Report: Cambridge Analytica accused of violating US election laws in new legal action – ABC News – https://t.co/yurk9LBcgx via @ABC
— Robert Gifford (@robjgifford) March 26, 2018
All this… seems significant. You more technologically adept people want to explain why it is or isn’t?
Wow. Brilliant new technical details here. Gizmodo has found the code. Proof that AIQ – the company which worked for Vote Leave in Brexit – built Cambridge Analytica's tech. Also Ted Cruz's and the Osnovo party in Ukraine. https://t.co/GCBWwH84r6 via @gizmodo
— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) March 26, 2018
I found Bannon's tools.
Facebook ad tools, scrapers, targeting scripts, etc.
Federal authorities have it all now.
Smoking gun evidence involving foreign influence in US elections.
Reports going up momentarily at: https://t.co/nLj8P5DeaG and https://t.co/ZjfGvuXqsx pic.twitter.com/B9uPUHX0KZ— Chris Vickery (@VickerySec) March 26, 2018
Facebook’s privacy practices are being investigated by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, as Bloomberg reported last week.
At issue: Facebook's handling of personal user data that was transferred to Cambridge Analytica without users’ knowledge. https://t.co/t36yfb0oGR
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) March 26, 2018
The Cambridge Analytica scandal is about failing to protect the privacy of users’ data, writes Susan Landau. "And Facebook is in no position to change that, for the sharing of user data lies at the heart of Facebook’s business," she says. https://t.co/qKehVVVSIS
— Lawfare (@lawfareblog) March 26, 2018
a BIG implication in this NOT TO BE MISSED:
Federal complaints against #CambridgeAnalytica raise potential criminal liability for members of Trump, Kruz campaigns—plus #Mercers, #JohnBolton's PAC, #Bannon—who may have "aided and abetted" Analytica:https://t.co/XC87Ucyifn
— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) March 26, 2018
Corner Stone
But I’m sure there’s not much here and CA is an overblown part of it all.
VeniceRiley
That Vickery tweet looks to be a blockbuster, if the feds know what to do with it.
schrodingers_cat
@Corner Stone: Their magical data claims are overblown. They are just good old fashioned thieves and crooks.
Elizabelle
And rumors that Paul Ryan is stepping down as Speaker? Uh huh.
I want this scandal to take all the bad Republicans out. McConnell, Ryan, all of them. Treason. Bolton never to set foot in the White House because he is radioactive, and in position to interfere with the investigation.
This was treason, and it has to hurt. I want prison time, and massive forfeitures.
Another Scott
But I’m sure Gore and Obama did the exact same things, so we might as well move along…
:-/
Seriously, this whole thing has sounded hinky to me as soon as I heard CambAnal was a UK company back in, what the spring/summer of 2016?. Foreigners aren’t supposed to mess with US elections. Full stop. Why has it taken so long for this to come out??
Cheers,
Scott.
Wag
@VeniceRiley:
Mueller is on it, I’m sure.
Corner Stone
@schrodingers_cat: I don’t see how one can come to that conclusion at this point.
Feebog
Would be beyond sweet if Ted Cruz were dragged down by this.
Elizabelle
The White House and the MSM just want to talk about Stormy Daniels.
Elizabelle
@Feebog: Yes. I think his face is quite imprisonable.
jl
I’m curious about how much dirty stuff the GOP members of the FEC can ignore. Talkingpointsmemo blog reported that they blocking investigation into where NRA got it’s money for the 2016 election.
Corner Stone
Is Papa Doc’s fiance/wife a supermodel?
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
The NYT must be so jealous right now of Gizmodo.
Brachiator
Cambridge Analytica’s best legal defense may turn out to be that they were a con, a Ponzi scheme meant to dupe people into paying big money for services that could never deliver on their inflated promises. The Mercers would be implicated in this as well.
Otherwise, this stuff is breaking so fast that the tech news sites don’t have much on it yet.
Corner Stone
@Elizabelle:
A solid chunk, if not a majority, of the GOP are all guilty as sin in this whole mess. One reason they haven’t said Peeps about any of this.
geg6
@Elizabelle:
You know what? That’s fine with me. That allows the investigation to keep digging out of the spotlight. And when Mueller decides to pull the trigger, he’ll make an even bigger splash because no one was paying attention.
Elizabelle
@geg6: That’s true. Team Mueller is professional.
Team big media exists to enthrall.
Baud
How long until Balloon Juice falls?
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
The tide truly does seem to be turning on this mess. It’s all coming apart now. Tick tock.
Corner Stone
I like Ari Melber but sometimes he just r e a c h e s for a rap lyric to work into his conversations.
randy khan
Since it’s an open thread, the local DC news radio station is reporting that the shooter at Great Mills High School actually killed himself; it wasn’t the school resource officer shooting him.
Sad either way.
Millard Filmore
@schrodingers_cat:
Cambridge Analytica might be overselling what they themselves can do, but its looking increasingly likely they were a conduit for pumping data over to Russian intelligence groups. I have great faith that Putin’s men would know what to do with that treasure.
Major Major Major Major
Am I missing something? It looks like they just identified CA’s contractor, which they then linked to the Leave campaign and some shady Ukrainians, which CA was already linked to.
