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Notes -
Twitter Files 7
Another Twitter Files post: Link
Michael Shellenberger writes this one, arguing that the FBI worked hard to prime social media platforms into thinking a hacked release would come out prior to the 2020 election. He writes the following.
The FBI's regular meetings with people like Yoel Roth were characterized by the latter as telling him that state actors might try a "hack and leak" operation prior to the election.
The FBI was aware that there wasn't anything to go by on this claim, as Special Agent Elvis Chan testified.
Twitter found no evidence of significant Russian/foreign interference on the platform, and Roth repeatedly informed Chan/the FBI on multiple occasions about this.
Twitter repeatedly resisted efforts by the FBI to get data outside the normal search warrant process and was aware that the FBI was trying to probe a lot.
The FBI eventually got temporary clearances to share top-secret info with Twitter executives regarding APT28, a Russian hacking organization. Roth described himself as being "primed primed to think about the Russian hacking group APT28 before news of the Hunter Biden laptop came out."
Former FBI employees were so numerous at Twitter that they had their own internal slack channels.
In September 2020, Roth and others partook of a tabletop exercise to simulate a "hack and dump" operation regarding the Biden campaign. The goal was apparently to "shape" how the media would respond.
When the Hunter Biden leak finally happened, Roth would argue that it appeared more like a subtle leak, since nothing appeared in clear violation of the rules. Jim Baker would respond that it seemed hacked, so Twitter was reasonable in suppressing it until more information came out. But this is nearly impossible, since the FBI's subpoena for the laptop was attached to the NYPost article.
Roth appeared to buy this story now, and in an email said that it was likely that hacked materials were uploaded to the laptop and given to the shop.
There is a pattern of the FBI trying to warn elected officials with a goal of leaking to the news. They did this with Senators Grassley and Johnson, who were investigating and believed that it compromised their credibility. Jim Baker was apparently investigated twice for leaking information (in 2017 and 2019).
As a reminder, the above is what he's arguing, not what I think is necessarily true.
From what I can see, it appears the FBI was very insistent upon the possibility of a 2016 DNC-style hack. I don't think this is necessarily unreasonable until the election is settled - that the hack didn't happen doesn't mean you could conclude it wouldn't were you in the months leading up to the election.
Far more damning is the attempts at getting Twitter's information outside the normal search warrant process. Twitter and its staff are vindicated in this regard, they appear to not have given in to the FBI's requests in 2020. A caveat to this, however, is that we don't necessarily know why they shut off this access in the first place, and how long it was open before that.
A secondary objection of mine is the blurring of public and private boundary with how intelligence officials and agencies were coordinating with and sharing classified information with these companies in an effort to get them on-board with doing work for the FBI. It's difficult to articulate what I precisely find problematic here. The closest I could come to explaining my feelings here is that I don't want these people to ever be more than formal acquaintances because it ends up reducing the chance of them acting as independent stations of power.
They literally had a hack and dump scenario with Hunter Biden. Isnt that a bit of a smoking gun?
And the fbi was in possession of the laptop. If this isn’t direct interference in an election then I don’t know what is. The fbi literally knew the laptop was real and not a hack then misinformed the American people which led to a change in election outcomes.
I concur. This is shaping up to be the biggest American scandal ever — or at least it should be but won’t.
yeah this is orders of magnitude worse than the iran contra affair - i mean sure IC had sweeping geopolitical implications and directly exposed the judicial system of being a dog and pony show but this hunter biden laptop dick pic story, now this is the real deal.
Your sarcasm aside, the story is that Joe Biden and his family effectuated a pay to play scheme. Not good. dismissing it as dick pics is one of the lowest cheapest ways to distract from the meat. You latch on to the sensational to avoid having to discuss the substance.
But my whole post (and Sliders) wasn’t about Biden directly. It was the FBI and the IC interfering in an U.S. presidential election to help one major candidate. That is a major scandal far worse than Iran Contra.
