The Glade 4.0

McMaster went on TV and strenuously denied something that wasn't being actually being alleged in order to make it sound like more of a blanket denial than it really was. The allegation was that Trump revealed Code Word level classified information. McMaster denied that Trump revealed sources and uses. See the difference? Also, what reports are you reading that indicate the information was merely "sensitive" rather than Code Word classified?

Again, an interview with the individual who spoke with the source said that McMaster stated that instances did not occur that weren't alleged. Denying something not alleged in an attempt to discredit the article. Spin.

No, I don't see the difference. Do you know what the difference is?

Code Word is not a level of classification



This is actually an oversimplification (the CIA does not have sole and complete control over "code word" information or clearances, but their standard is basically used by everyone other than DOE which has its own complete classification and clearance system), but the takeaway is that "code word" (more properly SCI, Secure Compartmentalized Information) is a specific subtype of Top Secret. "Code word" is a method of typing, not an additional level of classification.

And now, here's the kicker: The reason it's subtyped into compartments is that it generally involves sources and methods. Each "compartment" or "code word" refers to a category of sources and/or methods. A very simple example would be that one compartment might be satellite intelligence, another signals, and another human sources.

There is, functionally, no difference between "sources and methods" and "code word", at least, not to the level that it makes McMaster's denial inaccurate. McMaster was not giving a class on classifications, clearances, or handling sensitive information. You are picking a semantic nit that doesn't exist.

As for what reports I'm seeing, I've been reading and listening to a great deal about this, and I'm not going back and finding every one of individual articles and interviews out of several dozen at this point.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

For God's sake, man, you suck balls at talking to people. Ejaculating tenuously relevant facts on your computer screen while simultaneously telling everyone how they aren't qualified to have an opinion is 1) completely ineffective and a waste of your time 2) does absolutely nothing to forward the conversation in a meaningful way 3) probably does more harm to your cause than good 4) will almost assuredly derail the discussion 5) makes you look like a jackass and 7) involves dismissal of concerns and does not alleviate them.

You know, just because you can communicate, doesn't mean you are qualified to do so.... or something.

I just explained why this was inaccurate. The only "spin" going on here is by the Washington Post - which has a history of inaccurate reporting based on anonymous sources.








And finally:



Sources and methods are what "code word" (SCI) refers to.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Yes, but there is functionally a huge difference between denying that Trump revealed "sources and methods" and denying that Trump revealed "information" that was code word classified. The former is about how the information was obtained and from whom, while the latter is just what the information itself is. McMaster has at no point denied that Trump revealed highly classified information, which is what the WaPo reported.

I stopped at "tenuously relevant facts". You don't even know what facts are or aren't tenuously relevant.

You want the discussion advanced? Try actually demonstrating that you've bothered to read even so much as a Wikipedia article on the topics under discussion before making your pronouncements.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Sounds like you're arguing against a straw man here. The problem isn't the info itself, it's that the info was shared without consent from the ally who provided it, and there's concerns that the source of the information could be back-traced by Russia.

"Code word info" is not equivalent to "sources and methods." Information can be classified using a code word because it comes from a sensitive source. You could still share that information without directly discussing the source of it. No one is suggesting Trump directly told the Russians who the source of the classified info was, just that he told them info that came from a sensitive source. That still makes it "code word info".

You're doing it again - trying to switch from "code word classified" to just "classified". As a practical matter, almost all SCI information is "Top Secret" as its actual level of classification. Classified information can also be at the lower levels of "Secret" or "Confidential".

If the information is of an SCI nature, then "what the information itself is" reveals (or is very likely to reveal) what the source is and how it was collected, or the capabilities of the source. This is why there isn't a meaningful distinction between what McMaster denied and what WaPo alleged. If the information were merely classified (regardless of level), not SCI, it would be in an analyzed form that sufficiently protected the source.

For example, lets suppose we have satellite photos of a new Russian warplane, of which only a few examples exist. Showing the actual photo itself would be likely to reveal to a Russian counterintelligence person, what the capabilities of the satellite were, when it passed over a given facility where the aircraft was located, and other details of the ability to gather such information via satellite. If it were a photo taken by an agent on the ground, it might be possible to narrow down to a few people who had access to that aircraft at a specific time and place, and thus compromise the asset. Even though the photos are themselves "the information", seeing them reveals facts about how they were taken.

