GCHQ dismisses Trump wiretap rumours as tosh UK intelligence agency GCHQ has dismissed US reports - cited by the White House press secretary - that it was involved in running a surveillance operation on Donald Trump before last year's US election as "utterly ridiculous". During a press conference on Thursday, White House press Secretary Sean Spicer cited a Fox News story …
"That's the problem with business people: their "negotiation" tactics are pretty binary and always require a losing party to be considered a success."
Absolute bollocks. I work for one of those businesses and the gold standard for success is that EVERYBODY walks away thinking that THEY got the best deal.
SundogUK@,
Yes, I have been on all the same Sales Courses and know that is the 'Gold Standard' !!!
Back in the real world, Prez Trump is a Narcissist with a psychological need to be seen to be the 'Best' !!!
[If you cannot show it ...... simply state it is so and treat all objections as lies and bias.]
You will have also seen how he cannot admit fault or failure.
On this basis the original statement about 'Binary' negotiation tactics is proven to be more than true, to date.
His language is always about winners & losers !!!
It's alarming that the president of the USA is one.
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
A quote from HL Mencken
read the denial again guys - it's pretty clear that it only refers to the period when Trump was president elect:
"Recent allegations made by media commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano about GCHQ being asked to conduct 'wiretapping' against the then president elect are nonsense"
an actual denial would read something like this:
"Recent allegations made by media commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano about GCHQ being asked to conduct 'wiretapping' against Donald Trump are nonsense"
GCHQ have introduced the possibility that they may have wiretapped Trump before the election result. Why would they do that? who knows, who cares....?
If GCHQ only denies wiretapping while Trump has been in office, that's clearly an admission of wiretapping before he was elected.
Very clever lads.. a full admission, hidden in plain sight.
Meanwhile, you (meaning: anyone) are allowed to wiretap my personal residence. I do not use phone lines no more.
Wire tap away!
"GCHQ have introduced the possibility that they may have wiretapped Trump before the election result. Why would they do that?"
I'm not sure that they would know any other way. They are trained to collect factual information, not be the source of it. As a result, vague statements are standard operating procedure.
They had no need to. They had wire taps in place already at the Russian embassy, the offices of various Russian executives and ambassadors and the homes of the aforementioned. So who's fault is it that they spent so much time on the blower to the Putin-crew?
They had no need to. They had wire taps in place already at the Russian embassy, the offices of various Russian executives and ambassadors and the homes of the aforementioned. So who's fault is it that they spent so much time on the blower to the Putin-crew?
Absolutely correct. It is but a theory, but I suspect what got the Trump camp completely in a panic is that they KNOW what evidence the NSA has because it was in the intelligence briefings that Trump gained access to as president elect, the intelligence people just had not officially connected that yet to the precise people on the US side because that was then still not allowed.
However, as soon as Obama took the constraints away from the NSA (which is IMHO the only active involvement he had) it because very easy for the FBI to put the pieces together. Obama has been very clever here: he stayed well away from the investigation, he just made it possible for the agencies to officially connect the dots.
It must drive the Trump camp absolutely nuts knowing they can't really touch him, yet know for a fact that he enabled the FBI to connect the Russian conversations with the Trump team so that it can potentially be acted upon. That's real statesmanship, not the bull in a china shop approach that Trump mistakes for politics.
I just hope it has consequences for Trump, and soon. If the sharp increase in "alternative noise" is anything to go by, he damn well knows he has a problem..
Meh.
Back to the Future was made after Reagan was elected (movie released in 1985, Reagan elected 1984).
It was a snarky Dem/Liberal poke at Reagan and in no way prescient.
On the other hand, the Simpsons TV show featured Donald Trump as President - 16 years before it actually happened: http://i1.coventrytelegraph.net/incoming/article12149774.ece/ALTERNATES/s615b/Screen-Shot-2016-11-09-at-081756.png
Ironically, the Simpsons show was a spoof on Back to the Future (Bart to the Future)
"The signals intelligence agency's decision has decided to break this rule to issue an unusually strong denial in an apparent attempt to make sure it is not dragged into a hugely contentious US debate."
Well, good luck with that.
"They officially denied it, of course. Which means it must be true!"
Is it the same one which people once used to accuse of unauthorised/illegal mass surveillance (which resulted in the usual 'tin foil hat' and 'conspiracly theory' ad hominems from ... well, y'know)?
Is it the same one whose puppets in and around Westminster used to deny that GCHQ were doing anything dodgy, and certainly not doing anything illegal like unauthorised mass surveillance?
Is it the same one which was then exposed as conducting unauthorised and illegal mass surveillance, the same one in whose intererests UK law was changed at very short notice in order to legalise their historic unauthorised mass surveillance?
Is it the same one where 'supervision' by names like May and Farr figure significantly in recent decades?
I could be wrong, but I think it might be.
I don't believe for a moment that GCHQ tapped the blowhard-in-chief's phones; the problem is the credibility of the NSA and GCHQ when it comes to telling the truth is so damaged (James Clapper, I'm looking at you) that he can say it and what would have been laughed at five years ago actually has to be investigated. Not a healthy state of affairs.
" the credibility of the NSA and GCHQ when it comes to telling the truth is so damaged (James Clapper, I'm looking at you) that he can say it and what would have been laughed at five years ago actually has to be investigated. "
True, but how many people knew or know, let alone care, about who Clapper is, what kind of person he is, and what his administrative record is? Same on this side of the pond (Charles Farr and others).
The world's "free press" seem more interested in the inability of a well known global book-keeping company to count the votes and correctly announce the results of the ballot at some kind of fashion show.
Almost as though it was deliberate. Almost.
Meanwhile the UK internet industry is very publically setting up the necessary political, legal, ind technological infrastructure to clamp down on distribution of anythint that Government (or their paymasters) aren't happy with. What could poss
ARRIER LOST
KittyAnn wuz riTe! it wUz no whIre tAp! It Wuz thu mycrowabes! Tats wy gcHq cAn saY Dat!.
/sarc
Considering all the internet of trash security articles we see here on ElReg, its entirely possible that someone somewhere might/could have (gag) possibly hacked into Trumps glowrious Gowld Suite at the BEST tower in the greatest city.
Mind you I suppose if Trump decides that the most effective distraction tool he can use to keep the populace from seeing just how thoroughly he's screwing up is to spit out bullshit on twitter about how 'the other guys' are 'spying' on him, we may be a step up from the bush/clinton era.
no, sadly no. I'm quite sure that by the end of next week we'll see yet another shafting of some not quite white, not quite upper class, not quite american enough chunk of the U.S.
All the security services need to do is just get everyone to BELIEVE that they mass surveil everything and everyone. Then they set up a dummy company that sells ultra-secure unbreakable encryption in a variety of easy to swallow packages. All it takes is just a leisurely scroll through the order book. The wisdom of Solomon.
