This is torn from the blog of John Bambenek, a security analyst and Republican candidate for Illinois State Senate, about his conversations with Guccifer 2.0 (G2). The post is entitled MY CONVERSATIONS WITH GUCCIFER 2.0 & THE SURPRISING ELECTION INFLUENCE OPERATIONS. As attention turns to threats facing 2018’s midterm elections, we’re learning hard lessons from what went down in 2016. (Plus, … Read More
The New O’Keefe Video
WH spox Sarah Sanders: “There’s a video circulating now, whether it’s accurate or not I don’t know.” Encourages everyone in nation to watch. — Steve Peoples (@sppeoples) June 27, 2017 So, the White House spokesman wants people to watch a video even though she doesn’t know if it is accurate. How’s that for devotion to the truth? The video is … Read More
The “Unmasking” Diversion
Over at Fox News, they use the word “unmasking” a lot. To me, it looks like they haven’t realized it is a common practice in the intelligence community. They just use the word a lot so that their low-information viewers will think it is bad. “Unmasking”, of course, is the process whereby a redacted name of an American citizen is … Read More
Trump Walks Away When Pressed On Wiretap
The interviewer is from the Washington Free Beacon, a Trump-friendly news outlet. And even they get the brushoff. Nope. Interviewer was from CBS
Twitter Pushes Back On Trump Administration
Twitter filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Customs and Border Protection today. Twitter seeks an injunction barring them from asking for the identity of the person behind @alt_uscis. It’s not clear what legal reason the Trump administration is seeking to identify @alt_uscis. The @alt_uscis bio states: “Immigration resistance . Team 2.0 1/2 Not … Read More
Yeah, I Admit That I Just Emailed Rachel Maddow
I know you get a lot of email, which means I only have a few seconds to grab your interest. Here I go… WHY AREN’T YOU DOING A COMPLETE SHOW ON EZRA COHEN-WATKINS? Let me bullet-point it for you: Reminder: ECW is the 30-year-old White House aide — the NSC’s senior director of intelligence who started his own ‘review’ of surveillance intercepts of … Read More
Wow! Fox News And The White House Are Going Full Bore On This Susan Rice Thing!
It is amazing how the goalposts have moved from Trump’s initial tweets on March 10. Let’s look at them again: Okay. So Obama has now become Susan Rice, Obama’s National Security Adviser. “Wiretap” has become “names unmasked”. “Trump” and “Trump Tower”, the object(s) of the supposed “wiretap(p)”, is not Trump associates. But other than those things — Trump was 100% … Read More
Disdain For Democracy
Worse than lying, says Greg Sargeant: Trump is enraged at being subjected to a system of democratic and institutional constraints, for which he has signaled nothing but absolute, unbridled contempt. The system is pushing back, and he can’t bear it. On Monday morning, the latest chapter in this tale — Trump’s unsupported accusation that Obama wiretapped his phones — took … Read More
Lot Of Hypocrisy About Leaks
The Pentagon Papers was a leak from Daniel Ellsberg. It helped de-legitimize the Vietnam War. Deep Throat was Mark Felt, a top FBI official. He gave Woodward and Bernstein the deep background on the Watergate scandal. Edward Snowden leaked information about US government surveillance programs. Chelsea Manning leaked documents and video relating to Iraqi air strikes, diplomatic cables, and Gitmo, … Read More
WikiLeaks Releases Worthless DNC Voicemails
Wikileaks followed up with another DNC release, this time voicemails. Only problem with this release is that its worthless malarkey. The voicemails are purportedly of various people calling up to complain that some donors are favorited over others. Wow, what a revelation, NOT. In one of the 29 voicemails released, a woman who donated $300 to…
FBI Quietly Drops Lawsuit Against Apple
Remember that thing last month that I wrote about where the FBI wanted to force Apple’s help to break into an iPhone of the San Bernadino terrorist? It was controversial in part because many thought that the FBI didn’t really need Apple’s help. Those people include Richard Clark. The former U.S. counterterrorism official and security adviser to the White House told NPR he … Read More
Apple And The FBI Order
Interesting little development going on in the tech/privacy world and, depending on who you believe, a possible turning point for the better/worse. After the San Bernardino shootings, the FBI seized the iPhone used by shooter Syed Rizwan Farook. The FBI has a warrant to search the phone’s contents, and because it was Farook’s work phone, the FBI also has permission … Read More
Did Ted Cruz Leak Classified Information During The Latest GOP Debate?
It went down like this. While Rubio and Cruz were debating each other’s records on national security and surveillance, Cruz got into some details about what the bulk data program covers. “What he knows is that the old program covered 20 percent to 30 percent of phone numbers to search for terrorists,” Cruz said, referring to Rubio. “The new program … Read More
On The Ashley Madison Hack
So, a few days ago, the website Ashley Madison was hacked and its 37 million customers could soon have their data leaked online by a crew calling themselves The Impact Team. Ashley Madison, for the uninitiated, is a site that lets spouses cheat on their partners — kind of like a match.com for adulterers. The Impact Team has threatened to release a … Read More