibly pointing out that this is just because following January 6th additional security measures were put in place we get stories like this.
Re:January 6th (Score:4, Insightful)
The right wingnut media is still ornery over Ukraine not coming up with the "goods" on Biden, even after the former alleged president told them what he wanted. After the invasion, he called Putin's invasion "genius". If he gets in again, it will only be Europe standing up to his minder in the Kremlin...a Europe without the U.S. in NATO.
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Still sucking the dick of the "Trump-Russia" conspiracy bullshit, eh?
The recent report on the investigation into that pretty conclusively shows that the only people not involved were . . . Trump and Russia.
It is highly relevant that Putin invaded Crimea while a Democrat was in the White House, and waited until another Democrat was in the White House to invade the rest of Ukraine. He knew better while Trump was in office.
Re:January 6th (Score:4, Insightful)
The recent report on the investigation into that pretty conclusively shows that the only people not involved were . . . Trump and Russia.
You found a report saying that the Trump-Russia collaborations didn't involve Trump or Russia? Are you sure this wasn't a report about something else entirely? It's very well established that Russia helped Trump to win the 2016 election and several members of the Trump team were caught working with Russia to make that happen (including Trump publicly requesting Russia release dirt on his opponent...right before Russia released dirt on his opponent)
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Still sucking the dick of the "Trump-Russia" conspiracy bullshit, eh?
The Dick [justsecurity.org] — The asshole [slashdot.org] — get fucked.
What does your post have to do with anything? (Score:2)
I’m having a hard time seeing how this is even remotely related to the patriot act or anything similar.
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Exactly, these fools overrate their importance in a crisis. They're the least wanted at such times.
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Most people in congress are the kind of people who would rub me the wrong way. You don’t get there by being what I’d consider a good person but they have duties beyond creating laws. I don’t know what all these duties are but I do know enough to know they may be requires to act in an emergency situation.
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Oh my! Cykaface sounds nervous. I can't imagine why....
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I get that slashdot isn't only Americans, but it's amazing how zero out of two dozen replies has no clue how the US government is structured.
Congress runs all national defense, they operate the millitary, and they both declare and respond to acts of war.
All the movies saying the president has that power are just that, movies, fantasy.
Presidents ask the congress for formal war declarations. The constitution grants that power to congress alone.
I know most of the constitution is ignored by literally everyone these days, but I know I'd much prefer the constant fight to get everyone to follow the laws of the land instead of just give up on any hope of civility and accept the anarchy and chaos.
Speaking of which, it is the duty of congress to keep the executive branch from ignoring the constitution,
How long did we spend fighting in Korea? How long in Vietnam? Grenada? Afganistan? Panama? Iraq?
Which of these military actions were congressionally declared wars? None of them were.
Congress hasn't done their 'duty' since the mid 1800's.
Ham radio is a better choice (Score:2)
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Well, encrypted comm via amateur radio is difficult and requires licensing. Sat phones are trivially easy to operate by comparison. But, but, ham radio capability could provide comms back to their constituents. And that's why it won't happen.
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I don’t know the details here but it used to be a built in thing to add government approved encryption modules to many models of satphones too. The ham radio thing isn’t an awful last option deeper into a risk management plan though.
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The ham radio community doesn't need any outside help to plan disaster responses. They've got a century of experience (and success) at it on their own.
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Hams are great when there’s a hurricane but let’s be practical here.
Is it simpler to hand out briefcases with sat phones or assign them an amateur extra class greybeard that follows them on trips with a spool of antenna wire, altoids tin, and book of one time pads?
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Also I’m not talking about the ham operators with a disaster response plan. I’m talking about the government identifying potential risks like sabotage and a developing a plan to reduce, transfer, accept, or avoid it which is going to be well over the paygrade of whoever is tasked with establishing communications in an emergency and they would probably hate it if it fell on their shoulders anyhow.
Re: Ham radio is a better choice (Score:2)
Time to break out the WWII era "codetalker" skillz. They even made a movie about this.
Re: Ham radio is a better choice (Score:2)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
Re: Ham radio is a better choice (Score:2)
Almost...
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They should do that too, but they really need encrypted communications anyway. It's not like it's hard to come by radios that do that.
