[HN Gopher] FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking...
___________________________________________________________________
FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE
Author : duxup
Score : 387 points
Date : 2026-01-27 17:32 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nbcnews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nbcnews.com)
| superkuh wrote:
| Tracking the murderers who executed citizens in the street and
| then fled the scene of the crime and any sort of trial or
| investigation? That ICE and Immigration and Border Patrol? I
| wonder why. And since when is tracking public officials operating
| in public in the capacity of their government jobs illegal?
|
| These federal goons need to be tracked and observed to record
| their crimes. That much is indisputable.
| nimbius wrote:
| i suppose what he means is that the _phones_ of protestors which
| have signal chat will be investigated.
|
| Assuming they dont have disappearing messages activated, and
| assuming any protestors willingly unlock their phones.
| mrtesthah wrote:
| Unfortunately not everyone in a group chat may be fully vetted,
| in which case they could be feds collecting "evidence". Some
| chats may have publicly circulating invite links.
|
| But any judge that doesn't immediately reject such cases on a
| first-amendment basis is doing the business of an authoritarian
| dictator. This is fully protected speech and assembly.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _any judge that doesn 't immediately reject such cases on a
| first-amendment basis_
|
| If you say something illegal in a chat with a cop in it, or
| say it in public, I don't think there are Constitutional
| issues with the police using that as evidence. (If you didn't
| say anything illegal, you have a valid defence.)
| mrtesthah wrote:
| Sure. Can you give me an example of something that's
| illegal to say in a group chat that coordinates legal
| observers?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Can you give me an example of something that 's
| illegal to say in a group chat that coordinates legal
| observers?_
|
| Actual examples? No. I don't believe it happened.
|
| Hypothetical examples? Co-ordinating gunning down ICE
| agents. If the chat stays on topic to "coordinat[ing]
| legal observers," there shouldn't be liability. The risk
| with open chats is they can go off topic if unmoderated.
| docdeek wrote:
| One of the things that has been circulating in videos of
| the Signal chats online is someone confirming/not
| confirming that certain license plates are related to
| ICE. Perhaps if someone is misusing their access to an
| administrative or law enforcement database to 'run
| plates' and report on who owns the vehicle, this could be
| unlawful.
|
| I don't know if anyone IS using such a database
| unlawfully - they might be checking the plate number
| against an Excel sheet they created based on other
| reports from people opposed to ICE - but if its a databse
| they shouldn't be using in this way, if might be against
| the law.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > Perhaps if someone is misusing their access to an
| administrative or law enforcement database to 'run
| plates' and report on who owns the vehicle, this could be
| unlawful.
|
| But that's not an example of something that would be
| illegal to say in a chat. It would be an example of
| something that's illegal to do regardless of the chat.
| defen wrote:
| I don't think the idea is that the speech in the chat is
| inherently illegal; it's that it could be used as
| evidence of illegal activity. Using that example - if
| someone in the chat asks about plate XYZ at 10AM, and if
| a phone linked to "Bob" posts to the group chat at 10:04
| AM that license plate XYZ is used by ICE, and the
| internal logs show that Bob queried the ICE database
| about plate XYZ at 10:02 AM, and no one else queried that
| license plate in the past month, that is pretty good
| evidence that Bob violated the CFAA.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| "ICE are at (address)" apparently
| tremon wrote:
| Not sure what difference that makes, it's not like the
| current regime limits their actions to respect
| constitutional bounds.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > Unfortunately not everyone in a group chat may be fully
| vetted,
|
| Curious how many group chats have unknowingly allowed a well
| known journalist into their groups.
| servercobra wrote:
| Or has biometric login turned on and didn't lock their phone
| behind a passcode before being arrested.
| craftkiller wrote:
| > willingly unlock their phones
|
| Or they are running any mainstream iPhone or Android phone,
| they've unlocked the phone at least once since their last
| reboot, and the police have access to graykey. Not sure what
| the current state of things is, since we rely on leaked
| documents, but my take-away from the 2024 leaks was GrapheneOS
| Before First Unlock (BFU) is the only defense.
| lugu wrote:
| https://freedom.press/digisec/blog/new-leaks-on-police-
| phone...
| ActorNightly wrote:
| >is the only defense.
|
| Or you know, the 2nd amendment.
|
| Id be willing to bet that ICE would have a much smaller
| impact if they would be met with bullets instead of cameras.
| In the end, what ICE is doing doesn't really matter to Trump,
| as long as MAGA believes that things are being done, even if
| nothing is being done, he doesn't care.
| dylan604 wrote:
| That's a strange take. It also feels like exactly what they
| are hoping to have happen. Encouraging gun violence is not
| something condoned, so not sure why you are posting that
| nonsense. Are you an agitator?
| convolvatron wrote:
| I wish we would stop using that word 'agitator', while I
| understand the subjective idea that someone is just
| trying to stir up trouble, it kind of undermines the idea
| that we should be able to express opinions no matter how
| distasteful.
|
| and apparently it now a perfectly valid reason for the
| state to execute someone without being charged or a
| trial.
| dylan604 wrote:
| anyone promoting for people to start showing up and
| shooting at law enforcement, even if it is ICE, is what
| if not an agitator?
| convolvatron wrote:
| where is the line? I was fine with the word until it
| started being used to justify killing innocents
| dylan604 wrote:
| Then be upset with them for misappropriating the word.
| I'm using it just fine, thank you very much!
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Nothing about the 2nd amendment legalizes shooting law
| enforcement officers.
|
| This has always been the absurdity of the moronic claims of
| the 2nd amendment being to overthrow government tyranny:
| You may own the gun legally, but at no point will your
| actions be legal. If you've decided the government needs to
| be overthrown, you are already throwing "law" out the
| window, even if you have a valid argument that the
| government you are overthrowing has abandoned the
| constitution.
|
| Why the fuck do you need legal guns to commit treason? Last
| I checked, most government overthrows don't even involve
| people armed with private rifles!
|
| If you are overthrowing the government, you will need to
| take over local police stations. At the moment, you no
| longer need private arms, and what you are doing isn't
| legal anyway.
|
| Meanwhile, every single fucking time it has come up, the
| gun nuts go radio silent when the government kills the
| right person who happens to own a gun. Every. Single. Time.
|
| It took _minutes_ for the "SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED" people
| who raised a million dollars for Kyle Rittenhouse to defend
| himself for driving to a protest in a different state while
| armed to the teeth to of course get to shoot someone to
| turn around and say "Actually bringing a gun to a protest
| makes you a terrorist and you need to be shot". Minutes.
| They have also put up GoFundMes for the guy who executed
| that man.
|
| If you are too scared to stand up to your government
| without a fucking rifle, you have never been an actual
| threat to your government, and they know that.
| archy_ wrote:
| Never fear, the 2nd amendments days are numbered too. Trump
| just said 'You can't have guns. You can't walk in with
| guns' (the 'in' in this context being 'outside')
|
| https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-you-cant-have-
| gu...
| nextlevelwizard wrote:
| Fed
| dvtkrlbs wrote:
| Isn't latest iPhones also have similar security profile on
| BFU. The latest support table I saw from one of the vendors
| was also confirming this.
| subscribed wrote:
| I don't think locked[1] GrapheneOS is considered vulnerable
| for AFU attack anymore:
| https://www.androidauthority.com/cellebrite-leak-google-
| pixe...
|
| Notice even unlocked doesn't allow FFS.
|
| [1] assuming standard security settings of course.
| politelemon wrote:
| Unlocking isn't necessary, We've already seen that Apple and
| Google will turn data over on government requests.
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-complies-percent-us-go...
| lenerdenator wrote:
| Non-paywalled link?
| layer8 wrote:
| https://archive.ph/copyn
|
| It wasn't paywalled for me, BTW.
| spiderice wrote:
| There are already people on X who have infiltrated chats and
| posted screen captures. Getting the full content of the chats
| isn't going to be difficult. They have way to many people in
| them.
| bediger4000 wrote:
| Why? That's unequivocally constitutionally protected speech. Why
| is our tax money being wasted on this?
| hackyhacky wrote:
| When has the constitution mattered to this administration?
| randallsquared wrote:
| Conspiracy to commit a crime is typically not included in
| protected speech. Whether you think that's happening here will
| depend mostly on what side you take, I suspect.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Interesting that there would be people on a "side" that think
| there was a conspiracy to commit a crime. What crime?
| direwolf20 wrote:
| Interference with a law enforcement investigation?
| mycodendral wrote:
| 18 U.S.C. SS 372 - Conspiring to impede or interfere with a
| federal officer
| baerrie wrote:
| This refers to physical impediments. Spreading legal
| information is not an impediment, it is free speech. If
| all info could be interpreted as impediments to federal
| officers then phones, the internet, the human voice, etc
| would be illegal
| rexpop wrote:
| It's a crime.
|
| What do you have against crime?
|
| Nonviolent political action is often criminalized.
| neogodless wrote:
| https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/
|
| Are you pro or against this?
