T
twf
Guest
It can apply to both.
Trump accuses Obama administration of wiretapping Trump Tower phones
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P
ProVobis
Guest
By firing up his base.
B
BoomBoomMancini
Guest
Keep using this argument with enough posters and eventually you might find an actual Hillary supporter
M
Michael68
Guest
We were fired up since the primaries. Nice try though at another excuse for Hillary
B
BoomBoomMancini
Guest
A lot of us who dislike trump also disliked Hillary and didn’t vote for her. Why is this so hard for you to understand? Accusing everyone of being sore loser Clinton supporters is a lazy excuse for an argument
Q
Questioner2
Guest
Shadenfreude. One of the seven virtues? nah
(post 875)I’d like to share a little story here at CAF and (indeed the entire internet
) about someone who may or may not have been a young, fresh Question2. Like a little bunny she was.Anyway, she may have experienced a several months long massive enthusiasm for a certain President Ronald Reagan at some point in her very youthful political awakening. It may have had the added benefit of being in rebellion to her elder generation at the time!
Not saying you are like the young, dewey version of Questioner2, but I do think I understand how it feels to respond to a charismatic, populist leader.
I appreciate your point of view. Books will be written about this era for generations to come. What interesting times we live in.
M
Michael68
Guest
Shadenfreude. One of the seven virtues? nah
I’d like to share a little story here at CAF and (indeed the entire internet
Anyway, she may have experienced a several months long massive enthusiasm for a certain President Ronald Reagan at some point in her very youthful political awakening. It may have had the added benefit of being in rebellion to her elder generation at the time!
Not saying you are like the young, dewey version of Questioner2, but I do think I understand how it feels to respond to a charismatic, populist leader.
I appreciate your point of view. Books will be written about this era for generations to come. What interesting times we live in.
Thanx!!! I agree that we are witnessing history.
L
LilyM
Guest
They have similar checks and balances to what the President has - criminal and civil sanctions for misconduct in the course of their duties which transgresses the law, removal from office, and, in some cases, review of their decisions by appellate court
A
Abynissa
Guest
**
FBI’s Russian-influence probe includes a look at far-right news sites**
Federal investigators are examining whether far-right news sites played any role last year in a Russian cyber operation that dramatically widened the reach of news stories — some fictional — that favored Donald Trump’s presidential bid, two people familiar with the inquiry say.
Operatives for Russia appear to have strategically timed the computer commands, known as “bots,” to blitz social media with links to the pro-Trump stories at times when the billionaire businessman was on the defensive in his race against Democrat Hillary Clinton, these sources said.
The bots’ end products were largely millions of Twitter and Facebook posts carrying links to stories on conservative internet sites such as Breitbart News and InfoWars, as well as on the Kremlin-backed RT News and Sputnik News, the sources said. Some of the stories were false or mixed fact and fiction, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the bot attacks are part of an FBI-led investigation into a multifaceted Russian operation to influence last year’s elections.
Investigators examining the bot attacks are exploring whether the far-right news operations took any actions to assist Russia’s operatives. Their participation, however, wasn’t necessary for the bots to amplify their news through Twitter and Facebook.
An FBI spokesman declined to comment on the inquiry into the use of bots.
Russia-generated bots are one piece of a cyber puzzle that counterintelligence agents have sought to solve for nearly a year to determine the extent of the Moscow government’s electronic broadside.
“This may be one of the most highly impactful information operations in the history of intelligence,” said one former U.S. intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
**
Bureau director James Comey confirmed Monday at a House Intelligence Committee hearing what long has been reported: t`hat the FBI is investigating possible links between individuals in the Trump presidential campaign and the Russian campaign to influence the election and whether there was any coordination between the two.**
U.S. intelligence agencies charged in January that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered the offensive, in which cyber operatives also hacked tens of thousands of emails from Democratic National Committee staff, Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta and other Democrats.
As for the bots, they carried links not only to news stories but also to Democratic emails posted on WikiLeaks, especially those hacked from Podesta and made public in October, said Philip Howard, a professor at the Oxford University Internet Institute who has researched the bot attacks.
Howard said that, as an example, bots had spread links to fictional stories that accused Clinton of involvement in running a child-sex ring in the basement of a Washington pizza parlor. The posts inspired a North Carolina man to drive to Washington and fire an assault weapon in the restaurant, according to police reports.
