The New American Politics thread

[Gozer]

Originally Posted by New Era

Or anyone else for that matter.

This IT guy pled the 5th and got immunity before cooperating.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Gozer

This IT guy pled the 5th and got immunity before cooperating.

No #### Sherlock. You know how the 5th amendment works? Taking the 5th normally protects you from self incrimination. But since these guys already had immunity for cooperating with the investigation, meaning they couldn't get charged for anything related to the email system, they took the 5th amendment protection to prevent their incompetence from becoming public. Or is that too hard to follow? Otherwise, why would anyone who had immunity not answer questions to a congressional panel?

[Gozer]

Originally Posted by New Era

No #### Sherlock. You know how the 5th amendment works? Taking the 5th normally protects you from self incrimination. But since these guys already had immunity for cooperating with the investigation, meaning they couldn't get charged for anything related to the email system, they took the 5th amendment protection to prevent their incompetence from becoming public. Or is that too hard to follow? Otherwise, why would anyone who had immunity not answer questions to a congressional panel?

Cooperating != immunity

He required immunity before he would cooperate.

The personal insults are getting tiresome.

How could you be certain his concerns were exclusively of public-exposure-of-incompetence?
You made an accusation of incompetence but it is unsupported. Furthermore, assuming you're right about that accusation, it doesn't reflect very well on the Clinton for having amatuers protecting the State.

I'm inclined to believe their competence was not an issue. Even asking for guidance on Reddit is understandable , as you already explained.

He pled the 5th 'cause he knew damn well what happened.

[metallicat]

I really want Trump to do something stupid or crazy right away here, because all of you guys are driving me bananas with your stupid little arguments. Plus, I'm sick of the email scandal.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Gozer

Cooperating != immunity

He required immunity before he would cooperate.

The personal insults are getting tiresome.

How could you be certain his concerns were exclusively of public-exposure-of-incompetence?
You made an accusation of incompetence but it is unsupported. Furthermore, assuming you're right about that accusation, it doesn't reflect very well on the Clinton for having amatuers protecting the State.

I'm inclined to believe their competence was not an issue. Even asking for guidance on Reddit is understandable , as you already explained.

He pled the 5th 'cause he knew damn well what happened.

Wake up. The congressional committee hasn't found anything. The FBI didn't find anything. There wasn't any wrong doing. If there was someone would have gone down and gone down hard. And nice little bit of Bustering there. Now arguing semantics of cooperating and immunity and the order in which they come.

Their competence was definitely an issue based on the question posed on reddit. Not only that, the fact they went to reddit is a huge red flag. The crowd on reddit is not to be confused with subject matter experts on many of the more credible support sites on the web. Going to reddit doesn't make sense, not when there are more substantial knowledge bases available that would have answered the question.

Consultants are only as good as their reputation. If these guys were proven incompetent their company would be toast. No one would hire them again. As it is, they are likely screwed in that regard. What would really kill them would be the possible loss of revenues, and possible legal action against them, from other customers who were also using their services, if they were proven to be incompetent. They are better to take the 5th than disclose that they improperly configured a server they were responsible for.

These guys were investigated by the feds. The feds don't miss much. They have the best talent in the world. There likely would have been nothing left to the imagination once their computer forensic scientists were done doing their examination. Again, these guys were going to reddit for help, so they weren't experts in security or email systems in general. These guys would have left an audit trail a mile wide for even a poorly trained team to follow. There is nothing in this case that leads me to believe they were anything more than the small mom and pop consulting group they appeared to be, and they got the job because of a relationship they had with a Clinton advisor rather than their expertise in managing enterprise applications or systems. The FBI would have ripped these guys up in short order. That is why this is all a bunch of BS.

Frankly, I hoped the FBI would have found something to disqualify Clinton. I don't like her and would like to see another candidate in her place. But the reality is that this investigation produced nothing that could stick to anyone. The same goes with the Benghazi investigations. This is just more noise about an issue most of the electorate doesn't understand nor care about.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by oilers_fan

I really want Trump to do something stupid or crazy right away here, because all of you guys are driving me bananas with your stupid little arguments. Plus, I'm sick of the email scandal.

