[Acutulus]

I find the article title kind of curious, given that it states Parson has "doubled down" which suggests that the video the article references is an active effort on Parson's part. It then goes on to state that the video was produced by a PAC Parson created but doesn't give direct input to. Comes off as unnecessarily inflammatory to me I suppose.

Having said that, this situation in particular really tests my willingness to assume good faith on the part of the governor and his body of advisors. Is he legitimately without a single person close to him that could inform him of how misguided this line of aggression is, and how fortunate it was that the individual who identified the security problem acted in such a helpful manner? On top of that he assigned the Missouri State Highway Patrol to investigate, because given his perceived severity of the situation that's the best agency at his disposal? It all just seems bananas.

I try not to assume that totally inane actions from elected officials are exclusively the result of political calculus, and I suppose I don't have any evidence to assume that's the case here either. But I'm at a loss as to how this situation could blossom into something so ridiculous.

[nrmitchi]

This situation is keeping his name in the spotlight, and people will, in general, be more likely to vote for names that they recognize.

I don't believe that there is any other reason here.

[TheOtherHobbes]

I would assume this is pure politics.

He knows perfectly well who is to blame, but he's using the situation opportunistically to further his own career.

The issue isn't just that he's objectively and morally wrong, it's that most voters don't see through the grandstanding.

All they see - and all they want to see - is a rich old white dude punching down at some college-educated kid who thinks he's clever enough to have an opinion.

It's not obvious a jury will parse this any differently.

Although I'd hope someone like the EFF would turn up with some heavy hitter experts to add some friction to the self-serving bad take.

This is why it's hard to do politics. While everyone is fact-checking and getting outraged about the reality the political game is being played on a different level with different rules - by people who are often quite good at winning it.

[badRNG]

>Although I'd hope someone like the EFF would turn up with some heavy hitter experts to add some friction to the self-serving bad take.

I think having "fact checkers" and "experts" debunk his claims will ultimately gain him support among his constituents. There's a sharp trend towards anti-expert, anti-intellectual sentiment that has assisted him throughout the pandemic, and there's no reason that I can see to believe that it won't serve him equally as well on this issue. We'll see, but I think this movement isn't something that will die out with the pandemic, but something that we will see permeate other areas of discourse.

[vkou]

> The issue isn't just that he's objectively and morally wrong, it's that most voters don't see through the grandstanding.

They see, they just don't care, as we can see from a sibling subthread on this story.

As long as he keeps fighting on their side of the culture war, it doesn't matter what sort of crazy, destructive, or corrupt things he does.

[IG_Semmelweiss]

Is it better to not assume malice, to an action that can perfectly be attributed to incompetence?

Should we assume that elected officials have software engineers on staff or on call? Or assume staffers with software engineering background exist.. in traditionally low-pay positions ("elected official liaison" or "advisor")

?

[TigeriusKirk]

There's just no political upside to backing down at this point. It won't win him support and might cost him some.

So why would he change his mind? There's nothing to gain.

[_fat_santa]

I have a strong feeling this will backfire spectacularly.

To any technical or even semi-technical person, the facts of this case are laughable. The Governor thinks that he can steamroll this case through, and is betting that most will not understand the underlying technical details and give into the fear mongering "hacking" narrative.

But the thing is, as soon as this goes to court, there is a 100% chance the EFF or another organization is going to step in. Once the defense can explain the layperson exactly what happened here, the governor is going to go from "protecting the people from hackers" to "dumbass trying to cover his own ass".

The Governor and his cabinet clearly think they have this one in the bag, but I think the EFF or another org is going to step in and hand his ass to him in court.

[phkahler]

>> Once the defense can explain the layperson exactly what happened here, the governor is going to go from "protecting the people from hackers" to "dumbass trying to cover his own ass".

... In the eyes of those 12 people on the jury.

[tessierashpool]

losing in court will just feed the GOP victim narrative. from a political standpoint, the Governor's ignorant aggression is a win-win. he can say he stood up to the liberal courts and the tech elite.

but then again, Trump often lies about his losses in courts, claims they were wins, and gets applause from his audience. the GOP is a counter-majoritarian party, which makes counterfactual statements inevitable.

