The Mueller Report, Searchable and Accessible on the Archive
blog.archive.org
blog.archive.org
Shouldn't an accessible, searchable and digital version of government documents be the default form in which they are released?
Why do citizens have to resort to the Internet Archive to see such a basic right fulfilled?
In my country this happens frequently, as well. Too often, documents that should be accessible and widely publicized are hidden somewhere on the internet with practically no incoming links and in a form which is the digital equivalent of a grainy fax.
Sometimes the intention of superficially fulfilling a transparency obligation, without actually communicating anything is palpable.
Scanning a redacted document is the simplest way of making sure redacted sections stay redacted as there is no underlying information to reveal.
That said, there are numerous instances of governments releasing a .doc or similar and someone opening it and doing a few presses of ‘undo’.
The easiest way is to use a PDF redactor, print it and rescan it.
I doubt Mueller's team wrote the report in plain text. They probably used Microsoft Word and exported a PDF document.
When I'm president, all government agencies will be forced to use LaTeX. Then we can have both plaintext source, PDFs with actual text, and PDFs that don't leak redacted material.
Sending digital files across a security boundary is just a much more dangerous operation in general than sending paper. Given the prevelence and quality of OCR (particuarly when run on a good quality print, as was in this case), there is just not enough of a reason to take the risks of sending files across the boundary.
EDIT: Idiot proof is probably not a fair characterization either. The other part of security policies is to be genius proof. What if someone involved is trying to exfiltrate data. There is a lot more places for them to hide it if you give them a digital pathway out then if you make them take it out on pieces of paper that will be reviewed.
The way it was done was the most sane way from a security standpoint. In my opinion it is the first time I have thought that somebody who knows what they are doing is actually on the case.
I say this because it is just too easy for you to leak out the redacted parts. People have tried, and failed. We don't know if what is under those black blots are really important or not, but if they were, and the leaking of such information could cause somebody harm -- then this is the way to do it.
[1] There was a story in the last month or two about how someone screwed up redaction in an electronic document in a court case where they effectively only painted black bars over the text but the underlying text was in the release document.
[2] It wouldn't surprise me one bit if lawyers viewed an image-only PDF document dump as a digital form of the 'paper blizzard'. It really isn't (not even close) as there was already an OCR'd version of the document available within the hour of its release and some NLP analysis within the day.
[3] In the event that objections are raised, they can always throw up the 'we were moving as fast as we could to get it released and this was the best we could do given time constraints' defense. Most politicians and judges would likely buy that story since they don't tend to be technologically literate themselves.
I highly doubt any federal litigator would think of having to OCR a document as being some sort of road block. Acrobat Pro (which has excellent OCR just a couple of clicks away) is universal in the field. Many federal courts will reject electronic filings if they’re not fully text searchable. It’s almost certain that someone just forgot to run the OCR after redaction.
(The article’a belly-aching about the fact someone scanned in the document from paper is misplaced. I have definitely done the exact same thing, because a purely digital conversion keeps all sorts of metadata. Yeah there are ways to strip various layers, but printing to paper and scanning it back in is a sure fire way to strip the metadata and make sure that redactions “stick.”)
Web based and searchable
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/18/us/politics/m...
Original document has been updated so it can be searched
https://qz.com/1601873/the-pdf-of-the-mueller-report-has-bee...
What only worries me as a progressively-disenchanted but firmly and forever a supporter of Bernie Sanders is that even sanders seems to have been wrong on this one unlike Iraq, which I would shout from rooftops that he was the only politician right about. I would (and still do) quote his 'What are you afraid of' video to all who would listen...
The question is just why?
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/04/01/noam_chom...
I haven't read this one, but it seems to be in the same vein: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/russ...
You should read the report
Is Taibbi wrong in his overall point that the media has grossly misrepresented the existence of a Russian conspiracy?
https://twitter.com/charliekirk11/status/1109975164777725952
https://fair.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/MSNBC-Yemen-Dani...
"The Mueller report does establish that, in fact, members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/opinion/mueller-trump-cam...
Edit: Since the comment I am replying to is no longer present and I got downvotes for my comment: the person claimed there was "no evidence [anyone] conspired with Russia" so I linked to an article in the NYT by a law professor that contradicts this claim in detail. No evidence _is_ a false claim.
At least I believe the NYT isn’t so far gone as to publish such a claim outside of the editorial section, but I may be wrong.
