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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?
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.
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.
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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