| mycodendral wrote:
| 18 U.S.C. SS 372 - Conspiring to impede or interfere with a
| federal officer
|
| Freedom of expression does not include freedom from
| prosecution for real crimes.
| nkohari wrote:
| You keep commenting to cite this statute when you clearly
| have not actually read what it says. Peaceful protest is
| explicitly protected by the first amendment.
| therobots927 wrote:
| The fascists won. That's why.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| No, they haven't. This kind of advocacy crosses from lazy
| nihilism to negligence.
| therobots927 wrote:
| I should've clarified. They won the 2024 election. And the
| democrats are controlled opposition who take money from
| fascists. For all intents and purposes they have won. That
| may not be a permanent state of affairs.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I don't think it makes sense to call winners and losers
| before the battle is anywhere close to being over.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > I don't think it makes sense to call winners and losers
| before the battle is anywhere close to being over.
|
| I don't think it makes sense to reject an explanation of
| current events grounded in a battle that is clearly over
| having been won and the victor using the ground they've
| gained to produce the events being discussed merelt
| because the broader war isn't over and that victor may
| potentially lose some subsequent battle.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Yes, won that battle but not the war.
|
| I think the dissent is about the latter. It's not over
| yet, so people should not give up.
|
| The root comment clearly has ambiguity that people take
| both ways.
| ActorNightly wrote:
| >And the democrats are controlled opposition who take
| money from fascists
|
| Democrats, being generally way more in favor of law and
| order, keep themselves in check, and as a result, just
| simply can't compete with Republicans that unilaterally
| rally behind the president no matter what he does.
|
| My hope is that we see someone like Gavin Newsom be as
| bombastic as Trump, not caring about optics of his own
| party and not afraid to sling shit on any Dem that
| opposes him, whether true or not.
| thunderfork wrote:
| Given that Newsom was on a podcast just last week caving
| to even the slightest pushback, I wouldn't count on him
| to be bombastic to anyone. He's 100% optics-driven-
| cowardice.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > > > Why is our tax money being wasted on this?
|
| > > The fascists won. That's why?
|
| > No, they haven't.
|
| Yes, they did, that's why they are able to use the
| executive branch of the federal government to enforce their
| wishes at the moment, with virtually no constraint yet from
| the legislative branch, and no significant consequences yet
| for ignoring contrary orders from the judicial branch.
|
| They may lose at some point in the future, but something
| that might happen in the future is irrelevant to the
| question of why what is happening now is happening, and it
| is happening because they won. Unambiguously.
| SR2Z wrote:
| They are not able to enforce their will unchecked. The
| legislature is more than willing to turn on Trump when he
| crosses the line, hence the whole idea of "TACO."
|
| The fascists haven't won because if they did, they would
| be killing a lot more dissidents in the street. They
| killed two and the public outcry is so angry that Kristi
| Noem might be impeached. Democrats are willing to shut
| down the government to starve ICE if they have to. Even
| GOP legislators are criticizing Trump, which is a
| dangerous activity for any Republican looking to keep
| their seat.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Impeached and replaced with someone just as bad. This
| just happened with Tom Homan getting Bongino's spot. No
| one is being prosecuted for the murders, and in fact at
| least one investigator has quit their career position in
| the FBI for being asked to bury it.
|
| I'm not seeing a whole lot of meaningful checks.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Impeached and replaced with someone just as bad. This
| just happened with Tom Homan getting Bongino's spot
|
| Bovino (Border Patrol "at large" Commander who may or may
| not have lost that title and been returned to his sector
| command), not Bongino (the podcaster-turned-FBI Deputy
| Director who resigned to go back to podcasting), and
| Homan didn't get Bovino's job, only his spotlight (he was
| already the head of border policy for the White House.)
| Sparkle-san wrote:
| Because too many people dismissed the claims that electing
| Trump would lead to a fascist administration as alarmist. Turns
| out he meant every word he said during his campaign.
| tptacek wrote:
| They're "investigating", presumably with data gleaned from
| arrests and CIs; you have a right to speech, and a right not to
| be prosecuted for speech, but a much, much narrower right not
| to be "investigated", collapsing to ~epsilon when the
| investigation involves data the FBI already has.
| andreygrehov wrote:
| No. According to the latest reports, while searching for ICE
| vehicles, the protesters are unlawfully scanning license
| plates, which strongly suggests they are receiving insider
| help.
| janalsncm wrote:
| Can you rule out the much less technically advanced
| explanation that this information was crowdsourced? And
| people are simply observing the license plates that are
| plainly displayed?
|
| Frankly I don't think it should have to come to license
| plate numbers. In a free society law enforcement should
| clearly identify themselves as such. We should not need
| secret police.
| andreygrehov wrote:
| No, I cannot. One of the undercover journalists was in
| their group for days.
|
| > Frankly I don't think it should have to come to license
| plate numbers. In a free society law enforcement should
| clearly identify themselves as such. We should not need
| secret police.
|
| None of that matters _today_, because _today_ the law is
| different.
| janalsncm wrote:
| What the law is, is a question for lawyers. What the law
| should be is a question for the people.
|
| For example, a lot of people thought it was wrong that
| federal agents could cover their faces. Sacramento
| agreed. Now there is a law preventing it.
| derbOac wrote:
| "Unlawfully scanning license plates"? What does that even
| mean?
|
| Like searching a vehicle database? That's available to all
| sorts of people, like auto body repair shops.
|
| Taking a photo of a license plate? Nothing illegal about
| that.
| andreygrehov wrote:
| You're confusing 'seeing a license plate' with 'querying
| restricted databases'.
|
| Taking a photo is legal. Running plates through law-
| enforcement/ALPR systems is not, and auto body shops
| don't have that access.
|
| Real-time identification != observation - it implies
| unauthorized data access.
| paganel wrote:
| > through law-enforcement/ALPR systems
|
| Were they doing that? I haven't read the article, that's
| why I'm asking.
| andreygrehov wrote:
| https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/minnesota-signal-
| gate-di...
| janalsncm wrote:
| I don't see anything there about querying license plate
| databases. There is a spreadsheet of _donors_ to some
| kind of organization.
| andreygrehov wrote:
| https://x.com/camhigby/status/2015093635096658172
|
| Also, what is the outrage about? This administration has
| deported the least number of people compared to all
| previous administrations. Obama deported 3.1 million
| people, ten times more than Trump today. Same ICE, same
| border patrol.
| rhcom2 wrote:
| It literally say it is a crowdsourced list... a
| completely legal activity. If you can't figure out what
| the outrage is about after Alex Pretti and Renee Good
| then you're being intentionally obtuse.
| plorg wrote:
| I don't know what they think they're doing there. If the
| most interesting thing they found was the public website
| leading to a fundraising platform for mutual aid a) there
| is literally nothing illegal there, and b) you can find
| that website linked to _publicly_ by conservatively 25%
| of the twin cities population. It 's literally the most
| prominent fundraising website anyone has been posting.
| plorg wrote:
| Journalists doing ride alongs have already identified the
| system and it doesn't really on "restricted databases",
| they rely on observation and multiple attestation. In any
| case, there are indeed commercial services for looking up
| license plate data, and they rely on watching the notices
| that are published when you register your vehicle. It's
| the same reason why you receive all sorts of scammy
| warranty "notices" when you buy a car.
|
| In fact the first clue that they look for is having
| Illinois Permanent plates because that is a strong
| indicator that they are using rental vehicles. That
| doesn't take a database, it's just a strong signal that
| can be confirmed by other evidence.
| rhcom2 wrote:
| There is no evidence of this at all.
| janalsncm wrote:
| Yeah whenever people say "the first amendment is not a
| freedom from consequences" it is only a freedom from certain
| consequences (and that freedom only goes as far as the
| government is willing to protect it). It is a freedom from
| being convicted. They can still arrest you, you can still
| spend time in jail, prosecutors can even file charges. A
| court is supposed to throw those charges out. And in extreme
| cases you can be convicted and sent to prison for years
| before SCOTUS rules.
| tptacek wrote:
| Nobody has been charged.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| I think GP is speaking generally, not with regard to this
| situation specifically; obviously people have been
| charged for constitutionally-protected speech before.
| poplarsol wrote:
| Coordinating roadblocks, "dearrests", warning the subjects of
| law enforcement operations, and intentionally causing the
| maximum amount of noise in neighborhoods neighborhood are not
| things you will be able to get a federal judge to characterize
| as "constitutionally protected speech".
| OhMeadhbh wrote:
| Actually... making noise in a neighborhood _is_
| constitutionally protected speech (as I have learned when my
| neighbors crank the sub-par disco up to 11.)
| poplarsol wrote:
| https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/609.72
| kennywinker wrote:
| The "arrests" are being done in a deeply unconstitutional
| way. Acting to uphold the constitution is beyond speech, it's
| a duty of all americans.
| afavour wrote:
| To intimidate. They're probably quite aware they'll lose in
| court. But in the mean time they might discourage some folks
| from turning out on the street.
| mycodendral wrote:
| Federal felony, not free speech.
