Talk:Petraeus scandal

Retitle?

On the AfD for Jill Kelley a concern has been raised that the title here is problematic. It does seem a little sensationalized, so in response to the concerns I'm bringing up a section for potential ways to retitle the article. Here are my suggestions:

1. Petraeus/Broadwell scandal: The scandal seems to predominantly stem from the affair between the two, so this would be a potential title. However this also minimalizes the impact that Allen had on the events.
2. Petraeus scandal: This is a little more broad and doesn't name Allen or Broadwell. This might put more weight on Petraeus, but considering that he seems to be the biggest figurehead of the entire scenario is to be considered.

I'm mostly neutral about all of the titles, but I do think that a discussion should be held over this since concerns were made.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 19:23, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Frankly I'm not sure what the title should be. Like you say, "sex scandal" is sensationalized, but I'm not sure where we should go with this. Perhaps affair would be better than sex scandal? Or maybe email controversy? I'm just not sure. AniMate 19:39, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I would second "2012 American military email investigations", which was proposed by another editor. If this article is going to stay, I think the material about Eric Cantor should be moved from Petraeus' bio to here since it is relevant to the political angle of the "scandal" but of little relevance to the former CIA Director's biography. I'm waiting for a rename here, however, as I am not keen to link to the current tabloidish title.--Brian Dell (talk) 19:55, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

We should generally choose a title which represents the consensus term used by mainstream news media. The term used on press coverage may well change as more details come out. This is presently a breaking news event, with breathless tabloid-like mentions of two generals, a biographer and alleged mistress of one, a harassed socialite, and an infatuated FBI agent. Scant details have been revealed about the actions of the persons mentioned, or the contents of the emails. Only a handful of sources call it the "Petraeus/Broadwell scandal," particularly with the other 3 persons getting coverage. Mainstream news sources are using "Petraeus affair," "Petraeus scandal" and "Petraeus sex scandal." A big political sex scandal of 50 years ago came to be called the Profumo affair. Give it a few days tyo see what term gains commonality. Edison (talk) 20:18, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Just wanted to point out the List_of_federal_political_sex_scandals_in_the_United_States, and note that the vast majority simply point to the articles about the individuals involved. There are a few 'scandal' articles, like Lewinsky scandal. Another type of title can revolve around the court case (if any), like New York v. Strauss-Kahn. Also wanted to note that "sex scandal" can be less than accurate, because these types of scandals typically involve not just the sex, but coverups, abuses of power, etc etc. Clinton, for example, was in trouble not necessarily for sex, but for perjuring himself. Decora (talk) 03:35, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

• I was bold and moved the article. Wikipedia is not a tabloid newspaper. Whatever the actual relationship between Petraeus and Broadwell was, with the Allen/Kelley email exchange the affair is shifting more and more away from a classical sex scandal, is shifting to the wrong doing of the FBI. The former name Petraeus sex scandal is highly inappropriate. --Matthiasb (talk) 09:30, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Precedent for Petraeus scandal

There already is a precedent for an inclusive catch-all name for such an article, such as the Lewinsky scandal. IZAK (talk) 13:22, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Petraeus affair

The double meaning of "affair" is kind of nice.... This is what Time chose for its cover. Thoughts? --MZMcBride (talk) 02:31, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

---

Maybe Patraeus was outed by the NSA because he wouldn't promote soldiers that were under blackmail from the NSA? Maybe the NSA steered other blackmailed Washington leaders into making Patraeus the head of the CIA so they could better control the country? 71.239.119.18 (talk) 19:31, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Chronology

I think the value added of this article relative to having much of it in the bios of the players involved would be chronology. We don't have enough specific dates to use a table or list format but the story could be told as a narrative, starting with Jill Kelley contacting Agent Shirtless.--Brian Dell (talk) 20:50, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Accusations of privacy invasion by FBI

The New York Times published an interesting article regarding the violation of privacy of the individuals in question and its repercusions to the general population, I believe this topic should be included as it opens a pandora's box to even more privacy violations by the bureau. link here --Camilo Sánchez Talk to me 00:06, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

• While I think that article makes a valid point, we don't yet know if this incident is going to mark a sea change in email privacy policy. If, at some point in the future, groups like the ACLU and EPIC cite the Petraeus scandal as a precedent, then, yes - this topicshould be included here. That specific article contains a few good quotes from analysts, but it's still just that - an analysis. Not a report of any hard facts or pending changes in the law. Bundito (talk) 13:50, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Naming

Shouldn't this be the Jill Kelley email scandal ? As the Allen/Kelley scandal is not Petraeus, while the Kelley/Broadwell scandal lead to the Petraeus/Broadwell scandal. -- 70.24.250.26 (talk) 10:42, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

• How silly, this is not about "Email" this is about the contents of the Emails by these high-profile figures: Sex. IZAK (talk) 13:24, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Not really. Soon this will be the scandal of an obsessive-into-the-case, low-ranked FBI agent intruding unauthorized into email accounts and the later involvement of two congressmen into the case, including the majority leader in the house. --Matthiasb (talk) 14:10, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
    • Hi Matthias, with all due respect, but your assessment is totally out of touch. Right now, this is probably the currently worst unfolding scandal in the USA, involving the head of the CIA (who was forced to resign), his official biographer (who also turns out to be his mistress) and is now under FBI investigation for taking home classified documents, the top US general in Afghanistan (who has been caught in sexy communications with Jill Kelley and is under investigation by the US army), and both he and Petraeus have been directly linked to Jill Kelley and her sister Natalie, questions flying in the US congress of why this was covered up until now (neither Republicans or Democrats are really coming up with good reasons) since the FBI was already investigating in July, and what role President Obama has in all of this. Quite, quite, major and way past the silly descriptions you are trying to impose here for reasons best known to you alone. Stop trying to spin this story and try starting to state the facts as they are being reported and there's plenty of that right now and will be for a while... Thanks, IZAK (talk) 17:12, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

