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Inside Team Romney’s whale of an IT meltdown

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Re: Inside Team Romney’s whale of an IT meltdown

#191

Post by cmccabe »

smsm42 wrote: post #183
cmccabe wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This whole "fast and furious" thing is just mind-bogglingly stupid. Seriously-- it takes a lot of effort to be this stupid. Do you realize the reason why Mexican drug gangs buy guns in Arizona? It's because the gun laws there are extremely, extremely weak, to the point where random 18-year-olds can walk out of the door with $20,000 of guns, with no oversight. Who keeps the gun laws this weak? Republicans. Who then cy…

Even if what you said about F&F were true, this does not change the fact Holder lied about it to Congress. If he thought it's a good operation - he should have said "yes, I knew about it since 2010 and it's just fine and nothing wrong with it", not "I just learned about it in 2011". Now back to F&F. If you took a moment to educate yourself, you'd learn the whole point of F&F was to CIRCUMVENT the gun laws and allow t…

Nobody is blaming Bush (protip: he is not the president any more, and even if he were, the president is not responsible for determining gun laws in Arizona.) However, the fact that a random 18-year old can buy $20,000 of guns in Arizona and just walk out the door is the real cause of the problem. The ATF, by law, can't even set up a database of who bought what gun. I am in favor of gun rights, but this is just ridiculous.

Given that the purpose of F&F was specifically NOT to seize weapons that could be seized - relating the inevitable blowup of F&F to the lower seizures, is, well, you know... gah.

Here's a deep thought for you. If "Fast and Furious" was really the cause of those guns getting to Mexico, then why are guns still getting to Mexico, now that "Fast and Furious" is over? And why did so many of them get there before the operation started?

Re: Inside Team Romney’s whale of an IT meltdown

#192

Post by lifeguard »

rhizome wrote: post #175
niels_olson wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there really an age gap in basic understanding of the Internet? I submit most 18 yo kids know as little as most 48 yo management types. Or 48 yo teachers, or 48 yo anything-other-than-hacker types. If there is any function that filters Internet literacy, it's self selection of certain people (mostly men) into CS/IT.

I'm referring to SIPRNet security policies that gave millions of its users access to the same "Top Secret" data, and where the DoD decision tree strongly correlates to seniority.

I was referring to Private Bradley Manning and Sharepoint. To be fair, it took a few years to crack the MS file encryption. But now the world has wikileaks.

Re: Inside Team Romney’s whale of an IT meltdown

#193

Post by lifeguard »

acdha wrote: post #129
lifeguard wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using the MS stack for a situation where you will have huge spikes of activity on an app with an expected lifespan of less than 24 hours is not best practice.

I'm an open source developer – working on Linux servers since 1997 or so, etc. etc. Please stop what you're doing: it's not very funny and it's not helpful, but it does give OSS people a bad reputation. You can host plenty of high volume things on Microsoft's code – Azure, Bing, etc. have proven scale. We can argue about cost, ease of use, etc. but a decent team should have no trouble making a serious service. The pr…

This comment reminds me of AL Gore lecturing Frank Zapa.

Re: Inside Team Romney’s whale of an IT meltdown

#194

Post by smsm42 »

cmccabe wrote: post #191
smsm42 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if what you said about F&F were true, this does not change the fact Holder lied about it to Congress. If he thought it's a good operation - he should have said "yes, I knew about it since 2010 and it's just fine and nothing wrong with it", not "I just learned about it in 2011". Now back to F&F. If you took a moment to educate yourself, you'd learn the whole point of F&F was to CIRCUMVENT the gun laws and allow t…

Nobody is blaming Bush (protip: he is not the president any more, and even if he were, the president is not responsible for determining gun laws in Arizona.) However, the fact that a random 18-year old can buy $20,000 of guns in Arizona and just walk out the door is the real cause of the problem. The ATF, by law, can't even set up a database of who bought what gun. I am in favor of gun rights, but this is just ridicu…

>>> However, the fact that a random 18-year old can buy $20,000 of guns in Arizona and just walk out the door is the real cause of the problem.

Nope, it is not. Random 18-year olds do not resell thousands of guns to Mexican drug cartels. The guys that did were known to ATF and sellers repeatedly alerted ATF - the agency that by law is designed to stop it - about them. The system worked - until it did not, because ATF thought they would be geniuses to allow the guns to "walk".

