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Get Angry

You are here: Home / Archives for Get Angry

The President’s Operational Security Failure

by Adam L Silverman|  August 30, 20199:38 pm| 111 Comments

This post is in: Foreign Affairs, Iran, Open Threads, Silverman on Security, Clown Shoes, Fucked-up-edness, General Stupidity, Get Angry

I want to just follow on to Cheryl’s post about the President’s operational security failure on Twitter earlier today. What the President did today, despite his standing outside the White House and saying to a reporter that he had a right to tweet out the imagery, was not declassification of the geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) imagery that he tweeted out. If that had been the case, then the original classification markers would be visible, they’d be struck through, and there would be a time and date stamp along with standardized language that the imagery had been declassified as of X time today. Instead, as you can see in the image in Cheryl’s post, there is a black rectangle in the upper left hand corner, which is most likely covering the classification code. In this case that is most likely TS/SCI/NOFORN – Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information/No Foreign Distribution. Though it could just as easily be UNCLASS/FOUO  – Unclassified/For Official Use Only. We know some of the provenance of the GEOINT the President tweeted, because everyone in the Intel Community began scrambling to cover their tuchases, which the President had exposed and hung way out the window for everyone to see. The President received the imagery during a briefing earlier today.

A U.S. defense official told CNBC that the picture in Trump’s tweet, which appeared to be a snapshot of a physical copy of the satellite image, was included in a Friday intelligence briefing. https://t.co/9d8Q3VN8GP

— CNBC (@CNBC) August 30, 2019

What Cheryl described is clearly what happened here. The President had someone on his staff, most likely his caddie Dan Scavino, who is currently serving as the Assistant to the President-Director of White House Social Media Communications and tweets as/for the President, bring an unsecure smart phone into a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF) and take a picture of this classified information so he could tweet it out. Whomever took the picture, either at the President’s direction or their own initiative because they realized what they were doing was sketchy, placed a black bar over the classification markings, then loaded the image up so it could be tweeted out. Bringing an unsecure phone into a SCIF and taking pictures of anything in the SCIF is the type of thing that gets one suspended, one’s clearance stripped, and one prosecuted for stealing classified information.

As I stated above, this is not actually declassification. Here’s Brad Moss, whose law practice focuses on national security, clearance, and classification issues:

Something to bear in mind about that satellite imagery tweeted out by the President: it does not appear to have any classification markings anywhere. And, even if it did, yes, nothing prevents him from tweeting it out anyways.

And, no, it doesn't qualify as declassification.

— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) August 30, 2019

This just made me think of something else. The courts have recently ruled that merely because Trump utters classified information that does not, in itself, render it declassified.

Therefore, it’s technically a security violation for clearance holders to even look at the image. pic.twitter.com/MZto0rglW1

— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) August 30, 2019

So what we have here is data spillage (emphasis mine):

Data spillage is the transfer of classified or sensitive information to unaccredited or unauthorized systems, individuals, applications, or media. A spillage can be from a higher level classification to a lower one. The data itself may be residual (hidden) data or metadata. Spillage may result from improper handling of compartments, releasability controls, privacy data, or proprietary information.The trend towards increased information sharing has weakened access controls, giving users without a need-to-know access to large volumes of sensitive or classified data. Malware that propagates via removable media has increased the risk of large data transfers outside the network. The risk of data spillage is a problem largely because of inadequate end user security awareness, unmanageable networks, and poorly implemented data policies.

The bigger issue is that anyone who has a clearance (hello!) and encounters this information (hello!) is, unlike the President, potentially liable for accessing compartmented information that they do not have a need to know. Unlike the President, no one else in the US has an Office of Legal Council memo from 1973 that places them above the law.

