[HN Gopher] FBI Misused Spy Database, FISA Court Says
___________________________________________________________________
FBI Misused Spy Database, FISA Court Says
Author : impish9208
Score : 296 points
Date : 2023-05-20 12:56 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| NecroTechno wrote:
| acab
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| >Senior national security officials said Friday that all of the
| incidents described took place before the FBI had completed a
| series of internal reforms--including written justifications for
| searches, more oversight and requiring analysts to actively opt
| into searching the foreign intelligence database.
|
| "Written justification for searches" is a recent reform? So until
| now, they didn't need any paper trail of their searches? Not that
| in house approval of your "justification" is really enough for
| this.
|
| How can anyone believe the FBI gives a shit if it took them well
| over a decade to go "maybe we should write something down when we
| use this."
| impish9208 wrote:
| https://archive.is/gIzkx
| hiatus wrote:
| Weird, it seems cloudflare DNS is not resolving archive.is
| (though google dns has no issue). ; <<>> DiG
| 9.10.6 <<>> archive.is @1.1.1.1 ;; global options: +cmd
| ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status:
| NOERROR, id: 34652 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1,
| ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 1 ;; OPT
| PSEUDOSECTION: ; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 1232
| ; OPT=15: 00 17 31 39 38 2e 32 34 35 2e 35 33 2e 31 38 32 3a 35
| 33 20 74 69 6d 65 64 20 6f 75 74 20 66 6f 72 20 61 72 63 68 69
| 76 65 2e 69 73 20 41 ("..198.245.53.182:53 timed out for
| archive.is A") ;; QUESTION SECTION:
| ;archive.is. IN A ;; AUTHORITY
| SECTION: archive.is. 86272 IN SOA
| carl.archive.is. admin.archive.is. 2033156158 1200 300 604800
| 3600 ;; Query time: 68 msec ;; SERVER:
| 1.1.1.1#53(1.1.1.1) ;; WHEN: Sat May 20 09:14:33 EDT
| 2023 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 136
| ksherlock wrote:
| This has been an issue for years and there are reasons.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828702
| hiatus wrote:
| Thank you I had no idea.
| alecco wrote:
| yep, reposting workaround:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33937866
|
| CloudFlare is in the right. This is for privacy. Just put
| the IPs on your hosts file, it's easy.
| https://dns.google/query?name=archive.is
|
| 23.137.249.79 archive.today
|
| 23.137.249.79 archive.is
|
| 23.137.249.79 archive.ph
|
| While there try a hosts blocklist
| http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29024952
| TrispusAttucks wrote:
| [flagged]
| ModernMech wrote:
| The Durham report restated everything we already knew for years
| as a result of his multiple failed convictions. How come Durham
| wasn't able to reach any convictions due to his "bombshell"
| report?
| TrispusAttucks wrote:
| I agree. It was obvious to anyone paying attention. But most
| people still believe there was some truth to it because the
| media lied for years. The report was important to get those
| people back to reality.
| [deleted]
| CTDOCodebases wrote:
| and nothing will be done about it.
| macinjosh wrote:
| Stop voting for the establishment.
| EscapeFromNY wrote:
| When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And when
| you have a massive database built through illegal domestic
| spying...
| qup wrote:
| ...everything looks like a web frontend!
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| The database consists of communications of foreign targets, and
| its legality isn't in dispute. What's illegal is to search that
| database for terms related to Americans in criminal
| investigations not related to national security without a
| warrant. https://archive.is/jgWUt
| pyuser583 wrote:
| Here's something I don't get: why is it an "abuse" to run the
| name of someone applying for a top secret clearance through the
| databases?
|
| It's ok to run a school teacher in Bucharest, but if someone is
| applying to be an FBI agent - nope.
|
| This isn't the first time the FBI has "wrongly" run the names to
| prospective agents and clearance holders to through this db.
| They've promised not to do it again before.
|
| But isn't this the perfect use case for such a thing? When you
| apply for a security clearance, you waive certain privacy rights.
| That's reasonable and part of the deal.
| ghostpepper wrote:
| This seems like the least egregious use. The article also talks
| about 19,000 congressional campaign donors names being run, as
| well as everyone who was arrested during several
| protests/riots.
|
| Perhaps the most egregious:
|
| > And between 2016 and 2020, the FBI routinely ran names of
| people who appeared in police homicide reports, "including
| victims, next-of-kin, witnesses and suspects."
| pyuser583 wrote:
| This time (because this sort of thing happens again and
| again) it's only a small part. Last time it was all of it.
| jonhohle wrote:
| If laws were broken by a law enforcement agency, the responsible
| parties need to a) either lose their jobs or, minimally, be
| reassigned to a department where they can never make that
| "mistake" again, and b) be prosecuted to the full extent of the
| law with and be sentenced to a punishment that discourages future
| "mistakes" by others from occurring. Why are these laws in place
| if they are not enforced?
|
| In recent cases, all levels of the FBI were complicit. Removing
| funding may only take away resources from useful areas while
| guilty parties are free to continue their bad behavior at the
| risk of only a stern talking to by Congress every few years when
| they promise this will certainly be the last time this happens.
| Throw some agents in jail along and see if the behavior
| continues?
|
| Imagine you or I caught lying to the FBI, lying to the courts,
| and then lying to Congress. What would our fate be? Certainly not
| continuing on with the status quo.
|
| Since DOJ has no interest in keeping itself accountable, what can
| be done? Can individuals who were caught up in this file criminal
| or civil complaints with any hope of relief? For someone not
| caught up in this, how can they prevent tax dollars from funding
| ongoing criminal activity?
| BurningFrog wrote:
| It was always like this, and will very likely always be so.
|
| You can't change it, but you can learn about it.
| bloomingeek wrote:
| I completely agree, at the risk of being too simplistic, the
| FBI is a 'type' of necessary evil that our nation needs.
| However, we must learn from the missteps.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| > Since DOJ has no interest in keeping itself accountable
|
| FISA court investigated the FBI...
| sieabahlpark wrote:
| [flagged]
| 547354 wrote:
| [flagged]
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| [dead]
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| You're coming from a liberal (classical sense) perspective and
| learning something about power, maybe! But your suggestion that
| society is fixed by people following the rules harder sounds
| like idealism. Money and power buy leniency and loopholes. Why
| not try taking away the power instead?More rules and
| punishments sounds a little like more power to wield if you can
| look past the allure of a functioning bureaucractic process for
| disposing of rule breakers
| jonhohle wrote:
| I'm not sure that I follow, but yes. I think that severely
| punishing those who abuse special authority will improve that
| aspect of the government. I don't think it will fix society,
| but having a functioning justice system certainly can't hurt.
| kurthr wrote:
| So you think Trump should be jailed?
