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Congressman Calls For Probe Into Trump's Unsecured Android Phone (cnet.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNET: President Donald Trump regularly makes news because of his tweets. Now a congressman is making news because of the device the president reportedly uses to tweet. On Friday, Congressman Ted Lieu, a Democrat from Los Angeles, wrote a letter to the House Oversight Committee requesting an investigation into Trump's cybersecurity practices. In particular, he calls out Trump's apparent decision to keep using his personal Android phone instead of a secured phone the Secret Service issued him for his inauguration. The letter is also signed by 14 other members of Congress and calls for a public hearing to discuss the issues. "The device President Trump insists on using -- most likely the Samsung Galaxy S3 -- has particularly well documented vulnerabilities," the letter says. "The use of an unsecured phone risks the president of the United States being monitored by foreign or domestic adversaries, many of whom would be happy to hijack the president's prized Twitter account causing disastrous consequences for global security. Cybersecurity experts universally agree that an ordinary Android smartphone, which the president is reportedly using despite repeated warnings from the Secret Service, can be easily hacked."
Our president's postings are so bizarre.
I think the President just has to finish working on something and then he'll switch phones with the Secret Service.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Well if you're unhappy with it, why not pay the $200k fee and go tell the President yourself!?
He's selling access to himself for that. No kidding.
His home, Mar-a-largo is a private club, you pay $200k to join and have wide access to the President (fee was doubled when he because President and a suite was renamed "President Suite").
It's a dog and pony show folks.
http://www.bbc.com/news/video_and_audio/headlines/39006681
"Fake News!11!eleven" :D
"Elections have consequences" -- Obama
We all know what this is: Democrats are still pissed over the electorate abandoning their failed and useless party and are trying to attack Trump in any way possible. This one is just trying to draw a false equivalence between using an old phone for personal use and using an ancient, unsecured, personal email server for storing classified documents, because the Democrats are still pissed that Hillary's emails helped sink her campaign. (There were plenty of other things that sunk her campaign, and emails probably don't even rank in the top 10.)
What they forget is no one cares what phone Trump uses to tweet from. As long as he has a second phone to keep the classified stuff secure, who cares if he also keeps his personal phone? Not even the Democrats really care: this is just yet another tactic to try and smear a very popular president.
then it very probably has ALREADY been hacked. The reason we haven't heard about it is a), it's been covered up or b), it hasn't been discovered yet, and the hacker is laying low in order to collect as much dirt as possible and/or do as much covert damage as possible. Trump as President is too high-profile, too controversial, too thoroughly disliked, and too valuable as a potential blackmail asset, for there NOT to have already been multiple hacking attempts by serious players with deep pockets. If he IS using anything like a stock Android phone, it's very unlikely that he hasn't already been pwned at least once.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
I think the problem for any potential enemies is that there seems to already be a process for dealing with Mr. Trumps bizarre proclamations on Twitter - the actual administration official responsible for the portfolio provides what is the correct information.
This has happened at least a couple of times with the most recent one being Mr. Trump announcing a One State Solution for Israel - the UN ambassador just said that the US policy on the issue hasn't changed and the Two State Solution is the preferred approach.
Other than his base, I think the rest of the world treats Mr. Trump's tweets the same way they would when read something strange and inexplicable that has gone viral from an eccentric old man that's gone viral.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
As far as the cyber, I agree to parts of what Secretary Clinton said. We should be better than anybody else, and perhaps we’re not. I don’t think anybody knows that it was Russia that broke into the DNC. She’s saying Russia, Russia, Russia—I don't, maybe it was. I mean, it could be Russia, but it could also be China. It could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, okay? ...
We came in with the Internet. We came up with the Internet. And I think Secretary Clinton and myself would agree very much, when you look at what ISIS is doing with the Internet, they’re beating us at our own game. ISIS.
So we had to get very, very tough on cyber and cyber warfare. It is a huge problem. I have a son—he’s 10 years old. He has computers. He is so good with these computers. It’s unbelievable. The security aspect of cyber is very, very tough. And maybe, it's hardly doable. But I will say, we are not doing the job we should be doing. But that’s true throughout our whole governmental society. We have so many things that we have to do better, Lester. And certainly cyber is one of them.