Looks like a lot of people are about to be sanctioned. pic.twitter.com/fNTp4JmgOA

— National Security Counselors (@NatlSecCnslrs) August 30, 2019

If you’re wondering how this could be the case, how someone with a clearance who was just scrolling through Twitter, reading Balloon Juice, or watching the news when this comes up can get in trouble, but the President can just put classified information out there, claim he has the right to do it, even if it hasn’t been formerly and properly declassified, and he faces no jeopardy and the rest of us with clearances do, it is because THE RULES WERE NOT CONCEIVED OF AND WRITTEN WITH THE CURRENT PRESIDENT IN MIND!!!!! NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THEM!!!! The assumption was, based on historic performance of previous presidents, that NO FUTURE PRESIDENT WOULD BE THIS STUPID AND CARELESS!!!!

As Cheryl indicated, what the President tweeted out was the good stuff. No one is supposed to know we have that good of resolution wherever and whenever we want. And because the Iranians and others – friends and foes alike – know when the test failed, combined with the shadows and other static imagery in the GEOINT, they’ll be able to work out where we were looking from.

This is not just a major Operational Security (OPSEC) failure by the President, it is also a major counterintelligence (CI) breach by the President.

As we have been since November of 2016, we are off the looking glass and through the map!

Open Thread!

* Just a quick note, because I was actually getting caught up on the news shortly after the President tweeted this out, I saw it. I then sent an email to my company’s security officer to inform him that I’d seen data spillage, that it was inadvertent, and provided the context. This was done to cover myself.

The President’s Operational Security FailurePost + Comments (111)

Annals of the Horrible

by Tom Levenson|  August 26, 20191:28 pm| 208 Comments

This post is in: Crimes against humanity, Fuck The Poor, All we want is life beyond the thunderdome, Are these Nazis Walter?, Assholes, Fucked-up-edness, Get Angry, Meth Laboratories of Democracy

Thought I’d share some (late) lunch joy by cleaning out a couple of browser tabs I’ve been meaning to share with the Jackaltariat.

First up in the catalogue of awful…

Nothing says more about a society than how it treats its most vulnerable.  Which is why this, from Pennsylvania coal country last month, says all you need to know about a certain kind of Republican* values:

Wyoming Valley West School District, one of the poorest districts in the state as measured by per-pupil spending, is located in a former coal mining community in Northeastern Pennsylvania, known affectionately by locals as “The Valley.”

When officials there noticed that families owed the district around $22,000 in breakfast and lunch debt…

…school council president Joseph Mazur thought that this would be a good next move:

…the now-infamous letter to about 40 families deemed to be the worst offenders in having overdue cafeteria bills — those were children with meal debt of $10 or more.

“Your child has been sent to school every day without money and without a breakfast and/or lunch,” said the letter signed by Joseph Muth, director of federal programs for the Wyoming Valley West School District. “This is a failure to provide your child with proper nutrition and you can be sent to Dependency Court for neglecting your child’s right to food. If you are taken to Dependency court, the result may be your child being removed from your home and placed in foster care.”

That this was about performative cruelty, and not fiscal prudence can be shown with two facts. The $22,ooo in arrears comes to about 1/4 of one percent of the district budget; you gotta know that if this was about keeping the school doors open, proposing a (surely) expensive round of child theft would not be the first move the financial folks would make.


Just to drive the point home, the guy behind the move, school council president Mazur went on to refuse an offer from a guy in Philadelphia who wanted to pay off the whole debt.  Mazur was eventually forced to reverse course.

Next up, an even more grotesque example of cruelty for cruelty’s sake from July.  I believe some commenters pointed out this incident, and I’ve been meaning to vent rage about it ever since, but here it is:

At a Border Patrol holding facility in El Paso, Texas, an agent told a Honduran family that one parent would be sent to Mexico while the other parent and their three children could stay in the United States, according to the family. The agent turned to the couple’s youngest daughter — 3-year-old Sofia, whom they call Sofi — and asked her to make a choice.

“The agent asked her who she wanted to go with, mom or dad,” her mother, Tania, told NPR through an interpreter. “And the girl, because she is more attached to me, she said mom. But when they started to take [my husband] away, the girl started to cry. The officer said, ‘You said [you want to go] with mom.’ “

 

I rate that child abuse, and those who did the crime should be in prison, as far as I am concerned. Een if the family separation followed the letter of the law, putting the kid in that position was gratuitous immiseration, and will deliver lasting trauma, doled out, it seems, for the agent’s amusement.

