#ScoobyGang Chronicles #6: Sailing in Stormy Seas

(What follows is another fake Question and Answer session with the Captain. As with the previous version, the questions are drawn from actual questions that have been addressed to me over the past few weeks. Trigger warning: I am a bit testy lately for good reason and some of the answers here will not have the good-natured humor you may have come to expect.)

Are you ok?

I'm fine. I won't say that I haven't had some bad moments over the past few weeks or that the harassment and threats directed at me (and my friends) haven't taken their toll. They have and I am going to be dealing with the consequences for the rest of my life. However, I made the choice to carry this thing through to the end and that's what I am going to do. I have taken steps to limit the damage and insure the safety of myself and my friends, and to do all I can to make sure the responsible parties face the consequences of their actions.

I've done a lot of different things in my long life and I've always thrown myself into whatever role I was asked to play with total commitment. I have never been in a situation like this in my life and I've never had to work as hard as I have over the past few months. Fortunately, I haven't been alone in this and the small band of merry prankster who have worked with me have shared to burden fully. The Captain is just the public face of this battle; it has been a true cooperative group effort all the way. None of us were prepared for the situation we have found ourselves in but we have used the talents and abilities we brought with us to really achieve something important, I believe. We are all in this simply because we saw something wrong and we decided on our own (and separately at first) to do something about it. No one is going to get famous out of this; indeed, most of the people involved will be happy to slip away into the night at the end without anyone outside our group even knowing what they did.



I hope some day the true story of what went on here does get told in full because it is amazing. Our small band of total amateurs volunteered themselves to step and do what's right when almost everyone else chose to dodge the fight or was too dumb to realize what was going on. All of these people are quiet heroes. We took on a professionally run and well financed disinformation campaign and we kicked its ass. That is no small accomplishment. I coined the term #ScoobyGang for Mensch and her crew long ago but we never did come up with a term that stuck for our side. For a while, we adopted one of Mensch's accusations as a badge of honor and called ourselves #TeamDeza (still on profile.) It's sort of confusing and not really apt except in some sort of 4chan "irony" sense. I think for that reason (who wants to be associated with 4chan?), no one involved has ever been a 100 percent on board with the name. In my own head, I think of us as a modern version of Ken Kesey's "Merry Pranksters" because we've used comedy trolling here on Twitter to fight a very serious battle. I hope someone comes up with a name that we all like, because that's likely to be the only recognition we ever get. Open to suggestions from anywhere - maybe you might be the one who comes up with the name that sticks?

Where have you gone - you've kind of disappeared from Twitter? What's up?

We have accomplished much here on Twitter with both our "citizen journalism" investigation and our unique mix of comedy trolling and information dissemination. It's not just our little group, there are tons of people who have contributed who we have nothing to do with. Everyone who did anything to speak up against the #ScoobyGang publicly or privately in ways big and small deserves a share of the credit for what we have accomplished. Louis Mensch's credibility has been publicly destroyed, many of the true culprits involved have been identified, and I think permanent damage has been done to what was a very sophisticated and well planned disinformation campaign.

On the other hand, we are still facing daunting odds. Our focus lately has been on making sure that as few of the bad guys escape the fall out from this, but there are real limits to what we can accomplish on Twitter by ourselves. We have uncovered enough to know some of the people involved but in order for the real truth to come out, we need the professionals to take over and see where the leads we have uncovered will eventually lead. The real story lies off of Twitter and involves questions like who paid for all this? We are out of league, and we need real help.

To insure both the safety of the people who are being harassed and threatened (and make no mistake whatsoever, that is what has been going on, see below) and that the responsible people are held to account, the Captain has been spreading the information far and wide all over the country. This cat can't be put back in the bag no matter how much Louise and the idiots try to delete their tweets to cover their tracks. The little corner of Twitter in which all of this has taken place is now an active crime scene and everything they try to do to cover it up is further evidence that is being collected.

