I suggested twice, maybe thrice, that we should reach out to the people Belschaft has deposed. I also suggested double checking what Belschaft had done and inquiring into the SPSF intelligence programme. Farengeto also provided a specific list of inquiries to be made. It's all in Lubyanka.

If anything, we could've started by acknowledging that, however useless it may have felt, the law required us to investigate in good faith, rather than keep out already-drawn conclusions and ignore any other possible leads. We had a job to do.

Former Delegate of the South Pacific
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@Tsunamy - Well, in regards to a proper investigation, what I would have done would be gather all available evidence, interviewed the various witnesses in detail - Roavin and Ressentine, my superiors in the CRS, in particular - and put it all together. Then I would have scheduled a sit down between the CRS and the accused for a formal interview, during which time you'd try and catch me in a lie, see how evasive I was being, etc. I also would have taken me up on my offer to grant someone on the CRS access to my accounts - you can keep saying that I could have destroyed any and all evidence, but the fact is that I haven't. A bunch of vaguely compromising stuff is still on there - none of it illegal, but still "compromising".

I would also have been very careful to limit any report to those facts that had been proven, and not include all sorts of unsupported assumptions, assertions and accusations.

Ok. Well — to allay fears, we did talk to all these people. Both before and during the formal investigation. 

Personally, I'd never ask for your passwords. That's a horrible invasion of privacy — and I personally have never accused your of destroying evidence.


I think we also have a sufficient amount of your response, am I wrong?

-tsunamy
[forum admin]

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@Tsunamy - Well, in regards to a proper investigation, what I would have done would be gather all available evidence, interviewed the various witnesses in detail - Roavin and Ressentine, my superiors in the CRS, in particular - and put it all together. Then I would have scheduled a sit down between the CRS and the accused for a formal interview, during which time you'd try and catch me in a lie, see how evasive I was being, etc. I also would have taken me up on my offer to grant someone on the CRS access to my accounts - you can keep saying that I could have destroyed any and all evidence, but the fact is that I haven't. A bunch of vaguely compromising stuff is still on there - none of it illegal, but still "compromising".

I would also have been very careful to limit any report to those facts that had been proven, and not include all sorts of unsupported assumptions, assertions and accusations.

Ok. Well — to allay fears, we did talk to all these people. Both before and during the formal investigation. 

Personally, I'd never ask for your passwords. That's a horrible invasion of privacy — and I personally have never accused your of destroying evidence.


I think we also have a sufficient amount of your response, am I wrong?

The CRS report accuses me of destroying evidence; well, to be more precise, it says that I could easily have done so, and thus it doesn't matter that there isn't any more evidence and my offer to provide such access is meaningless. The implication is clear.

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I have some questions, because there are some troubling findings in this report.

4.a. We find that Belschaft did engage in unauthorized communication with Neo Kervoskia, with full knowledge of his Empire affiliation.

What's the standard here? Given that the CRS, at various points, conflates Empire with both the Rahl family and to a possibly lesser extent with the entire region of Osiris, who can citizens of TSP engage in "unauthorized communication" with, without being concerned about being deemed a security threat by the CRS? I have "unauthorized communication" with Syberis, a patriarch of the Rahl family, on a near-daily basis. We have legislators in Osiris and one in the Rahl family. Is any communication with Neo Kervoskia at all to be deemed "unauthorized communication"? How about with Neenee? How about with Badger, Delegate of the West Pacific, and a patriarch of the Rahl family? Where's the red line?

4.e. We believe strongly that Belschaft engaged in behavior that threatens the security of the region. He aided a hostile foreign region, by providing advice on foreign affairs, divulging privileged information, and making offers to push back against anti-Osiris and anti-Empire sentiment in the region. This behavior is unacceptable and must be deterred. It poses a serious existential threat to TSP, given Osiris’s willingness to infiltrate our region, foment divisions and manipulate votes, in addition to Empire’s long-standing modus operandi of doing just the same thing.

