Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Israel accused of planting mysterious spy devices near the White House

politico.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 346 posts

Re: Israel accused of planting mysterious spy devices near the White House

#71

Post by Kaiyou »

9HZZRfNlpR wrote: post #62
shliachtx wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. This is the same publication that insisted that a shadowy Jewish cabal is controlling Trump at Putin's behest. Edit: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/04/the-happy-go... (The original hero image has been changed to something less ominous) https://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/229930/politicos-dubious-ch...

Unfortunately very standard cherry picking facts article, the sad part is that it matched with the conspiracies of jews running the world. Unfortunately a lot of journalism coming from the American left lately gives me those American right wing radio vibes where everyone's the enemy, connected, planning to get you. I'm not American but it seems the two party system is absolutely ripping your country and society apart…

As the saying goes, it's not paranoia if they really are out to get you.

Re: Israel accused of planting mysterious spy devices near the White House

#73

Post by t34543 »

habnds wrote: post #19
kryogen1c wrote: post #8

> The U.S. government concluded within the last two years that Israel was most likely behind > But unlike most other occasions I don't know if im spoiled by Wikipedia, or jaded from age, or wisened by age, or rightfully lost trust in the media, or wrongfully lost trust in the media, but i find myself entirely unwilling to accept to accept claims like this. Citation. Needed. In order to believe this article, i need to…

Citations in journalism is a really interesting thing. Unlike science, where at least in theory, everything is built from the ground up using first principles or built upon raw data collected, the "raw data" of journalism is just various types of conversations with people the journalist then has to verify, and gauge the reliability of. In other cases it's the journalists first person experience of an event. Citations…

Onus should be on journalists. Bring back the fairness doctrine and have people smarter than me take down the sinclair group.

Re: Israel accused of planting mysterious spy devices near the White House

#74

Post by noobiemcfoob »

bhouston wrote: post #35
kryogen1c wrote: post #8

> The U.S. government concluded within the last two years that Israel was most likely behind > But unlike most other occasions I don't know if im spoiled by Wikipedia, or jaded from age, or wisened by age, or rightfully lost trust in the media, or wrongfully lost trust in the media, but i find myself entirely unwilling to accept to accept claims like this. Citation. Needed. In order to believe this article, i need to…

Nothing about this article seems untrustworthy. Politico is a highly trustworthy paper that had real reporters who talk to real people all over the US government and it references real events and people and papers all throughout this article. Your comment seems out of place.

Citation. Needed.

Re: Israel accused of planting mysterious spy devices near the White House

#75

Post by ceejayoz »

jpmattia wrote: post #65
ceejayoz wrote: post #5

It's common knowledge that Trump regularly uses a personal, non-secured iPhone to communicate with friends and advisers. https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/24/18020746/president-donal... It'd be malpractice by a major intelligence agency not to attempt this, and I'd suspect there are a bunch of these things from various countries (including allies) within range of the White House.

> It'd be malpractice by a major intelligence agency not to attempt this And the countermeasure is so simple that even the most simple of simpletons can understand it. "Hey, this room is bugged. Don't talk there if you want a private conversation."

"Don't talk about classified stuff around the President because his phone is probably compromised" is easy to understand, but a difficult instruction to follow.

Re: Israel accused of planting mysterious spy devices near the White House

#76

Post by [deleted] »

habnds wrote: post #69
roenxi wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia does context amazingly well. If I go to the Wikipedia article on sandals I not only get information on sandals, I get information about why people might want to look at an article on sandals (eg, infectious disease control) and if I care to drill a little deeper a list of all the people who cared enough about sandals to edit the article. And a talk page to cover any controversies although sandals appear to…

Just putting myself in the shoes of someone at Politico, I think they would point out a few things. Is it reasonable to compare this article to a wikipedia article? The publishing time frame and the number of people involved are way different. Wikipedia isn't intended to be a source for current events. It isn't journalism. Maybe more importantly, is Wikpedia really an objective or fair look at an issue? For sandals s…

[deleted]