The big Facebook news in this neck of the woods is that they were collecting texts and calls on Android devices, which spills over into Google since they left that backdoor there.
Mary G
It seems so arrogant how they really didn’t even try to hide this stuff, but almost bragged about it. I like it coming out in drips and drabs every week like this, instead of one big blockbuster Mueller indictment, cause it’s like water eroding a bank. The Republican party is like a house by the sea that used to have a big back yard but now the patio is the new cliff edge.
Brachiator
@Elizabelle:
This is good. Unfortunately, there will be more bad Republicans eager to take their places.
Baud
@randy khan: Many wingnut talking points would be sad if they weren’t going to just ignore that info.
germy
@Corner Stone:
Because in the hidden camera footage, he goes right into “We can get beautiful ladies to blackmail politicians” rather than “We have data-based tools”
piratedan
supposedly if you drill down into the Vickery thread, it appears to implicate that Bannon was working with the CambAnal folks in developing the tools to use the data “stolen/obtained” to target election driven news and ads, be they real of fake. The “missing” dot showing that this was supposedly all part and parcel of the plan. the Russians came in and jump started the process with their cash and bots and the US side directed it to the targets sifted through the data analysis. This kind of shit doesn’t just show up on your phone as “there an App for that!”, this is planned social media warfare… granted it’s not as sexy as who’s fucking who… but if the posts are accurate, they show that Bannon knew well what he was doing and directing, which puts all of this shit firmly inside the Trump campaign and the GOP itself.
They’re all dirty Katie, every last one of them…
germy
Look, guys. We’re all family here in Balloon-Juice, let’s keep this to ourselves.
This is an off the record . . . No leaks! . . . All right? This is how we know we’re a real family here.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major: Not really a back door. Older versions of Android had poor permissions controls, and no one who installed Facebook said no to them. Basically, it was buried in the fine print.
different-church-lady
Repeat:
I’m sure someone will be along shortly to explain how this was all totally worth it because they didn’t have to go to multiple webpages or something.
Gravenstone
@Elizabelle: Fuck prison. For the principal actors, hanged by the neck until dead. Ideally with the bodies left up to rot.
gene108
Heh.,. Saw an ad for a movie called “Chappaquidick” about Ted Kennedy crashing into a lake, and having his passenger die.
I want to make a movie about the time Laura Bush ran a stop sign and killed the person driving it to be fair and balanced.
Corner Stone
@germy: That’s how we know we’re a family. Right?
cosima
@Baud: How can we be sure that the Baud 2016 campaign wasn’t up to their eyeballs in Cambridge Analytica pilfered data? Targeting the impressionable & easily-swayed Juicers? And influencing Brexit.
different-church-lady
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
Why? What did Gizmodo do to prevent a Hillary presidency?
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: Yeah, I meant a non-obvious door which is open, not that Google specifically built a secret entrance for them. Should have just said ‘door’ I guess.
Baud
@gene108: Waiting for liberal Hollywood to make the movie about Reagan negotiating with the Iranians behind Carter’s back.
Corner Stone
@germy: The pervy guys at the top are hilarious. But IMO the amount of evidence is making it fairly clear that somebody scraped a fuckton of data. And then that somebody or other somebodies used that data in multiple campaigns/elections. All with nefarious intent.
different-church-lady
@Baud: We’re rising below it all.
Major Major Major Major
@Corner Stone: we know the data was collected, that’s not in question.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@germy: As Hope Hicks said, don’t worry. It will never get out.
Jeez. I used to teach professional communication and I always taught that once something is in writing, anyone can read it. Anyone.
les
@different-church-lady:
‘Cause we won’t sink to their level.
Baud
@cosima:
Shouldn’t you be taking Little C out to ride Friesians and not asking such pesky questions?
NotMax
@Baud
Balloon Juice cannot fall, it can only be felled.
Or something.
;)
retr2327
@Corner Stone: Sometimes? It’s more like he’s contractually required to do it once a day. It virtually never works well enough to justify the effort. He’s otherwise pretty good.
different-church-lady
So. Apparently FB used to suck up your call and text data if you pushed the wrong inscrutable buttons the wrong way:
https://gizmodo.com/facebook-s-defense-for-sucking-up-your-call-and-text-da-1824072352
Let’s review here:
* Work as hard as you can to make your “platform” indispensible
* Obscure and alter the privacy settings for your “platform” on a regular basis
* Disguise your data harvesting behind NEW FEATURE!!!
* Be totally sloppy about the data once you have it.
And nobody can figure out why some people don’t think it’s all just innocent fun?
Major Major Major Major
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):
Well, not trump—they have to be able to read at all.
gene108
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
Nah.,.Gozmodo still doesn’t have the same access to the Trump Administration that the NYT does and the NYT values access over everything else, including good reporting
debbie
@schrodingers_cat:
Like Wall Street for the younger set.
retr2327
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): I’m not sure Trump can read at all . . .
Sorry – I see that I was beaten to it –
Major Major Major Major
@different-church-lady: yep, that one’s gonna be a BFD. Management housecleaning level of BFD possibly.
rikyrah
@Elizabelle:
I hear you. Come sit by me
maya
None of this would have happened if they had chosen Oxford Analytic…..
rikyrah
@Corner Stone:
He really does ?
debbie
@different-church-lady:
Mark Zuckerberg makes Gordon Gekko look like a piker.