For decades, the Republicans have been warning us that there was a political party embedded with Freedom-hating people who would gladly sell us out to Russia.
Seems like they knew what they were talking about.
Just watch his twitter feed. If he begins making sane, rational tweets you'll know it was hacked.
Democrats set the standard - now they get to fucking live with it.
Just like the extreme Cabinet members we're not getting via the Reid option.
Thanks, Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer.
As democracy is perfected, the office of the president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people.
On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House
will be occupied by a downright fool and a complete narcissistic moron.
~H.L. Mencken
Honestly i hope hes smart enough to keep a personal, phone for social media bullshit seeing as thats the easiest way to hack somebody as of the last 3 years. And a secure phone for official issues. If he was to put twitter(even in a browser) It would surely add some sort of security issue as the company has never made a profit i doubt they pay much to secure their service.
It DOES matter. A hacked phone allows the hacker to access everything in the phone, like the camera, the microphone, the GPS. Trump is known to be using an out of date, hackable phone for his Twitter nonesense. Nevermind that Twitter-time should be over... you won, damn-it, now get on with doing the job instead of bitching about Hillary, who likely has already gotten rip-roaring drunk, yelled, screamed, ranted, fallen down, puked all over Bill and herself, slept it off for about a week, and moved on. Trump's still chasing invisible enemies with his Tweet phone. He needs to get down to the incredibly boring, tedious business of keeping the machinery of the country running smoothly and reliably. Instead, he's Tweeting on an old Android phone like he's still running for office, signing orders as vague as campaign slogans, and people charged with getting the job done don't know what the fuck. And all the time, Putin's listening and watching through his unsecure Tweet phone? Four years of this shit! Pray to Christ he doesn't start a war just so he can blame someone and throw all the mean people calling him names into camps!
Sounds like a good deal. That's less than Clinton used to charge for a night in the Lincoln bedroom.
Why in the heck is a supposed billionaire still using a Galaxy S3? At least tell us that it's been unlocked and it running Cyanogenmod or something...
Log in or piss off.
theres only 25% whiners, thats not bad.
That's only twitter you know. His tweets are not a state secret. That doesn't mean he uses that phone for government communication. I am not a fan of Trump but this is plain ridiculous.
I think you missed the whole Apple vs FBI part, where trump said he would no longer use an iphone(and stuck to his word so far)
Oh come on dont be rational! Slashdot is no place for being Rational!
The Russians and the Chinese are arguing with each other about the hours they get to listen in but the malware is making the phone unreliable so they'll have to sort that out first with the Iranians.
we're upset because after nearly a decade of the right chanting Lock Her Up that resulted in the worst presidency in history (and we're 30 days in) we're damn well going to point out that the right are a bunch of hypocrites. Nobody ever cared about the emails. They hated Hilary. What bothers me most about the Hilary hate is it was mostly manufactured. A bunch of wealthy and powerful men decided the country was going to hate Hilary Clinton and it did. We all did exactly as planned. My God, we're a bunch of shleps...
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Story after story on globalists giving our jobs to India and H1Bs, finally we have a President who cares and you're all sour grapes.
He cares by using a Samsung Galaxy phone not vetted by U.S. services? You know what "Samsung" is, right?
Why aren't you giving nationalism a chance? Because the snarky jews on TV convinced you someone is Hitler?
The snarky jews could not care less about what happens to muslims. Take a look how Israel treats Palestinians. No, he isn't Hitler. Just like Hitler, with the "Jewish World Conspiracy" replaced by a Muslimic one, painting members of a religion with an overarching brush in colors of prejudice with only a homeopathic connection to facts.
Take a step back and think about yourself for a change - you're going to be better off. More jobs, lower taxes, not competing with Xi and Pajeet.
Have you considered applying for the job of propaganda minister with Trump? You are putting up a nice Goebbels incarnation. Nationalism has been given lots of chances in lots of places, and its death toll exceeds that of most natural catastrophes and epidemics. There is a reason people are wary of giving it a whole lot more chances than less potent mass murderers, rapists, and robbers.