Twitter has been negligent throughout this entire episode despite a literal tsunami of complaints and warnings about what has been going on. They have a lot to answer for here; however, the Captain has seen some signs recently that they have finally woken up to the situation and I have confidence that they are now aware of their exposure. They will do what they have to do to protect themselves as company and that has real consequences for the bad guys here that some of them (ahem, Bogwench, talking about you here, among others) have been slow to grasp. HINT: Your tweets are not your property, they belong to Twitter and deleted tweets are being archived inside Twitter.

The Captain (and others) are not content to leave this to Twitter. The main reason for my relatively limited presence on Twitter over the past few days has been that I am putting all my effort into bringing other players into the game. This effort includes:

• Alerting law enforcement. This may be a bit of a fool's errand (ask any woman who has pursued justice over a harassment or stalking case), but it seems worth pursuing. Harassment and threats are certainly crimes and the cast of characters involved include people across the country and overseas. At the macro level, this has been a conspiracy to commit political dirty tricks, which have always existed in a gray area of the law. I don't expect to see tons of prominent figures frogmarched into a Federal Court, but you never know what might happen.
• Alerting the press. This is where the real action is most likely to occur despite the difficulty in getting attention as a Twitter rando with 3000 followers. The imploding Trump presidency is also a problem; obviously, that's the big story right now and journalists are rightfully focused on that huge story. I've got an uphill battle here but I think if I keep my nose to grindstone eventually I am going to get someone interested. The story already involved prominent people and those people are only one step removed from some REALLY prominent people. Also, this story is not completely separate from the Trump investigation. After all, Trump/Russia has been the principle focus of the #ScoobyGang from the beginning. Do you honestly think that is just a coincidence?
• Exploring the possibility of civil litigation against the people and organizations who are involved. This is something that has just opened up recently as an option as I have now suffered personal damages from the actions of the #ScoobyGang. I lacked standing before but now, because they are such idiots, they have gifted me this opportunity. (Not just me, there are others who are now in the same boat.) It has long been the Captain's dream to go to his final resting place without ever having to spend any time in a courtroom. However, if that's the only way I can insure that the guilty are punished, so be it. I hope it doesn't come to that but if it does, I will not have to put up a GoFundMe page to finance the case. The deep pockets of some of the folks involved will provide sufficient incentive for an attorney to take the case on for a piece of the judgment.

 So, that's where things stand right now. No matter what happens, it's going to take a while for any of these options to bear fruit but the wheels are in motion and it can't be stopped now. I warned them, but they didn't listen.

You keep talking about threats - I don't know what you are talking about?

Merely asking that question without bothering to find out what is going on reveals what a jackass you are. Stop bothering me and ask someone smarter than you.

If you stop and bothered to think about it for more than 10 seconds rather than firing ill-informed questions at me, you'd understand why I have tried to handle this situation as discreetly as possibly. I have worked quietly behind the scenes on Twitter to shut down the accounts that are engaged in harassment of my and my family. Twitter's sudden reduced response time over the past week is an indication that FINALLY they are waking up to the situation. I have also reported all of this to law enforcement and while I am unsure of the progress of the investigation, I am receiving direct assistance from local law enforcement in terms of protecting me and my property. I think that's a pretty good sign that they are taking it very seriously. Running an undercover political disinformation campaign on Twitter might not be a crime, but the harassment and threats most certainly are.

Also, just in case that isn't enough for you, you cannot be unaware of the much more public incidents involving other people. Your question is dumb and so are you. Go away.

Mensch is just a sideshow here on Twitter - the real problem is Trump. Why don't you concentrate on that?

First of all, genius, I'm a middle aged man without a college degree using a six year old laptop and cellphone to wage an improvised counter-intelligence operation on Twitter. I think that I've been doing a pretty good job of it too, thanks primarily to the people who have chosen to work along with me. However, I'm not going to bring down a sitting President of the United States. Pro tip: neither are you, pal.

Secondly, this little "side show" here is about Trump and everything that has happened outside the little world of Twitter. Mensch and Taylor and all the rest of the #ScoobyGang have made Trump and Russia the focus of their attention - do you honestly think there isn't a Trump related reason for that?
The people involved behind the scenes link back to many people who are but a short step away from Trump backers such as the Mercers. It's all related, people!