Arclite
How does what CA did differ from the Obama campaigns use of FB data?
germy
Will Rebekah M. be compelled to testify?
I don’t think I’ve ever heard her voice. I find her oddly fascinating in a horrible sort of way.
efgoldman
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
That presumes they recognize real journamilism when they see it. Or care about it.
Major Major Major Major
@Arclite: CA wasn’t allowed to collect it in the first place.
germy
@Arclite:
Obama’s team didn’t use info to target voters with deliberate misinformation. And as far as I know, no beautiful Ukrainian women were involved.
Calouste
@Major Major Major Major: Meh. Google had their Google Streetview cars going around hoovering up all the open WiFi traffic they came across and they blamed it on an engineer and down the memory hole it went.
SiubhanDuinne
@piratedan:
I want every one of these fucking traitors to lose everything they have and spend the rest of their miserable lives in prison, but there are a few I’d single out for special treatment. Jared, Stone, and Bannon top that list at the moment.*
*(Subject to change without notice.)
Brachiator
@Arclite:
The simple version:
More details here.
BTW, Ted Cruz was the among the first Republicans suckered by Cambridge Analytica into trying to use their stuff.
cosima
@Baud: Already done today. But it was a Welsh Cobb. Just trying to get to the bottom of Baud 2016’s ties to BoJo & Nigel, as I’m still a bit fashed about the Brexit thing.
Seriously, though, there was the lovely MP in England who was attacked and murdered by a rabid-Brexiteer. And while I know it’s not going to bring her back, or be of solace to her widower & child(ren), there were real-world hate crimes that played out over Brexit, and those people need to be held accountable. Much as the OFC has enabled the radical RWNJs who have committed countless crimes. The f*ckers who did this to put him in office have blood on their hands! I’m through with Zuckerberg’s bullshit, and I want them all to be examined to within an inch of their lives, and to pay, with money, and with jail time.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
You’re just itching to start Baud Juice, aren’t you?
? Martin
@Baud:
I don’t believe that’s quite the case, nor will it be interpreted that way.
When Facebook/Android asked to use your contacts, that doesn’t imply that they can grab all of the metadata for all of your outgoing and incoming calls and texts. Nobody would reasonably assume that permission should extend from that question.
Further, the question is then whether information like that was opened up to CA. It’s bad enough that was scraped by the Facebook app, but was it then shared so that CA could build out Trumps calling list from that information. If Facebook is able to identify you as a conservative based on explicit and implicit content, it would be reasonable to assume that your contacts are more likely to be conservative, and since that data is linked by phone number it’s now geographic, which allows this comic to stop being funny.
Jay
@Arclite:
Obama’s FB campaign:
– used data volenteered by users, Anal stole data
– used data to organize and mobilize voters, Anal used it to ratfuck using lies and mobilize hate,
– protected users data, Anal gave it to the Russians to help them ratfuck
– was run by Americans in accordance with US Election Laws, Anal illegally used Foreigners including Russians and illegally coordinated with PAC’s
just to name a few minor differences.
Major Major Major Major
@Calouste: “Facebook has a database of all your text messages” has a little more resonance than “Google collected something you, reader, don’t really understand”.
@Jay: No, they both collected data ‘volunteered’ by users in the same way; CA lied about who they were and what it was for, and lied about destroying it once caught.
Mary G
Link to 1985 interview of Linda Brown of Brown vs. Board of Education (no paywall).Not very long, but interesting. They actually thought the school the black children had to go to was a good school, but it was a very long way from her home.
Roger Moore
@Millard Filmore:
They were also apparently lying about how little data they had to work with. One of the things they were claiming was that they could put together a good profile of someone from just a handful of data points. It sure looks as if part of their secret sauce was getting much more data than that.
Baud
@? Martin:
I’m not sure how detailed the disclosure was for those who went searching for it. The newer versions of Android are more granular in their permissions control.
Do we have any evidence that Facebook shared its data? I thought CA gathered the data itself from its Facebook survey.
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
Remember Wayland Flowers and Madame? Rebekah Mercer’s sharp-edged face reminds me of Madame.
Who was a papier-mâché puppet, BTW.
gene108
@Baud:
Why not about Nixon sabotaging the 1968 Vietnam peace talks?
That has been verified as science fact.
No speculation needed.
Baud
@gene108: Good here. I thought the Reagan thing had been verified too.
PJ
@gene108: Not just any person, it was her ex-boyfriend. I’m sure it was just a freak accident.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud:
The text data? I don’t think so, though the story is young.
That is the current understanding.
lamh36
Baud
@cosima: Sounds good to me.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mary G:
Sound is down so I didn’t hear it, but it looked as though CBS Evening News did a nice tribute to Linda Brown.
RIP, Ms Brown. The difference your bravery made to this country is incalculable.
Baud
@Baud: He hasn’t beat a wife in 3 weeks!
Schlemazel
@randy khan:
Apparently the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is if a bad guy with a gun
Jay
@Major Major Major Major:
Nope, Anal started with a 270,000 user data set, stolen from Cambridge by the GRU linked Russian Kogan, then used that to steal another 5 million raw data sets from FB, ( it’s still stealing if the doors not locked),
Then used other methods, ( and maybe some more stealing) to up it to 280,000,000 raw data sets.