Maybe the hacker would post something better than DT.
Look, if you want to show a buffoon that something is true, you have to actually do it. So, please, somebody brick his phone, to spite him.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
" The secure phone isn't even capable of communicating with Twitter. "
So his private phone is like a private email server?
"It DOES matter. A hacked phone allows the hacker to access everything in the phone, like the camera, the microphone, the GPS. "
Who cares with a president who has National Security meetings on his Dinner table in public at his Resort, being filmed and people taping secret documents with their phones.
Here is the thing you don't get. Phones can be compromised, and they have microphones and have a camera.
He could be using a secure phone for some important conversation where the android phone is just sitting on the table, but that android phone could be recording the whole thing and uploading it to some server.
"You ain't gonna get rid of him so easily. "
Lee Harvey could quite easily.
So, according to his own words, he should be locked up in prison.
He's using a Samsung S3? Why does this sound like bullshit? Maybe an S4 or S5 but a phone that old? Nah. I don't believe it. The man has the best of everything and he's using an ancient phone. No way.
He continued using that iPhone though, and got his new Android Phone from the Secret Service after he got sworn in.
However, on the main story, why is the Congressman more concerned about Trump's phone than the fact that bureaucrats in the Intelligence Agencies had been leaking Trump's calls to Mexico and Australia? There should be a campaign to purge that stuff
Trump just had a great meeting w/ Netanyahu, and you think that someone who makes snide remarks against Jews would be his propaganda minister? How does that work, when Trump is proud of his Jewish support, and Jared Kushner is about as loved by him as by Netanyahu?
Twitter isn't exactly the hallmark of classified information storage. Obama, Hillary etc had an "insecure" phone as well, besides the one they got given.
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There was Proof that Hillary did most of the things people are accusing Trump of. Hillary and Bill's dealings with Russia led to Russia having control over 20+% of the US Uranium. Hillary had dozens of phones, many unsecured, accessing her illegal private email server. Hillary and Bill are "paid" hundreds of thousands of Dollars while Hillary was acting as Secretary of State, all of which remained "classified" and hidden from public view (except the bit that was hacked and released proving she lied about fixing US Borders). Hillary praised KKK member Byrd and Eugenicist Margaret Sanger openly. In fact go look at the ranks of the KKK and count how many Democrats there are versus Republicans. There was one allegation based on third hand information, Warren Harding, who fought against the KKK and their methods.
Want more? How about _Candidate_ Obama visiting more than thirty foreign Governments to boost support for his campaign holding closed door meetings with those foreign Governments (some hostile). Left Wing Sources, Right Wing source. Just so you can't claim my sources are biased, and there is plenty more to find.
Typical Alinsky tactics. Claim the enemy does what you do, lie and keep lying about what you do. Idiots fall for it. Too bad for the Alinskyites more and more people have caught on and no longer believe the lies. There is a reason that NYP, WP, CNN, et. al have a trust rating of about 6 today.
It is believed that the more advanced a culture is, the more simple are their understandings? God, I hope not.
Thats like saying Christianity needs to be made illegal as its a communist religion -"From each according to his ability to each according to his need"
**Life is too short to be serious**
As far as your call for a purge on government employees leaking information. I 100% agree with you. Just because you don't happen to like whoever got elected to office, Does not give you the right to become a traitor and try to sabotage our entire nation.
Then you agree that Christians should be rounded up to due to all the incompatibilities with civil rights and human rights.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
From what I can gather, so is Russia!
If only there were a way through official channels to confirm which device he uses, and if it has been secured, or is still vulnerable...
Oh, that's what this is.
The last time I checked Hillary isn't President. But your point is as silly as saying since your neighbor deals drugs; therefore, you are free to deal drugs. Hypocrite much?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
It's hard to imagine a foreign power doing more damage with that idiot's Twitter account than he does himself.