>>> The ATF, by law, can't even set up a database of who bought what gun.

By which law? This sounds like complete baloney - ATF knew who bought the guns. They just didn't intervene because this was the plan - to let the guns "walk", not because some law prevented them from knowing who bought what.

>>> If "Fast and Furious" was really the cause of those guns getting to Mexico

What you mean "if"? It is the fact that F&F was the reason of those guns getting to Mexico. If F&F was not underway, these buyers would have been stopped and the guns were confiscated before they reach Mexico.

>>> why are guns still getting to Mexico,

Because there are other ways of getting guns to Mexico, duh. You'd make a fine defense lawyer: "If my client sold these drugs on the street, as this footage and this undercover officer suggests, how comes drugs are still sold on the street when my client already had been arrested?". Too bad this defense makes no sense at all - of course ATF is not the only channel Mexican gangs can smuggle guns. That does not diminish the fact those specific guns were smuggled with full ATF cooperation and help, which should not have happened. And this does not diminish the fact AG lied about it after the fact that this ill-conceived mess of an operation was exposed. They knew it's a mess, they lied to cover their asses - and they got away with it. And Obama shares the blame for it.

Really, with this kind of argument I would not be so quick to throw around the "stupidity" word if I were you. I'd first learn to figure out difference between "X caused this specific instance of Y" and "X caused all instances of Y ever".

Re: Inside Team Romney’s whale of an IT meltdown

#195

Post by smsm42 »

inthewoods wrote: post #187
smsm42 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if what you said about F&F were true, this does not change the fact Holder lied about it to Congress. If he thought it's a good operation - he should have said "yes, I knew about it since 2010 and it's just fine and nothing wrong with it", not "I just learned about it in 2011". Now back to F&F. If you took a moment to educate yourself, you'd learn the whole point of F&F was to CIRCUMVENT the gun laws and allow t…

You should really read the Forbes article: "Quite simply, there's a fundamental misconception at the heart of the Fast and Furious scandal. Nobody disputes that suspected straw purchasers under surveillance by the ATF repeatedly bought guns that eventually fell into criminal hands. Issa and others charge that the ATF intentionally allowed guns to walk as an operational tactic. But five law-enforcement agents directly…

What is written there (esp. Fortune) is contrary to known facts and written from the words of very interested and involved people covering their asses after their operation blew up in their faces. I do not know who specifically gave the orders - was it prosecutors, ATF, or whoever else - but the fact is orders were given to not intercept illegal purchases and to let the guns "walk". From DOJ IG report:

We found that the lack of seizures and arrests was primarily attributable to the pursuit of a strategic goal shared by both the [Phoenix] ATF and the U.S. Attorney’s Office -- to eliminate a trafficking organization -- and the belief that confronting subjects and seizing firearms could compromise that goal.

This tactic was significantly different from previous tactic, e.g. in Project Gunrunner - where straw purchasers were arrested at the moment they handed off the guns. Here, they were allowed to proceed - to great dissatisfaction of the field agents. Whoever though up this was thinking that this would lead up the chain to eliminate the bigger organisation - but due to multiple failures in the execution - such as ATF agent tracking the buyer going on vacation and the buyer just disappearing with the guns - it did not happen and guns just disappeared in Mexico to the hands of drug cartels.

Nothing to do with gun laws. Anti-guns bunch would have to look in other place to feed their political agenda.

Re: Inside Team Romney’s whale of an IT meltdown

#196

Post by cmccabe »

smsm42 wrote: post #195
inthewoods wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should really read the Forbes article: "Quite simply, there's a fundamental misconception at the heart of the Fast and Furious scandal. Nobody disputes that suspected straw purchasers under surveillance by the ATF repeatedly bought guns that eventually fell into criminal hands. Issa and others charge that the ATF intentionally allowed guns to walk as an operational tactic. But five law-enforcement agents directly…

What is written there (esp. Fortune) is contrary to known facts and written from the words of very interested and involved people covering their asses after their operation blew up in their faces. I do not know who specifically gave the orders - was it prosecutors, ATF, or whoever else - but the fact is orders were given to not intercept illegal purchases and to let the guns "walk". From DOJ IG report: We found that…

from http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2012/06/27/fast-and-fu...