Now, let's suppose there is a document containing analysis of these photos. That might not be SCI information because it would be possible to discuss findings about the aircraft without revealing how those findings were obtained. For example, lets suppose the aircraft is stated in the document to be capable of carrying up to four of a certain missile. That might be from the satellite photo showing them peeking under the wing, from a ground photo of them loaded, or from another source entirely such as a leaked technical document. The Russians can obviously surmise that we have agents, look for leaked documents, and they know we have satellites, so simply knowing that we learned about this airplane and its abilities doesn't reveal very much.

Let's take another example. Lets say your girlfriend knows the code to unlock your phone, but you're not aware of that. If she doesn't want you learning that she reads your text messages, she should treat her knowledge of the code as SCI - That is, she shouldn't reveal the information she got from the phone, unless its information she plausibly could have learned elsewhere. By asking you about the details of a text form your sister you hadn't disclosed, she inadvertently reveals her knowledge of the code even if the text itself is unremarkable.

You're making the same mistake the press is - trying to turn McMaster's answer into a "lawyer's answer" without understanding the answer in the fistr place.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

International relations of that sort are also in the President's purview. Furthermore, the paragraph you're responding to was pointing out additional circumstances, not arguing against a straw man. "Straw man" does not mean "pointing out possibilities that no one has addressed yet". A strawman is a distortion of an existing argument, not pointing out possibilities as yet not discussed.



Concerns by whom on what basis? What if it is information the Russians already have anyhow? This is pretty likely; it's not as if Russia isn't pretty good at collecting intelligence; they have generally similar capabilities to us, better in come areas.

It's possible for there to "be a concern" over anything.



That's why I said "functionally equivalent". There is no meaningful difference between directly revealing a source to the Russians and revealing information that gives the source away by the nature of the state the information is in (generally speaking, the closer it is to raw, original data). To go back to my photo examples above, showing a Russian a photo that reveals in its background details how the photo was obtained to where they can narrow it down to a few individuals who might have taken it isn't really different from saying "Oh yeah this photo was taken by Yuri Gagarin". McMaster made a brief statement categorically rejecting the WaPo article, and all the rest of this is just trying to lawyer it with semantics.

"It came from a sensitive source" is a silly statement. Obviously it did, where the hell do you think intelligence information comes from? What matters is whether the information as presented provides enough clues to the source to compromise it.

Since we don't know anything about the actual information, or the source, we can't evaluate that except to rely on "Well, it's Trump so he must have amirite?"

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Okay, let's investigate this example a little further then. Let's say this girlfriend gets accused of telling a third party about details from these texts with RD's sister. She responds to those accusations by saying "I did not reveal any sources or methods of information gathering with that third party." Is that the same as denying that she shared any info at all? Or that the info that was shared could potentially be traced back to its source?

That's the problem. What this fictitious girlfriend said is a true statement, but that doesn't mean:
A. She didn't share any info with this third party that came from RD's phone or
B. That info can't be traced back to its source with some effort.

So why does McMaster use such specific wording? Why not just say "The President did not discuss any classified information with the Russians." THAT would be denying it outright.



Yes, and when he **** up in those international relations, people are going to criticize him for it.

Nah bro. You're not qualified to opine that he **** up.

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Holy shitsnacks!

President Pence? Or, just impeach him too, at the same time?

None of us are qualified for any opinions on international relations, the economy, or legalities. Just DE.

Certainly not RD, the resident lawyer.

And none of the rest of us have security clearance, certainly. That's the kind of thing we'd go around telling people on forums.

The truth is, DE, you don't know enough about a lot of our backgrounds or qualifications to tell us what we are or are not qualified to discuss.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

Look, we don't need dubious analogies or a discourse on what the meaning of "is" is. We have enough information to discuss the actual allegation and the specific rebuttal. The allegation is that (i) Trump told the Russians we had intel on a specific ISIS threat and the city in ISIS territory where that threat and the information about it were coming from, and (ii) that information was code word classified and provided to us by an ally. McMaster's denial is that Trump didn't reveal sources and methods, or military operations - i.e., that he didn't tell the Russians how / from whom we learned the information and that it didn't involve military operations. The disconnect between the allegation and the denial is gobsmackingly obvious.

He's in this up to his neck too. He knew about Flynn just like Trump did... BEFORE they hired his treasonous ***.

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Holy shitsnacks!

You're trying to stretch a simple example into a place it can't go.



Actually, what she said isn't a true statement. She did reveal the source and method, because in this example there is only one possible source and method (which is because it's a simple example; this is not the case in the real situation under discussion). By revealing the knowledge, she necessarily revealed the source and method. A true statement would be "I did not explicitly state how I obtained this information".