Did you read the sign posted a few spots above you?

That thing is real.

[Gozer]

Originally Posted by New Era

Wake up.

Another well successfully poisoned.

Your arguments are inconsistent and fallacious.
You misrepresented 'pleading the 5th' and then sardonically smear me for correcting it.

Get over yourself.

[FlameOn]

So if I understand right Clinton's IT guy, while under investigation for providing aid to Hillary Clinton with running her email server, very stupidly and publicly requested assistance in altering exchange email records knowing full well this was illegal. When that didn't work he chose to delete them at the behest of his employer

FBI then grants him immunity for his part in the email investigation. So the guy who actually destroyed evidence is immune, and the FBI/Justice department refuses to press charges on the superiors who ordered it? Wtf? How is this not illegal? What the hell was the point in granting immunity in the first place if no charges were going to be pressed for the given testimony? It's like the whole thing was staged so no one would get charged with anything

[Gozer]

Originally Posted by FlameOn

So if I understand right Clinton's IT guy, while under investigation for providing aid to Hillary Clinton with running her email server, very stupidly and publicly requested assistance in altering exchange email records knowing full well this was illegal. When that didn't work he chose to delete them at the behest of his employer

FBI then grants him immunity for his part in the email investigation. So the guy who actually destroyed evidence is immune, and the FBI/Justice department refuses to press charges on the superiors who ordered it? Wtf? How is this not illegal? What the hell was the point in granting immunity in the first place if no charges were going to be pressed for the given testimony? It's like the whole thing was staged so no one would get charged with anything

Our understandings are similar.

A minor correction would be; the IT guy was not under investigation and wasn't on the radar.
The House was investigating the private server (which Clinton had kept isolated in violation of Federal Records Act) - the IT guy was controlling what records would be submitted; we can infer what he was instructed to scrub by his Reddit post. (i.e. if IT guy succeeded then the name/address they wanted to hide was not uncovered. The conspiracy consensus seems to be that Hillary wanted her own email deleted - that doesn't make sense to me)

Also, of note, the IT guy's reddit account was active, verified, and archived by Reddit's self-described "weaponized autism" and the account was scrubbed/deleted after the story broke.
Had fun stuff, like smut stories about 3somes with his clone.

[MissTeeks]

Originally Posted by bob-loblaw

Has Skittles chimed in on this yet?

[zamler]

You gotta admit that Skittles thing makes you think...
...about taking a chance and eating a handful

[FireGilbert]

Skittles are becoming the candy of controversy. It is great free advertising though. I haven't craved Skittles this much since Treyvon Martin.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by peter12

No, it matters, but what I meant was that even if she was totally in the right, this adds to the air of deception that continues to thicken around her.

Personally I think the Clinton's are weapons grade ######bags, like every other scumbag elected to Washington on either side of the aisle, none the less they are still way less frightening than Trump, and I still think he's part of her campaign.

The last days of Reagans presidency when he was fully senile and Nancy's astrologist was making decisions for the free world was still in better hands than it would be under a dim witted dime store Mussolini like Trump.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Skittles responds to Asshat Jr.



https://twitter.com/SethAbramovitch/...91768793407488

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Gozer

Another well successfully poisoned.

I repeated exactly what you said. If a well was poisoned you did it yourself.

Your arguments are inconsistent and fallacious.

Your arguments make no sense. I mean they not only contradict logic they have no connection to the reality of operating the systems you're trying to talk about.

You misrepresented 'pleading the 5th' and then sardonically smear me for correcting it.

I did not misrepresent pleading the 5th. You were the one who took the ridiculous stance that the 5th is used only to mask someone's guilt in a situation. That is far from the truth. There are many reasons someone would take the 5th amendment, especially if they were granted immunity for providing witness testimony.

Get over yourself.

Get educated. This case is cut and dried. Nothing left to discuss according to the FBI, who have been privy to all details of the case. But you keep turning it into something that it isn't. You're seeing things that don't exist. This is a simple IT system that was improperly secured and a resulting data handling issue. That is it distilled down to its essence. No 'yuge' criminal intent to hide information. Just a simple mistake compounded by poor judgement by a number of people.

