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Election 2016

House Science, Space, and Technology Committee Has Been Hijacked

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
August 22, 2016
Filed under

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

28 responses to “House Science, Space, and Technology Committee Has Been Hijacked”

  1. John Thomas says:
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    According to Wikipedia, the subcommittee on Technology covers “issues relating to computers, communications, and information technology”. Perhaps this inquiry relates to the laws or lack of laws pertaining to government officials conducting official business on personal servers.

  2. Daniel Woodard says:
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    clintonmail.com is running Exchange under Windows Server 2008 R2. The SSL certificate is valid, and configured correctly. While I personally perfer Linux I would say this puts her system at the same level of security as most government email systems, which are not “classified” systems but occasionally do carry restricted information, as hers did. The server is still up. Although presumably the email is long gone, anyone who really thinks they can hack it is welcome to try. I’ve seen no evidence that this was the case.
    https://www.quora.com/What-

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      Won’t matter. Don’t even try to present facts or be logical. And I imagine many have tried anyway.

    • Paul451 says:
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      I would say this puts her system at the same level of security as most government email systems

      It actually seems more secure than the official State Department system for diplomatic cables. You’ll recall the Bradley Manning leak. Why would some mentally-unstable, lowest-level Army-Intel technician stationed in Iraq have access to, for example, cables from a US Ambassador in Europe to his State Dept higher ups?

      That system (and the lack of privacy) seems to have been the motivation for Clinton (and Colin Powell and Condy Rice before her) to use off-system email for communicating with personal staff.

      From what I’ve read, the whole State Dept system is a disaster. But unable to be changed because it’s required to mimic the rules set up for the previous encrypted telegram system. Everyone tries to avoid using it when they can.

      (There was a case not long ago where a US Ambassador in Africa set up a WiFi node in his personal bathroom in the Embassy, so he could connect to an outside server, because it was the only way he could get work done. He basically set up his private office in the bathroom, held meeting there, sitting on the toilet with a laptop. [The bathroom was the only room that wasn’t EM shielded.])

      • Eli Rabett says:
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        That’s where it came from!:) People have been going on and on about how Clinton’s server was in her bathroom. It was not, but it was never clear where this came from. Do you have a link??

      • Michael Spencer says:
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        That is the first cogent explanation I’ve heard for the obvious question regarding Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private server, which is: “Why?”

        Answer: Because the State debts system sucks.

        So if that’s the case, the next question: why doesn’t she just say so? To avoid raining on her old nest?

        • Paul451 says:
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          the next question: why doesn’t she just say so?

          Don’t know. It might be an anticipation of the obvious response “Why should she get to break Departmental policy when everyone else has to use the sucky system?”

          Or it might be the common Democrat tendency to justify the right-wing scandal, as if by treating their conspiracy-theory version of reality as real, you can get them to like you. It’s a weird character flaw amongst Dem advisors.

          [Example: Early in the Obama administration, the then Ag Dept state director, Shirley Sherrod, made a speech about poverty amongst farming families. She made a self-depreciating comment about how she came in thinking that poverty was mainly a black thing (she is African American), but quickly realised that it affects so many farming families of all races. One sentence was carefully edited to make her seem to say the opposite of what she was saying. The rightwing media spread it far and wide, the mainstream media uncritically regurgitating the “people are saying…” made-up scandal. The White House responded by forcing Sherrod to resign.

          Common sense would be to simply release the speech. It was actually quite a nice speech.

          (Hell, the perfect thing would have been for Obama to read the speech, with all his practised style on display. Owned it entirely. Whatever the Presidential version of “Come at me, Bro!” is. The media would have eaten it up. The contrast with the RW hysteria would have been glorious.)

          But instead the Obama Administration essentially told the world that the original phony accusation was real. That the made-up scandal was genuine. As if that would somehow placate the right-wingers who spread the BS in the first place.

          Obama-the-candidate appeared to understand how to do this. See his response to the Jeremiah Wright scandal. But once in office, Obama’s Administration immediately fell into the standard Democrat character flaw.]

          tl;dr – “Coz Democrats are stupid.”

      • Wendy Yang says:
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        This is a small nitpick, but please do not describe transgender people as “mentally-unstable” or use “Bradley Manning” instead of “Chelsea Manning”. We can afford to be more inclusive around here.

        • Paul451 says:
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          This is a small nitpick, but please do not describe transgender people as “mentally-unstable”

          I don’t believe it’s a small nitpick.

          Manning was found curled up in the foetal position on the floor of a cupboard at his workplace with a loaded weapon. He often had to be relieved of duty and even sedated. His immediate superior removed the firing pin from his service pistol because he thought Manning was potentially suicidal, but lacked the authority to remove him from active service (and disarm him) entirely until he was formally discharged as mentally unfit for duty.

          Manning, this specific person, was known by his superiors to be mentally unstable, long before the leak.

          However, pretending that, by talking about this one person, I’m somehow describing all transgender people in general as mentally unstable does a disservice to your cause.

          As for Bradley-vs-Chelsea, some transgender people prefer to mark their history before/after their transition by using their old/new names are time-markers. Not all do, but it’s common enough and it makes logical sense to me, so that’s what I do.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            I don’t think any of us can even begin to imagine the hell that many transgender people endure.

          • Paul451 says:
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            Wasn’t my point.

            My point was “Why was a mentally unstable, low ranked military person stationed in the Middle East, ever in a position to steal, for example, European cables that didn’t go to or from Iraq itself?” The diplomatic messaging system itself is inherently flawed and weak.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            Because perhaps- and I have no direct knowledge- perhaps this person’s inner struggle was not obvious. Or something.

            But your point about access to state secrets is spot-on. I get it’s a low level job, but the military is full of very capable people with integrity and a solid background. Even an E-2.

          • Paul451 says:
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            Because perhaps- and I have no direct knowledge- perhaps this person’s inner struggle was not obvious. Or something.

            Cupboard. Foetal position. Gun.

    • John Thomas says:
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      I believe that the actual server in question is now in FBI custody. The concern then was it didn’t have any real physical security and official government records were not kept and archived as required by law.

      • Daniel Woodard says:
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        What law are you referring to? And what email constitutes “official records”? I have taken the (required) records management training. The vast majority of government business email does not fall under record retention regulations, any more than would a telephone call. Such email can be and routinely is deleted, in fact government policy is to delete records which are not required to be retained. I suspect this was why the FBI found that there was no evidence a law was broken.

  3. rebeccar1234 says:
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    Their case connecting these dots is here: https://science.house.gov/n

  4. SouthwestExGOP says:
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    Do we think that the committee has run out of other things to cover? Maybe they had a lot of spare time.

  5. Chris Winter says:
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    First of all, the priority seems backward to me. I would think the matter should fall more within the purview of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and thus Ron Johnson should be pushing the inquiry.

    That said, this looks to me like just another witch hunt, motivated by the fact that, despite several reorganizations of Trump’s campaign, he is falling short in the polls. The FBI investigation concluded with results not to their liking, so — just as with Benghazi — House Republicans are going to keep flailing at the deceased cayuse.

  6. Eli Rabett says:
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    Smith actually has an opponent, a fellow by the name of Tom Wakely, with a narrow chance because the district, esp the parts in Austin have changed.