| mc32 wrote:
| And pretty much all of the living ex-presidents including
| some presidential candidates and other federal officials
| who lie to congress without any repercussions.
| bloomingeek wrote:
| Politicians, pastors, doctors, lawyers, police, parents,
| judges, adults, etc...all must be held to a higher
| standard. The word 'responsibility' seems to be
| discounted when someone is caught.
| uguuo_o wrote:
| Unfortunately, none of this is actually surprising. When was
| the last time such crime was actually prosecuted? It is very
| hard to have any trust in the legal system when there are many
| that curtail ot through sheer influence.
| jonhohle wrote:
| It's unfortunate that it's not surprising and even more so
| that administrations feel like this is so accepted that (at
| best) nothing need be done and (at worst) it can be used to
| their advantage.
|
| Even when the minimal executive action of firing those
| involved is taken (for example, firing Comey, McCabe, Strzok,
| Page, Clinesmith) the media will attack the enforcers and
| give comfort to the perpetrators. It's clown world.
| silverquiet wrote:
| Can you remind me again why Comey was fired? What rule did
| he fall afoul of? I was always under the impression that
| the FBI is an incredibly conservative institution in every
| sense of the word, so it's not surprising how the biases
| play out. What is strange is when they get caught up in
| intra-conservative-world politics.
| ModernMech wrote:
| "And in fact when I decided to just do it I said to
| myself, I said, "You know, this Russia thing with Trump
| and Russia is a made-up story, it's an excuse by the
| Democrats for having lost an election that they should've
| won.""
|
| Trump told the world that he fired Comey for opening what
| has now been shown by the IG and SC Durham after a 4 year
| investigation to be properly predicated, if flawed.
| Firing Comey was an attempt by Trump to avoid
| accountability for what he and his campaign did, along
| with destruction of evidence, lying under oath, and 11
| other counts of obstruction of justice by Trump
| identified by SC Robert Muller.
|
| It turns out Trump's campaign did meet with Russians and
| lied about it; Trump did had business in Russia he lied
| about; his campaign manager did meet with a Russian spy
| to discuss handing over dirt on his opponent; Russians
| did hack the Democrats and distribute the data; Trump did
| ask them publicly to hack his opponent in exchange for
| relaxed sanctions; and his campaign was knowingly sharing
| data with a Russian intelligence officer. So _of course_
| an investigation was opened into his campaign and their
| ties to Russia.
| jonhohle wrote:
| In what way was it properly predicated? He was briefed by
| the CIA that it was a campaign stunt.
| ModernMech wrote:
| You'll have to be more specific about what part of my
| comment you're referring to as "it". Because obviously
| the investigation wasn't a campaign stunt.
|
| And if you want to read about how the investigation was
| properly predicated, here's the IG report:
| https://oig.justice.gov/reports/2019/o20012.pdf
|
| The existence and thoroughness of this report begs the
| question as to why the Durham investigation was ever
| needed in the first place.
| jonhohle wrote:
| [flagged]
| ModernMech wrote:
| This is not what the IG and Durham found, read the linked
| report.
| zaroth wrote:
| [flagged]
| ModernMech wrote:
| It was not a hoax that Paul Manafort was caught
| exchanging campaign data with an Russian intelligence
| officer by the Senate Intel Committee. It wasn't a hoax
| that he met with a Russian spy at Trump's home to discuss
| an exchange of dirt for relaxed sanctions. It wasn't a
| hoax that Trump's campaign had a hundred+ contacts with
| Russians but lied saying they didn't have any, including
| under oath. It wasn't a hoax that Trump and Trump's
| lawyer lied when they said there were no deals in Russia,
| when in fact Trump had an in-progress "Trump Tower
| Moscow" deal with a planned penthouse dedicated to Putin.
|
| These are not "hoaxes", but facts discovered through
| investigation and detailed extensively in at least 9
| reports. In total, they show the Russians hacked the
| Democrats to help the Trump campaign, the Trump campaign
| welcomed the help, the campaign publicly asked Russia for
| the help, and when the help came from Russia, the
| campaign used the help to their advantage, and they hoped
| for more. Then when the investigation into said help
| happened, they obstructed it, tried to shut it down, and
| called it a "hoax", which you repeat here. Everything
| I've said is supported by hundreds of pages of reports:
| The Mueller report, the Senate Intel Committee report on
| the 2016 election, the IG report, and yes even the Durham
| report corroborates what I'm saying.
|
| Taken in total, it's impossible to conclude these reports
| support the theory that Russian interference in the 2016
| campaign, and the Trump campaign's welcoming and support
| of that interference was a hoax.
|
| > Comey brought incredible disgrace to the FBI thru his
| actions and leadership during the "investigation".
|
| No argument there.
| zaroth wrote:
| You're picking at the same straws hoping to spin gold.
| There was no collusion period. And Russia did not in fact
| interfere in any material way in the elector.
|
| You're like Steele still claiming the dossier wasn't just
| absolute fictional trash.
|
| The extent to which the country was tore apart by 3 years
| of witch-hunting "investigation" and the way the FBI
| willfully lied and buried the truth due to their blind
| hatred of Trump is the only thing criminal that happened.
| ModernMech wrote:
| So you have no rebuttal to the facts except to deny them?
| That's a pretty weak hand. Before the Durham report you
| could maybe claim this and say "wait for the report,
| it'll set things straight." But now that the Durham
| report has been released, the contents emphatically do
| not undo the findings of the Mueller Report, the DOJ IG
| Report, or 5 volumes of the Senate Intel report on this
| matter.
|
| Steele didn't have 4 government investigations to back
| his dossier, the main point of which was proven by the
| Mueller report volume 1.
|
| > the way the FBI willfully lied and buried the truth due
| to their blind hatred of Trump is the only thing criminal
| that happened.
|
| This assertion is at odds with the IG report, in which
| Horowitz finds no political bias on the part of the FBI
| that would have impacted their investigation.
|
| I'm sorry, but again, I have reports from Mueller,
| Horowitz, Rubio, and Durham to back my position. I will
| weight their reports and evidence against the evidence
| and reports you've provided and come to a decision
| accordingly based on the facts.
| zaroth wrote:
| Steele had illegal campaign cash from Hillary Clinton
| laundered as legal fees to back up his "dossier". No
| charges for that of course, just a slap on the wrist
| fine.
|
| They applied the full force and technology of the United
| States spying apparatus and all the Mueller report proved
| was that they found nothing.
|
| Brennan briefed Obama and Biden on the Clinton campaign's
| dirty plan right from the start, and they ran with it.
| They knew it was a Clinton plan and had no evidence to
| back it up, and lied to Congress, and lied to the
| American people about it.
|
| Those are the established facts, but there will always be
| people like the Peter Strzoks who will never admit how
| wrong they were, or how much harm they did.