Not even that. They are obviously Guessing at what phone he is using. And the simple fact that they want him to use Twitter from a "secure" phone is so moronic i don't think we can call slashdot reader base "nerds" anymore let alone somebody that knows about security.
Obviously Hillary can NOT run a private email server without a lot of negative publicity and essentially costing her the election. But oh, SHE did it, so anyone else who does it shouldn't have the same negative publicity?
You're fucking stupid.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
But seriously - I wouldn't want the job of checking out POTUS's private twitter-post server. I'll bet it's all sticky, and frankly while it's possible to see and learn things you can't unsee or unlearn them.
I wish i hadnt commented i would mod you up insightful. I hope you hit 5. Because you are Both sides are corrupt. All government is corrupt and should be downsized enough that it can actually be monitored for corruption.
The problem is the blast radius when he self-destructs. What, you think he's going to implode?
Jan 19 - NYT - "he has traded in his Android phone for a secure, encrypted device approved by the Secret Service"
Jan 19 - Associated Press - "On Thursday, he told a friend that he had given up his phone, as security agencies had urged him to do."
This is just more Democrats throwing crap hoping that the sheep that follow them eat it up. They don't have to be right. They just have to make enough stink by throwing enough $#!! to make him look bad.
How much "Top Secret" information have you seen on twitter? Why do you people try to make yourself look like morons.
If you think that posting "Top Secret" information on twitter is the only security risk of a private phone, you are the moron.
Your claim falsely assumes that everything can be explained in simple terms.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Well, I guess your handle says it all.
Speaking of Trump and security . . .
I'm guessing the entire memory card will be full of presidential penis pics and sexual text messages to young Russian models.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
So we should lock him up?
Okay, I give - who is his propaganda minister? Whoever it is, he's not too bright.
which explains
The day he decides he no longer need the international money men, his daughter will get a divorce and be welcomed back into the arms of her local Christian community (that, or be disowned) - and Jared Kushner will be just another tool, used until he has no further use for the Trump regime. Of course, Trump's supporters will be overjoyed on that day; for now, they'll just follow their leader and accept the need to keep up appearances.
Be seeing you!
So your position is it's okay for Donald because you think Hilary did it?
No, seriously, read it. You'll love it - it's got golden showers in it.
Sincerely, the American people
Your move, Coward.
No his position is that BUT EMAILS! absolves Trump of anything he might do to undermine national security. Like holding a sensitive meeting about the US response to North Korea's missile test in front of dozens of civilians. That was all Hillary's fault.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I'll bet there's no way in hell he's managing to keep those tweets secret!
And this ignoring that based on the number of tweets he's making, he's not even making most of the tweets ascribed to him.
In any case, when there's some reason to suspect he's using an unsecured phone to talk to people about classified information, then it'll be time to get excited.
Note, by the by, that you're not talking to the unclassified world with your secure government phone. That one is just for talking to the OTHER secure government phones, not to your hairdresser....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Maybe he'll replace it with a Note 7.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
But Hillary "The Hildabeast" Clinton can run a private email server distributing classified information. She can funnel favors and access for "donations" (e.g. Bribes/Payoffs!) to the Clinton Foundation. The liberals can be as CORRUPT as they want to be but OMG! let anyone else do something similar and it's the worst thing in the world.
Er, Hillary wasn't allowed to do those things either, as demonstrated by the numerous investigations into her behaviour.
And even if Hillary was actually Satan, it's not a strong position to say the current president should be able to do whatever he likes because satan is worse.
Take off your political googles, Trump's behaviour as POTUS is not acceptable. Just as we demand better behaviour from Bush and Obama, we should also expect something better from the current office holder.
This guy is POTUS. Lots of people would like to kill him. His unsecured phone can reveal his location when - for example - he travels through not so nice countries. Is he so stupid not to understand that this phone basically targets him? When he uses secret service issued phone he can be at least sure that some guy in AT&T (or whatever he is using for his private phone) won't give up his location or other data for small sum of money?
after 8 years of Obama we have more racial tension than ever before
No, we don't. All of that racial tension you're seeing was already there. What happened was that having a black president encouraged black Americans to speak up about the ways in which they're systematically oppressed, which means that you are now more aware of the existing racial tension.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Don't argue with me about it, I was just paraphrasing someone familiar with complex subjects.
