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CDN/US Covid-related political discussion

Bruce Monkhouse said:
How many people would jump off a ledge having to admit that both NA leaders had the same info at the same time and only Mr. Trump actually took SOME action by banning flights from China?

Not too many I would think.

A) it all depends on what side you are on.

B) if one country is the epicentre and the other isn’t even close then what difference does it make

C) The ban on China was so full of holes.  It had so many exceptions that it might as well have been symbolic than effective. And if nothing was done with the time gained what does a loose ban really do?

Now should there be an AAR that looks into it? Yes.  The opposition should ask questions.  Canada has a lot of problems with how it has handled this in the early days as well.

But how many would jump off a ledge if our NA partner failed to share info they had for political reasons?  Not too many either. 
 
Jarnhamar said:
That was my take on it too. Brihard has a good point about the FVEY but does the the warning from our own CAF to the government fall under FVEY stuff?
She answered but didn't answer. Theatrics for sure. I think that's my first time seeing Freeland live. She kinda seemed likeable and down to earth there.

With the government handing out money I suspect people care even less about how preventable this was or how unprepared we were.

Generally speaking, when a FVEY partner nation develops intel, they'll decide how it's to be shared. It might be kept for their country's eyes only; it might be shared only with select partners, it might be authorized for dissemination to all of FVEY. They maymaintain 'originator control' on dissemination, e.g. if yous intelligence service wants to use the data for any purposes other than just gaining intel, they may need to seek permission because use of that intel could potentially reveal sources and methods.

So - and this is me speaking purely hypothetically - lets say the US had some good HUMINT or SIGNINT from China that gave some better indicators of how bad the situation actually is. That might be shared as TS//compartmentalized//FVEY material, and get kicked over to the appropriate medical intelligence group within CAF to assess. They could potentially assess that, request permission to disseminate, get limited permission to disclose to government, generate vetted int reports, and brief them up either at the same classification level or in a redacted form that reduces the classification of the material as a whole- but you're still talking classified stuff. That could well makes its way into departmental or cabinet briefings. Who's to say how much of it ultimately came across once the nature of sources and methods were concealed? Further to same, would it have come across as 'there are credible indicators of significant underreporting of total cases and fatalities', or 'sources indicate there were in fact approx 473,000 cases and 20,000 deaths in Hubei province'? We're obviously not in a position to know the level of detail, and consequently what could have been done with it. We can't know if the information coming out was sufficiently technical as to meaningfully inform efforts here.

So yeah, all said and done, we'll learn more in time about what was known when... But it won't be in question period, not if it deals with classified int.

And, of course, regardless of what we knew, we could not have prevented our own citizens or permanent residents from reentering the country. Given how utterly ineffective the flight bans from China ultimately ended up being in the US, I'm not going to slam our government for not doing something like that.
 
Looks like Dr. Fauci’s time on the task force may be up soon...

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-retweets-firefauci-tweet-raising-speculation-of-a-frayed-relationship

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-trump-fauci/trump-retweets-firefauci-after-coronavirus-scientist-comments-idUSKCN21V0ZM

 
It would be NSICOP's job to investigate.

https://www.nsicop-cpsnr.ca/index-en.html
 
Remius said:
Looks like Dr. Fauci’s time on the task force may be up soon...

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-retweets-firefauci-tweet-raising-speculation-of-a-frayed-relationship

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-trump-fauci/trump-retweets-firefauci-after-coronavirus-scientist-comments-idUSKCN21V0ZM

He's lasted an impressively long time. Makes you wonder if Trump would seek to replace him by someone comparably qualified. Microbiology is not a field that cultivates partisan hacks. Presumably, anyone high enough up in that world to credibly replace Dr. Fauci would probably be saying substantially the same things.

It would be interesting to see Dr. Fauci's opinions of various aspects of this matter unconstrained by the need to ego-manage in order to keep his job.
 
Remius said:
Not too many I would think.

A) it all depends on what side you are on.