|
| 18 U.S.C. SS 372 - Conspiring to impede or interfere with a
| federal officer
| derbOac wrote:
| There's been lots of legal writing pointing out these
| statutes basically refer to impeding an officer by threat or
| physical force, which that statute you cite states. It
| doesn't refer to anything about providing food to someone who
| is fearing for their lives and won't leave the home, or
| communicating about the publicly observed whereabouts of law
| enforcement.
| janalsncm wrote:
| "Free speech" is a concept not a law. The first amendment
| protects certain types of speech. Whether something is free
| speech or not does not depend on the US government's opinion
| or the Chinese government or your mother in law.
|
| Publishing locations alone is not conspiracy to commit a
| crime. If ICE is impeded as a result of this information,
| that's not enough. Conspiracy requires the government to
| prove that multiple people intended to impede them.
| spiderice wrote:
| Which is probably the easiest thing ever to prove, since
| people are openly trying to impede them
| OhMeadhbh wrote:
| Sure, but you should read what "impede" and "interfere" mean
| both in the regs and court precedent. Following ICE agents
| around is neither impeding or interfering by current federal
| court definitions. But yeah... that can change quickly.
| kennywinker wrote:
| Are these federal officers? They're men in masks with camo
| and body armor kidnapping people off the streets and refusing
| to show identification beyond a patch that says "ICE".
|
| That is who is alleged to be impeded.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| Are you under the impression that the current administration
| cares about what the law says?
|
| "Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit:
| There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not
| bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not
| protect"
| ddtaylor wrote:
| I don't know signal very well but when I have spoken to others
| about it they mention that the phone number is the only metadata
| they will have access to.
|
| This seems like a good example of that being enough metadata to
| be a big problem.
| spankalee wrote:
| I don't think it's much of a problem at all. Many of the
| protesters and observers are not hiding their identities, so
| finding their phone number isn't a problem. Even with content,
| coordinating legal activities isn't a problem either.
| Psillisp wrote:
| Government intimidation of the practice of constitutional
| rights... what ever could go wrong.
| spankalee wrote:
| I was replying specifically to this:
|
| > This seems like a good example of that being enough
| metadata to be a big problem
|
| I was not saying it's not a problem that the feds are doing
| this, because that's not what I was replying to.
| Psillisp wrote:
| You are going to need to clarify more. I have no idea
| what you are for.
| rationalist wrote:
| Why does a person have to be "for" something?
| fusslo wrote:
| I would never agree with you. protestors behaving legally or
| practicing civil disobedience can still have their lives
| ruined by people in power.
|
| https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/arizona-supreme-
| court-s...
| mrtesthah wrote:
| This is the price we pay to defend our rights. I would also
| expect any reasonable grand jury to reject such charges
| given how flagrantly the government has attempted to bias
| the public against protesters.
| ajross wrote:
| > protestors behaving legally or practicing civil
| disobedience can still have their lives ruined by people in
| power.
|
| They surely can. But the point was more than the people in
| power don't really need Signal metadata to do that. On the
| lists of security concerns modern protestors need to be
| worrying about, Signal really just isn't very high.
| scoofy wrote:
| The literal point of _civil_ disobedience is accepting that
| you may end up in jail:
|
| "Any man who breaks a law that conscience tells him is
| unjust and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail
| to arouse the conscience of the community on the injustice
| of the law is at that moment expressing the very highest
| respect for the law."
|
| -- _Letter from the Birmingham Jail_ , MLK Jr: https://peop
| le.uncw.edu/schmidt/201Stuff/F14/B%20SophistSocr...
| estearum wrote:
| Yeah, that doesn't make it "not a problem."
| EA-3167 wrote:
| It makes it a problem that's inherently present for any
| act of civil disobedience, unless you truly believe that
| you can hide from the US government. I'm pretty sure that
| all of the technical workarounds in the world, all of the
| tradecraft, won't save you from the weakest link in your
| social network.
|
| That's life, if you can't take that heat stay out of the
| kitchen. It's also why elections are a much safer and
| more reliable way to enact change in your country than
| "direct action" is except under the most dire of
| circumstances.
| estearum wrote:
| Sure? Can't tell what the point of this comment is.
|
| No one is arguing that people who practice civil
| disobedience can expect to be immune from government
| response.
| peyton wrote:
| Importantly this definition references an individual's
| conscience. Seditious conspiracy is another matter. Here
| is the statute:
|
| > If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in
| any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United
| States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by
| force the Government of the United States, or to levy war
| against them, or to oppose by force the authority
| thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the
| execution of any law of the United States, or by force to
| seize, take, or possess any property of the United States
| contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be
| fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty
| years, or both.
|
| A group chat coordinating use of force may be tough.
| mothballed wrote:
| If you let the government stomp on your constitutional
| rights and willingly go to jail on unconstitutional
| grounds, then that's not respect for the law. That's
| respect for injustice.
|
| Accepting jail over 1A protected protests only proves
| you're weak (not in the morally deficient way, just from
| a physical possibilities way) enough to be taken. No one
| thinks more highly of you or your 'respect for the law'
| for being caught and imprisoned in such case, though we
| might not think lesser of you, since we all understand it
| is often a suicide mission to resist it.
| Amezarak wrote:
| Materially impeding law enforcement operations,
| interfering with arrests, harassing or assault officers,
| and so forth is not 1A protected and is illegal. There's
| lots of this going on and some of it is orchestrated in
| these chats. They may nevertheless be civil disobedience,
| maybe even for a just cause, but I have no problem with
| people still being arrested for this. You obviously
| cannot have a civil society where that is legally
| tolerated.
|
| It isn't just people walking around holding signs or
| filming ICE. Can we please distinguish these cases?
| scoofy wrote:
| >If you let the government stomp on your constitutional
| rights and willingly go to jail on unconstitutional
| grounds, then that's not respect for the law. That's
| respect for injustice.
|
| My point is about _civil_ disobedience, not disobedience
| generally. The point of civil disobedience is to bring
| attention to unjust laws by forcing people to deal with
| the fact they they are imprisoning people for doing
| something that doesn 't actually deserve prison.
|
| Expecting to not end up in prison for engaging in civil
| disobedience misses the point. It's like when people go
| on a "hunger strike" by not eating _solid_ foods. The
| _point_ is self-sacrifice to build something better for
| others.
|
| https://www.kqed.org/arts/11557246/san-francisco-hunger-
| stri...
|
| If that's not what you're into -- and it's not something
| I'm into -- then I would suggest other forms of
| disobedience. Freedoms are rarely granted by asking for
| them.
| theossuary wrote:
| Using your 1st, 2nd, and 4th amendment rights is
| considered civil disobedience at this point; keep up.
| jjk166 wrote:
| That's not the point of civil disobedience, it's an
| unfortunate side effect. You praise a martyr for their
| sacrifice, you deplore that the sacrifice was necessary.
| ruined wrote:
| conspiracy charges are a thing, and they'll only need a few
| examples of manifestly illegal interference.
|
| it will be quite easy for a prosecutor to charge lots of
| these people.
|
| it's been done for less, and even if the case is thrown out
| it can drag on for years and involve jail time before any
| conviction.
| spankalee wrote:
| If they could arrest people for what they've been doing,
| they would have already arrested people. And they have
| arrested a few here and there for "assault" (things like
| daring to react when being shoved by an annoyed officer),
| but the thing that's really pissing DHS off is that the
| protesters and observers are _not_ breaking the law.
| ruined wrote:
| one person walking away from a police encounter doesn't
| mean police think that person did not break the law.
|
| prosecutors may take their time and file charges at their
| leisure.
| JohnFen wrote:
| That may be true in the abstract (although it doesn't
| matter if the cops think you're breaking the law. What
| matters is whether or not a judge does).
|
| However, neither Border patrol nor ICE have been
| exhibiting thoughtfulness or patience, so I doubt they're
| playing any such long game.
| missingcolours wrote:
| Remember that most of the participants in J6 walked away
| and were later rounded up and arrested across the country
| once the FBI had collected voluminous digital and
| surveillance evidence to support prosecution.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| That was a different, Biden's, FBI
| missingcolours wrote:
| Yeah, and I wouldn't bet money on this happening for that
| reason. But it is possible.
| SR2Z wrote:
| Fortunately for us (or really unfortunately for us) most
| of the competent FBI agents have been fired or quit, with
| the new bar simply being loyalty to the president.
|
| The FBI is weak now compared to what it was even two
| years ago.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| Most are probably just keeping their heads down, trying
| to wait out this administration. When you're in that kind
| of cushy career track, you'd have to be very dumb or very
| selfless to give it up.
| spankalee wrote:
| The J6 insurrectionists committed real crimes, and it's
| very good that they were rounded up, but afaiu most of
| the evidence had to do with them provably assaulting
| officers, damaging property, and breaking into a
| government building. Not that they messaged other people
| when they were legally demonstrating before the Capital
| invasion.
|
| The real protection for the legal protesters and
| observers in MN is numbers. They can't arrest and control
| and entire populace.