|
| Then they followed it up in 2020 with 51 intelligence
| officer / signatories lying to suppress the Hunter Biden
| laptop. They're not done lying and cheating, and the FISA
| abuses we know about are just the tip of the iceberg.
| ModernMech wrote:
| > Steele had illegal campaign cash from Hillary Clinton
| laundered as legal fees to back up his "dossier".
|
| As far as the the investigation goes, the Steele Dossier
| doesn't factor into it because it wasn't the predicate of
| the investigation. IG Horowitz found no problem with the
| way the investigation began. The Steele Dossier is a
| distraction, and the IG report is the final word on it.
| That you disagree is immaterial to the results of the IG
| investigation.
|
| > Brennan briefed Obama and Biden on the Clinton
| campaign's dirty plan right from the start, and they ran
| with it.
|
| Again, the IG and Durham looked into the role Obama
| played, and found nothing worth pursuing. They
| _certainly_ didn 't find what was alleged by Trump, which
| was that Obama White House spied on the Trump campaign.
| Your talking points are out of date and out of line with
| the results of concluded investigations.
|
| > Those are the established facts, but there will always
| be people like the Peter Strzoks who will never admit how
| wrong they were, or how much harm they did.
|
| We don't need to listen to Strzok or Page or anyone else,
| because the IG report says that there was no political
| bias in the predication of the or in the course of the
| investigation. Since you seem to be reluctant to read the
| report I linked, here's the relevant part of the
| executive summary: As part of our review,
| we also sought to determine whether there was evidence
| that political bias or other improper considerations
| affected decision making in Crossfire Hurricane,
| including the decision to open the investigation. We
| discussed the issue of political bias in a prior OIG
| report, Review of Various Actions in Advance of the 2016
| Election, where we described text and instant messages
| between then Special Counsel to the Deputy Director Lisa
| Page and then Section Chief Peter Strzok, among others,
| that included statements of hostility toward then
| candidate Trump and statements of support for then
| candidate Hillary Clinton. In this review, we found that,
| while Lisa Page attended some of the discussions
| regarding the opening of the investigations, she did not
| play a role in the decision to open Crossfire Hurricane
| or the four individual cases. We further found that while
| Strzok was directly involved in the decisions to open
| Crossfire Hurricane and the four individual cases, he was
| not the sole, or even the highest-level, decision maker
| as to any of those matters. As noted above, then CD AD
| Priestap, Strzok's supervisor, was the official who
| ultimately made the decision to open the investigation,
| and evidence reflected that this decision by Priestap was
| reached by consensus after multiple days of discussions
| and meetings that included Strzok and other leadership in
| CD, the FBI Deputy Director, the FBI General Counsel, and
| a FBI Deputy General Counsel. We concluded that
| Priestap's exercise of discretion in opening the
| investigation was in compliance with Department and FBI
| policies, and we did not find documentary or testimonial
| evidence that political bias or improper motivation
| influenced his decision. We similarly found that, while
| the formal documentation opening each of the four
| individual investigations was approved by Strzok (as
| required by the DIOG), the decisions to do so were
| reached by a consensus among the Crossfire Hurricane
| agents and analysts who identified individuals associated
| with the Trump campaign who had recently traveled to
| Russia or had other alleged ties to Russia. Priestap was
| involved in these decisions. We did not find documentary
| or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper
| motivation influenced the decisions to open the four
| individual investigations.
|
| Case closed. That should be the end of the story for you.
|
| > Then they followed it up in 2020 with 51 intelligence
| officer / signatories lying to suppress the Hunter Biden
| laptop. They're not done lying and cheating, and the FISA
| abuses we know about are just the tip of the iceberg.
|
| This is a deflection. Please read the reports if you want
| to learn something. Your information is out of date and
| inaccurate.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| There's a school of thought that says that Trump needed
| to be stopped by whatever means were necessary, fair or
| foul. The events of January 6 did a lot to vindicate that
| admittedly-troubling school of thought.
|
| My own thinking is that when you exempt yourself from
| constitutional constraints, as Trump did in lying about
| the election and inciting a riot, it's game on. I'd be
| curious to hear a counter-rationale other than the
| obvious (and equally true) "B...b...but FISA is just as
| unconstitutional" or the equally-true "But Trump hadn't
| yet done that at the time the FBI investigated his
| campaign." His relationship with Paul Manafort alone was
| arguably sufficient to set an aggressive
| counterintelligence investigation into motion. If Trump
| didn't wish to be treated like a captive Russian asset,
| he might have tried not acting exactly like one.
| MrPatan wrote:
| Once you bought into "whatever means necessary", what
| evidence would it take to change your mind?
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| I'm not necessarily saying that I buy into that position
| myself, just that I've found myself surprisingly
| sympathetic to it.
|
| At this point, I agree with those who suggest that
| America cannot survive a competent Trump. So given the
| hypothetical future appearance on the campaign trail of a
| similar character with all of his faculties intact, I may
| have to revisit the question.
| MrPatan wrote:
| And how will you tell such a monster appeared? Through
| your independent research? Or because the TV told you?
| ModernMech wrote:
| I'd listen to the people who correctly called Trump out
| as being an authoritarian wannabe. They were completely
| right, and he proved that beyond any doubt on 1/6. Those
| who spent spent 4 years apologizing for him, and still
| are to this day, should be ignored when those predictions
| are made.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Keeping in mind that we're talking about someone who ran
| a full-page ad in the New York Times that called for the
| death penalty for the Central Park Five. Few people
| listened to Trump _himself_ when he told us who he was.
|
| When confronted with the NYT ad, reactions from over 30%
| of the electorate fall into one of four categories:
| "Wait, what? I never heard of that. Must not be a big
| deal," "Fake news, the ad never actually accused anyone
| by name," "Meh, he didn't really mean it," and "Hell
| yeah, fry 'em all and let God sort 'em out."
|
| So it's not clear that anyone else's warnings could have
| made a difference. It was up to the Deep State to stop
| him. They failed. Not much of a Deep State, I guess. Only
| Trump's own incompetence saved us from a horrific
| outcome... and that won't scale, as people like to say
| around here.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| A worthy question, but one that goes too far afield for
| this thread IMHO.
| silverquiet wrote:
| [flagged]
| onlypositive wrote:
| [flagged]
| javajosh wrote:
| Nowhere does it say that a crime must be surprising in order
| for the perpetrator(s) to be prosecuted.
| analog31 wrote:
| The US is the most punitive major country in the world, yet we
| still have crime.
| newsclues wrote:
| Aren't there countries that still do public executions and
| corporal punishment?
|
| Incarcerations isn't the only form of punishment.
| analog31 wrote:
| I'm not sure that the quantity (per capita or whatever) of
| those things exceeds the quantity of incarceration and
| things like police violence in the US. But even being
| middle-of-the-road in terms of barbarism is nothing to
| write home about.