Russia also used “trolls,” hundreds of computer operatives who pretended to be Trump supporters and posted stories or comments on the internet complimentary to Trump or disparaging to Clinton. Sources close to the inquiry said those operatives likely worked from a facility in St. Petersburg, Russia, dedicated to that tactic.
“Russian bots and internet trolls sought to propagate stories underground,” said Mike Carpenter, a former senior Pentagon official during the Obama administration whose job focused on Russia. “Those stories got amplified by fringe elements of our media like Breitbart.”
“They very carefully timed release of information to shift the news cycle away from stories that clearly hurt Mr. Trump, such as his inappropriate conduct over the years,” he said, referring to the October release of a video in which Trump bragged about grabbing women’s genitals. That event corresponded with a surge in bot-related traffic spreading anti-Clinton stories.
An additional Russian tool was the news from its prime propaganda machine, Russia Today, with a global television and digital media operation and a U.S. arm, RT America.
Last Nov. 19, Breitbart announced that its website traffic had set a record the previous 31 days with 300 million page views, driven substantially by social media.
Breitbart, which has drawn criticism for pursuing a white nationalist agenda, was formerly led by Stephen Bannon, who became chief executive officer of Trump’s election campaign last August and now serves as Trump’s strategic adviser in the White House. The news site’s former national security editor, Sebastian Gorka, was a national security adviser to Trump’s campaign and presidential transition team. He now works as a key Trump counterterrorism adviser.
Boosted by bots, the surge in readership for such websites amplified Clinton’s negatives. Some stories falsely described her health problems as dire. Jones said Monday that people gravitated to his website “because we were the first to report Hillary Clinton falling down.” He referred to Clinton appearing to collapse last Sept. 11 after visiting the World Trade Center memorial. She was diagnosed with pneumonia.
“The full impact of the bots was subterranean and corrosive,” Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, told McClatchy in an interview. “The distribution channels were being flooded with this information. . . . We perhaps underestimated the strategy of pushing fake news out through social media and how it impacted the race.”
FBI’s Russian-influence probe includes a look at far-right news sites**
Federal investigators are examining whether far-right news sites played any role last year in a Russian cyber operation that dramatically widened the reach of news stories — some fictional — that favored Donald Trump’s presidential bid, two people familiar with the inquiry say.
Operatives for Russia appear to have strategically timed the computer commands, known as “bots,” to blitz social media with links to the pro-Trump stories at times when the billionaire businessman was on the defensive in his race against Democrat Hillary Clinton, these sources said.
The bots’ end products were largely millions of Twitter and Facebook posts carrying links to stories on conservative internet sites such as Breitbart News and InfoWars, as well as on the Kremlin-backed RT News and Sputnik News, the sources said. Some of the stories were false or mixed fact and fiction, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the bot attacks are part of an FBI-led investigation into a multifaceted Russian operation to influence last year’s elections.
Investigators examining the bot attacks are exploring whether the far-right news operations took any actions to assist Russia’s operatives. Their participation, however, wasn’t necessary for the bots to amplify their news through Twitter and Facebook.
An FBI spokesman declined to comment on the inquiry into the use of bots.
Russia-generated bots are one piece of a cyber puzzle that counterintelligence agents have sought to solve for nearly a year to determine the extent of the Moscow government’s electronic broadside.
“This may be one of the most highly impactful information operations in the history of intelligence,” said one former U.S. intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
**
Bureau director James Comey confirmed Monday at a House Intelligence Committee hearing what long has been reported: t`hat the FBI is investigating possible links between individuals in the Trump presidential campaign and the Russian campaign to influence the election and whether there was any coordination between the two.**
U.S. intelligence agencies charged in January that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered the offensive, in which cyber operatives also hacked tens of thousands of emails from Democratic National Committee staff, Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta and other Democrats.
As for the bots, they carried links not only to news stories but also to Democratic emails posted on WikiLeaks, especially those hacked from Podesta and made public in October, said Philip Howard, a professor at the Oxford University Internet Institute who has researched the bot attacks.
Howard said that, as an example, bots had spread links to fictional stories that accused Clinton of involvement in running a child-sex ring in the basement of a Washington pizza parlor. The posts inspired a North Carolina man to drive to Washington and fire an assault weapon in the restaurant, according to police reports.
Russia also used “trolls,” hundreds of computer operatives who pretended to be Trump supporters and posted stories or comments on the internet complimentary to Trump or disparaging to Clinton. Sources close to the inquiry said those operatives likely worked from a facility in St. Petersburg, Russia, dedicated to that tactic.
