{"id":59754,"date":"2016-07-29T11:15:46","date_gmt":"2016-07-29T16:15:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=59754"},"modified":"2016-10-17T21:25:36","modified_gmt":"2016-10-18T02:25:36","slug":"black-flag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=59754","title":{"rendered":"Black Flag"},"content":{"rendered":"

SCENE: \u00a0A conference room at the FBI in Quantico, Virginia. \u00a0 Special Agent Charles SIEGELMEYER, in charge of the Russian Online Political Espionage (ROPE) desk, sits at the head of the table.<\/em><\/p>\n

In the room are Jared SCHLAUTERMEYER, a cybersecurity analyst with the ROPE\u00a0desk, Juliana\u00a0SCHMIDT-BULAWAYO, a senior Russian policy analyst, and Oscar VILLANUEVA-LOPEZ, from the Central Intelligence Agency. \u00a0 \u00a0SIEGELMEYER\u00a0convenes the\u00a0meeting.<\/em><\/p>\n

SIEGELMEYER: OK. \u00a0Welcome to the task force on Russian political cyberespionage. \u00a0 Juliana, do we have an update on the Clinton case?<\/p>\n

SCHMIDT-BULAWAYO: \u00a0Nothing, really. \u00a0Nobody, either at State or at FBI can tell what Putin would stand to gain by punking Clinton.<\/p>\n

SIEGELMEYER: \u00a0Devil’s advocate here – less defense of the Baltic States?<\/p>\n

SCHMIDT-BULAWAYO: \u00a0 At the risk of getting all of Europe to start rebuilding its military?<\/p>\n

SIEGELMEYER: \u00a0I agree. \u00a0At worst, I think Putin is just imparting chaos, because…<\/p>\n

SCHMIDT-BULAWAYO: \u00a0…chaos increases your options.<\/p>\n

SIEGELMEYER: \u00a0Jared?<\/p>\n

SCHLAUTERMEYER: \u00a0Well, so far it’s just a story. Nothing hard to pin it on.<\/p>\n

SIEGELMEYER: \u00a0Huh. \u00a0So it sounds like this investigation…<\/p>\n

SCHMIDT-BULAWAYO: …is at a standstill?<\/p>\n

(SIEGELMEYER, SCHMIDT-BULAWAYO and SCLAUTERMAYER nod glumly<\/em>)<\/p>\n

VILLANUEVA-LOPEZ: \u00a0Let me interrupt here…?<\/p>\n

SIEGELMEYER: \u00a0I’m sorry – this is Oscar Villanueva-Lopez, from the CIA. \u00a0You’re from the…<\/p>\n

VILLANUEVA-LOPEZ: \u00a0I’m from the Cuba desk. \u00a0And we’ve really got one theory here.<\/p>\n

SIEGELMEYER: Shoot.<\/p>\n

SCHMIDT-BULAWAYO: \u00a0Let’s hear it.<\/p>\n

SCHLAUTERMEYER: \u00a0Anything’s better than nothing.<\/p>\n

VILLANUEVA-LOPEZ: \u00a0So the question is “who is running a cybermole operation in the US, we’ve had one big clue to work with. \u00a0In Cuba, the people at the top of the food chain are given to giving these\u00a0loooooong\u00a0<\/em>speeches – four, five, even six or seven hours. \u00a0They just go on and on. \u00a0And sometimes it’s just babble; they’re not a whole lot more “accurate” than Kim Jong Un, plus they’re all full of that Latino sense of drama. \u00a0It literally is about hearing their gums flap.<\/p>\n

SIEGELMEYER: \u00a0Interesting.<\/p>\n

SCHMIDT-BULAWAYO: \u00a0Huh<\/p>\n

SCHLAUTERMEYER: \u00a0Fascinating.<\/p>\n

VILLANUEVA-LOPEZ: \u00a0Now, at the CIA, one of our analytical tools is “Berg’s Law<\/a>“, specifically Berg’s Seventh Law…<\/p>\n

SCHMIDT-BULAWAYO: \u00a0 …Oh, yeah! \u00a0“When a Liberal issues a group defamation or assault on conservatives\u2019 ethics, character, humanity\u00a0or respect for liberty or the truth, they are at best projecting, and at worst drawing attention away from their own misdeeds.”<\/p>\n

VILLANUEVA-LOPEZ: \u00a0Wow – you use Berg’s Seventh here at FBI, too?<\/p>\n

SIEGELMEYER: \u00a0Absolutely.<\/p>\n

(SCHMIDT-BULAWAYO and\u00a0SCHLAUTERMEYER nod in enthusiastic agreement<\/em>)<\/p>\n

VILLANUEVA-LOPEZ: \u00a0Excellent. \u00a0So the DNC has accused the GOP of colluding with a foreign power, that means…<\/p>\n

SCHMIDT-BULAWAYO: \u00a0Someone at the DNC is colluding with a foreign power.<\/p>\n

SCHLAUTERMEYER: \u00a0Damn.<\/p>\n

VILLANUEVA-LOPEZ: \u00a0And the Russians are know to work through proxies. \u00a0What you need to do is find a long-winded liberal commentator who makes endless proclamations, puffed up with lots of drama and\u00a0strurm und drang<\/em>, but all talk. \u00a0Not just any long-winded BSers – the\u00a0longest-<\/em>winded,\u00a0most\u00a0<\/em>BS-addled ones!<\/p>\n

SIEGELMEYER: \u00a0 And they’ll be a Cuban mole?<\/p>\n

VILLANUEVA-LOPEZ: \u00a0Yep.<\/p>\n

(SIEGELMEYER,\u00a0SCHMIDT-BULAWAYO and\u00a0SCHLAUTERMEYER nod in agreement<\/em>).<\/p>\n

SCHMIDT-BULAWAYO: \u00a0So we just need to find an American liberal commentator that goes on and on and on and on, and never really says anything of value?<\/p>\n

SCHLAUTERMEYER: \u00a0Hmmm.<\/p>\n

SIEGELMEYER: \u00a0We’ll obviously have to continue this discussion. \u00a0I’ll schedule a meeting on Monday.<\/p>\n

Who. \u00a0Who, indeed.<\/p>\n

And SCENE\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCENE: \u00a0A conference room at the FBI in Quantico, Virginia. \u00a0 Special Agent Charles SIEGELMEYER, in charge of the Russian Online Political Espionage (ROPE) desk, sits at the head of the table. In the room are Jared SCHLAUTERMEYER, a cybersecurity analyst with the ROPE\u00a0desk, Juliana\u00a0SCHMIDT-BULAWAYO, a senior Russian policy analyst, and Oscar VILLANUEVA-LOPEZ, from the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187,255],"tags":[236],"class_list":["post-59754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-16","category-the-racket","tag-dramatization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59754"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59767,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59754\/revisions\/59767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}