PJ
@different-church-lady: But it’s so convenient!
These apps and devices have been engineered to make us dependent on them, and to like it, even when they use us and our information for unsavory ends. Turns out the future is much more like Brave New World than 1984 (though, in the end, we will all love Big Brother.)
SiubhanDuinne
@lamh36:
Rob Porter? SRSLY??
GTFOOH Maggie.
gene108
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):
What if the person’s handwriting is really, really bad?
ruemara
I just hope they have a wonderful time blowing lots of money on their defenses, commit even more offenses, and lose every cent, every freedom, even their names.
yeah, I am in such a good mood today.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
No. Analytica used the survey as an excuse to get access to people’s Facebook profiles, then used that access to hoover up not just all of their Facebook data but all their friends’ data, too.
Major Major Major Major
@Jay: CA got 50 million users’ information from that 270k by taking advantage of the then-policy at Facebook that, if the user gave you adequate permissions, you could mine their friends’ data too. It was a common practice at the time. Tinder took shit for it.
The 270k wasn’t stolen either—they set up a crappy survey which people took and authorized.
ETA they did lie about what the survey was for and violate FB’s TOS, but none of this was “stolen by the GRU”
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@gene108: When I first started teaching, students turned in handwritten essays. I learned to make out handwriting that looks like hieroglyphics.
Mnemosyne
Republicans: “Wait, you mean that receiving stolen goods is illegal? Who knew?”
Baud
@Roger Moore:
They got it from Facebook the service, since I presume the service is set up to allow anyone to collect that information. But the text messages that were collected were not part of the service, so my question was wnether Facebook actually sells the proprietary data it collects from users.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jay:
I want Apple to buy the company so they can introduce their latest device, the IANAL.
Mary G
@SiubhanDuinne: Can’t remember where I saw it, probably Twitter, and can’t find it now, but apparently she had to have the same fight all over again in 1979 with her own child or children, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Topeka’s schools weren’t almost as segregated today, with the white kids homeschooled or in private schools and Betsy DeVos trying to starve the public schools with all the brown kids.
different-church-lady
@PJ: I think the best example is the end of Vonnegut’s first novel, Player Piano: after convincing the now obsolite working class to smash the automated infrastructure that has robbed them of their livelyhood, the elite leaders of the revolution look on in astonishment as the proles immediately start rebuilding it of their own accord just to entertain themselves.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@PJ:
It was. Snopes:
It was a small town, so it’s not terribly surprising that the driver and victim knew each other, and he wasn’t her ex-boyfriend.
Look, I despise the Bushes – ALL Bushes – as much as anyone, but furthering this kind of conspiracy shit is beneath us.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne:
Vice President Fence.
Bobby Thomson
So Eagles of Death Metal committed seppuku.
? Martin
@different-church-lady:
I’ll come slight to Facebooks defense here. Facebook really is indispensable in many parts of the world. It allows for a few problems to get solved:
Uniform identity. The US is developed enough that we have a lot of reasonably good proxies for identity outside of what the government provides. Your email and/or phone number are commonly used. But in a lot of countries those were luxuries, and because they had no uniform identity, their ability to organize and communicate were very limited. Phone numbers are expensive, but Facebook gave you a free ID that was more flexible and easier to use than email. In some countries Facebook is synonymous with the internet. It is where commerce happens, where all storefronts are, etc. Facebook provided the necessary infrastructure for these countries to step forward, and it has been hugely successful.
Facebook is for all of it’s faults one important piece to that and we need to find a way to not destroy that. It’s easy to not use Facebook in the US. It’s impossible to not use it in certain parts of the world. And that’s not Facebook doing something weasely, its them seeing a broad communication problem and generally providing pretty effective tools to meet it, and they do deserve credit for that.
The interconnectedness of Facebook (and other social media) are key benefits, but there needs to be a better balance, and more user control. I agree with the criticism of hiding their controls. That’s a widespread problem in the industry, btw, so shouldn’t be limited to them. And given that they have one of the largest datasets on the planet – more than almost any government – they are completely dismissive of the level of responsibility that comes with that. And if we’re going to be critical of Facebook for not anticipating CAs misuse of their data, we need to also be critical of Google for not anticipating Facebooks misuse of your device data on android.
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
@Major Major Major Major:
If I were the US attorney prosecuting the case, I would make sure to locate the judge’s information among all of the stolen data and present it as evidence. I think that might override any Butbutbut you accepted the TOC! defense by Facebook.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
The Daily Beast is reporting that two more lawyers turned Trump down: Dan Webb and Tom Buchanan.
different-church-lady
@? Martin: How on earth is having a solitary
privateUS corporation in that position a good thing?I mean, does this sound like digital colonization to anyone but me?
*(Obviously FB is a publicly traded company, my mistake)
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):
I hate to say it, but Big Law has been impressive in its refusal to deal with Trump.
Jay
@Major Major Major Major:
Yup, but the GRU linked Russian researcher, Kogan stole both the quiz and the origional 270,000 data sets from Cambridge University and sold it to CA.
CA then exploited the “loopholes” in the origional stolen data sets permissions settings to steal the additional 50,000,000 raw data sets.