[whatthesmack]

There's bad, ignorant people on all sides of the political spectrum. There are plenty of people just like this governor that are in the other camp.

It's not useful to use a ridiculous situation like this as confirmation of your political beliefs.

[tessierashpool]

there's only one Fox News. there's only one Trump. your comment would have been reasonable in 1980. it's 2021.

[twox2]

It shouldn't even have to go to court to begin with is the real tragedy.

[xboxnolifes]

This argument, which I at least partially agree is probably true, always bothered me. If they just want to have their name out in the public often, they just need to to strongly push for any solution. Here, he could have been loud and vocal about how the security of these sites is unacceptable and started handing out public awards to the person (people?) that found the issue.

The fact that one approach was chosen over the other suggests where is more to the reason.

[nrmitchi]

Sure, but that would been one, maybe two press conferences about it.

For the topic to continue to get attention, it has to be rage inducing.

The alternative here would be to claim that the state was going to crack down and prosecute those in charge of building/managing the web site in question. Almost as ridiculous, but without the benefit of pursuing "the media".

[adrr]

Its standard GOP politics we've seen for the last 4 years. Use the legal system to bully people not to make you look incompetent. This is unique because he's using the criminal system and not the civil courts. How many people did Obama sue in office? Compare that to Trump who's gone after family members, the media, etc.

[mcguire]

And it discredits the press to have them remembered as 'hackers'.

[notreallyserio]

It sounds like he’s part of the Strong Man party and cannot be allowed to be wrong. I don’t think it’s purely political, some people just can’t be reasoned with.

[inetknght]

> some people just can’t be reasoned with.

It's been eye opening to see and recognize such people on the internet over the past 10 years or so. It's been a lot more scary to be able to recognize the same character flaw in real people I'm physically around.

[toomuchtodo]

I highly recommend this [1] book on the topic as we navigate a post-truth world. The Narcissist's Prayer is also worth a read [2].

It's not all narcissism though; it can be difficult to reason with deeply ingrained belief systems when there is a lack of critical thinking and challenges to the Id and ego, not to mention innate tribalism.

EDIT: Agree with the deleted comment that The Narcissist's Prayer could also be The CEO's Prayer, based on the personality type the C suite attracts [3].

[1] https://smile.amazon.com/Narcissist-You-Know-Narcissists-All... (The Narcissist You Know: Defending Yourself Against Extreme Narcissists in an All-About-Me Age)

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28880280

[3] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/08/the-science-behind-why-so-ma... (1 in 5 business leaders may have psychopathic tendencies—here’s why, according to a psychology professor)

[Animats]

"The Führer is always right".[1] Robert_Ley, 1941.

History has seen this before. It doesn't end well.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%BChrerprinzip

[mLuby]

I wonder if there are moderation tools out there that identify who first proves Godwin's Law in a given thread.

[ceejayoz]

Godwin amended his law in this particular scenario.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/12/14/...

> First, let me get this Donald Trump issue out of the way: If you’re thoughtful about it and show some real awareness of history, go ahead and refer to Hitler or Nazis when you talk about Trump. Or any other politician.

[UncleOxidant]

> is he legitimately without a single person close to him that could inform him of how misguided this line of aggression is

I would not be surprised if that is the case. Or if he does have such a person he is only hearing what he wants to hear.

[3wolf]

> a PAC Parson created but doesn't give direct input to

That's newspaper-covering-their-ass-speak. No serious person believes there's no coordination, however indirect, between candidates and their PACs.

[EamonnMR]

Holding people responsible for the acts of PACs they create seems reasonable to me. Reputation laundering should be discouraged.

[intunderflow]

> This situation in particular really tests my willingness to assume good faith on the part of the governor and his body of advisors

I think by this point it's very clear he's acting in bad-faith to try and cover himself from the fallout.

[HeckFeck]

His strong stance will deter all 'hackers' and like scoundrel from touching any government website! When would-be data breachers see how he treats anyone trying to be his friend, they'll dare not make an enemy of him.

This Governor has the DOMINANCE!

[jbeales]

I feel like there have to be actual hackers out there thinking "You think that's hacking? I'll show you hacking!"