LOL

It involves "complex sex", eh? Tijfo098 (talk) 19:59, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

• Nope, it involves a complex sex scandal. Try not leaving out words when you read. IZAK (talk) 11:27, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

International media

Should we remove this section, at least for now? Nothing "is interesting to see" in Wikipedias voice. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:55, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Who cares about the sister

Why is Jill Kelley's sister even listed? So she is a friend. In what way have the investigations involved her, let alone her husband. Even Jill Kelley's husband is only remotely involved to the extent that he is probably none to pleased with his wife. I propose at least removing the sections on the sister, unless somebody can provide a tangible link to the various investigations. --Bertrc (talk) 20:25, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

• Hi Bert: Both Petraeus and Allen wrote letters on behalf of the sister (Natalie Khawam). Both sisters function together. They live together. For the sake of completion it is important to know who everyone is married to since these are cases of actual or suspected affairs. IZAK (talk) 00:38, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
• Yes, but none of the claims about her sister are cited. It seems like a puff piece. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.247.26.16 (talk) 19:38, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Humphries section needs expanding

Why is this guy being investigated? --Bertrc (talk) 20:27, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

• Hi Bert: Seems he went overboard and got over-involved with Jill Kelly. No surprise the FBI wants to understand what he was up to and why. Fatal attraction it seems. IZAK (talk) 00:42, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

'International reaction' section

This section currently contains a comment from a single international body: the Taliban. Do we really need it? This is an entirely domestic American story; the views of the Taliban and other non-Americans, amusing though they might be, are not exactly relevant. Robofish (talk) 23:23, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

CIA and the intelligence community section

Does anybody know why DNI Clapper is called Petraeus' "nominal" superior? According to law, the CIA director reports to the DNI. Does a source say the DNI is a nominal superior? Bob — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.169.169.89 (talk) 14:16, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Organization lacks a center

Section 1 of the article is people involved in the affair.

Section 2 is reaction to the affair.

How about a section on the affair? Right now there is no narrative of how the affair unfolded in its initial days, etc. It's weird to see the key details spread across separate categories. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.169.117.19 (talk) 21:17, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

• Feel free to do so. It is not easy constructing an article when the facts are coming out from all sorts of directions. Thanks, IZAK (talk) 00:40, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

News from Europe

Hi, I just stumbled over this page due to a link to exactly this article discussion page that a user left me on my user discussion page in another version. I just wanted to say hi and don't worry, we have the same problem (about renaming discussions and such). Actually, our problem is a tiny little bit different, since we're not actually exactly what you might call the nearest circle of people being necessarily interested in news agendas of this kind, meaning that the topic is being extremely loud in the recent time, so loud that we can hardly spot the real news (the ones interesting for us, locally) in pages like the German SPIEGEL.

Anyway, wiki (the German) loves the topic, also, very much (many SPIEGEL readers, obviously) and so the discussion about renaming was one that we had to have too, recently. Was very interesting (Including tsunamis and global flood doomsday and lots of funny buzzwords :-] ). --Typojägerin (talk) 17:02, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Penalties for Broadwell

I understand that the UCMJ provides criminal penalties for adultery, and Broadwell is in the military reserves, so have we heard of charges against her? It seems the topic of her penalties under UCMJ should be addressed. Thanks! --Lbeaumont (talk) 00:29, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2012 November 21#Jill Kelley

See DRV at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2012 November 21#Jill Kelley for discussions connected to this article relating to Jill Kelley. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 02:21, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Natalie Khawam

Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Natalie Khawam for an AfD about the related Natalie Khawam article. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 02:24, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Speculation

I've removed the speculation section because it consisted of:

1. A statement sourced to an opinion piece.
2. A non-notable blogger commenting on a Wikipedia IP editor's activity.
3. Synthesis: stitching together statements from different sources and drawing new conclusions.
4. Original research: material invented to support the writer's own conspiracy theorizing.

If you want to restore that section, please find better sources and stick to what the sources say. This article is talking about living people so we can't just drop in whatever ass pull ideas are found on the internet. Jehochman ^Talk 12:01, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

FBI file on the investigation

I've written an article about the FBI's file on the investigation and posted a copy of the released file. You can find them at https://glomardisclosure.com/2016/08/26/everything-fbi-will-let-know-petraeus-investigation/ and https://archive.org/details/DavidHowellPetraeus. Since I wrote the article, it doesn't feel right for me to add it to the Wikipedia article but it's still a secondary source with cited primary sources and I believe it's the first to cover the FBI file. TheMikeBest (talk) 22:03, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

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Request/suggestion for additional content

Seems to me it could be the most important and interesting element of this episode, to know who gained access to their email and who exposed the contents. But I'm left not knowing, and wondering whether the answers to those questions are known either publicly or by any agency. I'd like to know even just whether any agency has said they will forever be on the lookout for who did it--because it would be comforting. Or if no such thing has been said, what else was said, to address the curiosity and concerns this raises regarding national security (are we sitting ducks, do we really know who all are adversaries are and what they want, etc). The persistence of important unaswered questions deserve acknowledgment, even if a purely speculative answer doesn't. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.164.29.192 (talk) 03:38, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Reorganize?

Are articles like this supposed to be structured this way? It's not very easy to understand what the actual scandal is when the information is spread between a haphazard list of events and a dozen mini-biographies. This article would greatly benefit from a consolidated normal paragraph-style explanation of background, the discovery of the scandal, the actual charges, and the aftermath. The way it's currently presented, there's no through-line whatsoever. 73.138.3.167 (talk) 07:38, 28 July 2020 (UTC)