Thirdly, this is neither the first nor the last time that something like this is going to infect our incredibly vulnerable social media environment. It is of critical importance that we understand fully what happened here and are more prepared the next time. Just as the press failed utterly and miserably during the 2016 election cycle and that ultimately paved the way to the disaster that we are all now living through, many people and institutions failed to step up and address the threat that the #ScoobyGang represented. You lucked out this time because people like me stepped into the breach to expose this mess but honestly, you lucked out. People need to be smarter about this stuff. This is a sideshow compared to the whole Trump saga, but the parallels are plain to see.

What's the real deal with this blog?

It's just what I said it was in the very beginning: I truly believe that the way through this is to get the information out there to people and let them make up their own minds about what is going on. I've admitted that what I choose to disclose and when I choose to do it are being governed by strategic considerations which I am not going to disclose at this time. However, my own personal credibility is a strategic asset in this situation and I am not going to squander that. You remember very earlier on I noted that I would mark any speculative comments that I made on this blog with red text. You may think that I have forgotten about that, but I haven't. I just haven't indulged in much speculation here at all; the vast majority of what I have written here represents exactly what my own internal understanding of the situation is at the time I wrote it. That doesn't mean it's true because I am not claiming to have all of this figured out, but I am not spreading disinformation here knowingly. As I have said before, I don't expect any of you to accept what I have written on faith; you need to go look for yourself and make up your own mind.

I am not a reporter, either by profession or by inclination in the current situation. I am trying to win the battle against these bastards, and just as governments may withhold information selectively from the public in times of war, I am doing the same. That's the situation; you will be able to judge how well I handled those tradeoffs eventually when the full story comes to light.

Why won't you tell us exactly what is going on?

The short answer is because I don't know exactly what is going. I know a lot more than probably anyone else on Twitter, but when I try to fit it all together I don't really know exactly what is going on. I know the people involved and some of what they have done, and I know that none of it is good. There are bad people involved and they have been up to no good. Much of it is out there in semi-public view on Twitter.

The slightly longer answer is that a disinformation campaign like this one is a fluid improvisational operation. Any good professional in this field improvises and reacts to changing circumstances. Whatever the plan was in the beginning, circumstances have arisen that have presented challenges and opportunities. Let's not make the mistake of not realizing that some of the people over there pulling the strings are professionals. There are multiple players on the board and no one has perfect knowledge of the situation. Attempting to unravel it all while it is still ongoing is almost a fool's errand. Stick to the bigger picture issues and try day by day to learn more of what is going on. The most important thing to keep in your head is that the ultimate purpose here is to sow chaos and confusion and the most important defense we have against that is to keep our heads and stay reality based despite the attempts to bewilder us.

Why can't you just tell us who you think the suspect accounts are?

The main reason is that I don't know for sure in every instance. We play the "crazy asshole versus nefarious actor" scenario out constantly in our DMs. There are certain cases where the evidence one way or the other is crystal clear. Many other cases are much more ambiguous. The rule we have chosen to adopt is that if it looks like it is acting in a counter-productive way, we treat it as hostile. That's one way to simplify everything and make it manageable. I suggest you do the same.

For me to start denouncing certain accounts and endorsing other would open the door to further madness. I linked in an earlier post to the story of James Jesus Angleton. I suggest you and check that out if you didn't before. The US Intelligence Community was nearly brought to its knees by a hunt for Soviet moles in the 1960's. If they couldn't handle the problem cleanly, what hope do we have? Everyone, and I mean everyone, around me has fallen victim to someone who has fooled them in the past month or so, including me. The only really thing I think I absolutely got right in this whole episode is that I grasped what was really going on earlier than almost everyone else and I implemented certain strategies to limit the damage (isolating information from people and looking at everyone as potentially suspect.) Managing this kind of complex information environment is a very difficult problem and keeping it from spiraling out of control into a state of paranoia is challenging to say the least. Please look back over the rules I provided in the earlier post and take them to heart.

How big is this thing?

