Does the analyst have a gofundme page yet?
Duringļ»æ times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
ā George Orwell
Still, we knew this was coming. Villains have been hiding behind unjust laws for a long time. Itās the only defense they have against the fact that just about everyone in the country disagrees with them.
ETA: I really hope a Dem president or governor pardons this guy. It seems like he acted to expose corruption at the very top of the most powerful government on Earth. If thatās not patriotism, then I guess weāre reserving that label exclusively for martyrs. In which case, I will quote Patton:
The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
ALSO:
The GOP calls for vigilante justice, ā2A remediesā (i.e. political assassination), openly solicits cyberattacks from hostile foreign powers. Democrats call for exposing the truth. It seems reasonable to judge the parties by their methods.
āI will tell you this: IRS analysts, if youāre listening, I hope youāre able to find the many years of Trumpās tax returns that are missing, I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.ā
I always thought it was about further enriching the already wealthy.
Iāll spare you the Major General Smedley Butler quotes.
Not a very bright analyst if he did not know that any access to these records would be logged, and those logs reviewed once the disclosed information went public.
I am also curious if the investigators were able to bypass Whatsapp encryption i.e., is there a Facebook back door? Itās possible Fry just gave them access to his dataā¦ Again not very bright to rely on anything associated with Facebook, there are better alternatives like Signal.
I hope Farrow is paying attention.
I hope TPM is paying attention.
IRS Analyst John Fry looks remarkably like Avenatti. Hmmā¦
HA HA, heard some similar words before.
Depends on the war, Iād say, but point taken.
our newest Reality Winner!
K, dudeās a hero (maybe), but this case is basically a data breach and itās gonna be interesting to see what happens next.
Looking on the bright side, that inevitable ādropped shoeā could be a masterpiece (maybe?).
But certainly a brave one.
Why the ad hominem attack? Iām sure he was well aware of the consequences of his act.
Just to be a total contrarian, when laws are made to protect peopleās privacy, or, for that matter, national security, the government canāt, and canāt be expected to, make āunless it was for a good causeā exceptions that arenāt in the law. Because itās just a short hop and a skip from there to incessant strategic leaking by political appointees to embarrass or harm political enemies, which is not a hypothetical concern under present circumstances.
Revealing government fraud, abuse or illegality is one thing, and has some legal protection. Something like this? No. In cases like this, people act at their own risk and shouldnāt do it if theyāre not prepared to do the time if they get caught.
That said, itās the ethical responsibility of recipients, whether lawyers or journalists, to do everything possible to protect sources for information like this, precisely because they have no legal liability on them for receiving them. And thatās what made the Interceptās ineptitude (and thatās giving them the benefit of a doubt I donāt actually give them) that led to Reality Winnerās imprisonment a disgrace.
Great Orwell quote. Amazing times we live in. Civil servant exposes corruption and IRS is turned upside down to find him. Security services say Russians meddled in election, crickets. In fact Trump believes Putin.
But there are SARs reports on these suspicious men.
If thereās any law prohibiting republication of such confidential material, illegally provided, then Avenattiās also in a world of hurt. And heās got enough self-inflicted problems already.
He must have also known at the outset how the inevitable trumpptweets would read when caught, basically off with his head but with a lot of !!! and misspellings.
Iām inclined to doubt there is a software backdoor to Whatsapp although it wouldnāt surprise me if Facebook was weakening some of its armor to mine metadata. Iām also fairly sure FB wouldnāt divulge how to the government or any one else regardless. There are better alternatives to Whatsapp in any case.
But the spymasters wouldnāt be running after the software I think ā too many changes coming too fast, too much variability ā or even the OS when it would be far easier to insist a backdoor exist in the essential communication chips common to all hardware. Secure encryption certainly exists as an idea but I donāt believe it exists as a practical matter; it depends on who wants the information and how much they want it. JMO
I am guessing Robert Mueller did not need Avenattiās help on this.