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And yesterday over a dozen members of Congress barged into one of the Congressional versions of this site without authorization and while recording video, audio

by slg 7y ago

And yesterday over a dozen members of Congress barged into one of the Congressional versions of this site without authorization and while recording video, audio, and taking photos on their personal smartphones. Here is a Twitter thread about why that is such a problem: https://twitter.com/MiekeEoyang/status/1187032800572125191 https://twitter.com/MiekeEoyang/status/1187032800572125191

emilfihlman 7y ago
>That didn’t matter to about two dozen GOP lawmakers led by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), a close ally of President Trump, who stormed the SCIF in an effort to sit in on the deposition. Republicans have long complained that Democrats haven’t given them enough access to the closed-door depositions, claiming House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-CA) is running a “kangaroo court.” And sometimes such actions are necessary as highlighted here, even if it costs us some tiny amount of security (in the end, you just pay and form another site like it, it's not like we can't make new ones). There is no doubt both sides are trying to fuck everyone else over. E: that whole thread is just a thinly veiled attempt at blaming republicans.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  Necessary? https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/10/23/heres-why-matt-gaetz-sit-in-stunt-was-particularly-weird/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/10/23/heres-why... > In other words, 1 out of every 4 Republicans in the House can participate in the inquiry hearings anyway. That doesn’t include Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who is also allowed to participate. It does include Rep. Greg Pence (R-Ind.), the brother of the vice president. He sits on the Foreign Affairs committee. > According to a news release sent from Gaetz’s office that was spotted by journalist Marcy Wheeler, 41 Republicans joined Gaetz’s sit-in protest Wednesday. Of that group, more than a quarter — 13 — were members of the three relevant committees and, therefore, allowed to attend the hearings!
- erentz 7y ago
  A more straightforward reading of their actions is they wanted to intimidate witnesses and hinder testimony to protect their king.
- pjc50 7y ago
  It's appropriate to blame Republicans if it's actually their fault and they are actually trying to disrupt the impeachment process. Or do we suddenly not care about the security rules now it's not "her emails"?
- duxup 7y ago
  The potential consequences of breaching security don't change because of someone's politics. They are adults, they know the rules, they chose to bring their phones.
- PhasmaFelis 7y ago
  > (in the end, you just pay and form another site like it, it's not like we can't make new ones). Just imagine the fury if a Democrat compromised a secure site and then said "It's cool, just make a new one."
- grepthisab 7y ago
  Truly awful take. Enough with the "both sides" nonsense. One side is objectively bad. Even accidentally taking electronics into a SCIF can be grounds for losing ones security clearance and getting in major trouble. These people planned it, and executed that plan, for a publicity stunt. Enough has been said about why it wasn't necessary in any way for them to act like this, so I won't go into it, see other responses to your comment.
  - zests 7y ago
    I feel like HN is becoming more explicitly political and I think that this is a poor direction for the site to move.
    - pjc50 7y ago
      We tried the "no politics" experiment, and it turns out that almost everything is political. But not everything has to be partisan.
    - dang 7y ago
      Fear not. It fluctuates, but the range of fluctuation has been stable for many years. See e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1934367 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1934367 from 2010 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6157485 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6157485 from 2013 as reactions to previous swings. More explanation here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869
  - dang 7y ago
    Please don't take HN threads further into partisan flamewar. Nothing good can come of this here, if you define 'good' as what's expressed by the site guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- ineedasername 7y ago
  >And sometimes such actions are necessary Sure, maybe sometimes they're necessary, but this isn't one of them. Leaving your phone behind isn't difficult. They may have a legitimate gripe, and this was a theatrical way of shining light on it, but there was nothing inherent to their stunt that prevented its execution while keeping a secure site secure.
- schainks 7y ago
  The U.S. Code of Federal Regulations defines terrorism as "the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives" (28 C.F.R. Section 0.85). By your logic, saying the thread is a thinly veiled attempt at blaming republicans would make the GOP lawmaker actions a thinly veiled attempt at terrorism, wouldn't it? See where this is going? There is some good Jon Stewart-era Daily Show material about GOP terrorism for the sake of politics.
dang 7y ago
Please don't take HN threads into political flamewar. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21344785 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21344785 and marked it off-topic.
- slg 7y ago
  Just trying to be a better HN citizen, so is there something specific I did wrong here that crossed a line or is it just a "know it when I see it" situation? I didn't reference anything partisan and was simply relating a recent political event to both the general topic of poor congressional cybersecurity and the specific topic that duxup was talking about regarding securing a site from electronic devices. It was the response to my comment that was sparking a partisan flamewar.
  - dang 7y ago
    I hear you and appreciate your wish to be a good community member! Here's how we look at this. The value of an HN comment is the expected value of its future subthread, i.e. itself plus the sum of the probability distribution of the responses it may receive. In this case the EV of your post was negative: first because it brought in a partisan stunt that was still hot from the news of the moment; second by framing it one-sidedly ("barged into...without authorization...such a problem"); third by linking to a political source that one side is overwhelmingly likely to agree with and the other side to be unimpressed or offended by. You're right that the flamewar was more in the responses to your comment than in your comment itself, but that's true of most flamewars. Flames get hotter as they spread. From a fire prevention (i.e. moderation) point of view, the issue isn't where the fire burned hottest but where it started. By the way, there are some deeper, interesting issues with this 'expected value' model of internet comments. It implies that commenters are in some sense responsible for the behavior of others and not just what they they themselves post. That's weird. And it implies something about needing to predict the future—also weird. Yet it is the model that works by far the best in practice. I feel like this points us all in the direction of learning new things.
    - slg 7y ago
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