| missingcolours wrote:
| People were also charged for coordinating and supporting
| J6 without being there, e.g. Enrique Tarrio of the "Proud
| Boys" was charged with seditious conspiracy based on
| activity in messaging apps. If people in these Signal
| chats were aware that people were using force to inhibit
| federal law enforcement, which some of the leaked
| training materials suggest is most likely true and easy
| to prove, and there are messages showing their support or
| coordination of those actions, I assume they could face
| the same charges.
| spankalee wrote:
| They had a lot more than metadata on Enrique Tarrio.
| jjk166 wrote:
| Conspiracy requires an agreement to commit an illegal act,
| and entering into that agreement must be intentional.
| cyberge99 wrote:
| How do you connect a strangers face to a phone number? Or
| does it require the ELITE app?
| nicce wrote:
| Palantir steps in indeed
| ls612 wrote:
| Some of the signal messages I've seen screenshotted (granted
| screenshots can be altered) make it seem like the
| participants have access to some sort of ALPR data to track
| vehicles that they think are ICE. That would probably be an
| illegal use of that data if true.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > make it seem like the participants have access to some
| sort of ALPR data to track vehicles
|
| The whole reason cops love ALPR data is anyone's allowed to
| collect it, so they don't need a warrant.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| The government falling victim to ALPR for once might
| actually be the push we need to get some reform. That
| said, they'll probably try to ban it for everybody but
| themselves. Never before have they had such comprehensive
| surveillance and I don't expect them to give it up
| easily.
| ls612 wrote:
| It's probably illegal for a state law enforcement
| official (presumably) to share it with randos on the
| internet though.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I remember having to explain to you that the CFAA doesn't
| apply to German citizens in Germany committing acts
| against a German website, so I'll take that legal advice
| with a few Dead Seas worth of salt.
|
| Tow trucks have ALPR cameras to find repossessions.
| Plenty of private options for obtaining that sort of
| data; you can buy your own for a couple hundred bucks.
| https://linovision.com/products/2-mp-deepinview-anpr-box-
| wit...
| tptacek wrote:
| Presumably this is data taken from interdicted phones of people
| in the groups, not, like, a traffic-analytic attack on Signal
| itself.
| tucnak wrote:
| I wonder whether the protesters could opt for offshore
| alternatives that don't require exposing their phone number
| to a company that could be compelled to reveal it by US law.
| For example, there is Threema[1], a Swiss option priced at 5
| euros one-time. It is interesting on Android as you can pay
| anonymously[2], therefore it doesn't depend on Google Play
| and its services (they offer Threema Push services of their
| own.) If your threat model includes traffic analysis, likely
| none of it would make much difference as far as US state-side
| sigint product line is concerned, but with Threema a
| determined party might as well get a chance! Arguably, the US
| protest organisers must be prepared for the situation to
| escalate, and adjust their security model accordingly:
| GrapheneOS, Mullvad subscription with DAITA countermeasures,
| Threema for Android, pay for everything with Monero?
|
| [1] https://threema.com/
|
| [2] https://shop.threema.ch/en
| chocolatkey wrote:
| Note that Threema has had a recent change in ownership to a
| German investment firm. Supposedly nothing will change but
| I can't help but be wary
| dylan604 wrote:
| Just being owned by an offshore company doesn't mean that
| they still can't be infiltrated. But as you pointed out,
| just because Company A creates an app does not mean that
| Company B can't come in later to take control.
| tucnak wrote:
| The alarming extent of US-affiliated signals intelligence
| collection is well-documented, but in the case of Threema
| it's largely inconsequential; you can still purchase the
| license for it anonymously, optionally build from source,
| and actively resist traffic analysis when using it.
|
| That is to say: it allows a determined party to largely
| remain anonymous even in the face of upstream provider's
| compromise.
| OneDeuxTriSeiGo wrote:
| It's worth noting that the way Signal's architecture is set
| up, Signal the organisation doesn't have access to users'
| phone numbers.
|
| They technically have logs from when verification happens
| (as that goes through an SMS verification service) but that
| just documents that you have an account/when you
| registered. And it's unclear whether those records are
| available anymore since no warrants have been issued since
| they moved to the new username system.
|
| And the actual profile and contact discovery infra is all
| designed to be actively hostile to snooping on identifiable
| information even with hardware access (requiring compromise
| of secure enclaves + multiple levels of obfuscation and
| cryptographic anti-extraction techniques on top).
| tucnak wrote:
| Perhaps you're right that they couldn't be compelled by
| law to reveal it, then! However, I can still find people
| on Signal using their phone number, by design. If they
| can do that, surely there is sufficient information, and
| appropriate means, for US state-side signals intelligence
| to do so, too. I don't think Signal self-hosts their
| infrastructure, so it wouldn't be much of a challenge
| considering it's a priority target.
|
| Now, whether FBI and friends would be determined to use
| PII obtained in this way to that end--is a point of
| contention, but why take the chance?
|
| Better yet, don't expose your PII to third parties in the
| first place.
| OneDeuxTriSeiGo wrote:
| Yeah it should be technically feasible to do "eventually"
| but it's non trivial. I linked a bunch of their blogs on
| how they harden contact discovery, etc. And of course you
| can turn contact discovery off entirely in the settings.
|
| Settings > Privacy > Phone Number > Who can find me by
| number > Nobody
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46786794
| plorg wrote:
| It appears to be primarily getting agents into the chats. To
| me the questionable conduct is their NPSM-7-adjacent
| redefining of legal political categories and activities as
| "terrorists/-ism" for the purpose of legal harassment or
| worse. Whether that is technically legal or not it should be
| outrageous to the public.
| suriya-ganesh wrote:
| but this is not a technical attack that returns the metadata.
|
| much more closer to the $5 wrench attack
|
| https://xkcd.com/538/
| causalscience wrote:
| I've been hearing for years people say "Signal requires phone
| number therefore I don't use it", and I've been hearing them
| mocked for years.
|
| Turns out they were right.
| rainonmoon wrote:
| Absolutely nothing in this article is related to feds using
| conversation metadata to map participants, so, no they
| weren't.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| If you follow the X chatter on this, some folks got into
| the groups and tracked all the numbers, their
| contributions, and when they went "on shift" or "off".
|
| I don't really think Signal tech has anything to do with
| this.
| rainonmoon wrote:
| That's really interesting extra context, thanks!
| OhMeadhbh wrote:
| Yeah. It's notable they didn't crack the crypto. In the
| 90s when I was a young cypherpunk, I had this idea that
| when strong crypto was ubiquitous, certainly people would
| be smart enough to understand its role was only to force
| bad guys to attack the "higher levels" like attacking
| human expectations of privacy on a public channel. It was
| probably unrealistic to assume everyone would
| automatically understand subtle details of technology.
|
| As a reminder... if you don't know all the people in your
| encrypted group chat, you could be talking to the man.
| ddtaylor wrote:
| My Session and Briar chats don't give out the phone
| numbers of other users.
| overfeed wrote:
| Yes, but they have their own weaknesses. For instance,
| Briar exposes your Bluetooth MAC, and there's a bunch of
| nasty Bluetooth vulns waiting to be exploited. You can't
| ever perfectly solve for both security and usability, you
| can only make tradeoffs.
| ddtaylor wrote:
| Briar has multiple modes of operation. The Bluetooth mode
| is not the default mode of operation and is there for
| circumstances where Internet has been shut down entirely.
|
| For users who configure Briar to connect exclusively over
| Tor using the normal startup (e.g., for internet-based
| syncing) and disable Bluetooth, there is no Bluetooth
| involvement at all, so your Bluetooth MAC address is not
| exposed.
| gosub100 wrote:
| Suppose they didn't require that. Wouldn't that open
| themselves up to DDoS? An angry nation or ransom-seeker could
| direct bots to create accounts and stuff them with noise.
| OhMeadhbh wrote:
| I think the deal is you marry the strong crypto with a
| human mediated security process which provides high
| confidence the message sender maps to the human you think
| they are. And even if they are, they could be a narc.
| Nothing in strong crypto prevents narcs in whom ill-advised
| trust has been granted from copying messages they're
| getting over the encrypted channel and forwarding them to
| the man.
|
| And even then, a trusted participant could not understand
| they're not supposed to give their private keys out or
| could be rubber-hosed into revealing their key pin. All
| sorts of ways to subvert "secure" messaging besides
| breaking the crypto.
|
| I guess what I'm saying is "Strong cryptography is
| required, but not sufficient to ensure secure messaging."
| ddtaylor wrote:
| There are a lot of solutions to denial of service attacks
| than to collect personal information. Plus, you know, you
| can always delete an account later? If what Signal says is
| true, then this amounts to a few records in their database
| which isn't cause for concern IMO
| OhMeadhbh wrote:
| I talked to Moxie about this 20 years ago at DefCon and he
| shrugged his shoulders and said "well... it's better than the
| alternative." He has a point. Signal is probably better than
| Facebook Messenger or SMS. Maybe there's a market for
| something better.
