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Twitter Leaked Obama's Visit To Afghanistan
hypnosec writes "When you're the President of the United States, sometimes certain activities you're involved in can be hard to keep secret — and yesterday was no exception, after Twitter let it slip that Obama was secretly in Kabul. On Tuesday, the White House released a fabricated itinerary — consisting of all-day meetings in the Oval Office to cover up the fact that Obama was secretly flying to Afghanistan. Whilst only a few US journalists were aware of this event, by mid-morning, a lot more people were suddenly in on the revelation courtesy of Twitter. The first tweet to let the virtual cat out of the bag was Afghanistan news site TOLOnews which reported: 'United States President Barack Obama has arrived in Kabul to meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai.'"
I love to hate on twitter as much as the next slashdotter, but the summary makes it clear that the headline is incorrect and misleading, possibly to the point of damaging Twitter's reputation. What you *meant* to say was:
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Not to be confused with Col.
Just because someone used Twiiter to post something, doesn't make Twitter responsible for that post. Geez...how stupid to say that Twiiter leaked it.
And, US Govt had no idea...
Not sure what Twitter has to do with it. Presumably TOLOnews has a Web site they could have leaked the news on if they hadn't used Twitter?
You can no longer have things public in one part of the world and secret in another. Whether it's making different (politically convenient) statements at home and abroad, or opsec for something like this -- it doesn't work. You gotta keep it secret everywhere, or count on it being public everywhere. Maybe you'll get lucky and it won't come out, but you can't count on that anymore.
That said -- I'm not sure it was a "leak" in any opsec sense, or at least not the twitter part. If the local press were talking about it (on twitter or not), then it was (whether intended or not) public info in Afghanistan, which is the place you'd want it locked down. Maybe the press was supposed to be sitting on it for opsec reasons (protip: if you don't want the press talking about it, the only reliable solution is not telling them), but the fact that the world outside Afghanistan knows is immaterial.
Substitute another (imagine "Telephone leaked Obama's Visit to Afghanistan") to see how truly silly your headline is.
And watch the reporter from TOLOnews who did the tweet will quietly "disappear" never to be heard from again.
Leak nonexistent trips of Obama and other brass on a semi-regular basis, until the enemy tires of responding to cries of wolf.
Strange how in the world of nigh-instantaneous global communication, extraordinarily public figures trying to arrange secret meetings become significantly more difficult. Wonder how he'll backpedal about this when he people assumingly start asking questions as to why he wanted it to be a secret meeting.
Also: summary title is idiotic. It makes about as much sense as saying "Comcast sending billions of spam emails to users!!!!" But like all stories now on Slashdot, they've gotta use a horrendously inaccurate headline to draw as many ad-views as possible *sigh*.
How long until the government starts censoring Twitter for "national security" reasons?
Of the last few hours.
Careful now. They might come and "Liberate" yours.
More like TROLOLOLONews, amirite?
(crickets)
Ah, the hell with ya.
Anyway, it wasn't leaked until he was on the ground in Kabul? Is that so bad?
Does Rupert Murdoch own Slashdot now?
Is there something so special about going to Afganistan that required a fabricated story about Obama being here? Why would the government do this? I would really like to know.
Enough said.
Chill out, Mel Gibson. He could have also been there to see how the country was doing.
I love to hate on twitter as much as the next slashdotter, but the summary makes it clear that the headline is incorrect and misleading, possibly to the point of damaging Twitter's reputation. What you *meant* to say was:
whatever.
"News"sites or channels or articles - doesn't mater. If you think that the media - ANY MEDIA - is telling the whole truth and nothing but the TRUTH - then you're a MORAN and you deserve to be misled. from a scale of worst to least - Fox News is the worst and NPR is the least.
Go ahead and label me "Liberal" - go ahead. And I'll point out your hypocrisy.
I really wish for a real unbiased news source - maybe we should have machine report the news.
What this means is info on a presidents trips will be locked down even further. I'm not sure if that is a good or bad thing.
Couldn't the white house just as easily fabricated a few twitter stories that would correlate with that fabricated agenda? It wouldn't even need to be a very good story - just good enough to cause confusion as to where Obama actually was.
He could have also been there to remind them they owe us some money.
Did the president bring a baseball bat?
Ignorant fucking american. Next time someone crashes a plane into a building over there try standing a little closer.
Like it's not done already?
Get up!
I *still* can't believe they're letting a chimpanzee aboard Air Force One....
I *still* can't believe that there's one woman out there who, even after reading your post, would still consider you her pride and joy.
When is the physical cat ever let out of the bag?
Air Force One has to be the most uniquely recognizable aircraft on the planet. It's kind of hard to keep quiet when it flies into someplace, unless they flew in on a nondescript plane.