| j33zusjuice wrote:
| Yes, but as you know, this discussion isn't to prove that
| the US is the worst country in the world. We don't even
| consider countries like those that you're talking about in
| these conversations because they're so behind and barbaric.
| What's the point of even bringing this up except to
| distract from the discussion? What are you trying to show
| or prove with this? Remind everyone of things they already
| know? Your comment is an attempt to invalidate the
| legitimacy of the concerns posed above, and nothing more.
| Most of us though we'd move past the idea that murdering
| citizens is barbaric, and has no place in the world, yet
| people like you insist on telling us that we're OK because
| we aren't that, or that it's not so bad here because it
| could be so much worse. That's not useful in any sense.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Because the US has an aversion to even think about the
| systematic reasons that cause crime, and prefers to pretend
| it's only about personal failings. People who do crime are to
| be caught, punished, and punished some more (unless they are
| high-class, good looking or part of a government agency,
| etc). Yet at the same time the US seems to almost maliciously
| engineer society to push people into hopeless situations
| where crime looks like a good way to get by.
| prottog wrote:
| > Because the US has an aversion to even think about the
| systematic reasons that cause crime, and prefers to pretend
| it's only about personal failings.
|
| A lot of people think the other way around, where it's
| unfathomable that anyone would commit a crime of their own
| volition were it not for the weight of an unjust world upon
| them.
| bawolff wrote:
| Does it matter? If people are opportunistic then you
| should remove the systemic issues that make crime seem
| like a good risk. If people are desperate you should do
| the same thing. Either way the correct response is to
| make crime not seem like the best option for someone to
| do.
| [deleted]
| autoexec wrote:
| > Because the US has an aversion to even think about the
| systematic reasons that cause crime
|
| I'd argue that some people have incentives to ignore the
| systematic reasons behind crime. Slave labor in the US is
| partly dependent on prisoners. Crime keeps people fearful
| and distrustful of each other. Crime is used to justify
| increased control and monitoring of the public and the
| abuse of prisoners. Crime enables a huge underclass of
| Americans who pay taxes but aren't allowed to vote.
| Sadistic cowards keep politicians elected who are "tough"
| on criminals and they vote against things we know would
| actually reduce crime whenever those solutions aren't also
| needlessly cruel.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| I'm sorry but an upvote is an insufficient reaction to this
| comment.
|
| In decades of considering State privacy abuses and their
| roots, I haven't come across an analysis that so succinctly
| encapsulates the whole of causes+outcomes as this one. It
| is one of the most Modern America things I have ever read.
| dumpsterlid wrote:
| [dead]
| vlovich123 wrote:
| That's not the interesting bit. Countries with less punitive
| laws have better crime stats although of course you could
| argue causation goes the other way.
| jonhohle wrote:
| On the lower end, if you know doing common activity X (say
| possession) will get you a punishment as severe as more
| impactful crime Y (breaking and entering), what difference
| does it make?
|
| On the upper end, if you have no priors and your career and
| family will be blown up because you want to do a political
| favor for someone that results in destroying the public
| trust, it probably does matter.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| > On the upper end, if you have no priors and your career
| and family will be blown up because you want to do a
| political favor for someone that results in destroying
| the public trust, it probably does matter
|
| Given how frequently this happens I wouldn't be so sure.
| You also have to care about destroying the public trust
| and this is literally a thread about yet another instance
| of the FBI destroying public trust. Also, you don't have
| to have a corrupt intent to take actions that destroy
| public trust.
| tenpies wrote:
| > The US is the most punitive major country in the world
|
| For this statement to hold, it requires the most absurd
| definition of "punitive" imaginable.
|
| There are countries where talking negatively about the wrong
| people is grounds for execution.
|
| There are countries where theft is punished by amputation of
| a limb.
|
| There are countries where not flushing a public toilet that
| you used, is a punishable offense.
|
| All of these countries are much more punitive, and almost all
| of them have much less crime than the United States.
| jonhohle wrote:
| That flows with what I've said: rules for thee and not for
| me. As a private citizen my city, county, state, or federal
| enforcement agencies would have no issue charging me and
| putting their best effort toward conviction and sentencing.
| Meanwhile when those same agencies have very public crimes
| within their ranks abusing the power they've been given,
| nothing happens.
|
| How did New York deal with crime in the late 90s? Not by
| ignoring it.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| Everytime I went to NYC I was told to never approach NYPD
| if I was in trouble.
|
| One coworker was mugged and beaten. Walked up to cops. They
| told him if he wasn't gone in 30 seconds they'd take him in
| on a PI.
|
| Crime doesn't exist if it's unreportable.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| > those same agencies have very public crimes within their
| ranks
|
| Do you think the problem is too much transparency? To use
| your example of the NYPD in the 90's (though I think you've
| probably got the wrong part of the decade if you're looking
| for the high water mark of crime), was it notably less
| corrupt than it is today, or was it just more opaque?
|
| But how did the NYPD deal with crime in the 90's? Wasn't it
| by the kinds of privacy abuses called out in this report?
| By shaking down suspected criminals through stop and frisk?
| jonhohle wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_New_York_City
|
| Violent crime in NYC dropped precipitously with the
| "Broken Windows" style of law enforcement during
| Giuliani's terms as mayor (1994-2002). The advertised
| theory was to enforce even small crimes like property
| owners leaving broken windows unrepaired. Hypothetically,
| the expectation that laws are being enforced makes people
| more likely to obey laws at all levels. (jokingly: or
| maybe people were so busy coming into compliance that
| they ran out of time for murder.)
|
| There's obviously debate, criticism, etc., regarding the
| cause but the theory has been applied to programming
| among other places with some success.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| Do you think the widespread inability to enforce mask
| mandates might have lessened peoples' likelihood to obey
| laws at all levels? Seems a bit analogous to broken
| windows, no? And timely.
| koolba wrote:
| Are you comparing a useless gesture of compliance to
| theft or willful property damage?
| pfffr wrote:
| How were mask mandates useless? The data is in and they
| did help prevent spread of infection.
| onlypositive wrote:
| No they didn't.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| The example given was property owners complying with
| covering broken windows, wasn't it? Does that seem like a
| useful gesture of compliance? I believe the idea is more
| that it sets an example of compliance with authority, but
| I agree that the whole concepts seems a bit questionable
| to me.
| dllthomas wrote:
| The strongest criticism I have seen of a causal link is a
| claim that violent crime dropped similarly during that
| period in regions that did not adopt a similar strategy.
| asveikau wrote:
| > How did New York deal with crime in the late 90s? Not by
| ignoring it.
|
| Actually, pretty much yes, or at least, that would have
| been a better strategy than some Giuliani BS.
