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Not arguing it was the best choice. But, I'm curious, if you were in the position where you had strong reasons to believe the official secure channels available

by ctrlp 2y ago

Not arguing it was the best choice. But, I'm curious, if you were in the position where you had strong reasons to believe the official secure channels available to you were compromised by your political opponents who were leaking information received via those channels to undermine your policy initiatives, and needed to act and coordinate nonetheless, what would you do?

KerrAvon 2y ago
[flagged]
- ctrlp 2y ago
  Hard to take someone using your tone seriously, friend. If you're just here to rant and rave, you're wasting your time.
giantrobot 2y ago
> But, I'm curious, if you were in the position where you had strong reasons to believe the official secure channels available to you were compromised by your political opponents who were leaking information received via those channels to undermine your policy initiatives, and needed to act and coordinate nonetheless, what would you do? Here's a pretty good order of operations when your policy breaks the law or is so odious as to feel the need to hide it from other duly elected representatives in government: 1. Stop breaking the fucking law.
- ctrlp 2y ago
  "The law" is for you and me. It can resolve contract disputes and punish some crimes. This is politics. It's a different order, and a category error to conflate the two. The sooner one disabuses oneself of having no distinction between the political and the legal, the sooner the world starts to make sense. Law at this level is lawfare (law as political weapon), not the normal proceedings of justice. Justice at this level is the rule of the stronger. Accept it and move on to more interesting political analysis. Or be trapped in an inescapable despair about the violations of the "rule of law."
  - Hojojo 2y ago
    Why would you put rule of law in quotations like that? The rule of law matters. Even if it doesn't matter to you or Trump.
    - ctrlp 2y ago
      Because I'm emphasizing the vacuity of simply asserting "the law" as if it's something we all agree on. It is not. I would be as if I said "the Pope" or "the King" or "God" says. I'm sure you would acknowledge that "the law" itself embodies conflict and there is constantly in flux, so how can anyone appeal to it in good faith as if it had an obvious meaning.
chihuahua 2y ago
I would use a private service like Signal, and make sure to add a journalist that will leak information to undermine my policy initiatives - obviously! (because I'm a genius)
digdugdirk 2y ago
Follow the SOP (and the law) and use a SCIF. What they did is illegal. Any rank and file that did the same would be in prison for a decade, no questions asked. In general, it seems like you're trying to "3d chess" incompetence into strategy, but try taking a step back and looking at it with clear eyes. This was a bad decision, plain and simple. Nobody is taking responsibility for it, and that makes it worse - these people are in charge of the largest intelligence and war machine on the planet. This is not okay.
- ctrlp 2y ago
  I'm not doing anything of the sort. The kind of problem I'm flagging in is experienced every day by governments all over the world. Would anyone disagree? People on here who want to put their heads in the sand about it are just being political when there is a legitimate technical topic to discuss. The point is these aren't "rank and file" actors. They are at the top of political leadership. Those rules don't apply at this level of power politics so why get bogged down in such thinking?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - Hojojo 2y ago
    Because laws should matter. Laws should apply to members of government too. Unless you're suggesting it's totally fine for Trump and his administration to be above the law. In which case the whole discussion is moot, because then it's not a democracy with a functioning rule of law anymore.
    - ctrlp 2y ago
      Law is a tool, and some tools are appropriate for some contexts and others are not. Do you think there is such a thing as "International Law"? If so, I would ask you what you think that actually is and where its legitimacy comes from and who enforces it? Politics and Law are two separate spheres of human conflict. You actually degrade the law by trying to weaponize it for political purposes. I would hope the past 10 years have shown that to everyone.
GVIrish 2y ago
So you're using the word 'compromised'. In this context that would mean malware, unauthorized access, circumvented logging, etc. If someone thought this was happening the answer would be to lock the system down, perform forensic audits, and prosecute anyone who compromised these systems. If you're talking about fear of leakers, the response to that is to tighten the distribution of information and start a counterintelligence investigation. In any case the simple risk calculus is, what is the risk of adversaries getting a hold of this information and causing grave and lasting damage to national security and death vs the risk of political rivals leaking something. Pretty simple decision there and one that any cabinet member should get right.