Was this a controlled leak? The entire article that was linked paints such a negative view on Twitter. The White House, in conjunction with the DoD, makes such a charade out of the "journalists" travelling with him, fake itineraries, and outright denial he's actually in Afghanistan.
You can't think of a non-corruption-based theory for why the President of the United States wouldn't want to announce that he's going to be landing in Kabul, Afghanistan? Are you, you know, an idiot?
You're the kind of moron who would have called your dad a hypocrite for spanking you for lying to him, but then he himself lying to the S.S. about being a Jew.
Twitter owns the tweets, tough luck, making twitter the publisher of a national secret. not that it matters..
besides, pretty much all tweets are user generated.. "via twitter" doesn't really add much info as long as twitter is mentioned.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Leaks about Presidential itineraries are not really big news. Thanks for keeping us losers abreast. Even adding in the Twitter reference this is really hardly worth our time.
President Obama made an unannounced trip to Afghanistan on the first anniversary of the the killing of Osama bin Laden and signed a security agreement that pledges U.S. support through 2024
They're not. Bush only gets on board Air Force One if the President invites him along to some international event like a funeral or something.
(For those not getting the joke, google "Bush Chimp", and you'll see a whole lot of funny pics)
They would be happy to pay us the money if we would just let them sell the products from their poppy plantations. But we keep trying to stop them. So they have no money to pay us.
Twitted or not, when a President can't openly visit a place it has spent 10 years trying to tame, it shows how hopeless things are.
This really did endanger the President as well as national security. I assume that arrests will be involved.
And that, my friend, is called the sunk cost fallacy.
cat
Actually, for years there has been no mention of him by his mother.
Really? How's that?
the meeting was only a secret before he showed up. After that well, there he is. This is hardly a leak OR a secret, more like "breaking news".
It would be a leak/secret if it came up before he landed, granted.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Note to self - even though we are pretending to leave in 2014, enforce twitter embargo when we actually leave in 2012, until only the drones remain.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
signed a security agreement that pledges U.S. support through 2024
I think you meant 2014. Otherwise that's a pretty huge "citation needed" as major media publications are giving the 2014 number.
It's end of "combat" by 2014 + an additional 10 years of "advising", hence 2024.
AP: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gwyWWYhPoHVpmP31OVDoNN_phjDw?docId=c8271ffb80ef42f6a8d8dddbbf923f51
http://xkcd.com/932/
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
Yeah, but support comes in many forms. For example, how we "support" Pakistan or "support" Taiwan or "support" Israel.
I wouldn't be surprised if we set up a (semi-) permanent base there as a launchpad for future middle east and east asia operations. We have bases in Germany and Japan.
Tl;dr, pulling the troops out and continuing to support them are not mutually exclusive.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Here in Germany, it has been in press for days. Here's today's scoop (German; ZDF public service TV). ZDF calls it an election promotion tour, so it can hardly be a secret, can it? You guys are kidding, right?
All it takes is one motivated person with a Strela (or RPG if they are close enough, and you can't jam or spoof and RPG) who scores a hit in the right spot.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Twitter doesn't leak anything, it just delivers messages.
Also worth noting - The mailman doesn't write the letters you get, and you ISP doesn't compose all those emails you get.
Also, it' not much of a leak he's going there it it's a tweet that he is already there.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
No necessarily, it could also be a little something called 'lessons learned'. It would only be a fallacy if we knew the out come would not be desirable.
Ex: I bought a ticket to fly some where. I learn that place is a crap whole, but I go anyways knowing I won't have a good time because I have already bought the ticket.
Last time we where there, we just left without wrapping anything up, and the hole was filled by al qaeda.
So, yes there is legitimate non fallacious reasons to stay until a certain level of government is functioning
More of a sunk cost dilemma. IS the risk of just leaving and the government falling apart and being fractured by extremist worth more then the additional cost of leaving in an orderly manner.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
If you listened to the President's speech, he explicitly said that we would NOT be setting up permanent bases.
Could it be Ted Nugent?
That sounds like something he may want to try to leak to the world.
...BEFORE tweeting about the fire.
I find it fascinating the way that social media has exposed so many people's inability to realise that htey are part of the world and "yes, it CAN happen to YOU".
Certainly, there are legitimate non-fallacious reasons to stay, but "but to make the lives count" isn't one of them.
That aside, when has nation building ever been successful? Even in Korea, the US didn't so much build a nation as put a million landmine buffer between the "good guys" and the "bad guys". In order for staying to produce a better outcome than pulling out, you need a reason to believe that you can be successful and history is pretty pessimistic on that front.
cat