|
| Crime declined nation wide, and it had nothing to do with
| any local policies. My favorite theory is that leaded
| gasoline was causing crime spikes. But there are competing
| theories, and I think people have concluded that it isn't a
| single factor.
| logicchains wrote:
| [flagged]
| jonhohle wrote:
| That seems to be the issue, doesn't it? If you give the
| Durham report weight, it doesn't even need to go back that
| far. If someone is seen as a threat to influential people,
| from the top down agencies will do what they can to impede
| and undermine that administration.
|
| While on the one hand, it's amazing to see RFK speak so
| boldly, on the other hand, should he be elected, I would
| fully expect some significant event to derail his
| administration. While getting shot seems too brazen, it
| definitely sends a message to any future hopefuls that such
| behavior is still not tolerated.
| ModernMech wrote:
| > If you give the Durham report weight, it doesn't even
| need to go back that far.
|
| Ima stop you right there. The only thing you need to give
| weight here are the indictments that were brought as a
| result of the investigation, because that's what was
| promised. I've read the report from front to back, and it's
| filled with BS, omissions, and it even attempts to
| relitigate cases Durham lost in court on the merits. It's a
| pathetic way for a prosecutor to capstone his career.
|
| Read the Mueller report and the Durham report side by side.
| They are night and day in terms of quality of evidence,
| completeness, and clarity of reasoning. In fact, doing so
| reveals just how the Durham "investigation" was really an
| exercise in motivated reasoning, whereas the Mueller
| investigation was a serious, sober investigation of where
| the facts pointed.
| jonhohle wrote:
| The problem is that at the start Brennan admits that he
| briefed the president, VP, and others, that the Clinton
| campaign was about to do, what ultimately happened. So
| one report starts by omitting that fact, and the other
| does not. What follows is a variation of fruit of the
| poisonous tree.
|
| > None of those five convictions "involved a conspiracy
| between the campaign and Russians"[162] and "Mueller did
| not charge or suggest charges for [...] whether the Trump
| campaign worked with the Russians to influence the
| election".[163]
|
| The investigation led to other crimes, like being pulled
| over for a broken taillight and then getting busted for
| possession.
| typeofhuman wrote:
| [flagged]
| ModernMech wrote:
| > So one report starts by omitting that fact, and the
| other does not. What follows is a variation of fruit of
| the poisonous tree.
|
| It's really not, because the investigation was still
| properly predicated. Durham finds this and the IG finds
| this. It doesn't matter what the Clinton campaign did or
| didn't do, because the investigation wasn't based on
| their actions. That it was is the lie of the predication
| of the Durham investigation, and that he didn't find it
| and prosecute it is his "failure" in the eyes of right
| wing media. Why was Durham needed when we have an IG?
|
| > None of those five convictions "involved a conspiracy
| between the campaign and Russians"[162]
|
| Note that "conspiracy" was never seriously alleged by
| detractors (collusion was the accusation), and to the
| extend it was, it was never allowed to be investigated
| (by Rosenstein and then Barr, both appointed by Trump).
| They very carefully boxed Mueller into investigating a
| conspiracy without being able to prove it (by
| investigating finances, which were considered a "red
| line" and off limits for investigation).
|
| Second, you omit the fact that the Mueller report notes
| that it faced lies to investigators, witness tampering,
| destruction of evidence, and obstruction of justice at
| the hands of POTUS. Their main catch, Trump's campaign
| manager Paul Manafort, was in the process of being
| flipped when Trump dangled and ultimately granted a
| pardon, in a blatant act of obstruction of justice and
| witness tampering.
|
| It was later found by the Republican-chaired Senate Intel
| Committee that Paul Manafort was literally exchanging
| internal campaign data with a Russian intelligence
| officer during the 2016 campaign, as the Russians were in
| the process of targeting Americans through Facebook
| psyops (which the Mueller report proved). So there's your
| collusion.
|
| There's also the matter of how the report was released,
| causing a federal judge to call into question the
| truthfulness of the AG Barr (calling his handling of the
| report and redactions issued "misleading"). Barr notably
| shut down the investigation as soon as he was confirmed
| by the Senate. Many people's opinion of the investigation
| was set due to those lies and omissions, maybe your own.
|
| SC Mueller was appointed due to the fact that the AG
| Sessions was compromised (having lied to the Senate about
| his Russia contacts as part of the Trump campaign), and
| Trump was obstructing justice into the already ongoing
| investigation (by firing the head of the FBI, and citing
| the fact he was under investigation as the reason for
| doing so). So really, the biggest problem with the
| Mueller investigation was that it was investigating a
| person who ultimately had control over the investigation,
| who was also the only person who the investigation
| couldn't hold accountable (due to DOJ policy of not
| indicting a sitting POTUS).
| tyre wrote:
| RFK jr. is a conspiracy nut and a disgrace to his father's
| name.
| [deleted]
| no_wizard wrote:
| Unfortunately this is the same guy who doesn't believe in
| vaccines[0]
|
| [0]: https://apnews.com/article/robert-kennedy-jr-
| presidential-ca...
| zaroth wrote:
| Just the way you've phrased this shows you're not prepared
| for actual scientific inquiry and the messiness of the real
| world.
|
| Vaccines aren't things to be "believed" in like unicorns.
| They are medical treatments with risk profiles and side
| effects and billions of dollars of profits on the line.
| Some of them are pretty great overall!
| shrimpx wrote:
| Your comment should be pointed at RFK Jr., who believes
| vaccines cause autism, among other disproved nonsense.
| iinnPP wrote:
| I recently heard RFK Jr. on this specific topic. His answer
| to handling the COVID pandemic was to initiate a worldwide
| forum for scientists and doctors to collaborate and find
| treatment (first from currently available medicines and
| then to vaccines as needed).
|
| He isn't anti-vaccine. He has a problem with a specific
| vaccine and how it was rolled out (sometimes with limited
| but relevant force).
|
| I would call that view the only reasonable view. The sheer
| number of people who will now forever be vaccine sceptics
| that would never have been before is proof of that. The
| Pfizer vaccine was presented as being ~95% effective. I am
| the only person I know personally that has not had COVID.
| My 100 or so acquaintances are all vaccinated with an extra
| dose of natural immunity. No wonder people are sceptical,
| even an idiot can see that it wasn't doing much of anything
| to stop you from getting covid.
|
| Did it decrease severity? Hard to tell given that almost
| everyone was vaccinated in my area.
|
| I normally don't comment on vaccines since it is so toxic,
| hearing the solution from his mouth that made sense however
| has made it a priority, even as a Canadian.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > He has a problem with a specific vaccine
|
| Which one _specific_ vaccine would that be?
| iinnPP wrote:
| Im not sure honestly and don't care.
|
| The way things were handled created -many- new vaccine
| sceptics and that will have a lasting impact for many
| years to come.