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I’m about 20 years out of the loop on this but in my experience with encrypted radios they’re a bit kludgy. We were doing sensitive military work on unencrypted radios with the capability because they lost their keys every time you changed the battery. Plus talking to people with radios that can go around the world is a bit technical compared to a satphone.
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Are HAM radios portable the way a satellite phone is? Or would they first have to be able to get to their office to send out a distress call or receive warning to take cover RIGHT THE HELL NOW?
Re: Ham radio is a better choice (Score:2)
Re portability: âoeHam radioâ is a pretty broad term, covering devices that might operate on any one or more of multiple bands ranging from VLF to Microwave frequencies, and transmitting signals from microwatts to over 1000 watts. Iâ(TM)ve seen âoeham radiosâ the size of a postage stamp used to send telemetry from a weather balloon.
The portability of a ham radio is determined by its intended use, the band it operates on, and the antenna it will need to do its job. For many uses, the
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Ã(TM)ve seen Ãoeham radiosÃ
That doesnÃ(TM)t mean
If theyÃ(TM)re not
Why do your posts have these weird characters in them? Are you using a Mac?
Re: Ham radio is a better choice (Score:2)
You can buy portable ham trancievers that are no larger than your typical emergency service walkie talkie. And they can have encryption and flash memory that does not lose their keys when the batteries are taken out.
These radios won't have to be able to broadcast all over the world, just within the area where help is needed and available.
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Sat phones have to be easy enough for nontechnical consumers a lot of congress has been probably using them since the 90s when they were considerably more complex.
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You extend an antenna, turn them on and then use them like a normal phone. If most of humanity can use a smartphone then they can operate one of these [satellitephonestore.com]. I've used two stage dialing before and while it's pretty easy to explain, I've always avoided it as an unnecessary complication. The most difficult part is just telling people (at least
Re: Ham radio is a better choice (Score:2)
That kinda sums up what's wrong with US healthcare.
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That kinda sums up what's wrong with US healthcare.
What's wrong with US health care is that the death-panel-operating private insurance companies were written into the law instead of destroyed with extreme prejudice. We got Romneycare, called it Obamacare, and pretended it was good.
Re: Ham radio is a better choice (Score:4, Informative)
Licensed ham here: Encryption is specifically prohibited over ham radio, with the one exception of satellite control purposes.
Re: Ham radio is a better choice (Score:2)
I'm wondering how a sat phone is supposed to work inside a thick building made of concrete and steel.
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That depends on the frequency. Up to just under 2 GHz it works fine. Above that, you can say that all bets are off.
TFA and other news outlets don't say what brand of satellite phone they're offered so I can't really say, but most of the current satellite phone systems operate in the L-band which is around 1.5 GHz which penetrates building structures well.
"stop the bleed" training (Score:5, Interesting)
Senate administrators have also offered "stop the bleed" training
I just recently attended a CERT training, hopefully we will be getting our own team here in my little town and I intend to be on it. And this is one of the courses I want to take the most, as it seems to have immense utility. Speaking of which, did y'all know many styptic powders are mostly hydrated lime?
Emergency training ought to be promoted more, and given out more freely. I didn't have to pay a cent. FEMA has a bunch of free online courses that are also potentially a lot more useful than FEMA itself often is in an emergency... You go sign up for your FEMASID number, which in my case was spit out by the site immediately, and then you can sign up for the course material.
Re: What does this even mean (Score:2)
What's scary is that these mentally unbalanced wingnuts could be your doctor, or your Uber driver, or be running a daycare. Think about that.
Re: "stop the bleed" training (Score:2)
Right winger does a shooting: "meh"
Trans person does a shooting:"OMG We gotz to open teh prizin kamps!"
Nice glaring double standard you got there.
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Considering that the active shooters are now often trans, like we saw in TN,...yes.
They're "often" trans because it happened once? What percentage is that? Asking for a country.
6 senators have already lost theirs... (Score:2)
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Re: 6 senators have already lost theirs... (Score:2)
I'm sure their appliances have "12:00" ever flashing on them too. :-\
If a senator needs a Jitterbug phone, I don't think he or she should be a senator.
So.. (Score:4, Interesting)
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Stop watching TV, bad for you...make you believe silly things...
