Pandora’s Computer: Another Clinton Attack
Today, eleven days before a hotly contested Presidential election, the head of the FBI opened Anthony Weiner’s computer and notified congressional committees that there might be something there, without giving any details.
Now we know why the ancient Greeks told us the legend of the dangers of the unopened Pandora’s Box. Because they must have encountered the same situation where charges were made of an undefined nature, to defeat a vulnerable foe, with no reality to the charges. The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, guaranteeing federal due process, and the innocence of defendants until proven guilty, and the Fourteenth Amendment, extending due process to the States, were instituted to prevent this type of unsubstantiated slander. The principal, in fact, goes back to Clause 39 of the Magna Carta of 1354, and reads “No free man shall be … Deprived of his standing in any other way”.
Two days ago I wrote an article about October surprises, comparing more of the same, to new Shock and Awe. As now usual in this election, you cannot make these things up. While we expected more Wikileaks, or even more FBI discovered emails, nobody saw that our reliable, supposedly unbiased FBI, would play the Pandora’s Computer card, the modern version of the Pandora’s Box. From the massive news coverage, this classifies as another shock and awe, of possible insignificance. This was followed by the Shock and Awe that FBI Director James Comey was not authorized by the Attorney General to release this information, and in fact was advised not to. Comey also violated clear due process guidelines. Comey was in fact appointed to his first two government attorney posts by President George Bush, and he was a Republican. Update: Richard Painter, chief ethics lawyer in the White House under George W. Bush has filed a complaint against Comey for violating the Hatch Act, which prohibits government employees from engaging in political activity.
In irony, two days ago the big news was the showdown at the Fox News corral between Newt Gingrich and Megyn Kelly. Gingrich accused Megyn of being obsessed with (Trump’s) sex (assaults), and said she should concentrate on the issues. Yesterday, Trump praised Gingrich’s return to the issues. Today, Trump immediately returned to calling Anthony Weiner a pervert, as an important issue. Trump has no sense of the irony of using the word ‘pervert’ in an auditorium that might have an echo.
Just like Trump unpatriotically welcomed and took advantage of Russian hacking of the DNC, the DCCC, and Podesta’s email, Trump is reveling in the total lack of information on the opening of the Pandora Computer. This is just one more Trumpian violation of due process, as in encouraging the “jail Hillary” chant. It reminds one of Trump’s conspiracy theories which also have no evidence. The fact that Trump calls the Clinton emails the worst crime since Watergate, when Clinton has been cleared of this, and there is no information about what the new fuss is, shows why Trump is not a rational or reliable or a Constitutional Law and Order person to become our President.
Lets go back to Trump raising the Watergate comparison. Nixon’s Plumbers broke into the DNC at the Watergate complex, but were caught and never used the stolen files. Trump, instead, has used the criminal Russian hacks, and the criminal Wikileaks publication of the emails, which makes his campaign much worse than the original Watergate.
Let’s speculate about the emails on Weiner’s computer. It is not even clear if the emails are to or from Clinton. Maybe they just discuss the email issue. If they are Clinton’s emails, it only takes a short time for the email search function to scan the headings of even 650,000 of emails to see if they are labeled [Classified] or [Secret], as such emails are required to be. is to search through each email and see if its topics should have been considered classified, even if it was not properly labeled. This is what happened to the only 110 Clinton emails that were found that were not labeled classified or secret but were considered on subjects that should have been classified.
In the meantime, Harold Martin III was arrested for stealing, over decades, something like 50 terabytes of secret documents. For comparison, just lately, laptop computers are available with as much as a single terabyte disk drive, which can hold about a million books. Mr. Martin offered top-secret NSA hacking tools for sale on the Internet, showing clear intent to steal and profit from his thefts.
In this speculation on Pandora’s Computer, we again expect that few secret messages will be found, and there will be insufficient reason to indict anybody. Possibly throwing an election would make this one of the most awesome Pandora’s Boxes of all times. Update: an instant poll shows that about one-third of voters have a lower opinion of Clinton so far. The effect is most pronounced among the all important independent voters.
Back to the Pandora’s Computer speculation: Anthony Weiner served in the House from 1999 to 2011. He also was deeply into New York politics, and popular among New York and national media outlets. Who knows what gossip about the 538 members of Congress or fellow New York politicians might be contained in the rumored 650,000 emails on his computer. Do politicians really want the contents of this Pandora’s Computer made public, or even to a rabid, Republican dominated, House Oversight Committee.