| Bender wrote:
| I remember listening to his talks and had some respect for
| him. He could defeat any argument about any perceived
| security regarding any facet of tech. Not so much any more.
| He knows as well as I do anything on a phone can never be
| secure. I get why he did it. That little boat needed an
| upgrade and I would do it too. Of course this topic evokes
| some serious psychological responses in most people. Wait
| for it.
| ddtaylor wrote:
| > He knows as well as I do anything on a phone can never
| be secure
|
| I assume because of the baseband stuff to be FCC
| compliant? Last I checked that meant DMA channels, etc.
| to access the real phone processor. All easily activated
| over the air.
| hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
| Any citation on this? I've never heard that.
| Bender wrote:
| There are hobbyist groups that tinker with these things.
| They are just as lazy as me and do not publish much. One
| has to find and participate in their semi-private .onion
| forums. Not my cup of tea. Most of it goes over my head
| and requires special hardware I am not interested in
| tinkering with.
| ddtaylor wrote:
| 47 CFR Part 2 and Part 15
|
| FCC devices are certified / allowed to use a spectrum,
| but you must maintain compliance. If you're a mobile
| phone manufacturer you have to be certain that if a bug
| occurs, the devices don't start becoming wifi jammers or
| anything like that.
|
| This means you need to be able to push firmware updates
| over the air (OTA). These must be signed to avoid just
| anyone to push out such an OTA.
|
| The government has a history of compelling companies to
| push out signed updates.
| Bender wrote:
| _All easily activated over the air._
|
| Indeed. The only reason this is not used by customer
| support for more casual access, firmware upgrades and
| debugging is a matter of policy and the risk of mass
| bricking phones and as such this is not exposed to them.
| There are other access avenues as well including JTAG
| debugging over USB and Bluetooth.
| causalscience wrote:
| I have no idea if that was true 20 years ago, but it's not
| true now. XMPP doesn't have this problem; your host
| instance knows your IP but you can connect via Tor.
| ddtaylor wrote:
| OTR has been on XMPP for so long now
| causalscience wrote:
| Is that good? According to the wikipedia page it seems
| last stable release was 9 years ago. Is anyone using
| that? Last time I had a look at XMPP everybody was using
| OMEMO.
| blurb4969 wrote:
| OMEMO has its own flaws too
|
| https://soatok.blog/2024/08/04/against-xmppomemo/
| ddtaylor wrote:
| Briar and Session are the better encrypted messengers.
| thunderfork wrote:
| Session lacks forward secrecy, which isn't ideal.
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| Signal's use of phone numbers is the least of your issues if
| you've reached this level of inspection. Signal could be the
| most pristine perfect thing in the world, and the traffic
| from the rest of your phone is exactly as exposing as your
| phone number is when your enemy is the US government who can
| force cooperation from the infrastructure providers.
| causalscience wrote:
| Your point is correct but irrelevant to this conversation.
|
| The question here is NOT "if Signal didn't leak your phone
| number could you still get screwed?" Of course you could,
| no one is disputing that.
|
| The question is "if you did everything else perfect, but
| use Signal could the phone number be used to screw you?"
| The answer is ALSO of course, but the reason why we're
| talking about it is that this point was made to the creator
| of Signal many many times over the years, and he dismissed
| it and his fanboys ridiculed it.
| OneDeuxTriSeiGo wrote:
| They weren't though? Signal requires a phone number to sign
| up and it is linked to your account but your phone number is
| not used in the under the hood account or device
| identification, it is not shared by default, your number can
| be entirely removed from contact disovery if you wish, and
| even if they got a warrant or were tapping signal infra
| directly, it'd be extremely non trivial to extract user phone
| numbers.
|
| https://signal.org/blog/phone-number-privacy-usernames/
|
| https://signal.org/blog/sealed-sender/
|
| https://signal.org/blog/private-contact-discovery/
|
| https://signal.org/blog/building-faster-oram/
|
| https://signal.org/blog/signal-private-group-system/
| ddtaylor wrote:
| In past instances where Signal has complied with warrants,
| such as the 2021 and 2024 Santa Clara County cases, the
| records they provided included phone numbers to identify
| the specific accounts for which data was available. This
| was necessary to specify which requested accounts
| (identified by phone numbers in the warrants) had
| associated metadata, such as account creation timestamps
| and last connection dates.
| smeej wrote:
| This was before Signal switched to a username system.
| ddtaylor wrote:
| Others mention you must still register with a phone,
| although you can remove it from your account after you go
| through the username stuff? Usually HN is pretty good
| about identifying that the default path is the path and
| that opt-out like behavior of this means very little for
| mass usage.
| OneDeuxTriSeiGo wrote:
| Yep however that only exposes a value of "last time the
| user registered/verified their account via phone number
| activation" and "last day the app connected to the signal
| servers".
|
| There isn't really anything you can do with that
| information. The first value is already accessible via
| other methods (since the phone companies carry those
| records and will comply with warrants). And for pretty
| much anyone with signal installed that second value is
| going to essentially always be the day the search
| occurred.
|
| And like another user mentioned, the most recent of those
| warrants is from the day before they moved to username
| based identification so it is unclear whether the same
| amount of data is still extractable.
| ddtaylor wrote:
| I would think being able to subpoena records for all
| active signal users would be a cause for concern.
|
| Ironically enough Reddit seems to have a pretty good take
| on this: https://www.reddit.com/r/law/comments/1qogc2g/co
| mment/o21aeh...
|
| I was genuinely surprised when I went to Reddit and saw
| that as the most voted comment on the story.
| gruez wrote:
| Which of those links actually say that your phone number is
| private from Signal? If anything, this passage makes it
| sound like it's the reverse, because they specifically call
| out usernames not being stored in plaintext, but not phone
| numbers.
|
| >We have also worked to ensure that keeping your phone
| number private from the people you speak with doesn't
| necessitate giving more personal information to Signal.
| Your username is not stored in plaintext, meaning that
| Signal cannot easily see or produce the usernames of given
| accounts.
| charliebwrites wrote:
| The steps to trouble:
|
| - identify who owns the number
|
| - compel that person to give unlocked phone
|
| - government can read messages of _all_ people in group chat
| not just that person
|
| Corollary:
|
| Disappearing messages severely limits what can be read
| SR2Z wrote:
| Unless they compel people at gunpoint (which prevents the
| government from bringing a case), they will probably not have
| much luck with this. As soon as a user sets up a passcode or
| other lock on their phone, it is beyond the ability of even
| most parts of the US government to look inside.
|
| It's much more likely that the government convinces one
| member of the group chat to turn on the other members and
| give up their phone numbers.
| pixl97 wrote:
| https://xkcd.com/538/
| janalsncm wrote:
| This is accurate, but the important point is that
| threatening people with wrenches isn't scalable in the
| way mass surveillance is.
|
| The problem with mass surveillance is the "mass" part:
| warrantless fishing expeditions.
| OhMeadhbh wrote:
| hunh. we haven't even started talking about stingray,
| tracking radios and so forth.
| fruitworks wrote:
| it is difficult to wrench someone when you do not know
| who they are
| pixl97 wrote:
| I mean they have a lot of tools to figure out who you are
| if they catch you at a rally or something like that.
| Cameras and facial identification, cell phone location
| tracking and more. What they also want is the list of
| people you're coordinating with that aren't there.
| hedayet wrote:
| or convince one member of a group chat to show their group
| chat...
| neves wrote:
| Or just let the guy to enter the country after unlocking
| her phone.
| midasz wrote:
| > which prevents the government from bringing a case
|
| Genuinely, from outside, it seems like your government
| doesn't give a damn on what they are and aren't allowed to
| do.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Looks that way from the inside as well.
| nyc_data_geek wrote:
| Yes and all of the credulous rubes still whinging about
| how they "can't imagine" how it's gotten this bad or how
| much worse it can get, or how "this is not who we are" at
| some point should no longer be taken as suckers in good
| faith, and at some point must rightly be viewed as either
| willfully complicit bad faith interlocuters, or useful
| idiots.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Learning about WWII in high school, I often wondered how
| the people allowed the Axis leaders gain power. Now I
| know. However, I feel we're worse for allowing it to
| happen because we were supposed to "never again".
| causalscience wrote:
| Worse, I often wondered how some people collaborated. Now
| I know that many people would rather have a chunk of the
| population rounded up and killed than lose their job.
| nyc_data_geek wrote:
| "Whoever can make you believe absurdities, can make you
| commit atrocities." and "It is difficult to get a man to
| understand something, when his salary depends on his not
| understanding it."
|
| etc, etc. So it goes
| nyc_data_geek wrote:
| Agreed. To see "Never Again" morphed into "Never Again
| for me, Now Again for thee" has been one of the most
| heartwrenching, sleep depriving things I've witnessed
| since some deaths in my family.