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: I should hope a non-appelate judge wouldn’t be in the business of overriding precedent that says that if you accepted the TOC, you’re SOL.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mary G:
It is sickening.
It is infuriating.
It is saddening.
It is terrifying.
It is heartbreaking.
It is disgusting.
It is frustrating.
It is enraging.
And I’m an old white woman. I honestly can’t even fathom what this struggle, this incessant repetition, must be like for people of color.
Roger Moore
@? Martin:
That doesn’t make me any more favorably inclined toward them. When a company has succeeded in making itself indispensable, it’s time to start regulating them as a public utility, not letting them behave as a pseudo-government allowed to follow its own rules.
Jeffro
@germy:
“Horrible” being exactly the right adjective here.
I’m not all that fascinated by her, because she radiates “anything for The Cause…anything to win” even just from the few printed features I’ve read about her. ‘The Cause’ being extreme right-wing fundy politics as usual.
SiubhanDuinne
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):
Never heard of either of them, but on this basis I’d be happy to have them father my babies.
*******
Okay, but at least sit next to me at dinner.
Kathleen
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: NYT jealous of a publication that investigates, analyzes and produces real news? Nah. They’re too focused on Fascist fluffing while poised to pounce on “The Pivot”.
gene108
@Baud:
As far as I know, Carter negotiated the release of the hostages, everything should have been good to go, but who for reasons no one can verify, sat around for days, before their plane for the USA took off and coincidentally landed on the day of Reagan’s inauguration.
Speculation is that Reagan fucked with the final take off to make him look good.
Given how many Nixon flunkies were in his Administration and were all in for emulating Tricky Dick Nixon’s bag of dirty tricks, there is good bet by our side his people made sure the hostages would not reach US soil while Carter was President
Jeffro
@Mnemosyne:
They’re about to discover that just because it was carried out via hacking, emails, and social media data, DOESN’T absolve them* of what they did/abetted/etc. Stealing is stealing. Abetting is abetting. Conspiracy against the United States is still conspiracy against the United States.
*also: it’s still illegal if you do it to Hillary Clinton/Dems.
Major Major Major Major
Tests all running green, time to clock out for the day. Freedom!
Mary G
@SiubhanDuinne: I know, I always think that the FSM didn’t make me black or Latinox or Asian because I just don’t have the grace it takes to not just go postal on a way too large segment of society.
Jeffro
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):
And here I would just like to repeat the gleeful thought I had in the afternoon open thread: Trumpov may well be the first US president to require a court-appointed public defender, at the rate at which he’s being turned down.
Which is odd, for an “innocent” “billionaire”. And considering how not-hard it is to get lawyers in general to defend most ANYONE for a hefty fee and a shitload of free publicity.
(still looking for a good hashtag here, folks…#GetTrumpAPublicDefender?)
SiubhanDuinne
@Jeffro:
I am in love with those quotation marks.
ETA: Also too, “Tom Buchanan” is straight out of Gataby.
schrodingers_cat
@Millard Filmore:
On this we agree.
Kathleen
@Gravenstone: I vote for each one contracting terminal illness, losing all of the money, and being forced to beg on street corners as they drown in their own puke, pee and poo. The normal punishments are not tortuous or humiliating enough.
Kathleen
@cosima: What does Poco know and when did he know it?
PJ
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: Eh, that Snopes piece is written to let Laura Bush off the hook, and based only on her statements more than 4 decades later. Here’s another, less generous, version of the story based on the same facts: https://www.thedailybeast.com/behind-laura-bushs-car-crash
Schlemazel
@gene108:
There is some evidence of a former CIA director (who just happen to be St. Ronnies VP) meeting with Iranian representatives in Europe prior to the election
Just one more canuck
@Baud: Balloon Juice cannot fail – it can only be failed
PJ
@Baud: Well, they like to be paid, and not pulled into unethical situations by their clients. There is no upside to working for Trump for anyone who has a reputation.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
With a reminder that neither of us are lawyers, a quick Google seems to indicate that it ain’t that simple, and these days courts seem to rule on the side of consumers who were not acting fraudulently most of the time.
So It was in the TOC! is not going to be as much of a defense here as Facebook may have thought, especially when we’re talking about data that was taken and sold to a foreign government.
Baud
@gene108: Thanks. I’ll be cautious about asserting his interference as a verified fact.
Kathleen
@SiubhanDuinne: Brava. From another old white woman.
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: I know it’s not cut and dried but the cases in that link actually bear out that a properly highlighted click through TOS would be a pretty good defense, regardless of how the data was actually used, since if I sell, I don’t know, a crowbar to a stagehand, it’s not my fault he turns out to be a serial killer with it.
Roger Moore
@Jeffro:
For some reason, this made me think of the following quote:
I hope that winds up on Trump’s tombstone.
Roger Moore
@PJ:
And there’s definitely no upside to working for Trump for anyone who doesn’t get paid in advance.