On what basis does the CRS declare Osiris "a hostile foreign region"? Is this a conflation with Empire and, if so, doesn't the CRS need to invoke the prohibited regions and organizations provisions against citizenship applicants and citizens of TSP involved in Osiris? That would, of course, be problematic, in that Osiris is not a prohibited region, and conflating it with Empire in order to make it a prohibited region exceeds the authority of the CRS by a mile.

Additionally, on what basis has the CRS determined that Osiris -- rather than Neo Kervoskia and Adytus as individuals -- is willing "to infiltrate our region, foment divisions and manipulate votes"? This is a serious accusation you are making against another region, with the potential to have a detrimental impact on the foreign affairs and even the security of TSP. I suggest backing it up with facts instead of fake news, or acknowledging that you cannot and withdrawing the accusation. You have a responsibility to this region to be more responsible when making security-related claims.

(This post was last modified: 04-24-2017, 07:12 PM by Cormac.)

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OK, just want to start off by saying that I don't have an opinion on the outcome of this case.

Firstly, isn't it concerning that at least one member of the CRS, as well as various others, believe that this was an improper investigation? I am forced to doubt whether this investigation had much if any legal basis at all.

Also, as far as I can tell, this entire investigation relies on the belief that Osiris=Empire.

If that is so, and I reckon it is from what is shown in the report, shouldn't we be notifying all members of Osiris and TSP to immediately close their accounts?

I have only skimmed through the thread, but it is worrying me.

John Hills- President of Ausstan

(This post was last modified: 04-24-2017, 07:40 PM by Ausstan.)

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I suggested twice, maybe thrice, that we should reach out to the people Belschaft has deposed. I also suggested double checking what Belschaft had done and inquiring into the SPSF intelligence programme. Farengeto also provided a specific list of inquiries to be made. It's all in Lubyanka.

If anything, we could've started by acknowledging that, however useless it may have felt, the law required us to investigate in good faith, rather than keep out already-drawn conclusions and ignore any other possible leads. We had a job to do.

We did, in fact, talk to those people. We also talked about the intel program. It is, in fact, all mentioned in our threads. It is also mentioned in the report. It was also talked about quite a bit on Discord, but you wouldn't know that because you've never signed on. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Belschaft said he sent Vietnam's deposition to Tsunamy. If it's true, why didn't we ever see it? If it was a lie, why not confront him over it? It seems the SPSF intelligence programme had been ongoing for the past few ministries. Why didn't we contact former ministers to see what its extent was, and whether Belschaft had been acting in line with the overall expectations of the programme? There was a suggestion to contact Neo Kervoskia, to verify the information in the logs we received. Maybe he would lie to us? Perhaps, but that was still a necessary part of our due dilligence.

You only interviewed Vietnam because we kept pushing for some kind of investigation. You kept claiming that allowing Belschaft to respond here in the Assembly was enough to consider him questioned and self-defended, for the purposes of the investigation mandated by the Security Powers Act. You outright refused to contact Neo Kervoskia. You kept claiming that there was no need to investigate, even when confronted with the blatantly obvious fact that the law mandated an investigation.

Don't tell me that you conducted a thorough investigation, because we both know, if you had had your way, we wouldn't even had done the meager questioning that we managed to force out of you. If your case was as strong as you claimed it was, it would have shown in the investigation. If it wasn't, then that would have been a clear indication that Belschaft did not have to be punished in the first place.

Former Delegate of the South Pacific
Posts outside High Court venues should be taken as those of any other legislator.
I do not participate in the regional server, but I am happy to talk through instant messaging or on the forum.

Legal Resources:
THE MATT-DUCK Law Archive | Mavenu Diplomatic Archive | Rules of the High Court | Case Submission System | Online Rulings Consultation System

(This post was last modified: 04-24-2017, 10:57 PM by Kris Kringle.)

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I think that Belschaft should have taken the initial deal offered to him, because there is shady and troubling information in the released logs that the report is based on that would be cause for concern (and which lead to this investigation in the first place). The initial discussion between CRS and Bel seemed to have been the right track for this situation.