The substance is that Hunter Biden attempted to leverage his father's political status to elevate his personal business prospects. This is shady as fuck, but lots of connected people have shitty kids, its not that big of a deal unless Joe Biden was a willing participant, which as far as i can tell hasn't been shown.
How is the FBI pulling strings at twitter to suppress the distribution of this laptop's contents "interfering in an U.S. presidential election"? Is there any source that shows that the FBI knew that there was no planted information on that laptop? I just think we are applying the clarity of hindsight to a situation that may have been murky at the time, and also assuming a lot of motives. Beyond all that i think funding terrorist organizations in nicaragua and iran is a bit more scandalous than the fbi running interference on a laptop of questionable importance.
There are multiple incidents within the Hunter files showing Joe was involved. There is also testimony. Is it conclusive? No. But there is a decent amount of smoke.
As for the FBI, the evidence is (1) they had the info for a long time (and so were able to test the validity of it — it wasn’t new to them contrary to what you are saying), (2) they kept prompting Twitter (and Facebook) that a hack was going to be coming, (3) an NGO (which had overlapping people it seems) specifically war gamed with Twitter executive a hack and dump of Hunter Biden, and (iv) connected former FBI agents at Twitter pushed to ban the story.
So they knew the laptop was real, they were aware the info might be coming up, they primed the social media networks to think any leak — especially one connected to Hunter — would be illegitimate, and they had personal at Twitter who knew better but pushed in the opposite direction. That is election interference your attempts to downplay the severity of the details.
And yes, it is more scandalous compared to the IC interfering in third world countries. IC doing shady shit in third countries while not great is relatively par for the course for shady organizations such as the IC. But IC interfering in a domestic presidential election because one of the candidates was against the IC? That is eliminating civilian control of the IC; effectively usurping the constitutional order that the president is in charge of the executive.
Lots of smoke no concrete proof, sorry but that's not the biggest scandal in US history by a long shot.
You literally don't know that the FBI knew it was "real", you are just assuming and assigning malice.
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As an aside, I don't think you can call focusing on the dick pics distracting from the meat.
Ah Fruck, I can’t believe you’ve done this.
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:Sigh:
Take your upvote and get out.
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distracted by the meat
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Bravo
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Except it wasn't a Hack and Dump, while yes it was widely reported as such at the time, it turns out that Hunter Biden is exactly the sort of coked-out idiot to leave his laptop full of incriminating evidence at the service desk and then forget to pick it up.
Your link doesn't say that. It says the emails were genuine, and dances around implying that means the laptop was. I though the claim was the that the emails were acquired by the Russians via hacking and laundered through "finding" the laptop. Your link provides no discussion or evidence of that claim, just asserts it's false without evidence and tries to claim legitimacy by linking to a New York Times article which also does not discuss the provenance of the laptop.
I have not looked into this issue to have any strong opinions on where the laptop actually came from; I am not making any claims either way. I'm merely pointing out that your link isn't either.
NY Post publishes a story claiming that the FBI in possession a bunch of evidence implicating Biden in al sorts of shady dealings and is purposely burying it in an effort to hurt Trump/help Biden win. A bunch of intelligence officials including the Obama's SecDef and the Director of the NSA sign an open letter declaring the laptop story to be a Russian disinformation op. The official NY Post gets banned from Twitter and links to the article get scrubbed from both Twitter and Facebook. Two years after the fact even the hardcore partisans at CNN and MSNBC concede that it wasn't the Russians and that the linked emails were likely genuine, but that doesn't matter because the original purpose of helping Biden win has been served.
You're still trying to smuggle in this claim. "email were likely genuine" and "it wasn't the Russians" are two separate claims. You've provided evidence for the first but not for the second.
AcocadoPanic's link does go as far as claiming the data appears to have really come from an actual laptop that Hunter Biden used, at which point Occam hints pretty strongly at the laptop in question really having been Hunter Biden's (as opposed to some more complicated plot where Hunter Biden's laptop was hacked by Russians, its contents copied onto a sufficiently similar laptop and that laptop laundered through the repair shop). But you didn't provide that evidence, you just claimed you did and linked to something else.