by ctrlp 2y ago

KerrAvon 2y ago

[flagged]

ctrlp 2y ago
Hard to take someone using your tone seriously, friend. If you're just here to rant and rave, you're wasting your time.

giantrobot 2y ago

> But, I'm curious, if you were in the position where you had strong reasons to believe the official secure channels available to you were compromised by your political opponents who were leaking information received via those channels to undermine your policy initiatives, and needed to act and coordinate nonetheless, what would you do? Here's a pretty good order of operations when your policy breaks the law or is so odious as to feel the need to hide it from other duly elected representatives in government: 1. Stop breaking the fucking law.

ctrlp 2y ago
"The law" is for you and me. It can resolve contract disputes and punish some crimes. This is politics. It's a different order, and a category error to conflate the two. The sooner one disabuses oneself of having no distinction between the political and the legal, the sooner the world starts to make sense. Law at this level is lawfare (law as political weapon), not the normal proceedings of justice. Justice at this level is the rule of the stronger. Accept it and move on to more interesting political analysis. Or be trapped in an inescapable despair about the violations of the "rule of law."
- Hojojo 2y ago
  Why would you put rule of law in quotations like that? The rule of law matters. Even if it doesn't matter to you or Trump.
  - ctrlp 2y ago
    Because I'm emphasizing the vacuity of simply asserting "the law" as if it's something we all agree on. It is not. I would be as if I said "the Pope" or "the King" or "God" says. I'm sure you would acknowledge that "the law" itself embodies conflict and there is constantly in flux, so how can anyone appeal to it in good faith as if it had an obvious meaning.

chihuahua 2y ago

I would use a private service like Signal, and make sure to add a journalist that will leak information to undermine my policy initiatives - obviously! (because I'm a genius)

digdugdirk 2y ago

Follow the SOP (and the law) and use a SCIF. What they did is illegal. Any rank and file that did the same would be in prison for a decade, no questions asked. In general, it seems like you're trying to "3d chess" incompetence into strategy, but try taking a step back and looking at it with clear eyes. This was a bad decision, plain and simple. Nobody is taking responsibility for it, and that makes it worse - these people are in charge of the largest intelligence and war machine on the planet. This is not okay.

ctrlp 2y ago
I'm not doing anything of the sort. The kind of problem I'm flagging in is experienced every day by governments all over the world. Would anyone disagree? People on here who want to put their heads in the sand about it are just being political when there is a legitimate technical topic to discuss. The point is these aren't "rank and file" actors. They are at the top of political leadership. Those rules don't apply at this level of power politics so why get bogged down in such thinking?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- Hojojo 2y ago
  Because laws should matter. Laws should apply to members of government too. Unless you're suggesting it's totally fine for Trump and his administration to be above the law. In which case the whole discussion is moot, because then it's not a democracy with a functioning rule of law anymore.
  - ctrlp 2y ago
    Law is a tool, and some tools are appropriate for some contexts and others are not. Do you think there is such a thing as "International Law"? If so, I would ask you what you think that actually is and where its legitimacy comes from and who enforces it? Politics and Law are two separate spheres of human conflict. You actually degrade the law by trying to weaponize it for political purposes. I would hope the past 10 years have shown that to everyone.

GVIrish 2y ago

So you're using the word 'compromised'. In this context that would mean malware, unauthorized access, circumvented logging, etc. If someone thought this was happening the answer would be to lock the system down, perform forensic audits, and prosecute anyone who compromised these systems. If you're talking about fear of leakers, the response to that is to tighten the distribution of information and start a counterintelligence investigation. In any case the simple risk calculus is, what is the risk of adversaries getting a hold of this information and causing grave and lasting damage to national security and death vs the risk of political rivals leaking something. Pretty simple decision there and one that any cabinet member should get right.