| Zak wrote:
| Watching it in real time, I still don't understand it. I
| could see how Trump won the first time around; Hillary
| Clinton was unpopular with most people outside of her
| party's leadership, but the second just seems insane. The
| kinds of things that would happen were obvious to me, and
| I am no expert.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Two party system. As many people didn't like Hillary,
| clearly there were a lot of people unhappy with
| Biden->Harris. When you don't like the current admin's
| direction and/or their party, there's only one other
| party to select. I think there were plenty of voters that
| truly did not believe this would be the result of that
| protest vote.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| Protest votes are probably overstated, I think most of it
| comes down to people staying home. Everybody in America
| already knows what side they're on, and they either vote
| for that side or not at all. Virtually all political
| messaging is either trying to moralize your side or
| demoralize the other, to manipulate the relative ratios
| of who stays home on election day.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > I think most of it comes down to people staying home
|
| Obama was able to get people motivated. Neither Biden nor
| Harris had anywhere near that motivating ability. I don't
| know that the Dems have anyone as motivating as Obama
| line up. The Dems seem to be hoping that enough people
| will be repulsed by the current admin to show up.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| Newsom is an extremely strong candidate. Vance has
| several critical vulnerabilities that can demoralize
| right wing voters if the election is handled properly,
| and the Republicans really don't have anybody else. Rubio
| maybe, but Rubio won't be able to get ahead of Vance.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Trump had more than several critical vulns as well which
| did not dissuade voters. The electorate isn't as
| predictable as many try to make it sound
| mikkupikku wrote:
| Trump was able to moralize his voters, despite his
| weaknesses, by using a kind of charisma that Vance
| utterly lacks.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| I think Vance isn't planning on using charisma, but
| violence.
| Zak wrote:
| Prior to 2020, I usually voted for third parties so I do
| understand that kind of thinking. The danger Trump
| represented was not obvious until well after he took
| office; it seemed early on like congress and
| institutional norms would restrain him. To swing the
| popular vote in the 2024 election, almost all of the
| third party votes would have needed to go to Harris, so I
| don't think that's sufficient to explain it.
|
| By the end of his first term, the danger was hard to
| miss, and the attempt to remain in power after losing the
| election should have cemented it for everyone.
|
| I was unhappy with Biden and Harris. I voted for them in
| 2020 and 2024 anyway because I understood the
| alternative.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| Not the second time, the _third_ time. Remember that
| Biden whooped Trump 's ass once and could have whooped
| his ass a second time, but the donor class (career
| retards) got cold feet when they were forced to confront
| his senility, and instead of letting the election be one
| senile old man against another senile old man, they
| replaced Biden with the archetype of an HR bitch. I hope
| nobody thinks it a coincidence that the two times Trump
| won were the two times he was up against a woman.
| Americans don't want to vote for their mother-in-law, nor
| for the head of HR. And yes, that certainly is sexist,
| but it is what it is.
|
| I just pray they run Newsom this time. Despite his "being
| from California" handicap, I think he should be able to
| easily beat Vance by simply being a handsome white man
| with a white family. Vance is critically flawed and will
| demoralize much of the far right _IFF_ his opponent doesn
| 't share those same weaknesses.
| mothballed wrote:
| They haven't for a long time, just that most of the time
| they were doing things we thought was for good (EPA,
| civil rights act, controlled substance act, etc) and we
| thereby entered a post-constitutional world to let that
| stuff slide by despite the 10th amendment limiting the
| federal powers to enumerated powers.
|
| Eventually we got used to letting the feds slide on all
| the good things to the point everything was just
| operating on slick ice, and people like Trump just pushed
| it to the next logical step which is to also use the
| post-constitutional world to his own personal advantage
| and for gross tyranny against the populace.
| ModernMech wrote:
| You have to remember that "the government" is not a
| monolith. Evidence goes before a judge who is (supposed
| to be) independent, and cases are tried in front of a
| jury of citizens. In the future that system may fall but
| for now it's working properly. Except for the Supreme
| Court... which is a giant wrench in the idea the system
| still works, but that doesn't mean a lower court judge
| won't jettison evidence obtained by gunpoint.
| cperciva wrote:
| _Evidence goes before a judge_
|
| What evidence went before a judge prior to the two latest
| executions in Minneapolis?
| gruez wrote:
| There's a pretty big difference between getting killed in
| an altercation with ICE, and executing someone just
| because they refuse to give up their password.
| short_sells_poo wrote:
| The courts may (still) be independent, but it feels like
| they are pointless because the government just wholesale
| ignores them anyway. If the executive branch doesn't
| enforce, or selectively enforces court judgements, you
| may as well shutter the courts.
| mrWiz wrote:
| All they have to do is pretend to be a concerned neighbor
| who wants to help give mutual aid and hope that someone in
| the group chat takes the bait and adds them in. No further
| convincing is needed.
| OhMeadhbh wrote:
| social engineering for the win.
| OneDeuxTriSeiGo wrote:
| If you aren't saving people's phone numbers in your own
| contacts, signal isn't storing them in group chats (and
| even if you are, it doesn't say which number, just that you
| have a contact with them).
|
| Signal doesn't share numbers by default and hasn't for a
| few years now. And you can toggle a setting to remove your
| number from contact discovery/lookup entirely if you are so
| inclined.
| xmcp123 wrote:
| There are multiple companies that can get different amounts
| of information off of locked phones including iPhones, and
| they work with LE.
|
| I'm also curious what they could get off of cloud backups.
| Thinking in terms of auth, keys, etc. For SMS it's almost
| as good as phone access, but I am not sure for apps.
| thewebguyd wrote:
| > it is beyond the ability of even most parts of the US
| government to look inside.
|
| I'm sure the Israeli spyware companies can help with that.
|
| Although then they'd have to start burning their zero days
| to just go after protestors, which I doubt they're willing
| to do. I imagine they like to save those for bigger
| targets.
| ddtaylor wrote:
| I'm confident the people executing non-complaint people in
| the street would be capable of compelling a citizen.
| mrWiz wrote:
| It's even easier than that. They're simply asking on
| neighborhood Facebook (and other services too, I assume)
| groups to be added to mutual aid Signal groups and hoping
| that somebody will add them without bothering to vet them
| first.
| OhMeadhbh wrote:
| I think disappearing messages only works if you activate it
| on your local device. And if the man compromises someone
| without everyone else knowing, they get all messages after
| that.
|
| But yes... it does limit what can be read. My point is it's
| not perfect.
| Bender wrote:
| Is the message on storage zero'd out or just deleted?
| Bender wrote:
| _compel that person to give unlocked phone_
|
| Celebrite or just JTAG over bluetooth or USB. It's always
| been a thing but legally they are not supposed to use it. _Of
| course laws after the NSA debacle are always followed. Pinky
| promise._
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| Was starting to think about setting up a neighborhood Signal
| group, but now thinking that maybe something like Briar might
| be safer... only problem is that Briar only works on Android
| which is going to exclude a lot of iPhone users.
| jaxefayo wrote:
| What about BitChat?
| adolph wrote:
| Why wouldn't you just use random abandoned forums or web
| article message threads? Iirc this is what teenagers used to
| do when schools banned various social media but not devices.
| Just put the URL in a discrete qr code that only a person in
| the neighborhood could see.
| bsimpson wrote:
| I spent a dozen years in SF, where my friend circles
| routinely used Signal. It's my primary messaging app,
| including to family and childhood friends.
|
| I live in NY now. Just today, I got a message from a close
| friend who also did SF->NY "I'm deleting Signal to get more
| space on my phone, because nobody here uses it. Find me on
| WhatsApp or SMS."
|
| To a naive audience, Signal can have a stigma "I don't do
| anything illegal, so why should I bother maintaining yet-
| another messenger whose core competency is private
| messaging?" Signal is reasonably mainstream, and there are
| still a lot of people who won't use it.
|
| I suspect you'll have an uphill battle using something even
| more obscure.
| bs7280 wrote:
| A wise man told me, you know signal works because its banned in
| Russia. I also find it incredibly ironic that they have a problem
| with this, when the DoD is flagrantly using signal for classified
| communications.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| The DOD is not using "flagrantly using Signal." The Secretary
| of Defense, whatever his preferred pronouns are, is breaking
| the law.
| kodyo wrote:
| CISA recommended Signal for encrypted end-to-end
| communications for "highly targeted individuals."
|
| https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/2024-12/guidance-
| mo...