PJ
@gene108: @Baud: Here’s an CIA agent who says Reagan did make a deal: http://www.newsweek.com/2016/05/06/duane-dewey-clarridge-october-surprise-spies-cia-451611.html. The timeline in this Wiki article is pretty convincing, and it definitely sounds like something Bill Casey would have done: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_Surprise_conspiracy_theory#Investigations
Anonymous At Work
Much much bigger news: George Nader’s testimony to Mueller
https://www.yahoo.com/news/mueller-probe-witness-secretly-backed-uae-agenda-congress-135815088–politics.html
A top fundraiser for President Donald Trump received millions of dollars from a political adviser to the United Arab Emirates last April, just weeks before he began handing out a series of large political donations to U.S. lawmakers considering legislation targeting Qatar, the UAE’s chief rival in the Persian Gulf, an Associated Press investigation has found.
SiubhanDuinne
Heh, just now noticed the typo in Anne Laurie’s thread title.
gene108
@? Martin:
How do you access Facebook without an internet enabled device?
Internet enabled cell phones have become common place around the world. Governments encourage companies to set-up cell towers.
The cheapness of internet enabled cell phones is what had helped people get connectivity. Facebook may help, but without the cellphone boom of the last 15 years, it wouldn’t matter how awesome Facebook is. People would have no way to access it.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
No, but if it turns out that he also stole your customer file to choose his victims and you didn’t report it to the police, you will probably find yourself in some legal trouble as an accessory even if you claim you didn’t know he was going to commit a crime with the stolen information.
And, perhaps more to the point, the families of the victims might have a case for saying you should have protected your customers’ information better even if you say that it was right in the contract that you could sell their information at any time.
Uncle Cosmo
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): Even the evil rich barstid in The Great Gatsby? Impressive! (I guess Daisy objected…)
@SiubhanDuinne: I hate you with the hatred of billions & billions of suns…
Jay
@Baud:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_Surprise_conspiracy_theory
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: from my understanding Facebook did consider the information stolen, and did report it, and did come after them.
ETA standard disclaimer that I am not defending these people
gene108
@Schlemazel:
Yeah, but so far nothing has shaken out that is as conclusive as what was found by a historian rummaging through the Nixon library a few years back. There is still a lot of plausible deniability on the Republican side.
Gvg
@Major Major Major Major: I think you could convince a jury or judge you didn’t know the stagehand was a killer, but have less success convincing anyone about the Russians
Washburn
It has been clear to anyone paying attention that Facebook is an irresponsible complaint any that puts profits before anything else.
But even with recent revelations there are still million ms of fuckeads who keep using it. “But how will keep up with high school classmates???”
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
Or, shorter me, I’m pretty sure that a defense of Hey, we didn’t know that our customer data was going to be re-sold to the Russians! is not going to go over very well since Facebook already blew that defense by sending “fixers” to the CambAnal offices in London to try and erase their data. That tends to show a consciousness of guilt that most judges will find a little suspicious.
Ryan
So what happened after the burglars were caught at the Watergate? Trump seems intent on re-enacting the Nixon administration.
Fair Economist
@Arclite:
Collected it illegally and without permission.
Used it illegally, working with foreigners.
Shared it illegally with other entities.
Worked with the Russians.
Additional significant differences to come, I think. There’s going to be campaign finance violations with CambAnal too.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
I don’t remember getting an email from Facebook like I did from, say, DSW informing me that there had been a data breach and I should take steps to protect myself, but I only just joined in 2015.
Jeffro
@Roger Moore: well, I certainly will be happy to write it in the snow that covers his grave… it might take me quite a few Bud lights, but I would hate to leave out a word or anything
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: yeah, that part is super weird. So weird that I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop before I make too many assumptions but it certainly doesn’t look good.
@Gvg: right, but in this case FB was selling to the stagehand, who was a legitimate stagehand in addition to reselling the crowbar to murdering Russians.
Metaphors are hard!
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: that’s the thing, it wasn’t a breach. The data was all obtained in accordance with the TOS. I don’t think they have any obligation to tell you under current law.
Fair Economist
@Major Major Major Major:
There are already two ways we know they stole the data:
1) They were taking the data under a academic exemption, but using it for other purposes
2) They were sharing the data with the GRU.
Given how hard they were pushing I’m sure they had other violations of the TOC.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
We may be at the point where an actual lawyer needs to weigh in, but it does look like, right now, judges tend to lean towards consumers more than tech companies when it comes to this stuff. IIRC, judges in a civil case can decide that the contract terms are too unfair to one side and void it, which would leave Facebook in a world of hurt.
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: always a good idea to get an actual lawyer involved! Wasn’t thinking about a civil case, I imagine they could be in deep shit there.
@Fair Economist: I feel like “russians stole my data” is an unhelpful narrative when it’s academics acquiring your data with legal, industry-standard collection methods who then allegedly sell it to the Russians. The scandal in this case is about Facebook, not the GRU’s data-theft operation.
jl
@Fair Economist: Not clear they observed the terms of the academic exemption either, if I understand it correctly. If a person gave permission to use their own data, how could all the other contacts’ data be swept up too? The contacts didn’t give informed consent at all.
And from what I read, the way FB handled informed consent for academic research was totally inadequate, laughable in fact. I’ve never heard of consent for an actual academic study being presented in such a sloppy and cursory, way. I’ve never heard of a case where any person or organization can get off the hook for allowing its resources to be used to collect data by just taking some outside organization’s word that will do what they say they’ll do. From what I read, it’s unclear whether FB ever had any written policies or checks, or safeguards, at all.
different-church-lady
@Ryan:
…the second time as farce.
different-church-lady
@Mnemosyne:
If only the consumers did too.
