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Manafort Left an Incriminating Paper Trail Converting PDFs to Word

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Re: Manafort Left an Incriminating Paper Trail Converting PDFs to Word

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's kind of strange. In the U.S., people get angry if they get a speeding ticket for going 12 miles over the speed limit (see any conversation about speed cameras). There doesn't seem to be any push back against having speed limits; rather, it seems like most people think we should have them and then ignore them.

That has varied. The speed limit commonly got set to 50/55 mph due to the National Maximum Speed Law in 1974 [1]. It ended up being a giant government shit show that resulted in an estimated Typically you'll see 70 or 75 on US highways now. To go much higher, the US is going to have to up its road construction & maintenance game, as the German autobahn is maintained at considerably higher quality. [1] https://en.wiki…

You mean this German autobahn? -> https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundesautobahn_20#/media/File:...

:)

Re: Manafort Left an Incriminating Paper Trail Converting PDFs to Word

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly enough, many documents have been recovered from Pompeii. Quick history refresher: Pompeii was an ancient Roman city-town near Naples. When Mount Vesuvius erupted in the year 79, Pompeii was covered in ~15 feet of lava and volcanic ash. One imagines that this was highly distressing to the residents of Pompeii, but none were available for comment as they were all busy being incinerated. I guess we'll neve…

During the Oakland Hills Fire[0] fragments of books and newspapers fell from the sky on us in Albany (north-east of Berkeley). Half- and quarter-pages. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland_firestorm_of_1991

It is incredibly easy to ensure that a controlled fire combusts all of its fuel completely. You just add excess oxygen to the combustion chamber.

Uncontrolled fires, and things burning under a blanket of ash, will not have sufficient oxygen in some places, will have CO as a reaction product instead of just CO2, and may leave unburnt carbon. Think about how charcoal is made--oxygen-free pyrolysis.

The waste product of a document incinerator is ash, water, and CO2. It is literally impossible to recover any information content from it.

Re: Manafort Left an Incriminating Paper Trail Converting PDFs to Word

#233
post #214
post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a random guess, but they may have been hunting for a self-incriminating admission of drunk driving. I got pulled over for speeding once, and the first thing the cop asked was "Why do you think I pulled you over?". I shrugged, and said I had no idea. He claimed I was speeding, but let me off with a warning. In another instance where I got pulled over for speeding[1], the cop told me as much, but then asked how fa…

> "Why do you think I pulled you over?" That's pretty standard; nearly every traffic stop I've witnessed or heard about contains that line. I believe they do it because -- assuming you give a truthful/correct answer -- it makes it less likely you'll contest the ticket, and if you do, they can tell the judge, "when I asked why they thought I'd pulled them over, they told me it was because they were speeding". If you a…

And the de jure standard answer is "because you had a reasonable suspicion I was committing a crime," or "I don't answer questions without legal counsel present."

Of course, since many cops will retaliate against smartasses, the de facto standard answer is "I don't know. Why did you pull me over?" This is always truthful, correct, and non-incriminating, because you can't be expected to read the cop's mind.

Re: Manafort Left an Incriminating Paper Trail Converting PDFs to Word

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the FBI watches you for 500 days, they will either find something to charge you with, or they will entrap you into doing something they can charge you with, because their budget does not include as much money for "pointless investigations of innocent people" as it does for "nailing guilty-looking people to the wall, and making the agency look good in the press".

Generally speaking, the "trap" they use is to provoke you into lying to them, because lying to them is a felony (Title 18, United States Code, Section 1001). [1] [1] https://reason.com/archives/2018/02/08/donald-trump-shouldnt... -- edit - I realized the URL might make it look like a slanted political article, but it's more about the law than it is about politics. The article author is the same guy that runs the Pope…

They will also charge you with a felony if you accidentally lie to them. If you tell them "good morning" as a greeting, and the weather is actually a bit lousy outside, they could charge you.

You really need professional coaching in order to talk to them. You'll have to program yourself to say things like "in my opinion..." or "in my memory of that event..." or "hypothetically, if..."