B) if one country is the epicentre and the other isn’t even close then what difference does it make

C) The ban on China was so full of holes.  It had so many exceptions that it might as well have been symbolic than effective. And if nothing was done with the time gained what does a loose ban really do?

Now should there be an AAR that looks into it? Yes.  The opposition should ask questions.  Canada has a lot of problems with how it has handled this in the early days as well.

But how many would jump off a ledge if our NA partner failed to share info they had for political reasons?  Not too many either.

You keep using this word. I don't think that word means what you think it means. Wuhan is the epicentre.
 
Target Up said:
You keep using this word. I don't think that word means what you think it means. Wuhan is the epicentre.

Clever.  I used it once.  But for your info in case you are telling anyone else that using movie lines:

No Wuhan was the point of origin and was the epicentre.

Definition: 2.  a focal or central point

source: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/epicenter

https://www.livescience.com/us-coronavirus-cases-surpass-china.html

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/25/united-states-coronavirus-pandemic-new-epicenter/

A few of many articles claiming that.

The epicenter of a pandemic can shift.

Nice try though.  ;D

 
Brihard, have you ever worked directly with intelligence gathering or in dissemination? In an ASIC or otherwise?
 
Jarnhamar said:
That was my take on it too. Brihard has a good point about the FVEY but does the the warning from our own CAF to the government fall under FVEY stuff?
She answered but didn't answer. Theatrics for sure. I think that's my first time seeing Freeland live. She kinda seemed likeable and down to earth there.

With the government handing out money I suspect people care even less about how preventable this was or how unprepared we were.

You can have all the intelligence in the world, but if the decision-maker has already chosen a particular COA and is unwilling to reconsider, it won't matter much.
 
PuckChaser said:
Brihard, have you ever worked directly with intelligence gathering or in dissemination? In an ASIC or otherwise?

No. My knowledge of how we handle classified information domestically and among Five Eyes comes from other work I’ve done, that for obvious reasons I can’t get into here. I’m very open to correction if I say something inaccurate.
 
Brihard said:
No. My knowledge of how we handle classified information domestically and among Five Eyes comes from other work I’ve done, that for obvious reasons I can’t get into here. I’m very open to correction if I say something inaccurate.

It's inaccurate. There are processes to downgrade the classification of reports to conceal source material authorized by the originator or someone with the specific training to do so. Rest assured CFINTCOM didn't release a report to politicians with source information in it, and some of the original source reporting was from NCMI in the US which was itself leaked to ABC News. The fact that NCMI released anything FVEY meant source material was removed if it was of a sufficiently classified material to make it releasable.

That being said, domestic classified information is a whole different bag and held at a much stricter standard. Obviously it never hurts to apply stricter safeguards to classified info than what's required by policy/law, but that doesn't mean anything was done inappropriately in this specific instance.
 
PuckChaser said:
It's inaccurate. There are processes to downgrade the classification of reports to conceal source material authorized by the originator or someone with the specific training to do so. Rest assured CFINTCOM didn't release a report to politicians with source information in it, and some of the original source reporting was from NCMI in the US which was itself leaked to ABC News. The fact that NCMI released anything FVEY meant source material was removed if it was of a sufficiently classified material to make it releasable.

That being said, domestic classified information is a whole different bag and held at a much stricter standard. Obviously it never hurts to apply stricter safeguards to classified info than what's required by policy/law, but that doesn't mean anything was done inappropriately in this specific instance.

I’m quite sure I covered that? I explicitly referred to them being able to redact it (though ‘redact’ was poor wording) to reduce classification- maybe not the most technically precise way of putting it, but I think communicated that they can take very sensitive and make it less sensitive. I wasn’t suggesting they would take raw data or anything compromising a source or method and push that up, nor that such concerns would prevent the intelligence from being usable. That is, after all, the whole point of the system. Please don’t lose sight of the fact that the context I was talking about was Question Period and briefings to politicians and decision makers. I was answering a question about what could, generally, be done with allied info.
 