|
| When you tell people their concerns of a specific vaccine
| are invalid and then claim they are anti-vaccine, you are
| lying. Why would anyone paying attention then trust you?
|
| Also, some high ranking politicians are on record stating
| they wouldn't take a vaccine if it was created while
| Trump was president. Nobody ia dismissing their entire
| campaign based on these statements.
|
| Thanks for picking one point of my long post and ignoring
| the other points btw.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Im not sure
|
| Because its not true.
| [deleted]
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| Throwing agents in jail can't and won't solve the problem. What
| happens is that the agents who avoid jail grow bitter... they
| were the "good guys" after all, and only doing "what needed to
| be done".
|
| So to see friends and coworkers punished for it makes them
| bitter. They double down in their resolve. Instead of changing
| behavior, they double down and promise themselves to be more
| careful to avoid punishment.
|
| Additionally, at some point in this cycle, they decide that
| those in charge, the ones punishing them, are more akin to
| impostors who have infiltrated government and are twisting it
| into something it shouldn't be. They begin their own loosely-
| organized "resistance", and seek to undermine the very checks
| and balances that miraculously allowed a few FBI agents to be
| punished for transgressions.
|
| In their own heads, you see, they're the heroes.
|
| Reform is impossible, once the organization has grown large
| enough to develop its own anti-reform "immune system". Which, I
| suspect, is almost a 100 years old at this point.
|
| > how can they prevent tax dollars from funding ongoing
| criminal activity?
|
| Don't pay your taxes. If your landlord were using your rent
| money to murder undocumented immigrant children, would you ask
| "but how can I make sure he just buys his groceries with that
| rent money"?
|
| Hell no. You just stop giving him the money. Or maybe you just
| keep handing it over and whining "there's nothing I can do". I
| dunno.
| raincom wrote:
| "Prosecutorial Discretion" or "Selective Prosecution" is how
| corruption becomes rampant. In other words, "laws for you
| fools, but not for us", say FBI and DOJ. That's why the first
| thing they can get you convicted for "lying to federal
| officials".
| qingcharles wrote:
| Exactly.
|
| I went to jail for a crime I wasn't guilty of simply because
| some rogue police decided to commit a raft of felonies to try
| and gather evidence against me. When I put that to the judge
| he told me that "the police are allowed to commit crimes to
| gather evidence."
|
| I tried going to the prosecutor with it and they will just
| laugh you out of the building. It's not a crime if you can't
| get the prosecutor to prosecute it. And the prosecutor's
| office almost never brings criminal cases to court on their
| own, they rely on the police for 99% of their work. If they
| went around prosecuting the police they wouldn't get any more
| cases and they would put themselves out of business.
| psychlops wrote:
| > If they went around prosecuting the police they wouldn't
| get any more cases and they would put themselves out of
| business.
|
| The prosecutor works for the government. No business
| involved. They will be just fine if there are no cases.
| lazide wrote:
| Not really - budget is allocated (and taxes often
| created/raised) based on degree of public outcry/crisis.
|
| No crime, no need to pay for a prosecutors office (or a
| lot of cops).
|
| A variant of 'use it or lose it', which is the standard
| in gov't and large Corp budgeting.
| 1lint wrote:
| Sorry to hear how this played out. If you have the time and
| are okay discussing it, consider publishing a write up of
| the incident. Shining a light on abuse/raise awareness of
| problems is the first step to getting them fixed.
| StrangeATractor wrote:
| Probably should have lawyered up. Illegally gathered
| evidence is supposed to be inadmissible in court. At least
| in the US.
|
| People get off on murder charges because of this, like that
| lady that killed her infant but the cop searched her trunk
| without a warrant or probable cause. She obviously killed
| it, but the only evidence was inadmissible, so she walked.
| qingcharles wrote:
| That's not technically true.
|
| Evidence gathered in violation of a constitutional law is
| often inadmissible.
|
| But if you look at situations in which police gathered
| evidence in violation of a statute (e.g. committed a
| felony that wasn't additionally a constitutional
| violation), then I could count on one hand the number of
| times evidence has been excluded in courts across the USA
| in the last 100 years.
|
| source: I play a lawyer on TV. (not really)
| StrangeATractor wrote:
| Ugh, another reason to not trust the legal system. Sorry
| for your troubles.
| Natsu wrote:
| A lot of things that people think are entrapment don't
| count legally:
|
| https://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=633
|
| Another fun one is that if you join their conspiracy, they
| can charge you for crimes they committed as part of that
| conspiracy.
| WhereIsTheTruth wrote:
| Why would the FBI use such database?
|
| Why they omit CIA from the equation?
|
| Law only apply to the FBI? or we pretend laws exist to prevent
| agents from abusing it?
|
| Either way, this is another evidence of the massive global spying
| capabilities of the US and how easily accessible they are for
| their agents
| data-abuse wrote:
| When we hear these stories, we never hear about the end result.
| We only hear about the act. It's like hearing a gun was fired. It
| was fired, but what did it hit?
|
| The data that is in these databases have a high probability to be
| abused. Blackmail and intimidation are easy to hide. What number
| of the people that had their location data exposed through this
| database were shot soon after? What number of people had their
| identity stolen? What number of people lost their jobs? What
| number of people had their families or friendships destroyed by
| secrets being spilled?
|
| The dots are never connected beyond the admission of violations.
| hattmall wrote:
| I'm fairly certain quite a few of them are still in jail
| without a trial yet right? At least for the January 6th
| participants.
| eganist wrote:
| Stats as of March 25:
| https://www.npr.org/2023/03/25/1165022885/1000-defendants-
| ja...
|
| Cases being pursued by the DoJ: https://www.justice.gov/usao-
| dc/capitol-breach-cases?combine...
|
| Noteworthy that $2.6bln was allocated to US attorneys this
| year; not sure how much more was allocated to specifically
| support January 6th prosecutions, but the prosecution of
| every single one of them will hopefully serve as a deterrent.
| [deleted]
| jonhohle wrote:
| [flagged]
| j33zusjuice wrote:
| [flagged]
| AuthorizedCust wrote:
| You can't imprison people for constitutionally protected
| speech. The citizenry has to reject these people and
| reject the anti-intellectualism ethos they and their
| supporters inhabit.
| tyre wrote:
| Inciting violence is not constitutionally protected
| speech.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Deterrence has a role.
|
| As you point out, it's not most efficient path to
| resolving differences in America, but I can't say that
| forcefully pushing through police lines, breaking
| windows, and illegally entering the Capitol should be
| allowed to happen without penalty.
|
| People make their choices, and they pay the consequences
| -- they're not puppets completely devoid of individual
| agency.
|
| But yes, it's endemic in current American culture that
| incitement goes unpunished while action takes the charge.
| In politics, in business, and in religion.