Jay
@Major Major Major Major:
Republican scandals are never “just one thing”.
Gin & Tonic
@? Martin:
Hold on, you’re serious?
different-church-lady
@jl: Eventually we’re going to need a law that does the obvious: gives a person legal ownership of their own identity.
polyorchnid octopunch
The upguard link is interesting. Another example of software and data left open on the internet. Compare the article in this post:
https://www.upguard.com/breaches/aggregate-iq-part-one
With this one about the RNC leak
https://www.upguard.com/breaches/the-rnc-files
This is looking more and more like a pattern. I think that these tools and data were all left lying around as a quid pro quo for some entity (koff koff Internet Research Agency) to be able to use the data and tools to target Western democracies in general and the US in particular on behalf of the far right wing, while maintaining plausible deniability (it was a mistake… honest!).
Put the AIQ tools together with the highly specific data set from the RNC and you’ve got kryptonite for US democracy.
I’m thinking I should maybe consider asking Upguard to probe the Canadian Party of Canada’s CIM database (our right wing nutjob party’s voter data set) to see if there’s a copy of it lying about too.
Major Major Major Major
@jl:
They authorized the app to access Facebook on their behalf. The ‘academics’ (or a corporation with the same permissions) could then access all their friends’ ‘friends-only’ information. This particular avenue of data mining has since been closed.
@polyorchnid octopunch:
Don’t forget the millions of racist credulous idiots.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
Again, not a lawyer, but I suspect that a class-action lawsuit could go pretty far because I doubt a reasonable person could read the TOC and assume that Facebook could sell your data and all of your friends’ data to anyone they want without your consent, and I think most judges would say that it’s unreasonable for Facebook to claim that people agreed to that when they signed up. Otherwise, Facebook is claiming that they can legally leave their customers wide-open to fraud … oh, look, that’s what actually happened, so it’s not even a hypothetical at this point.
Roger Moore
@Major Major Major Major:
It’s just like the financial crisis. The problem isn’t that they did something illegal; it’s that what they did is legal and shouldn’t be.
Major Major Major Major
@Roger Moore: exactly.
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne:
In this case they probably clicked a button that said they were authorizing it to “access Facebook on your behalf” or “granting full account access”. Not even fine print.
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
That’s why I’m thinking that this will most likely end up as a class-action lawsuit rather than a criminal case (unless the “cleaners” thing pans out). A civil court may be a little more amenable to saying that the “contract” was unfair to the consumer and is thus void because Facebook was not transparent about exactly who was purchasing the data.
Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ
Apparently some commenters are still wasting time blaming Facebook users instead of focusing on the people who took the data. That’s like spending all your time yelling at someone for forgetting to lock their door instead of the thief who entered and took their stuff. Victim blaming is as old as crime itself and it remains unhelpful.
jl
@Major Major Major Major: OK, thanks. I guess the term ‘academic exemption means something totally different from what, normally, informed consent to participate in academic research means, then.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
Right, but I think a civil court would probably side with the consumer who didn’t understand that clicking on that checkbox meant that the GRU would ultimately end up with their personal data.
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: ‘cleaners’ thing is fucking weird. I’m assuming it’s whatever the FB equivalent of the New York FBI office is.
Roger Moore
@Major Major Major Major:
¿Por que no los dos?
Though I do agree that Facebook violating their consent decree deserves a lot more attention than it’s gotten. They promised a court they would stop doing this shit and then went ahead and kept doing it. They need to pay a serious penalty for it.
Major Major Major Major
@jl: this was a standard data-scraping practice for corporations too.
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
Ah, I did not know that. Yes, I think that means that a judge is going to be a whole lot less likely to buy the But they clicked on the TOC! defense from Facebook if they’d agreed to stop doing this shit and kept on doing it anyway. That’s when judges start using words like “sanctions.”
BroD
I’m a 20th Century kind of guy, so haven’t figured out how working to understand how this could “take all the bad Republicans out.” All for that result though.
Fair Economist
@Major Major Major Major: There is a Facebook scandal and a CambAnal scandal which are connected but not the same. CambAnal was blatantly stomping on both US law and its agreements with Facebook and that scandal will have both legal *and* civil aspects. Facebook is less clear – they can claim they followed all the rules, but there are possible issues with excessively fine print (there are limits on what you can do with fine print, and that’s what these semihidden TOC are), negligence, and maybe even some active conspiracy. That’s all going to court to determine if there are actionable legal misdeeds and/or civil damages. They’re not doomed like CambAnal is but they’re not safe either.
BroD
@Major Major Major Major: “Metaphors are hard!”
LOL!
different-church-lady
@Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ: I’m blaming Facebook for their very successful, “Hey everyone, leave all your stuff on the sidewalk, we’ll watch it, honest!” campaign.
different-church-lady
@Roger Moore:
And look how well we cleaned all that up!
Uncle Ebeneezer
Anyone know if any of this would violate State election laws? Or can we count on Jeff Sessions DOJ do nothing and pardons all around even if he did?
