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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

#641
post #61

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…

> it's pretty well known that individuals within the police could identify or sympathise with Q

This is worrying in its own terms. Policemen are adult, and shouldn't believe in fairy tales.

Being able to use deductive reasoning, understand basic principles of science (like the difference between cheratine and DNA), double-check the facts, and find the truth between the lies is THE work of the police.

Somebody unable to see a hole for years in theories that most 5 Yo curious children could dismantle in a hour is unfit for this kind of work. They simply shouldn't be policemen. Period. Will end distroying the lifes of innocent people.

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

#642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Capitol Police generally don’t (and aren’t equipped to) repel a mob entering the building. That wasn’t just for this event. It’s always like this. Trump’s “show of force” during the BLM protests (where he brought in the national guard) was an aberration for that reason.

This isn't the first mass protest in DC. Why is this the first time they were able to get into the Capitol while in session?

Here is a great link from downtrend: https://twitter.com/EgSophie/status/1048634940169048064

It would be interesting to see exactly how often the capitol police have been overwhelmed and civilians have entered the building or chosen not to.

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

#643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to some reports, the problem was in fact predicted, and that's why the National Guard chose not to prepare for forceful confrontation. Not wanting photos of armed uniformed soldiers in state buildings or some such.

The same was true for BLM protests. So, why the different treatment? Racism is a popular explanation, but is it a true explanation?

I think more core to the issue is status quo bias. Cops are much more likely to agree or strongly agree to questions like “the current US system is fair and just” and similar pro-status quo ideas. Typically speaking left wing protestors are agitating to change the system, especially policing, which is why cops do not respond as well. Is it any surprise that cops respond worse to those protesting against the police, no matter the slogan, than they do against the “blue lives matter” crowd?

Oh, and cop organizations are run through with neo-nazis and white supremacists who have made a concerted effort to make inroads with police departments and military members.

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

#644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, the annual Capitol Police budget alone is $550 million.

A police force of 2200, just for one building. Compare that to the Atlanta Police Department which has 1800 officers for a city of 500,000+ people and a size of 136 sq miles.

Not one bldg. There are multiple House and Senate offices and the Library of Congress. It's a huge complex which does not seem well designed from a security standpoint. I don't know if they've fixed that, but after 9/11 it was a mess of access.

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

#645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Though I will argue that the assumption that the Capitol Police answers to the legislature is shaky, at best (in practice).

It's a matter of law that they answer to the legislature, this isn't an "assumption." Individually they have answered to a not very sharp police chief, and the Sergeants-At-Arms of the House and Senate, who are all in the process of resigning because of how badly they recently screwed up, if that's what you mean.

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

#646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IT should be able to revoke any access the machine has, so the only compromise would be what was already on the machine; which would be the case regardless of security policy, as they could just access the harddrive directly regardless of OS security policy. In practice, it wouldn't suprise me if that computer was locally storing passwords that were not specific to that machine, which might mean needing to revoke a b…

That assumes it can talk to IT's systems, and it's done before the computer is "inspected". For a corporate laptop, that can easily be unlikely.

I'm not talking about telling the laptop that it's access is revoked; I'm talking about just revoking it's access, so if it every tries to connect to the House's intranet, it would have no more permissions than any other laptop.

If IT wanted to wipe the drive, then they would need the laptop to phone home in some way.

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

#647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That assumes it can talk to IT's systems, and it's done before the computer is "inspected". For a corporate laptop, that can easily be unlikely.

I'm not talking about telling the laptop that it's access is revoked; I'm talking about just revoking it's access, so if it every tries to connect to the House's intranet, it would have no more permissions than any other laptop. If IT wanted to wipe the drive, then they would need the laptop to phone home in some way.

That assumes files weren’t downloaded. Even if access is revoked, saved copies still are accessible.

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

#648

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…

As a huge democrat (lower case d) I totally agree. Locking down the Capitol is antithetical to the notion of open democracy. Lawmakers and the law making process needs to be physically accessible by the People. This was what the Founders intended. Of course there is some risk here and Jefferson himself noted this. That’s the price we pay for living in an open and transparent society. While I don’t condone or support…

Edit: whooshed by his royal cleverness.

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

#649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Depending how sophisticated your adversary is The videos I saw don't inspire much dread, there, but they may give the laptop to someone that can do digital forensics. Lots of LEOs in that lot. They would be smart enough to stay out of the building, but might have been waiting for someone to come out with something like that. But, as someone pointed out, a lot of the folks wouldn't bother trying to read anything. Th…

They'll probably give it to that computer repair guy in Deleware so he can pull off all of the emails from March of 2021 and somehow lose them in the mail when he tries to send them to Fox News.

Time to update your internet boogeymen memes. Fox News and Trump are enemies. He's into Newsmax now.

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

#650
post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say Russia definitely has at least a subset of very amateurish spies. An example coming to mind is the Skripal poisoning in Salisbury, UK.

How was that amateurish? Acquiring and handling such a substance would not be easy.

They left a pretty clear trail, and they didn't actually succeed in killing the target. Sounds amateurish to me.
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