[jimt1234]

Politically speaking, this can only be a victory for the governor. In conservative political theater, any association with "standing up to the liberal media" is valuable. Furthermore, if/when this whole thing fails in the courts, either conservative voters will never know about it, or the legal defeat will only contribute to the "standing up to the liberal media" narrative.

At this point, it's all about getting on Trump's radar in order to secure his VP nomination in 2024. I totally believe that's what's going on here - political posturing.

[cratermoon]

> Is he legitimately without a single person close to him that could inform him of how misguided this line of aggression is,

I've said it elsewhere and I'll repeat it here. People like Parsons who climb to positions of power think of security in terms of power, not technology. It's a sort of security-because-I-say-so mindset, which is more like what technologists would probably call "classified information". For a person of that mindset, calling it "secure" means that accessing it at all is a security violation, unless that person has clearance.

From the point of view of a person who sees security as "it's sensitive information because someone says so" accessing it without clearance is punishable, and I think that's where Parson and his ilk are working.

Even if Parson has someone close enough to him to explain the difference between security by technical means and security by declaration, the governor could still conclude, from his mindset, that a violation occurred because of the sensitive nature of the information.

As far as I know, neither Missouri nor any other state has anything like US federal-level information classification laws, for which a person can be found in violation and prosecuted even if they didn't have to overcome any technical security measures to access the information. But that doesn't seem to deter Parson from acting like there's an actual breach of law, according to his understanding. But someone could, possibly, reach the governor through explaining that there's no state law about sensitive information, and perhaps he would back down, although it might motivate him to push for laws that would look more like security clearance regulations.

[andrewflnr]

Interesting interpretation. However, what the reporter did is pretty analogous to finding a classified document on the ground, looking at the first couple pages to see if they were legit, then informing the correct authorities before writing a news story. Which is still something you want to encourage, and is insane to prosecute.

[cratermoon]

I was sort of under the impression that in the story the reporter wrote about how to access the SSNs, which is a bit more than just flipping through the pages, and in the security-by-decree point of view that might be prosecutable.

[resoluteteeth]

Only after waiting for them to fix it

[sam0x17]

Insane, yes, but if you also don't like that reporter for X reason, the laws around classified information do unfortunately allow prosecution in that sort of case.

[pianoben]

The background with Parson is that he is overtly hostile to the "blue" cities of St. Louis and Kansas City, and favors the more rural parts of the state. He has an especially hostile relationship with the press in those cities.

It doesn't surprise me that he'd want to make hay with this - he can promote himself, damage his political enemies, and look tough to his base, which (generally speaking) doesn't consist of professional technologists.

(if you want evidence of his antipathy to Missouri's cities, look no further than covid vaccine distribution - St. Louis had maybe one single site, but rural areas had more vaccines than they could use. My elderly parents had to drive for hours to get to one of those underused sites because there simply weren't any vaccines to be found in the metro area.)

[vkou]

I'm not saying you are wrong in this particular case (As I know nothing about the particulars of vaccine distribution in your state), but this has been the case across the entire country, red and blue. At a rough approximation, vaccines were distributed more or less equally across rural and urban areas, but due to high demand in urban areas, there were long wait lists in them.

[_ktx2]

> (if you want evidence of his antipathy to Missouri's cities, look no further than covid vaccine distribution - St. Louis had maybe one single site, but rural areas had more vaccines than they could use. My elderly parents had to drive for hours to get to one of those underused sites because there simply weren't any vaccines to be found in the metro area.)

I lived in SoCal at the time and had to do the same thing. I drove about an hour and a half into the desert to get it when my name came up, and I lived in the city of San Diego.

[woodruffw]

> I lived in SoCal at the time and had to do the same thing. I drove about an hour and a half into the desert to get it when my name came up, and I lived in the city of San Diego.

The salient difference probably being demand (likely high in SD) versus malicious or apathetic political will.

[kodah]

That would be an incorrect assumption. At the time, we were still using the classification and opt-in system. The local and state governments knew exactly where demand was and wasn't.

[sour-taste]

Hello neighbor!

I had to do the same thing and drive out to Julien. I live in San Diego too.

[kodah]

Did you at least snag one of those delicious pies for your troubles?

[sour-taste]

Of course :D

[ClumsyPilot]

Damn, how could such prosecution actually go ahead, this sound like tinpot dictatorship news

[goostavos]

He "decoded the html"! C'mon, man! That's hacking!

