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China, Russia Are Listening To Trump's Phone Calls, Says NYT Report (thehill.com)
Rick Zeman writes: According to The New York Times, the Chinese are regularly listening to Donald Trump's cellphone calls (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source). While he has two NSA-hardened iPhones, and a secure landline, he insists on using a consumer-grade iPhone -- even while knowing he's being eavesdropped upon -- because it has his contact list on it. "White House officials say they can only hope he refrains from discussing classified information when he is on them," reports the New York Times. But, officials were also confident that "he was not spilling secrets because he rarely digs into the details of the intelligence he is shown and is not well versed in the operational specifics of military or covert activities"; in other words, security through ignorance. The article mentions the rationale is to be able to listen to his calls to find out what and whom influences him, and that the Russians also listen in, albeit with less frequency because of his unique relationship with Vladimir Putin.
I think the larger issue is that it was the unanimous opinion of the 16 agencies in the intelligence community that Russia was actively attacking US democratic processes, and Trump, in public, while standing right next to Putin, after a private meeting that no one else was allowed to attend, said "President Putin says it's not Russia. I don't see any reason why it would be." So Trump chose to not believe his own intelligence agencies, all 16 of them, and instead side with the Russian dictator.
You might want to bring up the prepared statement that he later read when he said that he actually meant the exact opposite of what he said, but if you believe that prepared statement that he read on camera instead of the live answer he gave to the reporter who asked the question, then I think you're giving a pathological liar the benefit of the doubt. That's probably not the wisest thing to do.
Someone is actually keeping track of how many times Trump lies or makes misleading statements while he's been in office, and the total is over 5,000 so far. He has a documented history going back decades of not telling the truth. So, hopefully your counter-argument doesn't require people to believe him when he said, reading from a prepared statement, that he actually meant the exact opposite of what he previously said. Because, either way, whether it was the original answer or the follow-up statement, he said something that wasn't true. So hopefully you're not asking us to just take his word for it.
Also, in case you're getting the urge to bring up something that Obama did, this has nothing to do with Obama. Obama's actions do not excuse Trump's actions.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
"Trump - Whitehouse Apprentice" is now the top-rated reality comedy show in Russia.
Hillary was careless about email at a time when the threat environment was a fraction of what it is today. It was stupid to use a personal server, and if her opponent was a better person, say on the order of McCain or Romney, then I'd have even called it a fair reason not to vote for her.
Hillary was not president at the time. Donald Trump is, and he is after bitching about Hillary's emails for ages. Using a consumer device like this is just the email issue again, save ten times worse, made so by the times and the fact that Donald Trump has no excuse whatsoever, after all the talk about email security.
Let's put it this way, if the situation was reversed, they would be screaming from the mountains about how incompetent she is, and how she is definitely not keeping classified information secure, and, they would be right to do so. since if nothing else the collection of Donald Trump's phone calls would almost certainly be considered classified when taken as a collection, and that is to say nothing for the likely case that he simply isn't careful with what is classified.
Why is it okay if Donald Trump does it?
If China AND Russia are listening to ALL calls that Trump makes on a private cell phone, that means that we are freely giving all domestic and international call streams to China AND Russia, we KNOW about it and we DON'T DO ANYTHING about it.
This doesn't pass the sniff test.
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You seem to be suffering from cognitive dissonance. The obvious sign here is that you are unable to converge two seemingly contradictory ideas. Thus, you rationalize the contradiction by inventing an alternate reality, one where the NYT has somehow gotten it wrong. Without that alternative reading, your brain would simply melt.
The fact is, though, that the NYT, while not completely immune to mistakes, has gotten it right far more often than they'e gotten it wrong. That's not up for debate, no matter how much you want it to be, no matter how much your sanity depends on it. It's much more likely that your favored political figure is, in fact, a moron who is incapable of securing his own communications.
History will almost certainly reflect this, and in 10 or 20 years you can think back to what a complete idiot you were about it.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.