In a meeting on Jan. 5, 2010, Emory Hurley, the assistant U.S. Attorney in Phoenix overseeing the Fast and Furious case, told the [ATF] agents they lacked probable cause for arrests, according to ATF records. Hurley's judgment reflected accepted policy at the U.S. Attorney's Office in Arizona. "[P]urchasing multiple long guns in Arizona is lawful," Patrick Cunningham, the U.S. Attorney's then–criminal chief in Arizona would later write. "Transferring them to another is lawful and even sale or barter of the guns to another is lawful unless the United States can prove by clear and convincing evidence that the firearm is intended to be used to commit a crime." (Arizona federal prosecutors referred requests for comment to the Justice Department, which declined to make officials available. Hurley noted in an e-mail, "I am not able to comment on what I understand to be an ongoing investigation/prosecution. I am precluded by federal regulation, DOJ policy, the rules of professional conduct, and court order from talking with you about this matter." Cunningham's attorney also declined to comment.)

It was nearly impossible in Arizona to bring a case against a straw purchaser. The federal prosecutors there did not consider the purchase of a huge volume of guns, or their handoff to a third party, sufficient evidence to seize them. A buyer who certified that the guns were for himself, then handed them off minutes later, hadn't necessarily lied and was free to change his mind. Even if a suspect bought 10 guns that were recovered days later at a Mexican crime scene, this didn't mean the initial purchase had been illegal. To these prosecutors, the pattern proved little. Instead, agents needed to link specific evidence of intent to commit a crime to each gun they wanted to seize.

Yep, sounds like this is all the fault of some renegade ATF agent. Nothing to do with the laws in place, no sir.

Re: Inside Team Romney’s whale of an IT meltdown

#197

Post by inthewoods »

smsm42 wrote: post #194
cmccabe wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is blaming Bush (protip: he is not the president any more, and even if he were, the president is not responsible for determining gun laws in Arizona.) However, the fact that a random 18-year old can buy $20,000 of guns in Arizona and just walk out the door is the real cause of the problem. The ATF, by law, can't even set up a database of who bought what gun. I am in favor of gun rights, but this is just ridicu…

>>> However, the fact that a random 18-year old can buy $20,000 of guns in Arizona and just walk out the door is the real cause of the problem. Nope, it is not. Random 18-year olds do not resell thousands of guns to Mexican drug cartels. The guys that did were known to ATF and sellers repeatedly alerted ATF - the agency that by law is designed to stop it - about them. The system worked - until it did not, because ATF…

I'm honestly perplexed by your answer here - did you read the Fortune article? It has quoted sources and emails to back up the fact that state prosecutors refused to allow the ATF agents to do anything with these gun runners. That is, they told them that buying a large amount of guns was legal, and that even transferring them to someone else was legal as well.

If the state DA isn't will to prosecute, then what would you suggest the ATF agents do? And if the ATF agents know that guns are being purchased, but then cannot arrest those individuals because they do not have probable cause, why would you call that "allowing the guns to walk"?

Re: Inside Team Romney’s whale of an IT meltdown

#198

Post by djt »

jacalata wrote: post #131
djt wrote: post #95

i find it interesting that they named it Orca as Obamas system was called Narwhal. for those of you that dont know, Narwhal is an animal, but its also a internet meme. Obviously a very nerdy reference by Obamas team. The fact that the Romney team had to name their software as a killer for a Narwhal goes to show that they wanted to win at any cost, unfortunately when that happens you sometimes lose sight of the goal,…

I find it interesting that they made this exact point in the article we are discussing here, and you don't appear to have read it.

they didnt mention that it was a animal made famous as a meme

Re: Inside Team Romney’s whale of an IT meltdown

#199

Post by djt »

pjscott wrote: post #140
djt wrote: post #95

i find it interesting that they named it Orca as Obamas system was called Narwhal. for those of you that dont know, Narwhal is an animal, but its also a internet meme. Obviously a very nerdy reference by Obamas team. The fact that the Romney team had to name their software as a killer for a Narwhal goes to show that they wanted to win at any cost, unfortunately when that happens you sometimes lose sight of the goal,…

Or it means that whoever came up with the name was aware of Narwhal and thought it fitting that their system should also be named after a cool-looking whale. If this had not been a political issue, would you have been slower to reject this obvious innocent interpretation?

they mentioned in the piece that it was named as an animal that is the only natural predator of the Narwhale.

Please read the article before you downvote or comment.

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