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As much as I'd like to be skeptical of the IC, its hard to square these two claims.
Well, the IC made the statement with zero investigation of the underlying data. It was then used by the media and Biden campaign to say “misinformation.”
Yes the IC letter worded it carefully but they knew damn well how it would play out and they had zero reason to believe what they said.
I share most of the same skepticisms, but I disagree that they worded things carefully. The limits of their knowledge was stated clearly and prominently. Informative press would have highlighted this, but we privilege a free press over an accountable press for obvious reasons.
But there was zero reason to release anything. There was evidence they could’ve examined showing it was authentic. The only reason they made the statement was to run cover for the Biden campaign.
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Declaring? I see a lot of hedging that it might be from the Russians, not an explicit acknowledgement that it was.
The fact that two years later, conservatives are still complaining about the censorship of the story rather than discussing the contents of the laptop to me show that the censorship was far more damaging than helpful to Biden's cause and that there really isn't that much to the underlying laptop contents.
Everybody has known that Biden was engaging in pay for play schemes since the 90s. For all his "aw shucks" good guy posturing he didn't become a billionaire in Baltimore on a public servant's salary. Accordingly Biden being corrupt is not news. The FBI working with the media to quash a story/actively intervening on behalf of the DNC for the second presidential election in a row on the other hand is a new development.
I think you're off by a factor of ~100. Googling puts his net worth at 2.5M in 2016; 17M in 2020. Given he has made his tax returns public for decades, it seems implausible he could hide 98% of his wealth.
Yeah and it turns out that his corrupt son pays for things on his behalf per the corrupt son. Wonder if the corrupt brother also pays for things on his behalf.
You wouldn’t see those items on his tax return though that is tax fraud. Doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. And before you say “you can say that about anyone” the difference is here we have the corrupt son saying he gives over a large amount of money to his father. Statement against interest.
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When you looked at richest/poorest Senator lists, Biden was always at the bottom, or just above Bernie during his whole entire time there, and only became slightly more wealthy because of the usual appearance fee circuit, some book deals, and the like. Part of the reason the whole 'Biden is secretly corrupt' is failing outside the most partisan Red Tribers, when less than great views about Obama or Hillary extended past that, is that it doesn't pass the BS meter of the median voter - the median voter can buy Hillary is corrupt, Obama is conceited, and Trump is an asshole. They simply see nothing showing that Biden is making secret deals.
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The argument is that if people knew the contents of the laptop and Biden ‘s pay for play, then he wouldn’t have won.
And yes, more people should be upset about it. The media has done a good job primarily making it seem like story is about Hunter or Twitter.
But something can help you then and hurt you now. I’d say Biden is probably happier to deal with the censorship story after being elected compared to having the story cost him the election.
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Is there anyone still claiming it's Russians?
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hunter-biden-laptop-data-analysis/
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Strictly that doesn't prevent it being hacked information, or information obtained illegally.
"The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) was enacted in 1986 and prohibits accessing a computer without authorization, or in excess of authorization. "
If permission was given for the purposes of data retrieval, even after abandonment of the device recovering any data from a device in excess of the authorization given may well fall under relevant Federal or state laws. You can be in a position where the abandoned property becomes yours, but the data on it does not.
"So, was Hunter Biden’s email “hacked?” Yes, in the sense that it was read and disseminated without his knowledge or consent. But under the law? Magic 8 ball says, “situation unclear. Ask again later…”"
It's not as straight forward as saying he was hacked, but it is also not clear that he wasn't.
This has nothing to do with the reasons the story was squashed (other than to give a figleaf), but it isn't actually super clear cut as to whether it would fall under Delaware's Computer crime laws as hacking. It also depends if local copies of email were accessed or his online accounts were accessed through stored passwords.
If you take a computer to a repair place , give them your passwords to help with repair and they clone your drive and publish your emails online, they probably have hacked your data as described in the various statutes, and they probably can be prosecuted. And you can probably call it a Hack and dump. If they do it after you abandon it, the situation is unclear. In other words the fig leaf is real, the question is (ahem) how big it is in actuality.
