Slashdot Mirror
Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower Says Data From 87 Million Users Could Be Stored In Russia (cnn.com)
PolygamousRanchKid shares a report from CNN: Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie says the data the firm gathered from Facebook could have come from more than 87 million users and could be stored in Russia. Wylie added that his lawyer has been contacted by U.S. authorities, including congressional investigators and the Department of Justice, and says he plans to cooperate with them. Aleksander Kogan, a Russian data scientist who gave lectures at St. Petersburg State University, gathered Facebook data from millions of Americans. He then sold it to Cambridge Analytica, which worked with President Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. "I know that Facebook is now starting to take steps to rectify that and start to find out who had access to it and where it could have gone, but ultimately it's not watertight to say that, you know, we can ensure that all the data is gone forever," he said.
Maybe you should post stuff when you have actual information rather than bare speculation?
All Russia all the time!
It's red scare time. Witch hunts always find someone in league with Russia these days. We need shadowy villains and conspiracy stories. Reality doesn't have the same appeal.
Even worse, it could be stored in America.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Hillary didn't bother retrieving it. It was stored in Wisconsin.
Although unproven — indeed, unprovable, because there is no such crime — the "collusion" allegations must be repeated on the daily basis until they become accepted by the mainstream. To the point, where the low information voter just says: "Well, everyone knows it — just google it or something".
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
The data COULD also be stored in North Korea. Or on a laptop in someone's basement. Or in a locked filing cabinet in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard".
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
I know the Fox News lawyer said collusion isn't a crime. It is. It's acting as a unregistered foreign agent, the crime facing Manasfort, and Collusion to the crimes they commit. i.e. if he colluded with the hacking, he's guilty of the hacking.
And while you might want to go lah lah lah and pretend there is no problem with a candidate conspiring with Russia to seize power over the USA, even spelling out what he did makes it indefensible.
Fox News may sell out the US, but how many of their viewers would sell out the US? How many of their sponsors?
If the NRA funnelled money to Trump from Russia, likewise that's a crime too. Election finance rules prevent candidates from receiving foreign money. NRA insists it has two separate funds, and only pays political donations from the legal fund, but that just confirms the foreign money they receive, or there would be no 'other' fund. To receive money in one fund and pay it from another is laundering money. A crime.
Likewise the shell company property purchases, after he got the nomination a load of shell companies bought up his properties, going from 4% of sales to 70% of sales. Again money laundering of campaign finances is a crime.
Cohen supposidly paid the porn star from a mortgage. This is bullshit, no lawyer takes out a mortgage to pay off his clients hush money. However there is a money laundering technique where a sock puppet takes out a loan, and receives smaller payments mixed in with other payment to repay the loan with profit. Do you think the FBI don't know how that works?
"Low information voter".... yet the mainstream press is providing the micro details of what he did and how he did it. Only Fox tries to shut down the information.
And there's the other trick, "the other guy did it worse", or "they're all at it, so why punish [my guy]". An attempt to lessen the perceive importance of a crime by pretending its common and accepted.
When Russia kills opposing *American* politicians in the USA, and Trump Mk II is saying "Russia if you're listening, here a list of politicians who should be killed".... I'm sure we'll see the same thing from Fox News, "the other guy wanted more killed", "colluding to murder politicians with Putin is not a crime and if it is, there was no colluding".
None of this is legal defense, and Trump's real (not that ridiculous Fox news TV lawyer) are smart enough to get him to keep his mouth shut. The seriousness of this crime they're totally aware of.
What's the evidence that this is a witch hunt? Is it just because Trump and his buds are calling it one? Because I've that's the standard I've got some bad news for you, Nixon thought it was a witch hunt against him, and no, that wasn't, and he had to quit before he got fired.
The Red Scare with McCarthy had major congressional force backing it, and congress seems to be asleep at the switch this time around, and sometimes running interference for Trump particularly through the actions of Rep. Nunes, as opposed to focusing on measures to secure electoral and other infrastructure. If you are going to invoke McCarthyism, you are going to want to show how it is a relevant comparison deeper than the pure surface similarity of being freaked out by the Russians.
You think Mueller's running a witch hunt? Because the work he's shown so far with the guilty pleas and indictments suggests otherwise. I know we've always been at war with Eastasia, but Mueller is a Republican, and was W Bush's pick to run the FBI, and was almost unanimously granted an extension to his 10 year term in Obama's first term. His background doesn't suggest him being any sort of political inquisitor.
I'm sorry, but from the other side of the fence these accusations of "witch hunt" really sound like cries of deflection and denial, there's an obvious amount of dirt in public view and the usual suspects want nothing more than to sweep it under the rug. Personally, I think a lot of these guys are guilty as hell, but ultimately I want the truth to come out and let the chips fall where they may. When you got guys like Hannity running interference for obvious crooks like Paul Manafort, who would be a total crook due to his work in Ukraine and for other dictators even if he had never met Trump, that's pretty clear indication that the truth and honest enforcement of the law is not the desired end from that side.