SgrAstar
@Arclite: The Obama campaign didn’t use the data to pump disinformation into the system.
Adrift
@Mary G: Thank you for this.
Parfigliano
@Elizabelle: treason is a hanging offense
Jay
@BroD:
A large number of the downballot Republican Campaign’s also:
– relied on stolen property too,
– engaged with the Russian GRU, Anal, IRI in coordination and ratfucking too,
– engaged in Campaign Finance fraud with Anal, the Mercers, the Russians, the NRA and PAC’s as well.
frosty
@Fair Economist: What is TOC in this context? I figure TOS is Terms of Service but I can’t figure out why a Table of Contents is relevant. AutoIncorrect?
sukabi
@Mnemosyne: not to mention that the FB user data was taken in 2014 & 2015 and FB KNEW and did nothing until last week.
raven
We just watched the first episode of the Bhagwan Doc on Netflix, damn!
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Major Major Major Major: A few things about Facebook’s access permissions under Android:
For a long time (still?), you couldn’t install an app from the Play Store without agreeing to all the permissions it asked for. I adjust the permissions immediately after installation, but most people don’t know how to do that.
Many Android phones now come with Facebook pre-installed. I’m not sure what that does to the permissions since, as I said, I adjust permissions before running any app for the first time.
The reason FB demands those permissions is that it wants to replace the SMS app. Messenger has also tried to talk me into letting it replace the phone and contacts apps. I don’t think many people understand the implications of accepting the popup for that.
Elizabelle
To those of you who noted treason is a hanging offense: I want McConnell to swing. And he can have company. Vote them onto the gallows!
This was treason. Make him a big part of history.
NotMax
@raven
“Rajneesh!”
“Gesundheit!”
jonas
@Feebog: There’s a good piece up over at Mother Jones about how CA came into the Cruz campaign because Mercer was a big Cruz backer before moving over to Trump and steered the campaign towards CA as part of his patronage deal. TL;dr = it was basically a big grift. Big promises, little delivered. By the time Cruz’s people realized they’d been had, Mercer (and CA) had decided Trump was a better mark/nominee.
Jay
@Elizabelle:
Yurtle the Turtle and Paul Ryan chose treason when push came to shove.
Jay
@jonas:
Anal’s and SCO’s go to fall back for the past decade when they get caught violating election laws, has been “but it really doesn’t work”,
despite the fact they took Calgary Cruz from 3% to 35% in the Primaries.
Microtargetting works.
raven
@NotMax: I guess I was shootin hoop and partyin like it was 1999 then!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Since Android v6.0(Marshmallow), permissions need to be explicitly granted either when the app is installed or when it is first run. A dialog box comes up asking to grant each permission the app is requesting.
Another Scott
@Mnemosyne: The usual problem, of course, with hoping for legal consequences for huge companies like these when they damage people is – you give up your rights to a trial when you click the “I agree”. They want everything to go through arbitration (which is almost always more than slanted in their favor (and has no class-action version)).
Given the consent decree thing, maybe that isn’t an out for FB in this instance. But I’m sure FB’s lawyers are doing everything they can to minimize the chance that Zuckerberg and Sandberg and the rest have to do anything at all other than write “I’m sorry” on their walls 100 times…
Cheers,
Scott.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Right. What I’m not sure about is whether install still fails if you don’t accept each permission. It did at one time, so I got in the habit of saying yes to everything and then turning off the ones I didn’t want it to have after installation.
Most people would have said, “Oh, I can’t use FB without allowing it, and I need FB, so I guess I have to let it.”
NotMax
@Elizabelle
Fanstasyland. Treason is the only crime defined in the body of the Constitution and as a crime very specifically and narrowly laid out as to what is required for conviction. No person has ever been executed for treason by the U.S. federal government since the Constitution came into force. A small number of people have been convicted, most of those eventually pardoned or released.
Article III, Section 3:
A charge of conspiracy if much easier to levy, and prove, in court, given that it carries a wider latitude as to what constitutes evidence of that crime.
Fair Economist
@frosty: I think you are right and it should be TOS.
Uncle Ebeneezer
@raven: It’s soooooo good. Such a fascinating story.
different-church-lady
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
Just… fucking… EVIL.
jonas
@Jay: Well, maybe. Alexander Nix sure talked a good game. But from Andy Kroll in the MJ piece:
Jay
@jonas:
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/motherboard.vice.com/amp/en_us/article/mg9vvn/how-our-likes-helped-trump-win
NATO, the British MI5, the US National Security State, and many other Global Actors have used SCO to get the election results they wanted in no shortage of Countries.
Corporations spend billions of dollars every year on microtargetting to influence what toilet paper you buy.
Treason Twitler won the EC by 40,000 votes in 3 States.
SCO and Anal’s own “go to line”, the dozen times they have been caught “digital ratfucking”, is “but it really doesn’t work”.
Seeing their own “defence” parroted in half a dozen different media, verbatum, is bs.
Mnemosyne
@Another Scott:
Several of the cases on my link above involved judges voiding the arbitration clause if they felt it was unfair to the plaintiff, so if I were Facebook, I would not count on that clause being automatically upheld.
Another Scott
@Mnemosyne: Thanks. Good to know.
Cheers,
Scott.
Chet Murthy
[deleted b/c duplicative]