“Russian bots and internet trolls sought to propagate stories underground,” said Mike Carpenter, a former senior Pentagon official during the Obama administration whose job focused on Russia. “Those stories got amplified by fringe elements of our media like Breitbart.”
“They very carefully timed release of information to shift the news cycle away from stories that clearly hurt Mr. Trump, such as his inappropriate conduct over the years,” he said, referring to the October release of a video in which Trump bragged about grabbing women’s genitals. That event corresponded with a surge in bot-related traffic spreading anti-Clinton stories.
An additional Russian tool was the news from its prime propaganda machine, Russia Today, with a global television and digital media operation and a U.S. arm, RT America.
Last Nov. 19, Breitbart announced that its website traffic had set a record the previous 31 days with 300 million page views, driven substantially by social media.
Breitbart, which has drawn criticism for pursuing a white nationalist agenda, was formerly led by Stephen Bannon, who became chief executive officer of Trump’s election campaign last August and now serves as Trump’s strategic adviser in the White House. The news site’s former national security editor, Sebastian Gorka, was a national security adviser to Trump’s campaign and presidential transition team. He now works as a key Trump counterterrorism adviser.
Boosted by bots, the surge in readership for such websites amplified Clinton’s negatives. Some stories falsely described her health problems as dire. Jones said Monday that people gravitated to his website “because we were the first to report Hillary Clinton falling down.” He referred to Clinton appearing to collapse last Sept. 11 after visiting the World Trade Center memorial. She was diagnosed with pneumonia.
“The full impact of the bots was subterranean and corrosive,” Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, told McClatchy in an interview. “The distribution channels were being flooded with this information. . . . We perhaps underestimated the strategy of pushing fake news out through social media and how it impacted the race.”
S
Sophie_Lawrence
Guest
Hmmm. I was reading various news snippets about bots on twitter. I remember an article in a tech publication that showed lots of profiles were bots. They’d have a picture and a name but would post articles frequently, more so than a human could do. A lot of the bots weee posting “alt-right” articles. I can’t remember the publication . But I read this before the election.
I do remember the conspiracy theories regarding Hillary’s health as well. The pen that was a syringe. The body double. She seems all better now. She’s been hiking all over westchester. Unless bill was out with her body double. Maybe Hillary has a secret twin?
google.com/amp/s/www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/506072/
Found an article from then. I’m not sure if this is the specific one I read.
I do remember the conspiracy theories regarding Hillary’s health as well. The pen that was a syringe. The body double. She seems all better now. She’s been hiking all over westchester. Unless bill was out with her body double. Maybe Hillary has a secret twin?
google.com/amp/s/www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/506072/
Found an article from then. I’m not sure if this is the specific one I read.
A
Abynissa
Guest
Very scary…newer bots are AI driven, more sophisticated. It’s becoming harder to determine if you are having a discussion with a real person or a programmable bot. It will destroy democracy as they can take on a facade that appeals to you to get you to vote a certain way…
M
Michael68
Guest
Oh my! Still can’t accept the fact Hillary lost fair and square! Now its bots! ROFL
M
Michael68
Guest
The excuses for Hillary’s loss are becoming more paranoid!!! So now, we are supposed to believe that liberal posters were persuaded by bot posters, wait, Russian bot posters and these poor gullible liberals voted for Trump or at least voted against Hillary?
And yall think Trump is crazy??? LOL
And yall think Trump is crazy??? LOL
J
joshman1
Guest
This thread is about wiretapping. It’s been conclusively proven to be baseless.
M
Michael68
Guest
Tell that to the one who put up the goofy bot story
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BoomBoomMancini
Guest
You’re becoming self parody. Are you a bot that posts variations on the same thing over and over?
M
Michael68
Guest
Bots are new to me.
M
Michael68
Guest
More paranoia, this one thinks Im a bot!!! ROFL
J
joshman1
Guest
Whatever man, its just that you’ve been confronted with evidence that this story is simply completely made up, and you’re chasing random threads/arguments.
Just let it go, admit Trump was wrong.
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Michael68
Guest
If there is Russia investigation, are wire taps or other surveillance being used? How is this investigation you so dearly want being conducted? Obviously surveillance of several types are being used. And he might be wrong about the type of surveillance , but not the fact there is surveillance.
- Status