It's really counterproductive. Because any conceivable response could incriminate the respondent, the interviewee can plead the 5th to anything they are asked, including "is water wet?"

Re: Manafort Left an Incriminating Paper Trail Converting PDFs to Word

#235
post #211
post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My story of weird police interaction: My wife was driving my pickup on the freeway late at night; I'm in the passenger seat dozing, sleeping off a party we went to. Anyhow, she's pulling over and I see the red and blues flashing around us, and I'm wondering what's going on. She's asking me where I keep my registration. We stop, and the cop stops behind us. Then a second pulls in behind him. I'm sitting there wonderin…

Just a random guess, but they may have been hunting for a self-incriminating admission of drunk driving. I got pulled over for speeding once, and the first thing the cop asked was "Why do you think I pulled you over?". I shrugged, and said I had no idea. He claimed I was speeding, but let me off with a warning. In another instance where I got pulled over for speeding[1], the cop told me as much, but then asked how fa…

Never say a number. If you want to give the option to the cop to give you a ticket with a lower fine attached, just say "my speedometer said I was okay." And that will probably result in a citation for an equipment violation instead of for speeding.

You can't say "I don't know," either, because that sets you up for some variation on negligent driving.

The safest response for the court record is "I don't answer questions without legal counsel present," but that is likely to provoke the cop into ensuring that there will be a court record.

Re: Manafort Left an Incriminating Paper Trail Converting PDFs to Word

#236
post #8

Semi-related tip: I despise protected pdfs with a passion. Especially when you download a datasheet and you can't add annotations or highlights to it. So, how to remove this protection? One way is to print to postscript and convert back to pdf, but then you can't copy text from it. Here's how (on windows): download qpdf ( http://qpdf.sourceforge.net/ ) and run qpdf.exe -decrypt encrypted.pdf woho.pdf I made a small b…

> I despise protected pdfs with a passion When I want to "protect" a PDF, I print it as a TIFF and then PDF that document. It's less "protecting" than "making it difficult to alter or copy-paste from," but it works. (Also good for ensuring your redaction blobs can't be moved.)

Out of curiosity, why would you ever need/want to do that?

Re: Manafort Left an Incriminating Paper Trail Converting PDFs to Word

#237
post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Why do you think I pulled you over?" That's pretty standard; nearly every traffic stop I've witnessed or heard about contains that line. I believe they do it because -- assuming you give a truthful/correct answer -- it makes it less likely you'll contest the ticket, and if you do, they can tell the judge, "when I asked why they thought I'd pulled them over, they told me it was because they were speeding". If you a…

And the de jure standard answer is "because you had a reasonable suspicion I was committing a crime," or "I don't answer questions without legal counsel present." Of course, since many cops will retaliate against smartasses, the de facto standard answer is "I don't know. Why did you pull me over?" This is always truthful, correct, and non-incriminating, because you can't be expected to read the cop's mind.

Yep, totally. I usually use the wording "I'm not sure", or, better, "I can't be sure", since "I don't know" is often not entirely truthful.

Re: Manafort Left an Incriminating Paper Trail Converting PDFs to Word

#238

OT: Does this have ANYTHING to do w/ Trump Russia Collusion? Separate OT: Do we know any political party that colluded, in primaries? Or that received foreign $? Or used 'bots' to make it seem like they have support? Or that had it's operatives use state instruments to disrupt the opposing party?

Mueller's remit is to investigate any crimes related to the campaign and election. Trump/Russia collusion is just one of many including money laundering and obstruction of justice. Manafort was campaign chairman and is alleged to have convinced Trump to change positions on Ukraine as a a result of outside funds. Hence investigating money laundering is directly relevant to Mueller's remit.

Where is what the internets say: according to WaPo ( http://archive.is/AUN7q ) Manafort was operating for 10 years - each of the 8 years of Obama.

Where can I find the source for: 'Manafort was campaign chairman and is alleged to have convinced Trump to change positions'.

Also, what is your feeling on amount and frequency Dems were actually paid directly by foreign govs?

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