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The Last Diplomat
- capitalsigma 10y agopaywall :(
- grzm 10y agoHave you tried the "web" link under the submission title? It works for me. Others have mentioned it sometimes doesn't.
- panzagl 10y agoI had to open in incognito tab.
- _rzzzwilson_ 10y agoPaywall even in incognito mode.
- akulbe 10y agoGoogle the name of the article. (This applies to pretty much any article that'd normally be behind a paywall, btw) See Google search results. Click on the link to the article from the search results. Enjoy reading the article, sans paywall. (though you may get a nag screen still) You're welcome. :)
- rocqua 10y agoGo to the comments, click 'web' on top, open the first link in the resultant google search. For some reason, they don't paywall access through google, only direct links.
- leodeid 10y agoThat was a rather entertaining article, both for the story, but also for the subtext about the dangers of SIGINT-only intelligence gathering. The NSA hoovers up everything it can get automatically, but that data is used without context. In this story, the context of being a diplomat, the context of being in Pakistan, and the context of being conversational partners with a HUMINT source. I'm sure the NSA is (at this point) aware of this problem, and trying to make the collected data more context-aware. I wonder to what extent the content of just phone calls, texts, emails, and facebook posts can be used to learn small-group dynamics. (Like the fact that the people of E-7 in the story consider talks of a Pakistani coup to be normal idle dinner talk.)
- JumpCrisscross 10y agoImagine you're a bureaucrat with little to no oversight. Your power is a function of your budget. You can hire a thousand people for $500,000 each or spend $1bn on a single contractor. With the former you have a thousand people to manage. With the latter, one.
- guerrilla 10y agoYou might be interested in Robert Baer's books for a perspective on this problem within the CIA. HUMINT seems to have been drclining significantly over the last few decades and it's the opinion of some in these organisations that this is a tragedy and won't work.
- guerrilla 10y agoYou might be interested in Robert Baer's books for a perspective on this problem within the CIA. HUMINT seems to have been drclining significantly over the last few decades and it's the opinion of some in these organisations that this is a tragedy and won't work.
- a3n 10y agoYeah, I guess we could and should do that. The problem, though, is that it will always be in the context important to an algorithm. But we don't surveille or converse to serve algorithms (Facebook and Google notwithstanding). We do it to promote human needs. The most important context is human context, and the best human context interpreter is humans. The fact that each individual human emphasizes different parts of a context is a feature, not a bug.
- bearcobra 10y agoThe attitude of the FBI towards diplomacy portrayed in the story is pretty alarming. I generally have a positive view on the Obama administration, but their pursuit of "leaks" post Wikileaks & Snowden is deeply upsetting to me.
- wolf550e 10y agoCounterintelligence people trying to build careers. Suppose the US government database says the US drone program in Pakistan is classified top secret and she did not have official permission to speak about it. Except that everyone who is anyone knows about it. So the difference between how the US wants something to be classified and how secret it actually is allows FBI to say she talked about things without permission, when her bosses in State know she didn't tell anyone anything they didn't already know.
- Z1nfandel 10y agoSpot on. I think the most interesting thing in the article was (paraphrasing): You can write up a report on a conversation you have with a Pakistan official, and it becomes classified. Are you then expected to no longer discuss the same topic on your next meeting, because the report you wrote has a classification on it? To me this whole SNAFU boils down to the two FBI agents assigned to the case not doing due diligence in their investigation.
- germinalphrase 10y agoCharlie Savage's book "Power Wars" goes into this quite a bit. The tl;dr is basically this: administrations before Obama definitely wanted to crack down on whistleblowers, but were limited in their ability to do so. The fact that whistleblowing related arrests/convictions have increased under Pres. Obama is largely due to the fact that we can track people and information much more thoroughly than was previously possible. In the past, you may know who had access to any one piece of information (that leaked) but you would be hard pressed to identify communication channels and specific, time-logged access, etc. Investigational tools have improved so more convictions happen. This doesn't address the civil liberties expectations/promises of Pres. Obama, but it's one factor at play.