I'd be interested to hear how you think the CFAA would apply here and to whom.
It's unlikely the abandoned personal laptop of the presidents fuck-up son qualifies as a 'protected computer'. Nor does any of the data disclosed appear to be restricted, etc.
He was hacked in the sense that if he'd taken his VCR to be repaired, abandoned it and the repair shop was able to remove and repair the cassette. On the tape was was the presidents fuck-up son, getting high, banging prostitutes, and talking about questionable business deals. They copy the tape and give a copy to Inside Edition, which runs the story.
That's not 'hacked' that's just being a skeevy adict fuck-up. Calling it hacked is a canard.
The State of Delaware can likely make many things a crime, criminalizing giveing abandoned property to the press especially so with a clear public interest in the story hopefully would be a protected 1st amendment activity.
I'm not sure there's good faith argument that it's hacked material. I consider all the alphabet agency people who called it Russian disinformation bad faith actors.
They got weev on CFAA conspiracy arguing that the publicly accessible, no authentication AT&T server that returned an email address when sent an ICC-ID (SIM card UUID) was a protected computer and sending it requests with ICC-IDs to harvest email addresses was accessing a protected computer without authorization in furtherance of a criminal activity. Overturned and freed based on improper venue, underlying substantial issue unaddressed.
I thought those charges were bullshit, but it was internet connected at least.
I don't think there have been any claims that this was 'hacking' because the laptop was internet connected.
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There absolutely is. It may not be relevant as to whether the information should be distributed. But there is a decent claim that it is hacked material in the sense that the person who did so, did not have ownership of the files and accessed them in an unauthorized manner. It's not a slam dunk by any means but if the data ownership remains with Hunter even while the shop gets to own the computer (which is legally murky) then by accessing it and distributing it in an unauthorized manner he has breached the law. He can be a skeevy addict fuck up and also technically have had the information obtained by computer fraud.
That doesn't mean they shouldn't be distributed if it is in the public interest but that doesn't change how they were acquired.
"on the other hand, a good case could be made that the repairman “exceeded the scope of his authorization” to examine the files on the computer for a purpose other than repairing the device. What might complicate this is if Hunter Biden, the computer owner, gave the repairman some limiting instructions — express or implied, like “just fix the power supply” or “find out why the screen is not working…” In those cases, you could argue that, even though the repairman was in lawful possession of the computer (and presumably the data contained in it), they exceeded the scope of their authorization to access the computer when they looked at things that were not necessary to perform the task assigned. The Delaware Computer Crime statute additionally makes it a crime to make an “unauthorized copy” of data"
The repair person may be ok, but it isn't legally a slam dunk either. I would say it is both hacked material AND acceptable to distribute given the public interest. So there is very definitely a good faith interpretation that it is hacked material. Which doesn't mean that is why most places were acting in good faith of course.
As for the CFAA, the NACDL (who think it's too broad and want it reduced in scope) say:
"Since every computer connected to the Internet is used in interstate commerce or communication, it is a conceivable interpretation that every computer connected to the Internet is a “protected computer” covered by 18 U.S.C. § 1030." and that the definition was then expanded further twice since then.
He clearly had lawful possession, it was left in his care. Isn't the shop owner relying on his boilerplate forms that abandoned devices become the property of the shop, to transfer ownership of the device?
Having seen and used similar service agreements copying and transferring data is frequently authorized.
When the geek squad finds child porn, is that hacking? How about if they rat out the perv to the FBI in exchange for cash. https://www.kron4.com/news/national/documents-fbi-paid-best-buys-geek-squad-for-child-porn-info/
Have we seen evidence that this device was connected to the internet at the time of the alleged hacking?
Calling it hacking is a canard to distract and suppress the content.
Absolutley. But that doesn't mean it wasn't.