|
| If we want to solve underlying problems, there need to be
| more disincentives to whipping your
| supporters/employees/believers into a frenzy.
|
| Shared culpability seems a good start.
| Jerrrry wrote:
| What about the prosecution of the law enforcement who
| literally unlocked doors, shepherded people inside, and
| then led them into chambers?
|
| If you think Jan 6 was anything more than a meandering of
| useful idiots by a conspiring state, you are the other
| useful idiot.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > What about the prosecution of the law enforcement who
| literally unlocked doors, shepherded people inside, and
| then led them into chambers?
|
| Several law enforcement and active military participants
| and collaborators--acting before, during, and after the
| highly visible events of Jan 6--have already been
| arrested and charged, most recently the MPD intelligence
| chief, but your description is a false characterization
| of what actually occurred.
|
| > If you think Jan 6 was anything more than a meandering
| of useful idiots by a conspiring state, you are the other
| useful idiot.
|
| If you genuinely believe this, you are just an idiot
| (maybe a useful one for the people who organized,
| executed, and then attempted to minimize the attack, but
| definitely an idiot.) Yes, most of the participants may
| have been radicalized sheep inspired and directed by a
| narrower group, but they clearly weren't "meandering".
| goodSteveramos wrote:
| >Several law enforcement and active military participants
|
| Stop conflating protestors who happened to have unrelated
| government jobs with the suspicious and supportive
| actions of the capitol police who were supposed to be
| keeping congress safe and instead escorted crazy looking
| protestors around the capitol for photoshoots
| HyperSane wrote:
| And the man who instigated the whole thing is going to be
| allowed to run for President again!
| goodSteveramos wrote:
| Yup. If all these useful idiot protestors are guilty of
| treason how the hell has their leader who told them to do
| it not been charged? The federal justice system is fake
| and political.
| Slava_Propanei wrote:
| [dead]
| asveikau wrote:
| I wonder if some of those people will now support bail
| reform.
| vuln wrote:
| Bail isn't even an option when you're detained for the
| reasons they are.
| ranger_danger wrote:
| Just imagine the power someone would have if they were to
| tamper with stolen data _before_ leaking it. Nobody EVER
| questions the accuracy of leaked data.
| abliefern wrote:
| [flagged]
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| GP might be alluding to the recent murder of a Mexican
| journalist, Fredid Roman Roman, who was shot shortly after
| (allegedly) being targeted by a Swiss surveillance-for-hire
| operator with Israeli connections[1]. As in, this is very
| much a thing that can happen to victims of (targeted)
| surveillance, and it was in the news recently.
|
| [1] https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/security-
| aviation/2023-0... (https://archive.is/A2qmD)
| lazyeye wrote:
| I think voting in someone like Robert Kennedy is the only hope
| against the Washington "uni-party" and a clearly corrupt justice
| system. Who else is there?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > I think voting in someone like Robert Kennedy is the only
| hope against the Washington "uni-party" and a clearly corrupt
| justice system. Who else is there?
|
| I'm old enough to remember when another celebrity political
| outsider got this exact treatment in 2016.
|
| To the extent that a problem loosely matching your description
| exists, the solution mostly isn't in Presidential elections,
| and anyone selling that as the solution is either an idiot who
| doesn't understand that the US isn't an executive dictatorship
| or a would-be tyrant trying to make it one.
| 20after4 wrote:
| You think they wouldn't kill him just like they did the other
| Kennedy troublemakers?
| umanwizard wrote:
| Wow, what a surprise!
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| So nice of the WSJ to follow order and use the proper euphemisms.
| "Improperly searched" is far too neutral and/or lenient. But at
| this point" what's another FBI scandle? And these are only the
| things we know about. It's not like behind close doors they're
| polishing halos and taking harp lessons.
| celtoid wrote:
| I've posted this link before and I really wish more people were
| familiar with it. "Democracy Versus The National Security State"
| (1976) by the late Marcus Raskin is only 32 pages long but it's
| an excellent overview of the history of the rise of arbitrary and
| unaccountable power in the US after WWII. It's also quite the
| prophetic work.
|
| "We shall see that the national security state and the rule of
| law are mortal enemies. In the first place, by its nature and the
| mission which it has set for itself, the national security state
| apparatus needs arbitrary power. Such power has its own code,
| which is meant to govern or justify the behavior of the initiated
| --after the fact. It operates to protect the state apparatus from
| the citizenry." [0]
|
| [0] https://archive.org/details/democracy-versus-the-national-
| se...
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Raskin's bio, for those curious:
|
| _Marcus Goodman Raskin (April 30, 1934 - December 24, 2017)
| was an American progressive social critic, political activist,
| author, and philosopher. He was the co-founder, with Richard
| Barnet, of the progressive think tank the Institute for Policy
| Studies in Washington, DC. He was also a professor of public
| policy at The George Washington University's School of Public
| Policy and Public Administration...._
|
| Notably: _In 1971, Raskin received from Daniel Ellsberg,
| documents that became known as the Pentagon Papers. Raskin put
| Ellsberg in touch with New York Times reporter Neil Sheehan._
|
| <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Raskin>
|
| And father of Rep. Jamie Raskin, as noted at Archive.org.
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| It's amazing how normalized this practice has become. And how far
| down the slope we've slid.
|
| > Civil liberties advocates say the FBI uses Section 702 as a
| backdoor for warrantless searches to get around the courts.
|
| I don't think they argued this originally. Originally we argued
| that THE SEARCH HAPPENS BEFORE THE QUERY. That moving data into
| the database constitutes a search.
|
| To oversimplify a bit, it's similar to the government coming into
| your home every day, taking photos of everything, and
| inventorying every item. Creating a huge manifest of everything
| in your home, filing it away with every other manifest they've
| collected on your neighbors, and then claiming they haven't
| searched your home because they will only look at the manifest if
| they think it's relevant to a qualifying investigation.
|
| Every entry in this database _should_ constitute a search.
|
| > "Say I want to collect information on Vladimir Putin,"
| explained Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney, "and I see on
| his Gmail, it turns out he's been talking to an American. So I'm
| collecting on Putin, but it might capture communications with a
| U.S. person, and so now in that database, I have every email he's
| ever sent, and I can go in and query for that U.S. person."
|
| This isn't exactly accurate either. Last I heard, it was based on
| "hops." Not just 1 degree of separation of Vladimir Putin, but N
| degrees of separation from anyone considered to be a potential
| "national security threat."
|
| So if your landscaper is sending money back home to their family
| who is in contact with someone who is involved in a cartel, maybe
| your entire digital footprint (metadata? more?) is fair game for
| this database.
|
| If you text the owner of your gym and their babysitter's brother
| is suspected of being associated with a foreign group, maybe your
| entire digital life is fair game for this database.
|
| The scope of this data dragnet is staggering.
