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The immediate question: So what?
Two observations, there is an arguably disproportionate non U.S.A. readership, and a disproportionate interest in one post:
In receiving an unsolicited email from "Democrats.com [info@votedem.org] Unsubscribe," why did my bullshit meter unpin from zero and move quite far upscale? A/k/a astroturf is NOT grassroots.
So what is a sentiment leading to what if, in the sense that anonymously registered websites soliciting release of personal information can be suspect for any reason, and then if one or several are petition participation solicitations or other political divination, then is some unknown person, group, nation, whatever collecting information of malcontentment over the status quo, within the population of the U.S. of A?
Manafort ran afoul of being an unregistered agent of a foreign state, and three-letter agencies, FBI, NSA, and CIA included, seem from time to time to attain media attention for accumulating information about the population of the nation in which they are located. They, no surprise, might want lists evidencing malcontentment, since the so-called deep state is tweeted about (by some) as if being a status quo called (by some) the swamp, a swamp said (by some) to need draining.
Only Google knows the IP of each and every computer hitting the blog, some possibly bounced about via TOR, and Google might also want to know about malcontentment, in order to sell that knowledge to advertisers hoping to reach malcontents with targeted goods or services to offer for purchase.
The right not only to speak freely, but to do so anonymously is a Constitutional First Amendment right, but one that can be a thicket. A briar patch, perhaps, per the Wind in the Willows children's book.
So, what if the Russians, or some arm of the Russian deep state is operating on U.S. bandwidth to be fronting sign-a-petition sites to identify malcontents - or worse, far, far, far worse, what if it were being done by Cambridge Analytica?
Where is Alex Jones when you want him to sniff out and publish a post about some form of a conspiracy theory about this or that arguable coincidence? Alex, yo --- the psyops are messing with my blogging, and I'm just sitting here having morning coffee and posting. Why, Alex, are the psyops so occupied when there's real mischief afoot; Pence going on his "America First" dog-and-pony Air Force Two employed propaganda tour around the major cities of the nation to sell "for you regular folks" bullshit about the tax Christmas gift given the rich and powerful, for example. Mess with that, you psyop employees, wherever you be, whoever is cutting the paychecks.
An endorsement from an official at the 15 UK Psychological Operations Group dated January 2012 concluded that they would “have no hesitation in inviting SCL to tender for further contracts of this nature”.
The document also noted that SCL was a company that was permitted to have “routine access to secret information” and delivered a training programme that included a “classified case study from current operations in Helmand” in Afghanistan.
The official British note of approval was one of over 100 pages of documents handed over to the digital, media, culture and sport select committee by Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie earlier this week, following an oral hearing that lasted nearly four hours.
Another of the documents released by the MPs is a confidential legal memo dated July 2014, which says it was sent to Steve Bannon, the former Trump adviser and Breitbart CEO, and Rebekah Mercer, the daughter of Trump backer and hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer. It was also sent to Alexander Nix, the CEO of Cambridge Analytica.
The author’s name and firm is redacted, but the memo discusses how far Cambridge Analytica and its executives could participate in US elections, given that donations and contributions by foreign nationals are banned.
Cambridge Analytica hit the headlines after it was revealed that data had been harvested for it from 50m Facebook profiles without the users’ permission.
The document notes that the company, formed in June 2014, could participate as a vendor of technology as long as Nix, a Briton, was “recused from the substantive management of any such clients involved in US elections”.
At the parliamentary hearing on Tuesday, Wylie noted that Vote Leave had spent £2.7m with a digital marketing firm called AggregateIQ, and said it had previously undisclosed links to Cambridge Analytica/SCL.
[links in original] Readers - Have a nice day. You and others read this blog, so take comfort in numbers.
Ah - make that, small numbers?
Not what you'd call a movement. Just a handful of malcontents . . .
Tune time.
______________UPDATE_____________
A link, linking over to here.
FURTHER: Local coverage, same story. No link over as with The Intercept. A mention.
FURTHER: Paranoia accompanying anonymity. With others openly tub-thumping a policy in lockstep with the interests of mining money, a sane choice suggestion for Minnesota's CD8 can be somebody's "Alex Jones where are you." That interests me. Readers, I have no idea where Alex Jones is. I don't follow him. What interests me is media mention disappearing for him and Rush, following the cut-over from Obama to Trump/Pence. Rush, did he die? What? CNN is not saying.
FURTHER: More on Cambridge Analytica in the news, posted items first, then suggested links for reader follow-up:
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| this link, linking here |
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| this link |
Then there is this Guardian item, quoted previously.
Other items in reporting, each worth a look: here, here, here, Guardian again here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, MoJo at length here - this show the money chart, and here. Guardian, related, here.
Websearch suggestions: here, here, here, here, here, and my favorite, here.