Re: Israel accused of planting mysterious spy devices near the White House

#77

Post by cbzbc »

ceejayoz wrote: post #12
2rsf wrote: post #6

> Israel doesn’t conduct espionage operations in the United States, period. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Pollard

In fairness, Israel claims they learned a lesson from that incident and implemented the policy you're quoting as a result. edit: Some weird downvotes here. I'm not saying I believe they don't actually spy, but they have made that promise: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/22/israel-condemn... > Since Pollard's conviction, Israel has promised not to spy on the US. Israeli ministers said on Sunday that Israel…

Except that every few years you still get stories like this in the press: https://www.newsweek.com/israel-wont-stop-spying-us-249757

and then usually after a few days of embarrassed silence they go away.

Re: Israel accused of planting mysterious spy devices near the White House

#78

Post by jakelazaroff »

creaghpatr wrote: post #36
jakelazaroff wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both quotes cite their sources — “former senior U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter” — in the parts of the sentence you cut off: > The U.S. government concluded within the last two years that Israel was most likely behind the placement of cell-phone surveillance devices that were found near the White House and other sensitive locations around Washington, D.C., according to three former senior U.S. officials w…

>according to three former senior U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter. It would matter if there were any substance to the claims, it might make sense. But instead, the article goes a step further as you quote here: >> The former senior intelligence official criticized how the administration handled the matter, remarking on the striking difference from past administrations, which likely would have at a very mi…

You're moving the goalposts. Regardless of the intent of the piece, it clearly cites its sources.

Re: Israel accused of planting mysterious spy devices near the White House

#79

Post by kstenerud »

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #28

What does the US get out of the special relationship with Israel? Anti-Israel sources mostly talk about the strong Jewish lobbies, while pro-Israel sources mostly cite being the only democracy in the region. Both seem misleading at best. What's the US's argument from self-interest for tolerating this kind of thing?

Israel and Saudi Arabia are America's eyes and ears into the Middle East. It could have been any nation (indeed, America tried to get Iran as well, but was... less than successful).

These kinds of relationships require a fair bit of quid pro quo, and of course for a country like Israel whose very national security depends upon a cozy relationship with America, it's perfectly understandable that they'd be spying on American influencers wherever and whenever possible. In fact, it's unofficially tolerated in the intelligence service as a cost of doing business. Same goes for the foibles of the crown prince in Saudi Arabia (which have by now been conveniently forgotten by the press and everyone else).

Once you've made friends who are useful to your grander plans, it's best to ignore the annoying things they do.

Re: Israel accused of planting mysterious spy devices near the White House

#80

Post by Zenst »

kryogen1c wrote: post #8

> The U.S. government concluded within the last two years that Israel was most likely behind > But unlike most other occasions I don't know if im spoiled by Wikipedia, or jaded from age, or wisened by age, or rightfully lost trust in the media, or wrongfully lost trust in the media, but i find myself entirely unwilling to accept to accept claims like this. Citation. Needed. In order to believe this article, i need to…

When you have spy level investigations, the bias towards implicating a state actor over organised crime is most prevalent. Indeed in this case, they felt it was most likely without quantifying why they thought that was so. A trend we see play out many times. Then you add the government secrecy and just get the answer without any workings out. Hence it is right to question the answer. More so when it is often worked most gray by terms like "most likely". Then you always get some random official making a more solidified claim without any further evidence at all making a more solid case "“It was pretty clear that the Israelis were responsible,” said a former senior intelligence official." and the press will just roll with that.

Did they do due diligence - yes they will say as they asked somebody else. Do we have definitive proof - nope. But this is a pattern that plays out many a time.

It also ignores how such devices could of been used to spy upon others, found and then planted to cause embarrassment at a higher level - That's spycraft for you, happens.

But the take away question I have is - why do reporters always fallback upon EX-staff members for quotes, how many did they ask until they got the answer they wanted? That is one area that totally erodes most credibility to the discerning eye and yet is often used by the media to support some direction or another.

Post reply on HN