For a different perspective, read what Glenn Greenwald has to say on the subject, in a piece titled “Robert Mueller Did Not Merely Reject the Trump-Russia Conspiracy Theories. He Obliterated Them.” [1]
Edit: I actually took the time to read the editorial. It is a collection, in my opinion, of dubious claims about standards of evidence being too high as the reason Mueller and his massive team could not bring a single solitary charge against Trump or the campaign related to Russian interference in the election.
Please remember how this all started, with a dirty dossier obtained from the Russians by the DNC, with a counter-intelligence operation claiming without evidence the President could be a Russian patsy. And yet here we are, still entirely unable to expose truth to the lie.
[1] - https://theintercept.com/2019/04/18/robert-mueller-did-not-m...
Nope, it began when some foreign diplomats gave us a heads up that George Papadopoulos was bragging abroad that the Russians were going to help Trump by releasing dirt on Clinton. That the investigation was predicated on the dossier is a common misconception. If you are getting news from sources that get this basic fact wrong, you may wish to downgrade those sources' credibility in your estimation.
It seems as though the Papadopoulos origin was drummed up once the Carter Page origin story fell apart.
All media sources were reporting on the dossier as the origin until it fell apart.
> In late July 2016, soon after WikiLeaks's first release of stolen documents, a foreign government contacted the FBI about a May 2016 encounter with Trump Campaign foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos. Papadopoulos had suggested to a representative of that foreign government that the Trump Campaign had received indications from the Russian government that it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information damaging to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. That information prompted the FBI on July 31, 2016, to open an investigation into whether individuals associated with the Trump Campaign were coordinating with the Russian government in its interference activities.
Note that Steele and Bruce Ohr were already in cahoots for several months by then, and Steele was already established as an CI with the FBI (a cover he later blew).
Papadopoulos met Professor Mifsud in London in March, and later Misfud said he had ties to the Kremlin and he claimed Russia had dirt on Clinton. Papadopolous sent an email two weeks after the London bar meeting saying Misfud introduced him to the Russian Ambassador to England and that the Ambassador might be able to help setup a meeting between Trump and Putin.
It was what Mifsud told Papadopolous that he would later talk about with the Greek or Australian diplomat that would be reported back to the FBI.
Interestingly, there are reports that Mifsud is actually a western intelligence officer, and has no links to the Kremlin whatsoever.
I haven't seen anything actually credible that Mifsud was western intelligence.
He had high level contacts at the FBI and DOJ which he was in contact with throughout early 2016.
Hopefully one day it will become fully clear what Steele was telling Bruce and Nellie Ohr, up until the very day before the FBI opened their investigation, when Nellie met Chris at the Mayflower Hotel on July 29, 2016.
But we do know at least that it was lies, mostly (Russian?) lies, that Steele was feeding the FBI. And we know certainly those lies had a bearing on the character and direction of the investigation, and on the methods employed to attempt to gather evidence (FISA), even if it is not the publically admitted initial basis for starting the investigation.
Mifsud, for his part, has gone to ground and isn’t taking interviews.
"the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in it's election interference activities."
Regardless of what any opinion piece wants to claim, in America you are innocent until proven guilty. Beyond a reasonable doubt is not just something done just for fun, but an important legal standard:
Beyond a reasonable doubt - The standard that must be met by the prosecution's evidence in a criminal prosecution: that no other logical explanation can be derived from the facts except that the defendant committed the crime, thereby overcoming the presumption that a person is innocent until proven guilty.
If obstruction didn't count unless you were convicted of the crime you were obstructing justice on, people could get away with crimes by interfering with the investigation and there'd be no recourse. We don't want people to get away with crimes by interfering with the investigation. That's why obstruction is a crime.
He obstructed the investigation leading up to the report. No one is saying he obstructed the report after its release.
> EDIT: to daveFNbuck, in America, you're innocent until proven guilty. If someone can't conclude you committed the crime beyond reasonable doubt, you're innocent.
That's why we've made obstruction of justice a separate crime regardless of whether you can be found guilty of anything else. Obstruction is a separate offense that you can be found guilty of.
For example a President can issue pardons. Even for crimes which have not yet been charged or tried. This clearly “obstructs justice” and yet is also very clearly not obstruction of justice in a legal sense.
I am skeptical about any claim the investigation simply failed to find evidence that was there to be found, if not for obstruction by Trump. This was a very expensive, very long, very comprehensive investigation. My understanding is that Trump waives executive privilege and have quite unprecedented levels of access to his cabinet, staff, and even White House counsel.
In short, the full force of the USG investigated and came up short. I think the conspiracy is laid bare.
If you expected the report to conclude that the President/Campaign did not coordinate with Russia I’m sorry that was never going to happen. Because you cannot prove a negative.