If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough. Albert Einstein
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
BeauHD cannot just stop posting shit posts about Trump on a tech site.
So, all those "but Hillary uses email - lock her up" folks, where are you now? What do you think of this situation?
Silence?
There's been so much partisan political bullshit in this place pretending to be about online security but really nothing of the sort.
He's pretty stupid but that doesn't matter in the case of location. I doubt this is going to ever reveal his location since he goes around with an entourage bigger than Royalty which would make him trivial to find by conventional methods.
Way back H.G. Wells wrote a story about what happened to people with that attitude if it went too far. There were called Eloi.
Is that a polite enough response to utter bullshit? How many final year university subjects do you think can be taught effectively to a tenth grader?
Context matters. I doubt Einstein was referring to everything.
It's just like that Feynman quote that people roll out and apply out of context to pretend that he thought all theoretical science and all applied science was not "real science", when Feynman himself did a lot of work with both.
She was bashed because she was using it to conduct top secret business and high level dealings. If you're going to raise the argument at least get it correct. This place is turning back into another DU.
Do his aides tweet for him at all? I'd imagine that one of them probably handles @POTUS and retweets stuff from whitehouse.gov, while he himself continues to handle his personal account to discuss Mark Cuban and the dishonest media.
If he catches fire we know it's a Samsung S7.
The conversations after those calls were also leaked so that makes Trump, Bannon and Spicer the only suspects.
That's why Congressman are not worried.
The leaks about those calls were obviously deliberate and were mostly about Trump "being strong".
I disagree - Trump doesn't appear to have any use for Christianity outside of campaigning so I don't think he really cares about the religion of Jared and his daughter.
I've forgotten the name of the guy that ran the Church that Trump used to go to infrequently, but he wrote bestselling self-help books and preached the "prosperity gospel" (ie. God hates the poor that's why they are poor). It's not what most people outside of that bubble would recognize as Christianity.
No, I'm waiting for the stuff about the kiddie fucking cocaine parties associated with his teen beauty contests comes out. I think we'll have to wait until after he is dead.
A bit of urine from consenting adults is one thing, kiddie fucking with his friend Epstein (now in prison - maybe if he wasn't so stupid as to send roses to a student at her high school he wouldn't be inside) is many times worse.
There are thousands of reasons to reject Trump without considering watching streams of slavic urine (or even the far more disturbing kiddie fucking claims).
yup - and after 8 years of Obama we have more racial tension than ever before, more blacks hating cops, Iran getting payoffs....the national debt DOUBLING...
In the last 8 years, vast numbers of stupid people felt empowered to express their poorly though out world views on the Internet.
Thanks Obama.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
> It'd start by realizing that you don't have proof of a conspiracy or anything.
Except for those arrest records from the DC Metropolitan Police Department for Conspiracy to Commit an Assault -
Source
Bullshit. I'm a black American, and you are a fucking liar.
There is so much pandering and lying to people who look like me, and that never used to be this bad. Every day we're bombarded with the message that things are stacked against us, that whites hate us, that we're suffering more than ever... It's bullshit. We aren't. It's better than it ever was in my lifetime.
I am not your political agenda high-five. Fuck off.
Because I'm sure that's the only device he has with him ever, and never does he have an aide standing by that holds onto whatever phone the Government issued him.
You mouth breathing moron, do you realize that that the phone is a huge security risk without him ever making a single call on it? If it is an unsecured phone, it could very well be broadcasting POTUS's GPS coordinates constantly. This would give his exact position at all times away to anyone with hostile intent. Further, smartphones have microphones in them. If you root the phone, you could possibly listen in to conversations happening in the same room. What harm could occur if 'bad guys' (Trump's words) could start listening in on POTUS's confidential conversations? And who knows, Trump might just disregard the Secret Service instructions and use the phone sensitive calls. He seems to have established a track record for making poor judgements.