by slg 7y ago

emilfihlman 7y ago

>That didn’t matter to about two dozen GOP lawmakers led by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), a close ally of President Trump, who stormed the SCIF in an effort to sit in on the deposition. Republicans have long complained that Democrats haven’t given them enough access to the closed-door depositions, claiming House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-CA) is running a “kangaroo court.” And sometimes such actions are necessary as highlighted here, even if it costs us some tiny amount of security (in the end, you just pay and form another site like it, it's not like we can't make new ones). There is no doubt both sides are trying to fuck everyone else over. E: that whole thread is just a thinly veiled attempt at blaming republicans.

ceejayoz 7y ago
Necessary? https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/10/23/heres-why-matt-gaetz-sit-in-stunt-was-particularly-weird/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/10/23/heres-why... > In other words, 1 out of every 4 Republicans in the House can participate in the inquiry hearings anyway. That doesn’t include Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who is also allowed to participate. It does include Rep. Greg Pence (R-Ind.), the brother of the vice president. He sits on the Foreign Affairs committee. > According to a news release sent from Gaetz’s office that was spotted by journalist Marcy Wheeler, 41 Republicans joined Gaetz’s sit-in protest Wednesday. Of that group, more than a quarter — 13 — were members of the three relevant committees and, therefore, allowed to attend the hearings!
erentz 7y ago
A more straightforward reading of their actions is they wanted to intimidate witnesses and hinder testimony to protect their king.
pjc50 7y ago
It's appropriate to blame Republicans if it's actually their fault and they are actually trying to disrupt the impeachment process. Or do we suddenly not care about the security rules now it's not "her emails"?
duxup 7y ago
The potential consequences of breaching security don't change because of someone's politics. They are adults, they know the rules, they chose to bring their phones.
PhasmaFelis 7y ago
> (in the end, you just pay and form another site like it, it's not like we can't make new ones). Just imagine the fury if a Democrat compromised a secure site and then said "It's cool, just make a new one."
grepthisab 7y ago
Truly awful take. Enough with the "both sides" nonsense. One side is objectively bad. Even accidentally taking electronics into a SCIF can be grounds for losing ones security clearance and getting in major trouble. These people planned it, and executed that plan, for a publicity stunt. Enough has been said about why it wasn't necessary in any way for them to act like this, so I won't go into it, see other responses to your comment.
- zests 7y ago
  I feel like HN is becoming more explicitly political and I think that this is a poor direction for the site to move.
  - pjc50 7y ago
    We tried the "no politics" experiment, and it turns out that almost everything is political. But not everything has to be partisan.
  - dang 7y ago
    Fear not. It fluctuates, but the range of fluctuation has been stable for many years. See e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1934367 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1934367 from 2010 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6157485 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6157485 from 2013 as reactions to previous swings. More explanation here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869
- dang 7y ago
  Please don't take HN threads further into partisan flamewar. Nothing good can come of this here, if you define 'good' as what's expressed by the site guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
ineedasername 7y ago
>And sometimes such actions are necessary Sure, maybe sometimes they're necessary, but this isn't one of them. Leaving your phone behind isn't difficult. They may have a legitimate gripe, and this was a theatrical way of shining light on it, but there was nothing inherent to their stunt that prevented its execution while keeping a secure site secure.
schainks 7y ago
The U.S. Code of Federal Regulations defines terrorism as "the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives" (28 C.F.R. Section 0.85). By your logic, saying the thread is a thinly veiled attempt at blaming republicans would make the GOP lawmaker actions a thinly veiled attempt at terrorism, wouldn't it? See where this is going? There is some good Jon Stewart-era Daily Show material about GOP terrorism for the sake of politics.

dang 7y ago

Please don't take HN threads into political flamewar. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21344785 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21344785 and marked it off-topic.

slg 7y ago
Just trying to be a better HN citizen, so is there something specific I did wrong here that crossed a line or is it just a "know it when I see it" situation? I didn't reference anything partisan and was simply relating a recent political event to both the general topic of poor congressional cybersecurity and the specific topic that duxup was talking about regarding securing a site from electronic devices. It was the response to my comment that was sparking a partisan flamewar.
- dang 7y ago
  I hear you and appreciate your wish to be a good community member! Here's how we look at this. The value of an HN comment is the expected value of its future subthread, i.e. itself plus the sum of the probability distribution of the responses it may receive. In this case the EV of your post was negative: first because it brought in a partisan stunt that was still hot from the news of the moment; second by framing it one-sidedly ("barged into...without authorization...such a problem"); third by linking to a political source that one side is overwhelmingly likely to agree with and the other side to be unimpressed or offended by. You're right that the flamewar was more in the responses to your comment than in your comment itself, but that's true of most flamewars. Flames get hotter as they spread. From a fire prevention (i.e. moderation) point of view, the issue isn't where the fire burned hottest but where it started. By the way, there are some deeper, interesting issues with this 'expected value' model of internet comments. It implies that commenters are in some sense responsible for the behavior of others and not just what they they themselves post. That's weird. And it implies something about needing to predict the future—also weird. Yet it is the model that works by far the best in practice. I feel like this points us all in the direction of learning new things.
  - slg 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]