Originally Posted by FlameOn

So if I understand right Clinton's IT guy, while under investigation for providing aid to Hillary Clinton with running her email server, very stupidly and publicly requested assistance in altering exchange email records knowing full well this was illegal. When that didn't work he chose to delete them at the behest of his employer

1. It is not illegal to request help. As long as he does not release configuration information from the server, he has done nothing wrong. This happens thousands of times a day by IT professionals who are asked to do more with less and need to rely on the network of professionals out there with more experience than themselves. What you do with information once you receive it is a different story.

2. What made it stupid was going to reddit. There are hundreds of knowledge bases out there that provide assistance to people who have questions in regards to configuration or operation of systems. Most vendors have their own knowledge base that are monitored by the subject matter expert on the product in question, allowing for immediate response with the most accurate answer.

3. Altering email records is not an illegal act, so long as the original is left intact. This happens all the time during e-discovery. I think there is a misrepresentation of what was asked. The guy asked a question about protecting the email address of the sender, protecting the private email address and effectively anonymizing the emails. Not a common practice, but something that can be done with most email systems. If true anonymity was the goal, there are other, more effective routes to go. This is why I think this is a misunderstanding of what the intent was. I believe these guys wanted to just protect the private email address and replace it with another (a state department) email address.

4. You missed the part about the retention schedule. This is the most important part of the whole "conspiracy" that gozer is trying to convince people of. The retention schedule is important as it defines how long emails are to be kept and when they are to be destroyed. Normally you have a tool that you configure that performs this function for you. It is set and forget. When 60 days has elapsed the emails or files are automatically deleted, unless otherwise saved off to another location. To be very clear, this saving off of files or emails is not a backup procedure. It is done through the discretion of the user and not the system itself. The contractor was told to set a 60 day retention policy on the email system, which they failed to do. This was done long before any trouble was on the horizon. When they failed to do this properly, it set up a problem down the road. When it came time to produce, they were in a situation where they would over-produce, and put themselves out of compliance with the retention policy and have an equally as large problem on their hands.

5. When the contractor found they had not set the retention schedule up as requested, they did what they believed to be the right thing to do, and that was a bulk deletion. This gives the impression of wrong doing, but given the evidence of the direction for a 60 day retention policy, the deletion then becomes explainable.

FBI then grants him immunity for his part in the email investigation.

That is correct. For giving the FBI information into how they configured the system and what directives they received they were granted immunity for all wrong doing in regards to the email system. This happens a lot during a technical investigation like this. So someone will speak freely in regards to their knowledge of a system and their actions in configuring the system if they know they won't get in trouble. So a low level operator who could provide testimony, like the consultant, will be granted immunity to expedite the process and remove any guess work. The wrong doing here would be anything that could have possibly gone wrong because they didn't know what they were doing.

So the guy who actually destroyed evidence is immune, and the FBI/Justice department refuses to press charges on the superiors who ordered it?

The key is when what was ordered. Because of the documented proof of the retention schedule request, and the time stamp that is going to be on that request, removes the wrong doing of deletion.

[/QUOTE]Wtf? How is this not illegal? What the hell was the point in granting immunity in the first place if no charges were going to be pressed for the given testimony? It's like the whole thing was staged so no one would get charged with anything[/QUOTE]

This is how criminal proceeding sometimes happen. You grant immunity to gain information from someone you hope can provide damning testimony, but sometimes you just find out that your witness doesn't have anything of value or were responsible for a lesser crime in their own right. Like the FBI, I don't see anything here that is illegal. Improper data handing is explainable. Misconfiguration of the system is obvious, but immunity was granted (as it should have been) for the contractor responsible for system management. Data destruction is now completely explainable because of the 60 day retention policy. Asking a question on reddit is stupid, mostly because reddit is cesspool of stupidity, but stupidity is not illegal. What appeared to be a compilation of circumstantial evidence that could make a case crumbled into nothing when the operational side of the equation was examined. There was some lack of understanding and poor judgement all around, but nothing that could amount to a criminal charge. Not sexy, no conspiracy theory at every turn, but the most reasonable explanation for what took place. Occam's razor in action.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by FlameOn

So if I understand right Clinton's IT guy, while under investigation for providing aid to Hillary Clinton with running her email server, very stupidly and publicly requested assistance in altering exchange email records knowing full well this was illegal.