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Recommendations to the private sector don't condone
| violating security and retention laws for people working in
| the public sector.
| sedivy94 wrote:
| Military personnel are currently only allowed to use
| Signal for mobile communications within their unit.
| Classified information is a different story, though.
| Cornbilly wrote:
| The best part is that, in trying to comply with this
| guidance, the government chose Telemessage to provide the
| message archiving required by the Federal Records Act.
|
| The only problem is that Telemessage was wildly insecure
| and was transmitting/storing message archives without any
| encryption.
| thomasrognon wrote:
| Come on, man. We're talking about classified information,
| not general OPSEC advice. I worked in a SCIF. Literally
| every piece of equipment, down to each ethernet cable, has
| a sticker with its authorized classification level. This
| system exists for a reason, like making it impossible to
| accidently leak information to an uncleared contact in your
| personal phone. What Hegseth did (and is doing?) is
| illegal. It doesn't even matter what app is used.
| cyberge99 wrote:
| You know it works because they banned it in Russia? Works for
| whom?
| NewsaHackO wrote:
| Yes, at best it implies _Russia_ cannot easily get
| confidential information from them. Everyone else, the jury
| is still out for.
| jjk166 wrote:
| There aren't a lot of things I would claim Russia is a
| leader in, but state sponsored hacking and spying on its
| own people would both definitely make the list. That's not
| to say no one has cracked it, but if the Russians couldn't
| do it there aren't many who could.
| joekrill wrote:
| They aren't taking issue with Signal, per se... they are upset
| that people are sharing the whereabouts and movements of ICE
| officers. Signal just seems to be the medium-of-choice. And
| this just happens to give them a chance to declare Signal as
| "bad", since they can't spy on Signal en masse.
| OhMeadhbh wrote:
| Sure, but using Signal for classified info is a violation of
| policy.
| huhtenberg wrote:
| It doesn't mean much. Roblox is banned in Russia.
|
| They've been just gradually banning everything not made in
| Russia.
| bsimpson wrote:
| My personal connections who are in the military use it for
| texting from undisclosed locations.
|
| I've heard from people who have worked with the Signal
| foundation that it was close to being endorsed for private
| communication by one branch of government, but that endorsement
| was rescinded because another branch didn't want people knowing
| how to stay private.
| iamnothere wrote:
| I have seen anti-Signal FUD all over the place since it was
| discovered that protesters have been coordinating on Signal.
|
| Here's the facts:
|
| - Protesters have been coordinating using Signal
|
| - Breaches of private Signal groups by journalists and counter
| protesters were due to poor opsec and vetting
|
| - If the feds have an eye into those groups, it's likely that
| they gained access in the same way as well as through informants
| (which are common)
|
| - Signal is still known to be secure
|
| - In terms of potential compromise, it's much more likely for
| feds to use spyware like Pegasus to compromise the endpoint than
| for them to be able to break Signal. If NSA has a Signal
| vulnerability they will probably use it very sparingly and on
| high profile foreign targets.
|
| - The fact that even casual third parties can break into these
| groups because of opsec issues shows that encryption is not a
| panacea. People will always make mistakes, so the fact that
| secure platforms exist is not a threat in itself, and legal
| backdoors are not needed.
| cyberge99 wrote:
| Feds and ICE are using Palantir ELITE.
| iamnothere wrote:
| That's only for targeting. From what I understand ELITE does
| not include device compromise or eavesdropping. If feds want
| to compromise a device that has Signal, they would use
| something like Pegasus that uses exploits to deliver a
| spyware package, likely through SMS, Whatsapp, or spear
| phishing URL. (I don't actually know which software is
| currently in use but it would be similar to Pegasus.)
| lugu wrote:
| As mentioned by someone else, they just need to take the
| phone of a demonstrator to access their signal groups.
|
| https://freedom.press/digisec/blog/new-leaks-on-police-
| phone...
| iamnothere wrote:
| True, physical interception is probably the easiest
| method, at least for short term access. Once the captured
| user is identified and removed from the group they will
| lose access though.
| biophysboy wrote:
| The downside of opsec is that it breeds paranoia and fear about
| legal, civic participation. In a way, bullshit investigations
| like this are an intimidation tactic. What are they going to
| find - a bunch of Minnesotans that were mad about state-backed
| killings?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| I've never seen a set of voluntary fall guys like Noem, Patel and
| Miller. (And Hegseth for when a military operation fails.)
| metalliqaz wrote:
| Miller is not the fall guy. The other clowns, yes, but not him.
| He's the most hard-core fascist in the bunch.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| I don't know if I'd classify Noem as a patsy or fall gal,
| either.
|
| When you mention an anecdote about shooting a hunting dog in
| your autobiography, that shows something beyond just being a
| "true believer" or stooge. That is willingly pointing out
| that you are willing to act out your lack of empathy through
| violence towards an animal.
|
| I'm not a clinician (and haven't met Noem) but that just
| seems to me to be something indicative of a personality
| disorder.
| xmcp123 wrote:
| Noem strikes me as a loyalist and a team player through and
| through, so probably a fall gal.
|
| Miller is different. He has his own agenda, a lot of which
| has becomes trumps agenda. But trumps agenda changing does
| not change what Miller's agenda is.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Trump has loyalty only to himself and in his first term
| was constantly throwing people under the bus after he
| decided they were a liability to the Main Character.
|
| I could imagine we'll see the same thing again, before or
| after the midterms, and Miller and Bessent are two I
| expect to see have a dethroning at some point simply on
| account of Trump never taking responsibility for
| anything.
|
| That and I've seen both try to speak "on behalf" of
| Trump, something the authoritarian personality doesn't
| appreciate.
|
| However some of that logic is based on 1st round Trump
| not being as senile and insane as 2nd round Trump. It's
| possible his weakening cognitive faculties have made him
| even more open to manipulation.
| metalliqaz wrote:
| From the outside it seems like he is so far gone that his
| inner circle is actually making all the decisions now.
| xmcp123 wrote:
| Honestly Miller strikes me different. It's not
| coincidence he's survived so long.
|
| He's not an idiot. He knows how much damage he can absorb
| and how to position himself to not take more than that.
| He never positions himself as the implementation person
| who will take the hits. He's the idea guy, and the
| manipulator/cheerleader. He doesn't seem to expect trump
| to take care of him for his loyalty, so he doesn't
| position himself to require it.
|
| I think ultimately he won't be thrown under the bus
| because his relationship with Trump is mutually
| beneficial, and they both see it as transactional. For
| both of them, the other is a means to an end. Soul mates
| in hell I guess.
| spprashant wrote:
| She's an opportunist. For someone like her to be nationally
| relevant they have to latch onto MAGA and embrace the
| crazy. See MTG, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| To me, those people you list are absolutely opportunists,
| but there's just something different about Noem. Like
| they're hedonists who are engaging in a grift and know
| that they have to sling arrows that will own the libs in
| order to keep the gravy train rolling. MTG seems to have,
| at least for a while a few months ago, found her limit on
| what she'll put up with. Gaetz had at least enough
| shame/self-awareness to realize that his continued career
| was untenable at the time he was being considered for AG.
| Boebert's the girl who told your science teacher to go
| fuck himself when he caught her smoking behind the high
| school gym with her age-inappropriate boyfriend.
|
| Maybe I'm just really hung up on the dog thing, but that
| is the crux of it. There's basically no one who hears a
| story of shooting a dog for misbehaving and thinks,
| "yeah, that'll show the libs". That's not a story out of
| a politician's biography as much as it is a story out of
| a book profiling a serial killer's childhood.
|
| 71% of American households have pets [0] and there's a
| good chance that those who _don 't_ have had at least one
| in the past. There was absolutely no benefit to including
| that in the book, and I'd be stunned if the publisher
| didn't at least try to talk her out of putting it in
| there, given her political ambitions. If they didn't try
| to get it cut, they didn't do their jobs; if she ignored
| them, then she really does display a tendency to take
| pride in behavior that is recognized across the political
| spectrum in American society as cruel and antisocial.
|
| She genuinely gives me the creeps.
|
| [0] https://worldanimalfoundation.org/advocate/pet-
| ownership-sta...
| ourmandave wrote:
| Every one is a potential fall guy except the King. First sign
| you're a liability and under the bus you go. And unless you're
| on Truth Social you're usually the last to know.
| OutOfHere wrote:
| https://www.phreeli.com/ lets people use phones without revealing
| identity.
| gruez wrote:
| Not sure what the point of the service is. Given that it's more
| expensive than other MVNOs, and isn't even more private. You
| can still buy prepaid SIMs in store with cash, so it's harder
| to get more private than that. Not to mention this company asks
| for your zip+4 code (which identifies down to a specific
| street), and information for E-911. It's basically like Trump
| Mobile but for people who care about "privacy".
| dang wrote:
| Url changed from https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-
| show/maddowblog/kash-patel-..., which points to this.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| I'd be curious to know what they plan to charge people with.
| netsharc wrote:
| Jaywalking, misappropriating funds during a renovation?
| Whatever the police state wants...
| Pwntastic wrote:
| domestic terrorism, of course
| missingcolours wrote:
| Presumably Seditious Conspiracy, like many people involved in
| J6. Conspiracy to use force to prevent or delay enforcement of
| laws.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| Or, at the very least, what they want to try to convince a
| grand jury to indict people on.
|
| That's another angle that needs to be discussed more often with
| respect to Trump's DoJ: if you're impaneled on a grand jury for
| charges coming out of these investigations, you don't have to
| give them a bill.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I hope they're just looking for foreign influence I'm not sure
| what you could charge peaceful protestors with that would
| survive in court.
| hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
| They don't need to if they just shoot them on the street.
| adrr wrote:
| Terrorism seems to be their default claim if you're against the
| Trump admin.