And in fact the CSAM issue isn't cut and dried either, this is part of why it is legally grey:
"In fact, the government has relied on this concept to essentially enlist computer repair personnel as informants, using them to scan computers for things like CSAM (kiddie porn), or other things that the government might use as evidence. In a highly publicized case several years ago, the FBI was paying Best Buy “Geek Squad” personnel a bounty (and listing them as confidential informants) to search for files the FBI was interested in on computers brought in for repair, and to provide that information to law enforcement. While the bulk of these cases involve contraband like child pornography which is illegal to possess, and for which certain individuals have a legal duty to report, the question of whether the repair person, in lawful (but temporary) possession of the computer for one purpose (to repair it), may then examine the files on the computer for the purpose not of fixing the computer, but of reporting crime. "
Whether the abandonment gives you ownership of the data is not clear. It doesn't transfer copyright, so the images captured are still legally owned by Hunter, but the rest is unclear. Did he file the appropriate report with the Delaware State Escheator? The law specifies "abandoned tangible property" and to complicate things the Mac Shop had a contract which specifies equipment would become abandoned after 90 days:
"Both the Mac Shop contract and the Delaware Code do not resolve the question as to what exactly Biden might have abandoned in his failure to pick up his laptop and hard drive. The physical devices are one thing, but what about the underlying data? The Mac Shop’s contract is limited to “equipment” and does not extend to intangible or intellectual property. With respect to any data on which Biden has a copyright claim, for example, it does not seem reasonable that Biden granted anything more than a limited use license to access data for the purpose of recovering it. "
To be clear most of the people you are talking about are using the hacking issue as a figleaf for partisan purposes. Completely agreed. The thing with a figleaf though, is usually there is something actually there, and that appears to be the case here. Just because they are saying it is cut and dried one way doesn't mean it is actually cut and dried the other. There are a lot of nuances here.
Combined with the overbroad "hacking" laws, it is quite possible the repair guy committed a crime when he accessed and shared it. It is pretty possible that people who report CSAM on devices they are asked to repair are in fact accessing the data in an unauthorized way and could in theory fall foul of various computer fraud and hacking laws.
If you ask an expert whether repair guy was engaged in hacking the answer is:
"Personally, I think that when you ask someone to repair your computer, you are asking them to repair your computer — not authorizing them to copy anything they find and give it to others. On the other hand, when you hire a cleaning person to clean your house, you run the risk that they will call the cops to report the dead body in the living room or the cocaine stash in the medicine cabinet. That’s the thing about privacy. So did the repairman “hack” Hunter Biden’s computer? Magic 8 ball says, “Maybe.” "
It's possible he was fine when passing it to the FBI, but not when copying it for the purposes of giving it to Giuliani. It's possible he was fine for both. It gets even sillier. If he accessed emails that were held on the laptop that's one thing. If he used the credentials to log into the box live all of a sudden:
"That’s just the box — the computer itself. What about the email on the computer? Just because we like to make things complicated, the law treats stored email differently than it treats other files. Sometimes. Under the Stored Communications Act it is generally illegal to access “stored” communications without authorization. The law treats different kinds of stored communications differently, including those that are stored incident to transmission, those that are in temporary storage, and those that are in more permanent storage. The point was to approximate the IRL world of “interception” of communications in transmission (e.g., wiretaps), reading mail, and reading mail that’s been sitting on the recipient’s kitchen table for a few weeks. (like Jerry Seinfeld’s piece on when clothes become laundry — when does an Ikea catalogue stop being “mail?”) The problem is, the SCA focuses on accessing stored email that is stored by a communications provider, not email that I store on my computer itself. When I store my own email on my own computer, it becomes just another file."
The statement that there is no good faith argument that it is hacked material is I think false. That doesn't mean most people ARE using those argument in good faith.
The Mac Shops boilerplate refers to equipment left after 90 days, but also included a hold harmless for any damage or loss of property. Further it clearly says they will 'backup' data.
Being a canard makes it bad faith.
The accurate description would be, Mac repairman uncovers evidence of corrupt practices and drug use by Biden scion and is ignored by the FBI until going to the press.