- tscs37 10y agoDamn Paywalls. I wish there was a service that I could sign up to and it would make all the paywalls go away.
- grzm 10y agoWell, there is. Or, rather, there are. One per paywall.
- CamperBob2 10y agoSomeone is going to have to start up some type of syndicate at some point to make it easy for publishers to put up paywalls and easy for readers to subscribe and unsubscribe to them. Whoever does that will do pretty well for themselves.
- rocqua 10y agoGo to the comments, click 'web' on top, open the first link in the resultant google search. For some reason, they don't paywall access through google, only direct links.
- wolf550e 10y agoI have a little off topic question. The article says that after months of investigating a career diplomat with 40 years of service under suspicion that she turned and now works as a Pakistani spy in the US... >> Two FBI agents approached her, their faces stony. “Do you know any foreigners?” they asked Why do cops ask such questions? What is this investigative technique supposed to achieve? Make the suspect angry so they would be less careful in phrasing their answers? Let the suspect assume the investigator knows nothing so the suspect would think they can blatantly lie and the investigator would not realize? Something else? I don't think there are any elicitation techniques the FBI has that she hasn't mastered, so why do that?
- wheelerwj 10y agothey ask some of the most ridiculous questions trying to trip you and make you say stuff you don't mean or isn't true. Like, "do you know any foreigners?" turns into "why didn't you disclose that telationship, did they pay you money?" No matter what you say it opens up a new line of questioning for the investigators. That's why lawyers tell you to never talk to them, not even to try and clear things up.
- rpeden 10y agoIt's also a very ambiguous question that's hard to answer properly without asking for far more detail. For example - what do they mean by "know"? What you think it means can be very different from how the investigators interpret it. Do only close friends and associates count? How about that co-worker who sits three cubicles away from you, who you don't consider a friend but talk about football with a few times a week while waiting for the coffee machine? Or the barista at Starbucks who has seen you every morning for the past 3 years and 'knows' you well enough to ask how you family is doing? And then - what do they consider a foreigner? Anyone who has born in a foreign country, even if they are a citizen? Or landed immigrants? Or only people who currently reside in foreign countries? It would be easy for someone to believe they were honestly answering 'no' to the question without realizing their assumptions about what is being asked are incorrect. I don't blame investigators for asking questions like this, but people should think very carefully about answering the questions without legal counsel. There's usually just too much ambiguity in most questions (even simple ones) to be able to comprehend all of the possible meanings and implications of every word. Relying on your ability to recall things on-the-spot while being questioned in a high-stress situation also seems like a bit of a lose-lose proposition.
- tjic 10y agoI've got multiple thoughts about this story, but the biggest one is that Robin Raphel answered FBI questions for quite a while BEFORE thinking that she should get a lawyer. For anyone who's not as politically connected as she is (say, if you're Martha Stewart, or - God help you - a mere mortal like any of us), this is a sure fire way to end up locked in a cage. ...and make no mistake: if you read the article carefully, it's clear that the one thing that kept her out of jail is the fact that she was heavily connected to DC elites and worked a campaign of back-channel pressure. Never, ever, EVER answer police or FBI questions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE
- Diederich 10y agoI knew what this youtube link was before I clicked it. This is so important, my family and I watch it several times a year. As far as I'm concerned, it should be taught in school, though that's so politically incorrect as to be unthinkable. As are most of us, law enforcement are professionals who are rated on various metrics. The main metric is getting convictions. Guilt or innocence is not even a secondary concern.
- tbrownaw 10y agoAre there any studies that quantify the effect this has on the distribution of outcomes? Or how / whether the results vary by economic or social class (or race, since it can be a proxy for those)?
- leereeves 10y ago> “Do you know any foreigners?”, the FBI asked. As if that would be suspicious.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- TheGirondin 10y agoIt's a starting point in an investigation. "Only my great uncle from Mexico." Not much further inquiry required. "3 people from Tehran" Get their names and do a little investigation. "No" Caught them in a lie, when you know they know 3 people from Tehran.