No, that's not right.

An email address is not the same thing as a record of who is the recipient. It's just the address, just like a phone number is just the phone number. You can keep the record of who got/sent the email without releasing their actual email addressess. You could do it in a way that the exact addressess could be referenced from a list that's kept separate from the actual emails.

Could you do this in order to hide the actual records? To some extent yes, but it would be a ridiculously unreliable method and you would be 100% guaranteed to get caught, so the answer to me at least seems more like no.

The emails themselves will probably be signed, or otherwise contain some information on who were taking part in the discussion, so just removing the address is not going to mean much. You would have to go through each email individually to make sure nothing is there. Also, there's no way an investigator would not notice if you had tried to erase that data.

If you were a really super good hacker I guess it might be doable automatically too without being at least obviously detectable, but if they're asking for pretty basic help like that, it's clear that's not the level of expertise we're talking here. (Plus it would probably still take more time than they had to do this.)

[Gozer]

Originally Posted by Itse

No, that's not right.

An email address is not the same thing as a record of who is the recipient. It's just the address, just like a phone number is just the phone number. You can keep the record of who got/sent the email without releasing their actual email addressess. You could do it in a way that the exact addressess could be referenced from a list that's kept separate from the actual emails.

Could you do this in order to hide the actual records? To some extent yes, but it would be a ridiculously unreliable method and you would be 100% guaranteed to get caught, so the answer to me at least seems more like no.

The emails themselves will probably be signed, or otherwise contain some information on who were taking part in the discussion, so just removing the address is not going to mean much. You would have to go through each email individually to make sure nothing is there. Also, there's no way an investigator would not notice if you had tried to erase that data.

If you were a really super good hacker I guess it might be doable automatically too without being at least obviously detectable, but if they're asking for pretty basic help like that, it's clear that's not the level of expertise we're talking here. (Plus it would probably still take more time than they had to do this.)

They don't contest that the data was erased

Here's a Denver Post article that reviews the facts; includes a 5min video explainer.
If someone could help me out & embed the video, I would appreciate it.

http://www.denverpost.com/2016/09/08...inton-e-mails/



There is also evidence that the IT company (whom New Era described as connected to the Clintons, rather than a reputable firm) had their bills paid by the Clintons during the investigation.
http://completecolorado.com/pagetwo/...eimbursements/

[ernie]

If 3 skittles really wanted to kill you they wouldn't be in the refugee program because (1) it is an extremely lengthy process and (2) one goes through numerous background checks from international and federal agencies and is thus difficult to get through. There are easier ways to get into the country to do harm to it. Which doesn't mean those easier ways should also be eliminated.

But 99+% of americans have no idea what the refugee process is so this type of BS is allowed to exist. This is just further fanning of flames along racial/religious/cultural lines. Promoting profiling etc. It's disgusting and it's a disgusting campaign. And it's disgusting so many people will consider voting for this party. And yes I say party because the GOP has let this go on far too long that they are complicit. He's actively saying law enforcement should go back to racial profiling and thus far not a peep from GOP leadership.

Also shows how fake his outreach to the black communities is. Pretend he wants their votes and then promote racial profiling which is one of the biggest issues the black community has to deal with from law enforcement (and others). Hey, hopefully he motivated the black and minority voters to get to the polls. Racism and racist policies are the ONLY thing he's been consistent on this campaign.

[FlamesAddiction]

You could easily change the Skittles argument to be an argument for more gun control as well.

Does anyone else find it creepy that Trump's son refers to his dad as "father" instead of just "my father" or "my dad"?

[Senator Clay Davis]

The worst part of a potential Hillary win is the potential for four more years of e-mail and Benghazi talk. I think most people stopped giving a #### a looooong time ago.

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

You could easily change the Skittles argument to be an argument for more gun control as well.

Does anyone else find it creepy that Trump's son refers to his dad as "father" instead of just "my father" or "may dad"?

Word is the kids are scared ####less of him and will basically do as he says. So if that's what he wants, that's what they'll do.