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I got bizarrely excited when I saw they'd mischaracterized his opinion of James Comey. I share a tremendously positive opinion of the current FBI director, but

• tptacek 10y ago
  I want to have a positive opinion of Comey! I like the idea of people running our most important/powerful institutions being fundamentally competent and principled, even when I disagree with them politically. But I have a hard time getting past the way he handled the Anthony Weiner email stuff at the end of the last election. It seemed unprincipled. Have you thought much about that? Am I missing something?
  • justabystander 10y ago
    I dislike his stance on encryption and warrantless surveillance more than anything. (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141019/07115528878/everybody-knows-fbi-director-james-comey-is-wrong-about-encryption-even-fbi.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141019/07115528878/every...) His incompetence/misdirection on technical matters could lead us down a very dark path. It leaves me little patience for anything else from him, as either he's too dated to function in a modern era and too proud to delegate, or he's busy selling out everyone.
    • tptacek 10y ago
      That's not "his" stance; it's the stance of pretty much the entire law enforcement community, and a pretty substantial chunk of Americans. We all cheered --- I did too! --- when Apple failed to produce the contents of the San Bernardino iPhone. But people outside our industry do not see this as a good thing, and --- as unpopular as this statement will be in this community --- that's not an unreasonable perspective to have. Reasonable people can disagree about it. (If you think reasonable people can't disagree about it, you're probably misconstruing the debate. You know this is happening if, for instance, the next rhetorical move you have to make is about how it's impossible to "ban mathematics" or about how "only outlaws will have cryptography".) I am very unlikely to hold a bias against encryption against someone like James Comey. And I work in cryptography! I disagree with him about it, but that doesn't make him a bad person. On the other hand, I have a hard time working around him violating what is apparently a very real election norm of the institution he runs. That to me suggests that he's unprincipled, which is the kind of thing I really have a problem with.
      • mst 10y ago
        I think the theory of those who believe he was trying to do the right thing is that he foresaw a situation where if he didn't act, the result would be roughly equivalent to a much worse violation of said norm - and so he chose to preserve as much of the spirit of the norm as he could at the expense of participating in the violation of the letter. Whether this theory seems correct, and whether it argues for principled or unprincipled, I suspect will have varying answers depending on who you ask.
  • hawkice 10y ago
    It was a legitimately tricky scenario. Without justifying it, here is why I consider that a borderline call (one I disagree with, but a borderline call I think he's qualified to make): Imagine Congress calls you in to testify under oath about something, over and over. This is not a big priority for you, but it is something the oversight committees care about a lot and cooperation can make your life easier when it comes to e.g. getting funding for solving serial killings. They make you testify under oath over and over about e.g. the number of emails. They ask you on Monday under penalty of perjury, and by Wednesday you have a new answer. Your choices are to tell them, have it leak, and be criticized for influencing an election. Or don't tell them, make your life harder, and have them say you were concealing relevant information before the election (because we all found out it was nothing in advance of the election, so the concealing would have broken as a news story too). Honestly, he was going to get tagged with this either way. It was just which flavor of scandal he wanted.
  • problems 10y ago
    Comey was in a bind. Internal leaks were happening - if word got out of more Clinton email investigations before he made it public, he'd have been screwed and when it leaked, he'd look very partisan. If he were to publicly announce it as a major issue, he'd have looked partisan. Instead he tried to walk the middle ground by announcing it publicly and downplaying its significance. It was a challenging situation and it seems a fairly reasonable response to me. About as principled as he could be given the situation at hand.
    • makomk 10y ago
      Also, the reporting was atrocious and definitely shaped the anti-Comey narrative. For example, any leaks of information that were pro-Comey or anti-Clinton were spun as obviously Comey's doing, because no-one would dare leak anything without his support, and as proof the FBI was anti-Clinton. Meanwhile, any leaks that hurt him or helped her were taken as pure fact. It even turned out that the timing wasn't just dictated by Comey, but by the deputy director (apparently a Clinton ally) delaying telling him until well into the pre-election period. This was naturally spun as more proof the FBI were out to get Clinton. The press systematically ignored or downplayed evidence that contradicted their preferred angle.
    • hackuser 10y ago
      > Comey was in a bind. Internal leaks were happening - if word got out of more Clinton email investigations before he made it public, he'd have been screwed and when it leaked, he'd look very partisan. Comey's priorities must be far greater than personal fallout: He is responsible for things so important we don't even question them (or don't want to): The law, justice, one of the most important institutions in the U.S. (the FBI), and in this case, arguably the most important institution in the world, the sanctity of U.S. democracy. I don't care if he was in a bind; that is not a concern at all with these stakes; he shouldn't have the job if he can't handle these situations. It may appear to civilians as if it is a bind, but my understanding based on what a large number of former top officials said is that the FBI and Justice Department have two unambiguous, long-standing policies on these issues: 1) Never talk about ongoing investigations, and 2) never say anything that will influence an election in any way. You don't want the head of the FBI making decisions every four years (or 2 - they could influence every House and Senate race) on what election-related information they will reveal. Finally, did Comey reveal every investigation that might have influenced the election? No, only one. What about the one into Russian interference, for example? The only violation of those policies, ever AFAIK, was what Comey did.
  • iaw 10y ago
    I feel like his actions bordered on treasonous especially given how inconsequential the new information turned out to be.
    • tptacek 10y ago
      Words mean things, and the word "treason" in particular is, alone among offenses, defined in the body of the Constitution. There's no circumstance in which Comey's actions could be "treasonous", even if they were done in bad faith.
      • EdHominem 10y ago
        Actually, it seems to be incredibly broad and could cover anything deemed to help the "enemy". Considering we don't declare war anymore this is either absolutely unenforceable, or is totally open-ended as to what an enemy is. (Is ISIS an enemy? The Free-Syrian Army? The Kurds?) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Three_of_the_United_States_Constitution#Section_3:_Treason https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Three_of_the_United_St... "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."
    • ascagnel_ 10y ago
      Treasonous? No. A violation of the Hatch Act? Possibly.
  • EdHominem 10y ago
    That he said things to the press about the Apple/iPhone incident that he had to know to be untrue at the time didn't indicate his lack of principle? He said the agency was pursuing terrorists and he thought the locked iphone was important, but he specifically didn't actually take it to anyone who could help, indicating that he was 1) lying or 2) willing to let more attacks happen to make a point.
• EdHominem 10y ago
  He decided to try to blackmail Apple by taking the matter to the news when they didn't comply with his illegal orders. It's like the police coming by your work to arrest you for questioning as intimidation. To make the undue public attention worse, they (he specifically, as well) lied to the press about the facts of iphone issue, saying things he couldn't know as fact (the difficulty for Apple to crack the device) and inventing other details. Also, I know he had offers from security firms to crack the phone from day 2. He sat on what he claimed to have thought could have been important evidence in an attempt to force Apple's hand. He could have ruined the investigation and let terrorists escape because he thought it was a good time to showboat. Also, under his watch the FBI has pursued numerous stings against mentally handicapped Americans in America. Trying to create terrorists by inundating them with hateful propaganda, providing functional arms and ammunition, etc, and encouraging them to commit horrific crimes in an attempt to make the FBI look competent when they catch their creation. We've rarely had someone either so incapable of doing their job, or so efficient at destroying everything the agency has stood for. In the end what's left will resemble the political wing of the KGB.