Yes, it is a very good use of elected officials time to make sure that a POTUS who wants to be a loose cannon is not allowed to jeopardize the safety of America.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
I usually use Xiaomi Smartphone, maybe I must switch to another one, I will take a look on any blog de ofertas from arround...
"you won, damn-it, now get on with doing the job"
I read that his opponents complain about *what* he's doing, and that he's not doing anything.
Which is it? Neither, most of his opposition just hates him. No matter what he does.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
You are hiding behind your "anonymous coward" ID, so you can't be held responsible for your inane, halfwit comments. The first commenter was right in attacking Trump for not switching to a secure phone supplied by the Secret Service... you have NO defensible grounds for YOUR attack... just like Trump, you make totally laughable comments without basis, such as Trump today claiming he had a landslide victory when he most clearly did not. Trump loves to Tak about "fake news", yet he has been one of the prime sources of bogus info, such as saying that counties and cities that grant asylum to undocumented aliens have higher crime rates and other problems, when in fact the opposite is documented to be true by official federal stats. Tell me it's not true all you wabt, but like Trump, you simply want to ignore the facts because of your xenophobic paranoia. Trump and others want to, say the undocumented are a load on the system, when the opposite is true---hundreds of thousands of them pay into Social Security because that is often the only way they can get jobs, yet their undocumented status keeps them from ever reaping Social Security benefits.
Your claim falsely assumes that everything can be explained in simple terms.
It can. If you are unable you don't understand it well enough. We already established this.
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What, you don't think it's a good use of our elected representatives time to hold highly partisan hearings on what model phone that the President tweets with?
Because I'm sure that's the only device he has with him ever, and never does he have an aide standing by that holds onto whatever phone the Government issued him.
This is the same kind of bullshit the Republicans kept trying for the last 8 years, that Democrats bemoaned. Typical partisan hacks, hacking away instead of actually doing something to make a difference. Like writing legislation to fix problems, or listening to your constituents.
I know right, people complaining the president in potentially carrying an always on audio and video recording device that uploads everything to god only knows where. Who cares if it can scrape all his passwords and emails and whatever else he puts on it. Does it really matter he may very well install malware on whatever he connects it to. Nah none of that matters in the slightest. It's all just yuge fake news, big league. Sad.
Wanna buy a shirt?
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Last i read, During his campaign when the apple thing happened, Was he would tweet at odd hours from his android phone, And aids would tweet during normal working hours on iphones. I don't know if thats true or not. I read it on the internet.. and well you know. But it did seem legit with the screen shots that were everywhere when it happened.
Socrates was able to induce absolute morons into solving complex mathematical equations as well as conversing on complex subjects of logic and philosophy, simply by asking questions.
Jargon, which are the communicative bits that contain the complex subjects humans describe, are composed of a background of knowledge acquired over time. This background of knowledge is composed of modules or vignettes. Their interactions and relationships to each other and the main subject are the basis of understanding the concept fully. Explaining these sub-units of the main subject simply and clearly is an exercise for the instructor and the difficulty of doing this is completely independent of the subject matter.
Keep in mind: the skill set for communicating complex ideas to other people is quite different from the one used to work with those subjects on a daily basis. Just because you can perform tensor calculus doesn't mean you can communicate to another human how to do it. In fact, most people who are good at doing something very technical are incredibly poor communicators and teachers with those who are uninitiated in those fields. They will want someone to have a broad basic knowledge of that field before they can instruct them. You can see this on this website, on technical help forums, etc.
Reference materials on not truly knowing something until you teach someone else how to do it. This is similar.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
I request proof.
Show me a subject that cannot be explained simply. Keep in mind that just because you or I are not smart enough or well versed enough to explain it simply does not imply that someone else cannot.
Also, just because something takes time and effort to explain doesn't mean it is not simple. For most complex subjects you need have certain prerequisite knowledge. Just because you have to explain other subjects to someone who is ignorant of them before you explain what you are wanting to ultimately describe doesn't mean you are not explaining the subject simply.