Brihard said:
I’m quite sure I covered that? I explicitly referred to them being able to redact it (though ‘redact’ was poor wording) to reduce classification- maybe not the most technically precise way of putting it, but I think communicated that they can take very sensitive and make it less sensitive. I wasn’t suggesting they would take raw data or anything compromising a source or method and push that up, nor that such concerns would prevent the intelligence from being usable. That is, after all, the whole point of the system. Please don’t lose sight of the fact that the context I was talking about was Question Period and briefings to politicians and decision makers. I was answering a question about what could, generally, be done with allied info.

Yeah you did. You also said Pollievre was being "silly" by asking when the government read the report who's existence is now open-source knowledge and implied that the government would somehow be mishandling FVEY intelligence reports if that question was was answered. Its a legitimate question, and something the Canadian public needs to know. When was Cabinet briefed on the seriousness of the Wuhan COVID-19 outbreak? Did the Canadian government receive information from the US that China was sending misleading data to WHO?

This is a minority parliament. These same questions are being asked in the US and will likely result in Congressional Committee hearings and Senate hearings to get answers. The Liberals cannot hide the information since its now established that NCMI was sharing FVEY intelligence to MEDINT at CFINTCOM. The actual report contents could conceiveably never reach the unclassified realm for the public to see, but those committees will have the security clearances to request the reports and executive summaries will be made that will be released to the public. Fortunately for the taxpayers and voters of the country, the Liberals will not be able to stamp Cabinet Confidence on everything and we will see what they knew and when.
 
PuckChaser said:
Yeah you did. You also said Pollievre was being "silly" by asking when the government read the report who's existence is now open-source knowledge and implied that the government would somehow be mishandling FVEY intelligence reports if that question was was answered. Its a legitimate question, and something the Canadian public needs to know. When was Cabinet briefed on the seriousness of the Wuhan COVID-19 outbreak? Did the Canadian government receive information from the US that China was sending misleading data to WHO?

This is a minority parliament. These same questions are being asked in the US and will likely result in Congressional Committee hearings and Senate hearings to get answers. The Liberals cannot hide the information since its now established that NCMI was sharing FVEY intelligence to MEDINT at CFINTCOM. The actual report contents could conceiveably never reach the unclassified realm for the public to see, but those committees will have the security clearances to request the reports and executive summaries will be made that will be released to the public. Fortunately for the taxpayers and voters of the country, the Liberals will not be able to stamp Cabinet Confidence on everything and we will see what they knew and when.

Ok, yeah, fair enough. I’m gonna suck back and reassess on this one.
 
PuckChaser said:
Obviously it never hurts to apply stricter safeguards to classified info than what's required by policy/law....

So why bother having directives, that many people have spent time and effort determining, getting approved, and periodically revisiting I order to confirm continued relevance?  Directives that spell out, for example, Lvl 2 is perfectly appropriate for something, but someone decides to arbitrarily stamp it Lvl 3… and maybe even compartmentalize further by throwing in a codeword as well?  Or maybe locally insisting on heightened storage measures, beyond what is required for the classification, which merely pisses away usually limited security means?

Ignoring such directives, through self-importantly "I know better" or whatever, can unnecessarily bog a system down, causing more burden... but you knew that, obviously.



Before you "Brihard" me, yes I do have real-world experience personally creating [and benefitting operationally] from Int (not just the 2 parts of the Int Cycle mentioned).  However, I never worked in the policy creation side of clearance levels, so there's no hurt feelings involved in my post here.
 
PuckChaser said:
Obviously it never hurts to apply stricter safeguards to classified info than what's required by policy/law, but that doesn't mean anything was done inappropriately in this specific instance.

Actually, it does.  Overclassifying / applying excessive safeguards creates burdens and friction in storage, management, and dissemination of information. 
 
Journeyman said:
Before you "Brihard" me, yes I do have real-world experience personally creating [and benefitting operationally] from Int (not just the 2 parts of the Int Cycle mentioned).  However, I never worked in the policy creation side of clearance levels, so there's no hurt feelings involved in my post here.

And on that one- while I didn't get my hackles up over it, direct personal involvement in collection/dissemination are not the only ways someone can develop a fair bit of familiarity around the handling and use of security intelligence products.
 
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