In real life, complexities make this distinction far less clear-cut.

However, the important point is that RD learned his girlfriend is looking at his phone behind his back, and her denial of the obvious (that she did not explicitly state that she had the code) is not a denial of the question that actually matters - "Are you looking in my phone?"

The goal of all this classification is to both A) protect information and B) use it to our advantage, not to adhere to classification rules for their own sake, nor pedantically nitpick the difference between an explicit and implicit reveal of information. Sort of like RD's girlfriend's real objective would be to find out if he's cheating, not to know his phone code for the sheer hell of it.



Because the WaPo article specifically referenced a revelation of a very exact type of classified information.



**** up according to who? His political opponents? By definition, everything he does is a **** according to them.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Yeah, let's not have any information about how things actually work intruding on our foregone conclusion.

That "gobsmackingly obvious difference" is only different if you're trying to win semantic arguments on the internet. If there really were such an obvious difference, there would be no point in making such denial in the first place.

Furthermore, it makes little difference to the future usefulness of the source whether a compromise is implicit or explicit. If you reveal a source, it's pretty much revealed whether it was intentional or not, explicit or implicit. Pedantic denials of the specific wording aren't likely to preserve the source, nor prevent any eventual fallout from its compromise, so there would be little point in McMaster making one.

Furthermore, he said the report was false, period, before saying anything else and gave specifically who was there and witnessed it. You're trying to override that with anonymous sources such as "present and former officials" (I am sure you can see that "former officials" at least, were not present) and trying to make the case that the anonymous sources must be accurate because McMaster did not word his denial in a specific way, even though the denial he did issue started off with an unequivocal rejection of the entire story.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

About Flynn what specifically? That he got some money for some speeches and lobbying?

Let me remind you that the public revelation of Flynn's name means someone committed a major felony just revealing that.

Let me also remind you that, like with Obama, this is not what "treason" means. Neither Russia nor Turkey is an enemy country. If you'd like Russia to be defined as an enemy country, I suppose you won't object to a massive increase in the defense budget to deal with this "enemy" rather than simply accepting that they're unfriendly, and that "talking to Russians" and "doing business with Russians" isn't illegal. Sally Yates wasn't able to identify any actual crime Flynn was under investigation for in her testimony last week, but according to Democrats these days any suspicion they can cook up must mean a crime was committed.

Hell, there isn't even any actual law against collusion with Russians regarding the election - although there probably should be. But don't let those little matters of "Passing laws" impede you there.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Why not? I mean, we've got a special counsel now, but why wait for him to actually do anything? If we did that, we might uncover uncomfortable facts for people other than Trump. Also Pence goes to church and therefore obviously can't even tie his own shoes or something.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Not without his wife being present anyway.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Not by a long shot.

We know what we've been told, and those that do the telling have agenda's. Every single one of them.

In my opinion, throw out everything you hear from the media that makes this sound sensational. Throw out everything you hear that isn't sourced directly. Throw out everything you hear that's an attack or an excuse.

Use your common sense. Someone says the sky is falling, ask to see the film, and if they can't come up with that, keep a wary eye but go about your business. And, always remember that there's photoshop, so your eyes can be fooled.

Common sense says, **** like this goes down, a special prosecutor gets appointed. Know all that "chilling effect" you were slinging 'round 'cause that's what you heard? Yup, that was FUD. You either knowingly or unknowingly got played.

Every politician wants Trump to fail, he's stepping on their toes. If he succeeds then who needs career politicians? He's a threat to their very existence. Every media mogul wants him to fail, he's doing an end run around their monopoly of dishing out info to the base they're pandering to. He's a threat to their existence too. If he wins, everyone else in Washington DC loses.

Trump sucks at politics, and he doesn't know how to play that game. He's going to go down fighting though, 'cause that's what he does. He's the polar opposite of Obama. Epitaphs have already been written for every possible way he will fail, the media's just waiting to see what versions get distributed. The only folks that want him to succeed are the ones that voted for him, and you won't be reading their stories 'cause they're too busy putting food on the table.

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In time, this too shall pass.

CNN just did an actual story on how Comey once tried to blend in with the curtains in a room in the White House so Trump wouldn't notice him. They brought in an outside expert to comment. They spent like 20 minutes on it.

Is this the Twilight Zone?

Ahh, yes. "I don't put myself in positions where I could be accused of inappropriate behavior. This is deeply sexist because it denies leftists the opportunity to make such accusations." Truly, he bears the mark of Satan for not hanging around with other women.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."