You will always read a statement to this effect;
> Accordingly, while this report embodies factual and legal determinations that the Office believes to be accurate and complete to the greatest extent possible, given these identified gaps, the Office cannot rule out the possibility that the unavailable information would shed additional light on (or cast in a new light) the events described in the report.“
Because you can always keep trying to investigate a little longer. Interview and re-interview another hundred witnesses. Review another million emails. Listen to about hundred thousand hours of intercepts.
But if there’s one thing we can say and everyone will agree, this investigation was comprehensive. It was extensive. It was extremely professional (plus or minus somewhat gestapo raid tactics).
But at this point the only thing to be said about claims that the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to influence the election, is that they are truly without evidence.
The point is that we don't know what we weren't able to learn because of his obstruction. Maybe it was just an unsuccessful attempt to cover up the things we did learn about. Those were certainly bad enough, but trying to cover them up could have prevented us from getting enough information to determine that his campaign wasn't colluding with Russia.
So instead of potential two sided discussions, you get phenomena like closet Trump supporters.
Yes there are going to be people that regurgitate their talking points without wanting to listen. But you don't have to respond to them.
If you really have an idea that stand on it's own merits, then it shouldn't matter if it's unpopular unless what you're really seeking is validation from your own camp that agree with you overall, but might nitpick on some small details.
Otherwise editing and hiding your posts does nothing but make the rest of the discussion and the people trying to engage you unreadable. What you want is an echo chamber where people must agree with your positions.
A bunch of people in the White House deleted evidence and used encrypted communications. Not hypocritical at all.
The President probably committed obstruction multiple times, but Mueller refuses to Make a final judgment on that because they believe that is the job of congress.
And the campaign did try to benefit from the Russian influence campaign, and did try to obtain the stolen emails. They wanted Russias help. But there was no evidence of direct coordination (remember the deleted evidence).
This doesn’t seem like much of an ‘exoneration.’
However the American spy network is large, well provisioned, has no compunction about spying on Russians and was controlled by Democrats when the alleged conspiracy took place. If there is no conclusive evidence of collusion then it didn't happen.
The idea that the Russians are better at influencing the American people than the Democrat and Republican campaign machines is jaw dropping. It doesn't make any sense. Trump could have found more capable people to collude with if he wanted to.
Also, the issue isn’t just if there was ‘collusion.’ It was what they tried to do. The Trump campaign tried to work with the Russians but failed because they had no idea what they were doing. They were doing stuff like sending people’s emails to the wrong place.
The president might be a criminal and you think it doesn’t count because the investigation was started for unrelated reasons?
There’s nothing that can be said over the internet to change the mind of someone who thinks like this, but wow it sure is frustrating to read this garbage.
But no, we must waste three years on a phantom conspiracy with no evidence because of political revenge. Consolation prize is we get to complain about obstruction of justice that will never get prosecuted because Pelosi is in on the corruption herself.
And in fact by the end there was not compelling evidence that Trump or his Campaign coordinated with Russia at all.
There were many dirty tricks and bad actors which served to perpetuate the investigation, which by the way cost many many millions for innocent people to defend themselves against. And they are innocent until proven guilty.
Trump knows he did not collude or conspire or cooperate with Russia to defeat Clinton, and yet the investigation grinds on for hundreds of days while he is trying to enact policy to improve the lives for millions of Americans. That’s his mindset.
Flynn, Papadopoulos, and Cohen lied to Congress or investigators, which impeded the investigation, and were charged for it. No such charges were brought against Trump.
That is not the reaction of an innocent man.
> ”Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I’m fucked.”
> How could you let this happen, Jeff?” The President said the position of Attorney General was his most important appointment and that Sessions had “let [him] down,” contrasting him to Eric Holder and Robert Kennedy.
> Sessions recalled that the President said to him, “you were supposed to protect me,” or words to that effect. The President returned to the consequences of the appointment and said, “Everyone tells me if you get one of these independent counsels it ruins your presidency. It takes years and years and I won’t be able to do anything. This is the worst thing that ever happened to me.”
And I’d say the same thing as a completely innocent man in the same position. Trump truly was fucked, badly, for hundreds of days. Sessions was supposed to protect Trump from a special counsel which did in fact derail his Presidency to pursue a fruitless investigation.
By any account, if the media had their way, it would have been the end of his Presidency.
I’m sort of amazed by his grit in getting through the whole thing intact. Many times I expected he would resign just to try to escape it. I can’t imagine millions of people and almost the entire mass media absolutely convinced that you’re an agent of Russia, Clapper on CNN saying you’re Putin’s asset, all without any evidence.
Just like the Mueller Report itself!