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naraburns  nihil supernum  6mo ago (text post)   29920 thread views

Israel-Gaza Megathread #2

This is a refreshed megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.

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What a ridiculous conspiracy theory. I should ask for a source just to expose how utterly ... wait, what the hell, that was actually a thing that happened?

B I N L A D E N

How did we all miss this? It’s been there in plain sight. It’s like he was daring us to catch him.

Also funny to look back and remember how well liked and respected Patraeus was before he threw it away to pass info to some floozy.

You're acting like these things are unconnected.

That Patraeus was well-liked and respected is Why the Clintonistas had to drum up some bullshit charges to get him out of the way.

So, I'm curious, when you say they were bullshit are you saying it didn't happen, or that it's the kind of thing that normally leads to few or no consequences?

A mix of both.

The magnitude of the offense was both vastly overstated, and the offense as it actually happened would not have ordinarily resulted in any charges.

As a strategic level commander pretty much anything Patraeus thinks or does in relation to his job is going to classified on some level. He was charged with "unauthorized removal and retention of classified material" for keeping a hand-written journal and with "unauthorized disclosure" for letting his biographer/mistress read said journal while quietly glossing over the fact that Paula Broadwell had an active security clearance at the time.

Contrast this with Huma Abedin's alleged "nothing burger", where material specifically marked as not to be removed from the SCIF was removed from the SCIF, copied without authorization from the classifying authority, and then sent unencrypted over the internet to her husband's personal laptop. Even if said husband had an active clearance (which he didn't) you kind of have to assume that foreign intel services are going to be monitoring the communications of senior cabinet officials and their staff.

while quietly glossing over the fact that Paula Broadwell had an active security clearance at the time.

Isn't access to classified information subject to both security clearance requirements AND need-to-know requirements?

Depends, Collateral, NO-FORN, SCI, and SAP are generally marked separately and in addition to the more general FOUO, CONFIDENTIAL, SECRET, and TOP SECRET Tags. As counter-intuitive as it sounds something can be both "SECRET" and approved for general distribution, things like authentication codes/word of the day being classic examples.

In any case, the point is the obvious double standard. There's no reasonable argument to be made that the former constituted a gross breach of security while the latter did not.

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