- IBM 10y agoThis story is obviously sourced mainly from Raphel and her friends/allies. Personally I view the FBI investigation as them just doing their jobs. In the end this wasn't really a failure on their part, assuming the innocent reason for all the suspicion was true, they investigated her as they were tasked and the DoJ ended the investigation when they realized there was no case. I think the interesting story is the change in culture at the State Department which has the effect of getting less human intelligence. I'm not sure if that's because they want to be cooped up in their embassies because they feel less safe meeting with people in certain host countries, or if security requirements are being imposed on them. Clearly in this case Raphel felt restricted and she had no problem, but I'm not sure other State Deparment employees feel the same. Benghazi and the Camp Chapman attack [1] are pretty good reasons why they should be concerned about security. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Chapman_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Chapman_attack
- lefler 10y ago"Doing their jobs" misses a huge part of the story. Someone illegally leaked the details of the ongoing investigation to the New York Times, changing what could have been a temporary unpaid leave for Raphel into a front page story with damaging after effects. Had this been investigated and resolved secretly, as per the rules, Raphel could have reapplied for her job after the FBI concluded there was no espionage case.
- wtbob 10y ago> Someone illegally leaked the details of the ongoing investigation to the New York Times, changing what could have been a temporary unpaid leave for Raphel into a front page story with damaging after effects. Pending further information, I suspect that it was someone in Raphel's camp who leaked those details. The best case situation for her was for this to be argued in the court of public opinion.
- lefler 10y agoI do not share your suspicion. The initial 20161106 wapo article had this: "U.S. officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing." Pleading "ongoing investigation" suggests the source was in law enforcement, not authorized to discuss the case, discussed the case anyway, and used anonymity to avoid the consequences. A victim or friend can safely go on the record with a reporter, an investigator cannot. In any case, the friends of Raphel seemed quite upset about the leak when they were spoken to for follow-up articles.
- pjc50 10y agoSo, normally in the West we assume that some form of "collective responsibility" principle applies to government agencies. That the views and actions of the government can be talked about as if it were a single coherent entity. Pakistan is very much not like that. The intelligence agencies are extremely autonomous and unaccountable. It's a large country with underpopulated "bandit country" uplands (FATA) where all kinds of armed groups can hide. And there's substantial evidence that, while Pakistan has formally been a US ally since the Cold War, internal factions have been supporting the Taliban. Now it appears that the US is replicating this structure, as factions within one intelligence agency start arresting members of another as a means of influencing foreign policy. The Hilary Clinton email controversy that everyone has now forgotten was another similar move; maybe it wasn't aimed so much at her personally, but an attack on the State Department? (And of course now the FBI director's favoured candidate has won, and is conducting diplomacy in a manner that completely bypasses the State Department ...) (Edit: this post seems to be bouncing up and down in the voting. Feel free to take the analysis with a pinch of salt, the general point is to be aware of the political actions of intelligence agencies.)
- eternalban 10y ago> Pakistan is very much not like that. The intelligence agencies are extremely autonomous and unaccountable. This was [US] news in 1973: https://ia802601.us.archive.org/12/items/pdfy-JnCrjsoqI22z8p9i/The%20Secret%20Team%20%5BThe%20CIA%20And%20Its%20Allies%20In%20Control%20Of%20The%20United%20States%20And%20The%20World%5D.pdf https://ia802601.us.archive.org/12/items/pdfy-JnCrjsoqI22z8p... It's well worth the read. In fact, possibly required reading. The author was retired military and directly involved.
- chengiz 10y agoA far too subjective article. Diplomats of her ilk have messed up several countries because they didnt give a hoot about the commoners or long term scenarios, and dealt with only the rich and powerful for short term political gain, whilst flaunting their partying and wealth and immunity. Case in point Iran. Case in point Pakistan, which might be going the same way. The implementation may require work, but the impetus for accountability for diplomats is a fucking good thing.