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I thought "claim with high confidence" is intelligence speak for we don't have a fucking clue but it's the narrative we're running with. </s> This is really no

by zaroth 8y ago

I thought "claim with high confidence" is intelligence speak for we don't have a fucking clue but it's the narrative we're running with. </s> This is really no better than citing anonymous sources. There is a story if and when, and not a moment before, actual evidence (with some respectably chain of custody) is actually provided. EDIT: The word "evidence" only appears once in the editorial, talking about an AP article reporting that the Saudi's were sent an advanced digital copy of the pro-MBS magazine. Read it carefully, Gavin never equivocally states he has any evidence that the Saudi's had access to Jeff's texts. They interviewed people. They were told by other people that the Saudi's had this capability. SA apparently "unleashed their cyber-army on Bezos". And AMI has done [presumably highly lucrative] work for MBS. And AMI is bad because they caught-and-killed a story for Trump, and have done things for Trump in the past. That is all we get here, aside from the ominous ending of Saudi Arabia controlling our media. I'm just so tired of the conspiracy theories. Not knowing why AMI started talking to Michael Sanchez is not the same as knowing that the Saudi's told them to talk to Sanchez.

olliepop 8y ago
Ironic, because you claim without any supporting references that you "thought" that the statement ("claim with high confidence") is intelligence speak for no evidence, and then use this assumption to conclude that it's no better than citing anonymous sources.
- zaroth 8y ago
  The first sentence was sarcasm. But if you need a reference, how about Iraq WMDs. I'm not on the hook to prove anything. TFA provides literally zero evidence of their claim other than to assert it strongly. In my opinion, the most strongly asserted claims accompanied by "we can't tell you the evidence, but we turned it over to someone else who also can't tell you"... well, haven't we seen how that turns out enough already over the last 2 years? My point is simply that TFA asserts a lot and backs it up with nothing but hyperbole.
  - village-idiot 8y ago
    It’s time to put “but what about the WMDs” away as an argument.
    - zaroth 8y ago
      Sorry I mentioned it! It has nothing to do with my premise, as we're not even talking about intelligence agency assessments here. My point was simply that this is a mealy-mouthed statement which does not assert anything about what, if any, evidence may have been obtained or analyzed; > "Our investigators and several experts concluded with high confidence that the Saudis had access to Bezos’ phone, and gained private information."
      - village-idiot 8y ago
        This is pretty common in intelligence work because admitting what evidence you’ve found can compromise sources.
  - archgoon 8y ago
    Funny you should mention the Iraq WMDs. WMDs were cited as justification to go to war against Iraq, a war that the Bush administration had a variety of political, ideological, strategic and economic reasons for wanting to engage in. What incentives do de Becker and Bezos have that would cause them to falsely accuse the government of Saudi Arabia? It seems that such an action would be risky to say the least. Of course, the potential risk doesn't mean that they don't have such reasons (or even that their inference based on whatever data they have is correct), but I am curious as to what you think are the likely explanations.
    - ShamelessC 8y ago
      > What incentives do de Becker and Bezos have that would cause them to falsely accuse the government of Saudi Arabia? It seems that such an action would be risky to say the least. It seemed the implied incentive for Bezos to accuse the Saudis was to portray himself as the victim and not the victimizer. He also had beef with the Saudis before this happened. Finally, his medium posts and frantic behavior suggested he may have been letting panic and paranoia get the better of him. BTW, not saying that I think any of this is true (and this article suggests it isn't). Just summarizing what others have suggested.

by zaroth 8y ago

olliepop 8y ago

Ironic, because you claim without any supporting references that you "thought" that the statement ("claim with high confidence") is intelligence speak for no evidence, and then use this assumption to conclude that it's no better than citing anonymous sources.

zaroth 8y ago
The first sentence was sarcasm. But if you need a reference, how about Iraq WMDs. I'm not on the hook to prove anything. TFA provides literally zero evidence of their claim other than to assert it strongly. In my opinion, the most strongly asserted claims accompanied by "we can't tell you the evidence, but we turned it over to someone else who also can't tell you"... well, haven't we seen how that turns out enough already over the last 2 years? My point is simply that TFA asserts a lot and backs it up with nothing but hyperbole.
- village-idiot 8y ago
  It’s time to put “but what about the WMDs” away as an argument.
  - zaroth 8y ago
    Sorry I mentioned it! It has nothing to do with my premise, as we're not even talking about intelligence agency assessments here. My point was simply that this is a mealy-mouthed statement which does not assert anything about what, if any, evidence may have been obtained or analyzed; > "Our investigators and several experts concluded with high confidence that the Saudis had access to Bezos’ phone, and gained private information."
    - village-idiot 8y ago
      This is pretty common in intelligence work because admitting what evidence you’ve found can compromise sources.
- archgoon 8y ago
  Funny you should mention the Iraq WMDs. WMDs were cited as justification to go to war against Iraq, a war that the Bush administration had a variety of political, ideological, strategic and economic reasons for wanting to engage in. What incentives do de Becker and Bezos have that would cause them to falsely accuse the government of Saudi Arabia? It seems that such an action would be risky to say the least. Of course, the potential risk doesn't mean that they don't have such reasons (or even that their inference based on whatever data they have is correct), but I am curious as to what you think are the likely explanations.
  - ShamelessC 8y ago
    > What incentives do de Becker and Bezos have that would cause them to falsely accuse the government of Saudi Arabia? It seems that such an action would be risky to say the least. It seemed the implied incentive for Bezos to accuse the Saudis was to portray himself as the victim and not the victimizer. He also had beef with the Saudis before this happened. Finally, his medium posts and frantic behavior suggested he may have been letting panic and paranoia get the better of him. BTW, not saying that I think any of this is true (and this article suggests it isn't). Just summarizing what others have suggested.