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That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

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Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> non-political government office holders ought to not weigh in on politics They have the clear First Amendment right to do so on their own time. I mean, I hold the opinion that people "ought not to" be fans of Charlie Kirk. But you'd correctly object if I enforced that opinion with government power. > Before your ilk became dominant in public discourse… Yikes.

>They have the clear First Amendment right to do so on their own time.

They don't have a right to a government job.

Are you fine with CPS employees espousing absurd opinions about the fitness of homosexuals to be parents? Because that's the door this opens. Think a few steps ahead.

If you wanna spew politics and keep your LEO or teaching job get elected sheriff or school board.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#293
post #98

Once a Chinese grad student explained to me a difference he noted between Chinese and American citizens. He said in China no really reads or watches 24/7 major news outlets in China. They are fully aware that all of it is propaganda and just go about their life. He said Americans seem to get really emotional over content in the press and seem to really struggle with the idea of propaganda / journalism in the news. I…

While I think I agree with most of what you're saying, I think it can be misunderstood and it can be very damaging when taken to an extreme, so I'll just leave a quote from the absolutely fantastic 20 lessons from the 20th century by Timothy Snyder: > Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing…

Fantastic quote. Spot on. Thanks for sharing it!

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NYT article fell apart the moment they quoted the silly "35 miles from UN headquarters" quote by the SS without pointing out it's an absurd attempt at sensationalizing. No need to read further than that before figuring out it's a propaganda piece.

That's the figure that has been cherry picked and everyone has run with to dismiss the announcement yes. While it probably was included to sensationalize, I fail to see how that is some kind of smoking gun that somehow falsifies all the rest of it. Everyone buying into this is showing their bias

It's the most obvious example, it's not the sole piece of evidence.

Let's pick through the official statement.

"In addition to carrying out anonymous telephonic threats, these devices could be used to conduct a wide range of telecommunications attacks. This includes disabling cell phone towers, enabling denial of services attacks and facilitating anonymous, encrypted communication between potential threat actors and criminal enterprises."

This is a mix of bullshit and mundane. Disabling cell towers? I don't buy it. DoS attacks? Yeah, any collection of internet-connected devices can do that. Anonymous, encrypted communication? Everybody's smartphone qualifies for that. You could be talking about arresting a pickpocketer and be technically correct in saying that you siezed a device that could be used to facilitate anonymous, encrypted communication between potential threat actors and criminal enterprises.

"While forensic examination of these devices is ongoing, early analysis indicates cellular communications between nation-state threat actors and individuals that are known to federal law enforcement."

So some foreign government was using these services. You could say the same about AWS.

"The potential for disruption to our country’s telecommunications posed by this network of devices cannot be overstated"

A nice example of the genre of self-disproving statements.

"These devices were concentrated within 35 miles of the global meeting of the United Nations General Assembly now underway in New York City."

It bears repeating that "within 35 miles" of the UN includes the entire New York metro area and a large area beyond. In addition to that, the very concept of electronic equipment being "concentrated within" four thousand square miles doesn't make the least bit of sense.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#295
post #98

Once a Chinese grad student explained to me a difference he noted between Chinese and American citizens. He said in China no really reads or watches 24/7 major news outlets in China. They are fully aware that all of it is propaganda and just go about their life. He said Americans seem to get really emotional over content in the press and seem to really struggle with the idea of propaganda / journalism in the news. I…

Okay I got a little bit rage baited by this but to summarize- we Westerners value openness in government to prevent abuse and corruption, so getting mad about propaganda is common.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> non-political government office holders ought to not weigh in on politics They have the clear First Amendment right to do so on their own time. I mean, I hold the opinion that people "ought not to" be fans of Charlie Kirk. But you'd correctly object if I enforced that opinion with government power. > Before your ilk became dominant in public discourse… Yikes.

>They have the clear First Amendment right to do so on their own time. They don't have a right to a government job. Are you fine with CPS employees espousing absurd opinions about the fitness of homosexuals to be parents? Because that's the door this opens. Think a few steps ahead. If you wanna spew politics and keep your LEO or teaching job get elected sheriff or school board.

> They don't have a right to a government job.

They have a right not to be fired from their government job for espousing constitutionally protected speech that doesn't affect their duties. (As affirmed by the Supreme Court, regularly!)

> Are you fine with CPS employees espousing absurd opinions about the fitness of homosexuals to be parents?

No, but "I hate a significant portion of the population in a way that directly relates to my job" and "I didn't like this one specific guy that has nothing to do with my job" are… substantially different things.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#298
post #98

Once a Chinese grad student explained to me a difference he noted between Chinese and American citizens. He said in China no really reads or watches 24/7 major news outlets in China. They are fully aware that all of it is propaganda and just go about their life. He said Americans seem to get really emotional over content in the press and seem to really struggle with the idea of propaganda / journalism in the news. I…

I basically agree with every word you wrote. But also, it means you wake up one day one day and tanks are rolling through the capital city, and the President is threatening American cities with illegal military occupation.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#299

Reminds me of the time when I consulted with a very large newspaper chain in the US which owned a lot of papers - both left leaning and right leaning. we used to get feeds from all of the usual sources. But the news articles themselves were "massaged" in various ways by some of the same editorial teams to suit the left-leaning or the right-leaning newspapers. The idea that completely different spin can be put to the…

>What this taught me is that the media's primary role is to polarise people to either the left or the right so that they can be herded to vote along or act along prescribed lines.

It has nothing to do with voting or acting. It has everything to do with locking in another consistent reader (aka "ad viewer"). If you can get someone ideologically driven, they become hooked, and you can stroke their ego by feeding them confirmation bias news. It becomes addictive, where the person gets hooked on news that tells them they are right.

All of that just to get them to scroll past or listen to ads multiple times a day.

I genuinely believe if we could scooby-do style pull off the mask of who is destroying the country, it would be the media. I have seen too many people in my life (and seemingly everyone online) go off the ideological deep-end because they fell into the media's ad-farming psy-op game.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#300
post #98

Once a Chinese grad student explained to me a difference he noted between Chinese and American citizens. He said in China no really reads or watches 24/7 major news outlets in China. They are fully aware that all of it is propaganda and just go about their life. He said Americans seem to get really emotional over content in the press and seem to really struggle with the idea of propaganda / journalism in the news. I…

The problem with this statement is that your Chinese friend comes from a place where every information source allowed by the government can be safely assumed to be propaganda, by definition. That's how their system works. Not so in the west.

I object your reference to the collective west. As a Canadian, i believe my country has very little in common with the US. In fact, the US is pretty similar to China when it comes to propaganda.
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