Re: So.. (Score:2)
Who needs scare peices on TV when there are subtle signs that something is brewing?
It's like a veteran storm chaser being able to tell that a tornado is highly likeky to hit just by looking at the sky and feeling the surrounding air hours before the storm hits. Or an average joe noticing that something "seems off" about a neighborhood.
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Based on past performance of some Senators... (Score:2)
The Proud Boys and the Klan will no doubt be pleased with the new equipment.
Who's going to carry them? (Score:1)
Should've just gotten them each a top-end iPhone 14 pro max whatever that will send messages via satellite in an emergency. I can't imagine any Senator wanting to carry around (and keep charged) another gizmo they're rarely if ever going to use. Probably whatever aide draws the short straw gets stuck with it.
Satcom in wartime (Score:3)
Russia has demonstrated localized attacks on Starlink and GPS. In a first tier conflict (as Mick Ryan pointed out in his fictional account of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, "White Sun War: The Campaign for Taiwan "), anti-satellite warfare will be a significant part of the conflict. These would be reliable/dependable in a natural disaster or a domestic event, but not in a battle against China. US military would also be severely compromised by the loss of satellite resources (communications, surveillance and GPS.)
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Redundancy is the word I believe, cykaface. Besides, The ruSSia is done like dinner. Soft belly exposed, ready to be carved up.
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Well, almost 40 years ago a friend demonstrated (mathematically) that it was an order of magnitude cheaper to launch space junk in front of a satellite to damage/destroy it, than to launch a satellite that was sufficiently armored to defeat that junk. There have been proposals for launch-on-demand satellites (I don't know if US built those, that wasn't my part of the Military-Industrial Complex.) But at some point, there is a concern that there's so much space junk there's no room left for new satellites,
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Yeah I figure it's just a matter of time until this festering boil of fascism does something truly stupid(amazing how high that bar is...), and unfortunately it will probably be a bit messy, but if the minority thinks it has a chance against the majority.....well, I certainly look forward to seeing this lesson delivered once again.
Hard to imagine something more divine than watching them get annihilated for the last time by people who actually believe what they say.
Think smaller (Score:2)
I'm guessing they are concerned with attacks targeted at individual senators just as much as an attack on phone/electrical infrastructure at large. The article makes it sound like they are only concerned with the latter.
With the wide availability of malware for commercial smartphones, and jammers/tower emulators targeted at commercial smartphones, and the documented incidents of politicians (and normal people for that matter) being hit with these things, I'm surprised they didn't start issuing them special
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We are well beyond that point. The continued daily operation of various private entities (banks, health care, etc.) requires the ongoing and repeated blessing of various federal officials. Regardless of whether they actually provide any added value to the ongoing processes, their approval must be sought. The will not be ignored.
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Why? Are there no ... (Score:2)
I guess it's important that (Score:2)
...even senators be co-opted into the "be afraid, all the time, if everything" industry.
I'd be interested to see the political alignment of the 52 senators that accepted this rather absurd precaution.
If "all communications around the US are severed" literally the last person it would be helpful to hear from would be a federal senator.
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If collapse of our society is all it would take to get the Ruling Class here to fuck off to elsewhere - ie everyone within the DC beltway, of BOTH parties - then sign me up for the goddamned apocalypse.
Living in a Mogadishu of 300 million people* is maybe worth considering in that case.
*let's be honest, if society collapsed in the US, within 3 months there'd be something less than 50 million anyway; 83% of the US lives in major metro areas and there's no more than about 2-3d worth of food in the immediate s
This isn't all that unusual (Score:1)
To receive priority calling, the GETS [cisa.gov] system (calling card) works with any phone like a calling card.
For cell phones, WPS [cisa.gov] is tied to a particular phone.
Satellite phones offer a backup alternative for regional disasters.
Non government and some critical business decision-makers and workers are able to receive these services due to the nature of their work or affiliations.
Honestly, I would want senators to also have Starlink and a second satellite data option. In addition, they should have a pool of HAM radio
50 Senators? Why only 50? (Score:2)
What brand satellite phones? (Score:2)
Just wondering if these are Starlink, making them beholden to Musk, or some other brand.
Can Starlink pinpoint the location of the caller?