Then again, this is probably a biased situation for me. I routinely explain complex subjects to people who initially don't understand them because I crave stimulating conversation and many people don't understand the things I am talking about without some background. If you do not engage in this behavior frequently I can assume you do not possess this skill. Not a surprise. I have noticed that as most people acquire technical skill and learning in very complex subjects their ability to effectively communicate these subjects to other people who do not have similar backgrounds atrophies.
I would use as proof of the concept the appeal and phenomenon of Richard Feynman. He had a masterful knowledge of his subject AND could communicate things simply and eloquently to a wide audience. YMMV but I ascribe to this theory. It puts the onus of communicating clearly and effectively on the one who is communicating. It also implies that you are aware of the mental state and understanding of your audience, are flexible in your method of presentation, as well as committed to the understanding of the listener.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
but it's kind of a juvenile and derogatory term. It's also one of those terms that's been used too often to exaggerate lunatic conspiracy theories (kinda like "Study it out!").
That's one of the biggest problems we have. When there is an actual conspiracy (e.g. more than one person getting together to do something bad) nobody believes you because of decades of denigrated crackpots. So when you point out that the Tea Party was a conspiracy of wealthy business men to trick people into unquestionably supporting tax cuts it doesn't matter if you've got evidence or not or if a 5 minute google search would prove your point. You've already been lumped into the same boat as JFK nutters and Alien abductees.
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I think the issue is not so much that he might conduct government business over his private phone, it's that he always has that private phone on him. If it were to be compromised (which is likely for an old samsung), there's a non-trivial potential for audio and/or video to be captured or his GPS location to be revealed.
Or he stirred a lot of it up himself, making things racial that weren't. Along with much of the media. Trayvon Martin was made immediately about race with edited clips of the call to 911 to make it seem like that's why he was being targeted. The truth was much different. Don't let the truth get in the way of your great narrative though.
The truth is that no story about a situation like Trayvon Martin's can possibly be discussed in the south (or various other parts of the country where racial tension is high) without bringing race into it, because whether you say it out loud or not, a lot of people will be assuming that if Trayvon had been white it would have gone down differently. We can't know that for sure, of course.
FWIW, I think the verdict was the only possible one because George Zimmerman's claim that Trayvon had him on the ground and was slamming his head into the pavement wasn't contradicted by any evidence. That situation easily constitutes a deadly threat and justifies the use of deadly force in response. I'm less confident that Zimmerman's story was completely true, but it wasn't inconsistent with the physical evidence and there was no eyewitness testimony.
As for Obama's comments... all he said was that it was imperative that the case be investigated thoroughly, and then he made some sympathetic remarks to Trayvon's parents. How is that "stirring up" racial tension?
I should point out that I'm no fan of Barack Obama. As a conservative-leaning libertarian, I largely disagree with his political philosophy, and I think as a president (politics aside) he was mediocre at best. As a supposed constitutional scholar I was extremely disappointed with his handling of several really important issues related to the balance of power, especially his expansion of the already excessive power held by the executive. Bush did the country great damage by expanding that power dramatically, and Obama should have rolled it back but instead he pushed the pace.
However, even though I didn't like him and didn't agree with him, I see no substance to the argument that he "stirred up" racial tension. He acknowledged it, and at several points he expressed sympathy with the black community and acknowledged his own membership in that community, but that's all. Never did he introduce it where it wasn't already present, and never did he ignore the facts and assign blame based on race. If you have any examples to the contrary, I'd like to see them.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Perhaps you should read more about the issues with Hillary's private email server. It wasn't the phone people had issues with. Her server was found by the FBI to contain 1000 classified emails (at the time they were sent), she used a private email server to get around the official records act that would have put her communications under the FOIA, which was a law the Democrats enacted to be able to prevent, or at least detect, corruption. So, Hillary intentionally dodged the laws around FOIA, as a way to act corrupt and not get caught. How is this in any way comparable to the president (possibly!) using a private Android phone on Twitter?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
From your fine article:
POTUS's 'old, unsecure Android phone' is probably a Samsung Galaxy S3 — a model from almost five years ago.
They think his phone might be a Galaxy S3.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?