[munificent]

The trick is the realize that US politics today is essentially two groups of people who live in almost entirely separate realities that happen to spatially overlap. Public officials are in the odd state of being observed by members of both realities, but only acting and affected by one of them. The result is that their behavior looks super fucking weird to the other.

It's like watching someone navigate a glass maze that you can't see. The whole time you're wondering why they're taking such a circuitous path. They look like a crazy person to you, but it's because they're avoiding obstacles you can't see.

The reason we have two separate realities is that most of "reality" at the political level comes to voters by way of media. Almost none of us have directly witnessed, say George Floyd protests, abortions, industrial pollution, inner city gang violence, etc. Instead, we learn of these things through the news and social media.

But those in the US have become increasingly polarized. The picture of the world you get from watching Fox News or your Facebook feed if you have conservative friends shows an entirely different world than what someone watching CNN and the politics subreddit sees.

For politicians, winning elections is central. It is the source of all of their power. They know that the way to win elections is to get people on their side to show up and vote. Losing votes from the other side is essentially irrelevant — they weren't going to vote for them anyway. Politicians are fighting apathy, not the opposing party.

So almost all of their public behavior serves to make them appear good to their camp when viewed through that camp's media lens. The way it appears to the other side doesn't matter one bit because it won't significantly affect elections.

Once you understand this, Parson's behavior makes perfect sense. He got caught looking like a dumbass leaking SSNs so he has to do ("do" in the sense of some visible political behavior, not in the sense of solving the actual problem) something. If he frames it as the liberal press are evil hackers, then Fox News is happy to carry that narrative for him. His voters will see that narrative, be satisfied that it fits their worldview, and continue to support him.

The fact that his narrative is nonsense doesn't matter. No one likely to vote for him will ever see that, and those that do see it weren't going to vote for him either. Actually fixing the problem also isn't particularly relevant. Conservative media just wants him to win so won't run bad press if he doesn't fix it, so there's little incentive.

Every year, the US looks more like China Mieville's "The City and the City".

[mdp2021]

> For politicians, winning elections is central. It is the source of all of their power. They know that the way to win elections is to get people on their side to show up and vote. Losing votes from the other side is essentially irrelevant — they weren't going to vote for them anyway. Politicians are fighting apathy, not the opposing party.

This is called "perversion".

> Once you understand this, ...'s behavior makes [it]

an accomplice and an entity of abysmal value.

--

Back to the elephant in the room: journalism was there to determine facts, reality. Outside narratives, facts exist, sometimes clear. It's like in judicial matters: advocatus dei and advocatus diaboli are there to attain to truth in a dialectic manner, proposed and implemented to exhaust the thinkable reasons involved - never there you meet the lunacy of "serving the client's interest". The disconnection to facts you indicate would be a horrible disease.

[munificent]

> journalism was there to determine facts, reality.

There are definitely plenty of journalists doing just that, which is why you and I are reading about this.

The problem is that roughly half the US electorate is not tuning in to those journalists, but they still have the vote.

> The disconnection to facts you indicate would be a horrible disease.

It is a horrible disease and the US is suffering mightily for it.

[snarf21]

This is a "no such thing as bad publicity" political tact. If the case doesn't go forward because, you know, the actual 1st amendment, then the next response will be how he is being cancelled by the liberal media. This is mostly signaling to his base that he is out there fighting for them but the other side isn't playing fair.

[sam0x17]

I think it's more of a "screw gamers/intellectuals/scientists/researchers because my base hates them" tact.

[dane-pgp]

As an aside, seeing the word "tact" used like this is a little disorienting, even if it is a widely used slang form of the word "tactic".

There is the (originally nautical?) term "tack" which means "A direction or course of action, especially a new one.", and it's hard to separate those similar sounding/meaning/looking words.

[say_it_as_it_is]

You don't have a personal PAC that isn't beyond your influence. It wouldn't be a personal PAC, then.

[tyingq]

I'd be very surprised that the PAC he helped create is doing something he isn't good with.

[cryptoz]

> But I'm at a loss as to how this situation could blossom into something so ridiculous.

This is one of the least ridiculous things Republicans have done in the last few years.