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Laptop stolen from Pelosi's office during storming of U.S. Capitol, says aide

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Re: Laptop stolen from Pelosi's office during storming of U.S. Capitol, says aide

#571

Post by sangnoir »

cperciva wrote: post #420
sangnoir wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious - what are those reasons, and how would the lack of an invitation thwart them?

Most obviously, if you invite the military in and ask them to secure a portion of the building, you're exposed to the risk that the commander-in-chief will order them out (or order them to stand aside); it's unlikely that forces could be redeployed fast enough to respond to such a defection. (And no, you can't avoid this danger by having all the forces working together everywhere; far too many command-and-control iss…

Those are all valid points. Though I will argue that the assumption that the Capitol Police answers to the legislature is shaky, at best (in practice). If I had to guess who is more likely to refuse an unlawful order, I'd say a member of the military, rather than the police, based on my limited knowledge of their respective cultures. Combined with the idea of police officers who believe they are part of a semi-secret, ad-hoc, patriot's army, things can go wrong indeed.

Let's do a thought experiment: let's say there are a few elements in the police who are active QAnon believers, sprinkled in at various levels. Let's also assume some more force members are not believers, per se, but sympathize with the cause, and are willing to look aside since they may dislike some legislators who they see as enabling BLM, Antifa and other un-American actors (in their eyes) and believe that something "weird" happened with the elections and/or the whole establishment is dirty. Would these individuals not listen to the orders of the commander in chief, even when not delivered via the official chain of command?

Re: Laptop stolen from Pelosi's office during storming of U.S. Capitol, says aide

#572

Post by dukeofdoom »

abnry wrote: post #400

This is yet another aspect that makes these recent events so depressing. I don't think I've ever felt this low and ashamed as an American before. How could the government even allow such a security breach to happen?

Don't feel low. A mob of angry citizens storming the capital, happens all over the world and has lead to democratic reform in many a nation.

Re: Laptop stolen from Pelosi's office during storming of U.S. Capitol, says aide

#573

Post by Technically »

colde wrote: post #565
eloff wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hilarious, but definitely not a spy. The Russians aren't so amateur as to send an undercover agent to the US who can't speak English. If they missed the opportunity at the Capitol the other day to plant listening devices though, they must be kicking themselves now.

You say that, but they have had spies being exposed for a lot of stupid reasons. Like having their address on driving licenses be the FSB headquarters to avoid getting traffic tickets. Also, it seems entirely possible to me that they would do that not for the purposes of spying, but to sow chaos.

Putin is, indeed, a huge fan of non-linear warfare. One side effect that it's extremely difficult to predict and can only be, possibly, recognized, and intent (the "true" end) is virtually impossible to discern. If you push a ton of buttons at once, you create opportunities for yourself that you might not even have predicted, and people can ascribe all sorts of intent that never existed.

It's part of why I roll my eyes at election interference—not that it's somehow "fake", but the amount of hysteria generated has got to be a better return than anyone could have guessed throwing a couple million dollars at an online propaganda campaign.

Re: Laptop stolen from Pelosi's office during storming of U.S. Capitol, says aide

#574

Post by kenniskrag »

fphhotchips wrote: post #527
kenniskrag wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as they could just access the harddrive directly regardless of OS security policy. I think that's wrong if you consider disk encryption.

From what I've read, full disk encryption was optional in the House until very recently. If this was a shared machine it's almost certainly not encrypted.

full disk encryption is also possible with a shared computer. TPM and PBA are some keywords

Re: Laptop stolen from Pelosi's office during storming of U.S. Capitol, says aide

#575

Post by pc86 »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #534
bcrosby95 wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should beef up security. And keep it open. And not so obvious. The simple fact of the matter is that a violent riot stormed the capitol building and nearly overwhelmed local forces. Congress asked for extra help and it wasn't provided. Governors asked if they could send in the guard to help and the man whom stoked the riot gave no permission. It's a fucking miracle that January 6th wasn't one of the worst days i…

Um, the police waved them through. It was in cooperation with Capitol police. No 'overwhelming' necessary. Which is worrisome in a whole nother way. https://twitter.com/bumbera_steven/status/134727096998817382... video

You've seen different footage than I have, then.

Re: Laptop stolen from Pelosi's office during storming of U.S. Capitol, says aide

#576

Post by ezequiel-garzon »

caminocorner wrote: post #462
ezequiel-garzon wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. Moreover, why are the Capitol Police Chiefs singled out? Could they have asked for, say, the National Guard? Were they supposed to go to the leaders of Congress the days before the certification to make it happen? I was always of the idea that federal authorities would be tasked with such planning, enrolling (among others) the Capitol Police.