Then, it does seem there are interviews of people that were conducted but perhaps are not in the report or alluded to? I am interested in the follow up to the SPSF\military discussion and possibly seeing some of these depositions. Is the SPSF an intel agency? Who does it report to? What is the chain of command?

And to quote from what I posted elsewhere and add on:

As for the rest of this discussion in various places, what I'm understanding is that while SPA became a law with a majority of votes perhaps people voting for did not understand what it meant. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Either you have some faith in the CRS, or your propose things that make it an organization that can function the way it is supposed to (intel agency\security risk assessor) within the confines of the game. Otherwise a castrated CRS, which to be fair is what we've always had, does nothing other than perhaps meditate.

It's not to say that I did not tell the CRS where I thought this would lead when this started and have voiced my concerns about this process (and tried to get the initial offer to go through but failed to get either side to budge much). I am just trying to imagine any intel agency running in a major region that is subject to constant second guessing by the citizens and failing to think it will work. Which, maybe we don't want an intel agency and want something else entirely. That's fine but then we need to figure out some other things.

Again to be clear, when people do shady things do we as a community think there should be repercussions of any sort? A mild sort? Perhaps its time to revamp what our IC moral and ethical standards are to be more transparent and clear for all citizens\legislators. That way instead of applying standards to people who we just don't like and ignoring them when it's someone we do like - everyone can join in and get loose.

Also I feel Kris that there are several people who should still continue to clamor for your removal from the face of..oh TSP...or wait maybe you aren't a horrible monster after all. Or wait do people become cool only if they agree with you and to be gotten rid of if they don't? Mind blown.

Escade

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(This post was last modified: 04-24-2017, 11:19 PM by Escade.)

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Belschaft said he sent Vietnam's deposition to Tsunamy. If it's true, why didn't we ever see it? If it was a lie, why not confront him over it? It seems the SPSF intelligence programme had been ongoing for the past few ministries. Why didn't we contact former ministers to see what its extent was, and whether Belschaft had been acting in line with the overall expectations of the programme? There was a suggestion to contact Neo Kervoskia, to verify the information in the logs we received. Maybe he would lie to us? Perhaps, but that was still a necessary part of our due dilligence.

You only interviewed Vietnam because we kept pushing for some kind of investigation. You kept claiming that allowing Belschaft to respond here in the Assembly was enough to consider him questioned and self-defended, for the purposes of the investigation mandated by the Security Powers Act. You outright refused to contact Neo Kervoskia. You kept claiming that there was no need to investigate, even when confronted with the blatantly obvious fact that the law mandated an investigation.

Don't tell me that you conducted a thorough investigation, because we both know, if you had had your way, we wouldn't even had done the meager questioning that we managed to force out of you. If your case was as strong as you claimed it was, it would have shown in the investigation. If it wasn't, then that would have been a clear indication that Belschaft did not have to be punished in the first place.

Am I the only one it was sent to? The way people talked — I thought everyone had it?

I was never informed that I became the facilitator of the entire investigation.

-tsunamy
[forum admin]

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As for the rest of this discussion in various places, what I'm understanding is that while SPA became a law with a majority of votes perhaps people voting for did not understand what it meant.

I don't think that's so much the problem. Had the Security Powers Act actually been followed, we probably wouldn't be having these issues. Instead, according to two CRS members, the CRS neglected to conduct a proper, thorough investigation as required by the Security Powers Act. That's the fundamental problem here. They can't just decide not to investigate; they're required to do so by law, and that was intentional.

So if this is a case of anyone not understanding what the Security Powers Act means, or simply not caring, I would suggest that it was these four CRS members rather than legislators. By refusing to properly investigate, they deprived Belschaft of due process, and frankly they have made a mockery of both the CRS and the Security Powers Act. It's unbelievable to me that they just rubber stamped a security threat declaration without proper investigation.

Note: I had posted this in a different thread in which Escade posted the same comment, but I decided my response was off-topic for that thread so I deleted it and decided it would be better to post it here. Apologies for any confusion.

(This post was last modified: 04-24-2017, 11:25 PM by Cormac.)

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