Wasn't the hacking claim referring to alleged Russian hackers that then allegedly placed the material on the laptop to be discovered? Also a bad faith canard.
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If you have a mechanic repair your car and you don't pay for the repair after X months, there should be no issue with the mechanic sizing the car in lieu of the unpaid bill. I see no issue with a computer repairer doing the same. If it happens that the most valuable use of an unclaimed computer is to sell it to a political campaign, that seems like a fine outcome.
One should pay their bills or suffer the consequences.
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My recollection was that the terms of NY property abandonment law, under which the laptop was left at the shop with IIRC an outstanding bill, effectively transferred ownership to the shop. At that point, the from whom part of the required authorization becomes germane: if you put your files on (now) my computer, I don't think you can claim it's a crime for me to look at or possibly[1] redistribute them. On the other hand, if I use your existing session token on (now) my computer to access your account on a different computer (say, GMail), it's quite plausibly still a crime.
On the other hand, I'd agree it certainly raises some interesting legal questions.
[1] I could imagine a very niche argument for copyright or likeness concerns, but I'm not aware of anyone successfully using copyright to prevent the publication of embarrassing materials, although I may well be missing an example there. Regardless, this would (typically) be a civil matter. "Revenge porn" laws might be relevant, but I'm not aware of the details for this case.
Yes, this would be hacking. Though lame and low effort. Has this been claimed? I've not seen this claim.
Those further civil claims would be better made against the actual publishers.
Isn't the technicians narrative that like the geek squad and child porn, he was concerned by his discovery, first went to the FBI, only when he perceived inaction he went to the press and Rudy Guliani.
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To be clear, it was pretty clear early on that the laptop was genuine. Glenn Greenwald had a good post on that.
I meant the fact the whole “we are doing game plan where there is a hack and dump of Hunter Biden before the story broke” is pretty damning.
Now, other people in this thread have presented good evidence suggesting the laptop was indeed genuine, but after he helped launder the Russian hacked emails through Wikileaks and denied any Russian connection, I'm supposed to take Glenn Greenwald said it wasn't the Russians as evidence that it wasn't the Russians? Is this a troll? I'm reminded of the old joke about how if the CIA tells you the sky is blue, you should probably go outside and look, get then get an eye test and look again just to be sure.
EDIT: Yes, I know Glenn Greenwald and Julian Assange are different people. One of the things he's known for is being one of the most mainstream vocal deniers of the Wikileaks-Russia connection.
In addition to the other comments, would Greenwald not be a good arbiter of what Russian shenanigans look like, even discounting the inaccuracy of "Greenwald laundered the emails"?
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Besides you confusing Greenwald with Assange, those weren't Russian emails. Those were DNC emails, and those were genuine too. You may be upset about how they were acquired, but the content of the emails was all true, and so was the content of the laptop. So, in both cases, there was true information revealed, and in both cases US government tried to hide it for partisan political reasons, clearly throwing all the weight of the federal government to the side of one party. Which in a normally functioning state would be a scandal, but...
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Glenn Greenwald didn’t help launder emails through Wikileaks. That was Julian Assange. Greenwald has done extensive investigative journalism regarding Snowden and Lula. He is as close of an expert as there is in journalistic methods of authenticating data. He laid out all the ways the Biden laptop was authenticated shortly after it came to light.
Also, it isn’t crystal clear that Russians were behind Wikileaks. Sure, that is what DoJ claims. But they’ve never had to fight that in an adversarial situation. The one time they did have the chance, the dropped the charges claiming Russia would get valuable intel. Which maybe but also could be because their actual case was weak.
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It's kind of amazingly rich to do this whole "attack the messenger" routine on Greenwald, while 100% of the doubt cast on the laptop story came from bald lying (without even an attempt at faking evidence!) by IC spooks. This is a scenario where the CIA told us the sky was green, Greenwald wrote an article of evidence it was blue, and you're throwing skepticism at Greenwald.
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