> Could they have asked for, say, the National Guard? They declined the help, and that of the FBI https://apnews.com/article/capitol-police-reject-federal-hel...

Oh, that's... puzzling, then. Thanks for the source.

Re: Laptop stolen from Pelosi's office during storming of U.S. Capitol, says aide

#577

Post by sangnoir »

smcl wrote: post #289
sangnoir wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it is reasonable to assume that some individual members of the police force are sympathetic to the Q/Boogaloo cause, who is to say the person responsible for coordinating with the Pentagon wasn't a fellow traveler? Police forces, on the whole aren't exactly politically neutral: during primary season, I recall a republican politician getting a picture taken with a policeman who had a "Q" patch on his uniform. There…

They definitely deserve answers, you are right. But jumping to "This was an op and the DC police as a unit were in on it" is approaching wheelhouse of the crazies who instigated this whole debacle. That runaway cascade of believing lots of little things that could be possible is what led to millions believing in dumb stuff like Mole Children being kept as slaves by Hillary Clinton and friends. Unless something more s…

I was careful to say individuals - my point was that there is no reason to doubt the possibility of those sympathetic individual(s) being decision-makers in the force. I was careful to not suggest it was a group decision.

However, it is no secret that the FBI has long-reported (2006!) on white-supremecist infiltration of police forces[1] - this is not crazy talk. If someone joined the police as a rookie in 2006 to enforce their personal agenda, how far up the leadership hierarchy would they be now?

1. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/fbi-white-supremacists-i...

Re: Laptop stolen from Pelosi's office during storming of U.S. Capitol, says aide

#578

Post by kube-system »

pySSK wrote: post #72
35fbe7d3d5b9 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've traveled to countries before whose offices of government are behind very large fences, protected by unfriendly looking men standing behind heavy machine guns in armored vehicles – and the guide books are very clear that you are not to take photos of them. I much prefer the approach taken in the USA, where our offices of government are accessible to the people that the government serves. It's very good that I can…

I agree with the more open approach, but shouldn't her office have a simple keycard or combo lock on the door? Even Starbucks toilets have better security. From the pictures I saw, she was still logged in and had the evacuation message onscreen. I'm guessing she didn't have 'require login after screensaver' option enabled. If the account is still logged in, this is a massive breach!

> I agree with the more open approach, but shouldn't her office have a simple keycard or combo lock on the door?

Congressional offices are frequent meeting spaces with people who do not work there. Their job, after all, is to represent the public. Locking the public out of their offices is kind of antithetical to the job description.

Re: Laptop stolen from Pelosi's office during storming of U.S. Capitol, says aide

#579

Post by [deleted] »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #534
bcrosby95 wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should beef up security. And keep it open. And not so obvious. The simple fact of the matter is that a violent riot stormed the capitol building and nearly overwhelmed local forces. Congress asked for extra help and it wasn't provided. Governors asked if they could send in the guard to help and the man whom stoked the riot gave no permission. It's a fucking miracle that January 6th wasn't one of the worst days i…

Um, the police waved them through. It was in cooperation with Capitol police. No 'overwhelming' necessary. Which is worrisome in a whole nother way. https://twitter.com/bumbera_steven/status/134727096998817382... video

[deleted]

Re: Laptop stolen from Pelosi's office during storming of U.S. Capitol, says aide

#580

Post by plussed_reader »

smcl wrote: post #61
sangnoir wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They turned down an offer from the Pentagon to supplement manpower, days before the protest. Why? A police department with an intelligence unit couldn't guess that things might get a little out of hand when 3 weeks before, the President publicly used Twitter to ask his followers[1] to attend a "wild" protest on January 6th? Not that an intelligence unit was required as the plans were in the open. I have great difficu…

For this specific decision I think we can put it down to incompetence over malice - it'd presumably be easy for whoever was co-ordinating it dismiss all the riot talks as bluster and figure it'd just be yet another protest with a lot of shouting. I imagine we'll hear more about it, but I would be surprised if it was a co-ordinated effort in concert with the rioters (I don't know what to call them). The footage of pol…

I'm not so certain; with the possibility of installed loyalists and/or 'regulatory capture' we may have intentional malfeasance to make a troubling situation worse.
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