 

There is a word to describe such behavior and such people:  evil.  This was evil.  I say this as one with more memory of than current participation in organized religion, but it seems to me that those who welcome evil into our republic commit a grievous sin.

 

Happy lunch!  Open thread.

*Luzerne County, in which the relevant school district operates, went 58-39% for Trump in 2016.

 

Image: Pieter Breughel the Elder, The Massacre of the Innocents, c. 1565-7

Annals of the HorriblePost + Comments (208)

Catholic Day of Action

by Cheryl Rofer|  July 18, 20193:03 pm| 128 Comments

This post is in: Get Angry

As Donald Trump and his administration trek further into the moral abyss, expect more demonstrations. Participate, even.

The media are ignoring demonstrations – there was some local coverage of last Friday’s Lights for Liberty, but I don’t recall seeing anything national.

On Tuesday afternoon, a thousand protesters, led by Never Again Action, a Jewish group, blocked the entrances to ICE headquarters for several hours. That got some national coverage.

Today, Catholic groups are protesting immigration policy at the Capitol. I’ve seen nothing about this so far from news organizations, so here’s a particularly good Twitter thread. Also, the hashtag #CatholicDayofAction.

Starting now: Catholics are gathered on the Capital lawn to protest the Trump Administration’s immigration policies and to call on Congress to defund ICE, stop detaining children and reform immigration policies they’re calling “inhumane.” They’re calling this #catholicdayofaction pic.twitter.com/rKm5Rd3oEQ

— Marissa J. Lang (@Marissa_Jae) July 18, 2019

Families gathered here are holding up photographs of migrant children who have died in federal custody in recent months. They list their names, ages and the day they died. Otjer signs say things like, “children do not belong on cages.” #CatholicDayOfAction #DC pic.twitter.com/Cwdcd4davw

— Marissa J. Lang (@Marissa_Jae) July 18, 2019

NOW: Inside the Russell Senate building here in #DC, where dozens of Catholic nuns, parishioners and other leaders are preparing to be arrested by Capitol Police on this #CatholicDayOfAction in protest of the Trump administration’s immigration policies. pic.twitter.com/ShAMeGDHJE

— Marissa J. Lang (@Marissa_Jae) July 18, 2019

Watch here as Sister Pat Murphy, 90, is arrested and led out. Sister Pat works with migrants and refugees in Chicago, and has been holding a weekly vigil outside ICE there for 13 years. She says the treatment of migrants should outrage all people of faith #CatholicDayOfAction #DC pic.twitter.com/z2cXTGcJFn

— Marissa J. Lang (@Marissa_Jae) July 18, 2019

This is the last of them, singing as they’re led away. Dozens of Catholic nuns, clergy & parishioners were arrested in #DC during today’s #CatholicDayOfAction. Several said they hope it gives lawmakers courage to stand up for the protection of migrant families & change US policy. pic.twitter.com/yRNWDWlc82

— Marissa J. Lang (@Marissa_Jae) July 18, 2019

 

Catholic Day of ActionPost + Comments (128)

Live – House Vote On Trump’s Racist Comments

by Cheryl Rofer|  July 16, 20196:30 pm| 109 Comments

This post is in: Live Blogging, Get Angry

Apparently one is not allowed to use the word “racist” on the House floor for reasons of decorum. And yes, I know it’s Fox. It’s the only easily embeddable feed I found.

Update: TaMara supplied a Washington Post feed. Many thanks!

Live – House Vote On Trump’s Racist CommentsPost + Comments (109)

Reminder – Vigils Tonight!

by Cheryl Rofer|  July 12, 201912:38 pm| 51 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Readership Capture, Get Angry

Lights for Liberty vigils tonight everywhere! Click here to find one near you.

#LightsforLiberty now has 753 worldwide vigils tomorrow night.

We stand with all who object to this administration's criminalization of Black and brown people in detention camps.