|
| > (Though the evidence suggests the FBI was searching for Black
| Lives Matter protesters as much as Jan. 6 suspects.) The federal
| court that reviewed how the FBI uses the database threatened to
| put major limitations on the agency's ability to use it if the
| FBI did not change its procedures.
|
| I don't understand how these searches that were illegally
| conducted aren't required to be handed over to the defense team
| for every trial this was used in, along with the records that
| were returned for their client. Everything downstream of these
| searches is tainted evidence, no?
| eternalban wrote:
| > The scope of this data dragnet is staggering.
|
| https://www.stasi-unterlagen-archiv.de/en/
| drewcoo wrote:
| > It's amazing how normalized this practice has become.
|
| Really? After COINTELPRO, the FBI was legislated into domestic-
| only knowledge, in an attempt to pen in their abuses.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO
|
| This, well worse, actually, was only to be expected from the
| Patriot Act.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| I used to think that the people that were calling for the
| dismantling of the FBI were insane conspiracy theorists. I am not
| so sure anymore, the agency does appear to be compromised and
| have a very distinct political allegiance. Law enforcement should
| be politically neutral as they are very much the most powerful
| force in the country. A compromised agency is worse than no
| agency at all in some respects.
| shrimpx wrote:
| What's their political allegiance? I can come up with a half
| dozen purposely screwed up or super shady recent FBI/DOJ
| investigations toward either political party.
| hunglee2 wrote:
| authoritarianism is not a political system but a technique of
| government control over the people, and the excuse is always some
| kind of unspecified 'national security'
| abliefern wrote:
| That's a mockery of real authoritarian countries, where you
| most definitely wouldn't have the checks and balances of a
| court that finds a law enforcement agency misused data and with
| a free press to publicize that fact.
| schuyler2d wrote:
| Any speculation on what this could be?
|
| > The Biden administration also declined to declassify details
| about a new "sensitive technique" of surveillance performed under
| Section 702 that required the court to weigh its legality,
| keeping Americans in the dark about a method of spying even as it
| lobbies lawmakers to renew the expiring portions of the law.
|
| Sometimes there are hints or past reporting. Eg before Snowden
| there had been other reporting around Telco complicity at
| switching stations.
|
| Maybe something with satellite connectivity surveillance? (Lol,
| it would be rich if they said it was covered by FISA because it
| went from USA to "space" and back in to US) (Edit for typos)
| hattmall wrote:
| It's probably monitoring social media private messaging or
| mobile camera / microphone monitoring.
| schuyler2d wrote:
| That would have been years if not over a decade ago. This
| would be something more recent
| detaro wrote:
| > _(Lol, it would be rich if they said it was covered by FISA
| because it went from USA to "space" and back in to US)_
|
| That pretty much was German BNDs excuse a few years ago. "Law
| only restricts what we do on state territory, space isn't even
| foreign ground"
| bhaney wrote:
| [flagged]
| peter_retief wrote:
| [flagged]
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| [flagged]
| SapperDaddy wrote:
| [flagged]
| web3-is-a-scam wrote:
| [flagged]
| tomohawk wrote:
| Add in this recent report showing how the FBI pushed a partisan
| agenda, it's well past time to take a hard look at reforming the
| FBI.
|
| https://www.justice.gov/storage/durhamreport.pdf
| adrr wrote:
| Partisan agenda like using a special prosecutor role to write a
| report about policies and procedures? I don't think that was
| mentioned in the order that creates that role. Also he how many
| cases did he lose with malicious partisan prosecution?
| sjaak wrote:
| Our Constitution is neither a self-actuating nor a self-
| correcting document. It requires the constant attention and
| devotion of all citizens. There is a story, often told, that upon
| exiting the Constitutional Convention Benjamin Franklin was
| approached by a group of citizens asking what sort of government
| the delegates had created. His answer was: "A republic, if you
| can keep it."
| catlifeonmars wrote:
| Seems like an unstable equilibrium.
| mindslight wrote:
| From what we've since discovered about logical complexity and
| system design, such an attitude today would be appropriately
| described as cavalier malpractice. Yet the Founders have been
| practically deified, while it's continually implied the problem
| is merely that we're not following their simplistic
| prescriptions well enough.
| prottog wrote:
| > it's continually implied the problem is merely that we're
| not following their simplistic prescriptions well enough
|
| Is this wrong? America was founded to be a federal republic
| composed of sovereign states sharing their power with a small
| central government with clearly delineated powers; now we
| have a massive central government that takes in two-thirds of
| all taxation[0] and spends 38.5% of GDP as of last count[1],
| and somehow decided that it had the authority to regulate a
| farmer growing feed for his own animals[2].
|
| [0]: https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-
| breakdown...
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_gover
| nmen...
|
| [2]: https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/317us111
| silverquiet wrote:
| It seems like the weak central government model ceased to
| function around the 20th Century doesn't it? It was (and to
| some extent continues to be) a time of cold and hot
| conflict between superpowers, and a small government seems
| antithetical to superpower.
| mindslight wrote:
| Yes - analysis of "just follow the rules harder" is
| generally wrong, which is why we've moved on to blameless
| postmortems. I agree with your criticism of the current
| state of the system. The problem is the lack of mechanisms
| that encourage convergence towards the desired state.
| Without them, divergence continually adds up, creating the
| well known ratchet effect. If Filburn itself had been
| decided differently, the Supreme Court would have
| eventually justified the federal government power grab at a
| later time. Slower progression would mean we'd be in a
| better state today, but we'd still be headed towards the
| same place.
| 35997279 wrote:
| [dead]
| Georgelemental wrote:
| The Founders actually did a really good job. The extreme
| level of separation of powers in the US (2 coequal
| legislative branches, presidency, Supreme Court and lower
| courts, all the state governments with their own divisions,
| local governments, etc) makes it really, really hard for one
| faction to fully dominate government, even today. This
| feature of the US is pretty much unique in the world, even
| among even democracies. But no system of government can be
| perfect, or protect against all eventualities without regular
| maintenance and upgrades. We've had three major overhauls so
| far: Civil War reconstruction, the New Deal, and the 60s
| civil rights movement. Arguably, we are due for a fourth.
| jscipione wrote:
| [flagged]
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| Lol please seek help.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Good. I can't read the paywalled article but it appears that the
| FISA court is providing a counter to FBI power. Sounds like a
| healthy Democratic system of checks and balances to me and I'm
| not being sarcastic.
| Slava_Propanei wrote:
| [dead]
| whiddershins wrote:
| Of course they did. Someone always does, eventually.
| trident5000 wrote:
| These agencies smell especially as of recent. Defunding many of
| them and starting over makes a lot of sense. You're not going to
| get the corruption out without a complete overhaul. I would argue
| the FBI falls into the defund category with the latest events.
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