Wednesday Open Thread

10 thoughts on “Wednesday Open Thread”

1. Someone Likely Used a Sophisticated Phone-Spying Device at the 2024 DNC

    (I'd prefer to link to the WIRED story but it's behind a paywall)

   The Electronic Frontier Foundation has come to the conclusion that someone likely deployed a mobile phone surveillance system during the Democratic National Convention last summer, according to a new report from Wired. Evidence for that assertion comes from Cooper Quintin, a senior technologist at EFF, who has spent time investigating whether police technologies were deployed during the event from the event. Wired worked together with the EFF to conduct an analysis of wireless signal data. What they found was evidence that someone may have used a cell-site simulator to spy on devices.

   Cell-site simulators are controversial police tools that can grab wireless signals out of the air and store them for later analysis. Cell-site simulators basically conduct Man-in-the-Middle style attacks, convincing mobile devices that they are cell towers and that they should send their signals to them. These attacks can reveal critical personal information, like location data, call metadata, and app traffic, providing a critical window into mobile activity. A popular brand of cell-site simulators is the Stingray.

   https://gizmodo.com/someone-likely-used-a-sophisticated-phone-spying-device-at-the-2024-dnc-2000548822

   So….WHO did this? I wonder if perhaps a particular TechBro with a Social Media company is leveraging his contacts within the tech industry.

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   1. Oh – for the non-Telecom nerds:

      The StingRay is an IMSI-catcher, a cellular phone surveillance device, manufactured by Harris Corporation. Initially developed for the military and intelligence community, the StingRay and similar Harris devices are in widespread use by local and state law enforcement agencies across Canada, the United States, and in the United Kingdom. Stingray has also become a generic name to describe these kinds of devices.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray_phone_tracker

      And the parent company:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harris_Corporation

      (It appears the CEO only made one donation in the 2024 election cycle to a Dem candidate.)

       

       

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2. Heather Cox-Richardson has an excellent, clear summary of Jack Smith's Prosecution Report.

   While the report contained little new information, what jumped out from its stark recitation of the events of late 2020 and early 2021 was the power of Trump’s lies. There was no evidence that he won the 2020 election; to the contrary, all evidence showed he lost it. Even he didn’t appear to believe he had won. And yet, by the sheer power of repeating the lie that he had won and getting his cronies to repeat it, along with embellishments that were also lies—about suitcases of ballots, and thumb drives, and voting machines, and so on—he induced his followers to try to overthrow a free and fair election and install him in the presidency.

   He continued this disinformation after he left office, and then engaged in lawfare, with both him and friendly witnesses slowing down his cases by challenging subpoenas until there were no more avenues to challenge them. And then the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in.

   The report calls out the extraordinary July 2024 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Trump v. United States declaring that presidents cannot be prosecuted for official acts. “Before this case,” the report reads, “no court had ever found that Presidents are immune from criminal responsibility for their official acts, and no text in the Constitution explicitly confers such criminal immunity on the President.” It continued: “[N]o President whose conduct was investigated (other than Mr. Trump) ever claimed absolute criminal immunity for all official acts.”

   The report quoted the dissent of Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, noting that the decision of the Republican-appointed justices “effectively creates a law-free zone around the President, upsetting the status quo that has existed since the Founding.”

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   1. I don't believe the majority of US citizens understand yet how profound this change is for our country. Combine the disastrous SCOTUS decision with the worst political bad actor our country has ever seen – Trump – and the principles our country was founded on may be gone forever. You don't think so? Then tell me how we will ever go back. 

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      1. We go back by going forward, just as we did after Nixon/Watergate & impoundments, Reagan/Iran-Contra, and any number of other excesses.

         My current Trump-related wishlist:  get Democratic majorities to pass legislation and get a Democratic President to sign laws designed to

         • apply Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment, which prohibits insurrectionists from holding office,
         • clarify Emoluments Clauses of the U.S. Constitution
         • explicitly deny the Roberts opinion creating Presidential immunity and blocking a future Supreme Court effort to establish such a doctrine. We now have “Under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority. And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. There is no immunity for unofficial acts.”  That is untenable with adequate oversight among branches of government.

          

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3. Pete hegseth is crushing it in these Senate hearings like he crushed his sobriety or his promise of fidelity to his wife. Anyone who doesn't believe this isn't getting their news from X or Meta. 

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   1. Democrats tried the culture war narrative and moral majority trope with their attacks on Pete which were easily deflected.  The harder questions on policy and how this “disruptor” will enable to the DoD to meet goals such the 515 ship Navy given a severely neutered industrial base and labor pool, coupled with inefficient contracting, were left to the Republicans who pitched softballs.

      Total failure by the Dems, but Pete should f**k things up sufficiently in a year or two that will see everyone calling for his head. My bet is that he ends up getting an aircraft carrier or submarine sunk.

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      1. My bet is that the results will be far worse than the sinking of a vessel.

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      2. Yep you don’t hear any other opinions on X or Meta regarding culture war or morality thus those opinions dont exi

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4. Yesterday on X Biden crowed about the IRS recovering over $ 1 billion in taxes from millionaires, saying everyone has to pay their fair share in taxes. Funny how this doesn't apply to favorite son Hunter who he gave a full pardon for multiple counts of criminal tax evasion.

   The hypocrisy is so thick you couldn't cut it with a chainsaw. Fortunally in a few days the Liar in Chief will be at the beach on permanent vacation.

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