Asylum is a human right.https://t.co/ZrUgtJyAft pic.twitter.com/WPsQ1LxLIt

— LightsForLiberty– Official (@Lights4Liberty) July 11, 2019

If you take photos, you can send them to me and I’ll make posts over the weekend. If you have photos, contact me through the “Quick Links” at the top right, and I’ll send you my email address.

Open thread

Reminder – Vigils Tonight!Post + Comments (51)

Friday Night – Demonstrate Against Concentration Camps!

by Cheryl Rofer|  July 10, 20197:30 am| 59 Comments

This post is in: Dolt 45, Open Threads, All Too Normal, Get Angry

Lights for Liberty, a coalition of a great many organizations, is holding demonstrations against the concentration camps Friday night. The list is long – I’ll bet most of you in the United States can find one near you. And it’s not even fully inclusive – the Santa Fe demonstration isn’t on it.

We have to get out and show our Congressmembers that separating children from their parents, holding them in totally inadequate concentration camps with all the signs of torture – crowding, poor food and sanitation, keeeping people from sleeping – is unacceptable. Sadly, it appears that a majority of Congress can’t figure that out for themselves, and some are actively in favor.

MASS MOBILIZATION JULY 12th
?‍?‍?‍??‍?‍?‍??‍?‍?‍???‍?‍??‍?‍??‍?‍?‍??‍?‍??‍?‍??‍??‍?‍?‍?

"Lights for Liberty: A Nationwide Vigil to End Human Detention Camps"

Text: LIGHTS to 977-79 to find a location near you!

Please share this far and wide. @Lights4Liberty #DontLookAway #EndTrumpsConcentrationCamps pic.twitter.com/kqRBe5rV2C

— GayleinKC (@gayleasher1) July 10, 2019

ICE just quietly opened three new detention centers, after Congress told it not to https://t.co/j4XB1ET3ry

— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) July 9, 2019

DHS probing sex abuse allegation in Ariz. migrant detention center
Alleged incident is among several reported claims of improper treatment in Yuma facilityhttps://t.co/K4AQvlpxoy https://t.co/sJ0iNkFAsf

— Sound Around (@_Sound_Around_) July 10, 2019

And that’s just the latest.

Friday Night – Demonstrate Against Concentration Camps!Post + Comments (59)

Elon Musk Just Grabbed Your Night Sky

by Cheryl Rofer|  May 25, 20195:48 pm| 109 Comments

This post is in: Science & Technology, Get Angry

Elon Musk’s SpaceX just launched 60 satellites, part of an eventual 12,000 intended to make the internet available to everyone.

You can see them, and many people did last night.

I’ll let astronomers tweet their concerns.

SpaceX just launched 60 new satellites, which have been spotted as a chain of bright lights across the sky. As more are launched and orbits change, this could be a very big problem for ground-based astronomy. Musk’s offhand “they can’t be seen at night” is not true or reassuring. https://t.co/OwbsPJOw9H

— Katie Mack (@AstroKatie) May 25, 2019

I’m not an observer (I do theory), so I don’t have a feel for how bad this is going to be. But a ton of the astronomers and astrophotographers I follow on here are VERY concerned that if all 12,000 of these things go up, the consequences could be drastic.

— Katie Mack (@AstroKatie) May 25, 2019

Maybe the benefit of the satellites will be worth the cost to astronomy, astrophotography, and stargazing in general. Hard to say at this point. But probably a discussion that should be had before the rest of the satellites are deployed.

— Katie Mack (@AstroKatie) May 25, 2019

I’ll wait to see what happens when they reach their operational orbits, but my heart sank when I saw those first pictures.

— Alex Parker (@Alex_Parker) May 25, 2019

The planned megaconstellation will have a range of orbits and inclinations, so this number could go either way a bit.

— Alex Parker (@Alex_Parker) May 25, 2019

Update: Here’s a NASA video about space junk before Musk’s latest brainstorm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmVt92d5bd4

Elon Musk Just Grabbed Your Night SkyPost + Comments (109)

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