Much opprobrium has been heaped on the folks who led us down the primrose paths of Exif parameters, yfrog peculiarities ("Why a frog? Why a-no chicken?"), photoshop rotations, Blackberry camera dimensions, and twitterverse sleuthing.
We all know what became of all that. Ouch. Yowza.
Now the fog has cleared somewhat. The Congressman, who indeed had a rough day yesterday, is one day closer to realizing his dream of being able to send pictures of his junk to whomever he chooses without a word of censure from anyone.
But as we head into post 6/6 territory, there are a few niggling questions I have nevertheless, and I confess I don't have the IT chops to answer any of them. So I reach out to you, the kindly DKos reality-based community (ahem...) to help me out.
Ok, so there are still some things we know that we know. We know that Breitbart's right wing contacts were monitoring Congressman Weiner's online activities to a certain extent. Furthermore we know that on or around May 5th they were talking about being in possession of knowledge of embarrassing information about the Congressman. So here are my questions:
1) In light of what has come forward in the cold light of day, is it possible that this group of people was in receipt of embarrassing information as early as May 5th?
2) If so, how did they come to be recipients of such knowledge?
3) What information did "Dan Wolfe" and "redsgoat" have, while they were conducting inquests of women on Weiner's "following" list?
4) "Dan Wolfe" was in communication with the 21-year old Seattle student prior to Weiner's accidental tweet. Coincidence that she turned out to be the target of Weiner's spectacular online gaffe? Was "Dan Wolfe" acting on a hunch or did he have any (excuse the unintended pun) hard information about their relationship? How might he have been able to obtain such information without the help of either principle?
5) The recipient of the AOL shirtless photos came forward supposedly after the underwear photo was circulating. What caused her to come forward at that moment, to maximum damaging effect, when it would have been just as easy to come forward any time prior?
6) Even casual surveillance of public figures takes time and effort. Was anyone remunerated or otherwise induced to perform this task?
I realize that many of these questions are nearly impossible to answer without directly addressing the questions to Breitbart's coterie. And I have no interest in propounding the kind of conspiracy thinking that caused many on this community to argue in defense of Weiner well past the point of logic. Nevertheless...
Anthony Weiner could not have been brought down without having been a target of some kind of surveillance, however casual. In this case the person conducting surveillance, "Dan Wolfe," who saw the offending tweet before it was erased by Weiner, was also in uninvited correspondence with the ultimate target of the offending tweet. As the story broke this individual disappeared into the internet ether, without a trace.
While I don't take the Congressman's side in defense of his actions, which were reprehensible, it does bother me to think of how many other powerful progressives might be under surveillance from this sort of loosely affiliated political opposition group. This story never could have broken without a certain amount of surveillance, again, however casual that surveillance may have been.
Lastly I want to put forward one last piece of baseless speculation. The Congressman has announced he is not resigning. Minority Leader Pelosi has mentioned the possibility of an ethics investigation. Is such an investigation the ONLY WAY that forensics might be examined that would provide clues as to how compromising private information was gathered in the first place? And the the Congressman may actually, if somewhat perversely, welcome such an inquiry?
I'm really not trying to fashion a tin-foil hat. But neither can I look away from this story as if there was a logical progression of events from the inception of the whisper campaign to the ultimate unveiling of damaging information. It seems to me we are missing some important steps along the way. I, for one, would like some answers as to what went down, and whether it went down entirely legally.