Again, I don't really know. If all I had to do on a day to day basis was sit and sift through the evidence, I'd probably have a better idea. Unfortunately, I have to spend a lot of my time protecting myself, the people I work with, and my family. I also have to spend an inordinate amount of my time putting out fires started both by Mensch's minions and well-meaning but idiotic people who are ostensibly on my side who can't keep their damned heads in the game. Fortunately, my trusted inner circle has become more adept at handling that stuff so I have been able to leave much of that in their hands.

There's a ton of information that we have gathered - enough to well and truly fuck up some people's lives, which is why this last ditch attempt at damage control has been so ruthless. There is also the possibility that some of the information we have on hand is disinformation designed to mislead us. We just don't know; we honestly, despite all the good things we have done, are not equipped to sort through it all. It's time for the professionals to take over. In our tight circle, we think it's pretty big, maybe even Robert Mueller big.

I thought you said Mensch was finished? She's still out there - what's the deal with that?

I might be wrong about this, but I believe all the chaos we have seen lately is a deliberate exit strategy being executed so the responsible parties can slip away in all the confusion. You are witnessing the death throes here. It's confusing and it is meant to be, but it is a sign of desperation. The only way out here for these people is to attempt to gaslight us as the conspiracy theorists - as a bunch of lunatics obsessed with Mensch who are making stuff up. That's what's going on and you should view the recent events through that lens.

Both sides have done stuff that isn't cool - don't you have to answer for that?

Short answer, that's just a ridiculous statement. Unfortunately, I have heard a lot of this and from some people who should know better.

Slightly longer answer here. "Captain" is an honorary title: I am not in charge here. My inner circle of trusted confidants can be counted on one hand. That small group is who I make decisions with and that's all I am personally responsible for. History will judge us, but we have behaved impeccably throughout this entire ordeal and I will defend our actions and explain the mistakes we have made until the last dog dies.

Beyond that small group, there is a larger group of a few dozen people who have my full confidence but have been kept in the dark about some of the details for reasons of information security. Outside of the second ring, there is a third group of people who I attempt to work with behind the scenes, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. And then there is a fourth group who are people who might appear to the casual observer to be associate with me but really are independent actors over whom I have no control. Mixed in there are some people who are not who they appear to be and they are actively sowing chaos and deliberately trying to make our side look bad. Draw your own conclusions, but any theories that involve me having tight control over this circus are absurd.

What the deal with this ongoing fight about RVOWank (Coraline)? Does the Captain have any thoughts about that controversy?

My subtweeting game must be sub-par, because I though I had made myself pretty clear in THIS POST here, where under the Captain's Rules was number 10:

Don't trust anyone who appears to support them OR even remains staunchly neutral on the subject. What is going on here is plain to see and people who claim to be interested in "both sides" are either fools or something else. Either way, you don't need them.

 However, I learned yesterday that even people who are deeply invested in this little sideshow didn't get what I was saying in that earlier post. I am not going to say anything more about this for now, but I will be returning to the issue shortly.

Wait a minute - you've been running around quietly trying to calm this fight down because it is adding to the chaos - isn't this hypocritical of you to bring this up now?

Yes, sure, I guess it is. Sue me, I've got my reasons here. To be honest, a lot of people aren't taking me seriously about avoiding chaos and I don't have any control over them beyond an appeal to their good sense. Arguing on the internet is a stupid activity in general and I am totally shocked at how many otherwise very bright people can't grasp this basic fact. I do want this to stop as quickly as possible because it is helping Mensch, but I've given up trying to reason with certain people. I'm giving this a shot, maybe this will change the dynamic. I'm doing the best I can here people, but I am done trying to herd cats.

This is probably going to piss some people I respect and trust off, but in my opinion, they need to rethink this issue. Whether or not I have to mend some fences over this issue or even lose some friends doesn't really matter. We have bigger issues to deal with right now.

What's the deal with Claude Taylor?

Always leave them wanting more. I really do have to go do some other stuff right now, so this one will have to wait. It will be worth it.

(Final note: This is going out without much proofreading and also without some links I intend to add shortly. I have other stuff to get to, so I'm just going to live with the DMs from people pointing out my grammatical errors. If you follow me on Twitter, you ought to be used to it. I write quickly and often don't double check everything. I doubt the meaning of anything is obscured here. I will revise this when I get a chance.)