| mycodendral wrote:
| 18 U.S.C. SS 372 -- Conspiracy to impede or injure officer
|
| If two or more persons in any State, Territory, Possession, or
| District conspire to prevent, by force, intimidation, or
| threat, any person from accepting or holding any office, trust,
| or place of confidence under the United States, or from
| discharging any duties thereof, or to induce by like means any
| officer of the United States to leave the place where his
| duties as an officer are required to be performed, or to injure
| him in his person or property on account of his lawful
| discharge of the duties of his office, or while engaged in the
| lawful discharge thereof, or to injure his property so as to
| molest, interrupt, hinder, or impede him in the discharge of
| his official duties, each of such persons shall be fined under
| this title or imprisoned not more than six years, or both.
|
| Federal felony
| nkohari wrote:
| > by force, intimidation, or threat
|
| You seem to be glossing over the key piece of that statute.
| Peaceful protest is protected by the first amendment (free
| speech, right to assembly).
| advisedwang wrote:
| The article subhead implies obstruction of justice.
| jihadjihad wrote:
| Coming soon, treason.
| mothballed wrote:
| I heard a totally unsubstantiated rumor that the participants
| were sending (ICE agent) plate numbers to people with NCIC
| access to run the plates. If that's the case it would be a
| pretty easy felony charge for all involved.
|
| I have no reason to believe that's true, just what word on the
| street was they might be charged with.
| sjsdaiuasgdia wrote:
| If you have no reason to believe it's true, and understand
| the rumor to be unsubstantiated, why bother to spread it?
| mothballed wrote:
| Because the question was what they might be charged with,
| not what they did.
|
| Did you expect the government to charge people in good
| faith? It doesn't matter it if it's true or not, even
| putting them in the slammer for a long time while awaiting
| trial and forcing them to hire expensive attorneys is a
| win.
| sjsdaiuasgdia wrote:
| No, I don't expect the Trump administration to operate in
| good faith.
|
| The post you replied to didn't ask what they might be
| charged with. It asked what they "plan" to charge.
|
| And you replied with internet rumor nonsense. It's
| actually fine to say "I don't know" or simply not reply
| at all when someone asks a question to which you do not
| have an answer.
| cdrnsf wrote:
| Not voting for them.
| cdrnsf wrote:
| They're going to give this more scrutiny than they did to Hegseth
| leaking sensitive government information.
| hedayet wrote:
| With all the predatory tech Palantir has produced, it won't take
| more than a few minutes for FBI to start taking actions, _IF_
| they had anything tangible.
|
| This is just an intimidation tactic to stop people talking
| (chatting)
| jatora wrote:
| Is it? Seems like enforcing laws to protect the citizens of law
| enforcement from vigilante justice isnt something governments
| should or do mess around with, in general.
| nyc_data_geek wrote:
| Seems like citizens are the ones who need protection from law
| and immigration enforcement, considering the public
| executions we've all witnessed in the past week or so.
| janalsncm wrote:
| While we're getting rid of the first amendment maybe we
| should also get rid of the fourth and fifth amendment too
| since they make law enforcement harder? I'm sure cops in
| North Korea have a much easier and safer job.
| jjk166 wrote:
| Can't argue with their 110% conviction rate, North Korean
| tactics work.
| OhMeadhbh wrote:
| You only have rights you exercise. Don't let the cops
| trample on your rights. Though... this does seem to work
| better for white, rich, older dudes than for other people.
| janalsncm wrote:
| I'm reminded of (I think) people in Shanghai complaining
| that their posts about covid lockdowns were censored,
| saying "we have free speech". And if you believe in
| universal rights, they're right. They do.
|
| The question is whether the government will respect and
| protect those rights or not.
| awesome_dude wrote:
| The whole premise of the second amendment is about citizens
| being armed in order to resist/overthrow a government
| OhMeadhbh wrote:
| [citation needed]
| ceejayoz wrote:
| It's not exactly an unusual claim, and it was very much
| the _loudly_ espoused position of the Republican Party
| until, well, last week.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_Uni
| ted...
|
| > In Federalist No. 46, Madison wrote how a federal army
| could be kept in check by the militia, "a standing army
| ... would be opposed [by] militia." He argued that State
| governments "would be able to repel the danger" of a
| federal army, "It may well be doubted, whether a militia
| thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a
| proportion of regular troops." He contrasted the federal
| government of the United States to the European kingdoms,
| which he described as "afraid to trust the people with
| arms"...
| hollandheese wrote:
| This was posited as the nice sounding reason for the
| second amendment, when the more accurate reason was to
| ensure citizens had guns to drive out the indigenous
| peoples and steal their lands.
|
| We rather quickly saw the federal government rolling over
| the people even with weapons in the Whiskey Rebellion.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I don't disagree.
|
| But it's still very funny seeing the Right wrestle with
| "wait, the other team has guns?!" and "wait, Trump sounds
| like he wants gun control?!" right now when this claim
| has been the basis of their argument for decades.
| hollandheese wrote:
| Yeah, it is quite funny.
| awesome_dude wrote:
| To be fair, the right struggle with the argument every
| time it's put to the test.
|
| I recall the 2016 shootings of Dallas Police Officers and
| the right were apoplectic about the individual
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micah_Xavier_Johnson
| moogly wrote:
| They wrestled with it for about 5 minutes, then got the
| memo, shrugged and resumed to deep-throat the boot.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Don't forget the very profound usefulness of a "well-
| armed militia" in putting down slave rebellions and
| catching escaped slaves.
| hollandheese wrote:
| No, it's citizens being armed to steal native land and kill
| the natives.
| cucumber3732842 wrote:
| Citation please?
| bluescrn wrote:
| Of course, if you're taking up arms to resist/overthrow a
| government, then you should be entirely anticipating that
| the government will shoot back. Or shoot first.
|
| If protest is approaching/crossing the line into
| insurgency, people need to seriously consider that they may
| be putting their life on the line. It's not a game.
| awesome_dude wrote:
| I'm pretty sure that if people are taking up arms to
| resist their government, things have already gone far
| enough down that path that they feel their lives are in
| jeopardy.
|
| Just this week there were Catholic PRIESTS who were
| advised to draw up their last will and testament if they
| were going to resist ICE in Minneapolis
| https://www.npr.org/2026/01/18/nx-s1-5678579/ice-clashes-
| new...
|
| How can you think it's a "game'?
| nielsbot wrote:
| If ICE agents were actually in danger or subject to
| "vigilante justice", the administration would be CROWING
| about it SO LOUDLY we'd never hear the end of it. They're
| spending their entire working days searching for evidence of
| it. They can't hardly wait!
|
| That's not what is happening here.
| filoeleven wrote:
| s/searching for/manufacturing
|
| Remember, they're accusing the people they killed of
| heinous motives for their narrative. They can't find it, so
| they make it up. Keep filming, y'all.
| lovich wrote:
| "Citizens of law enforcement"
|
| What a phrase
| crystal_revenge wrote:
| I'm never sure why people assume that Palantir is magically
| unlike the overwhelming majority of tech startups/companies
| I've worked at: vastly over promising what is possible to
| create hype and value while offering things engineering knows
| will never really quite work like they're advertised.
|
| To your point, but on a larger scale, over hyping Palantir has
| the added benefit of providing a chilling effect on public
| resistance.
|
| As a former government employee I had the same reaction to the
| Snowden leaks: sure the government might be collecting all of
| this (which I don't support), but I've never seen the
| government efficiently action on any data they have collected.
|
| Incompetence might be the greatest safety we have against a
| true dystopia.
| OhMeadhbh wrote:
| lol. came here to say pretty much the same thing.
| forshaper wrote:
| I've generally held this position, but assume a sufficient
| combination of models could do a lot more than was possible
| before.
| blurbleblurble wrote:
| Incompetence could also be incredibly dangerous given enough
| destructive willpower.
|
| https://www.thenation.com/article/world/nsa-palantir-
| israel-...
| GuinansEyebrows wrote:
| doing Bad Things poorly is still doing Bad Things.
| newsclues wrote:
| Because palantirs selling proposition is: you can't find the
| answers in your own data, but we can.
| roenxi wrote:
| > ... I've never seen the government efficiently action on
| any data they have collected.
|
| It isn't usually a question of efficiency, it is a question
| of damage. Technically there is an argument that something
| like the holocaust was inefficiently executed, but still a
| good reason to actively prevent governments having ready-to-
| use data on hand about people's ethnic origin.
|
| A lot of the same observations probably apply to the ICE
| situation too. One of the big problems with the mass-
| migration programs has always been that there is no
| reasonable way to undo that sort of thing because it is far
| too risky for the government to be primed to identify and
| deport large groups of people. For all the fire and thunder
| the Trump administration probably isn't going to accomplish
| very much, but at great cost.
| propaganja wrote:
| They're not trying to use the data to act efficiently (or in
| the public good for that matter), and they sure as fuck don't
| want you to see it. They're trying to make sure that they
| have dirt on anyone who becomes their enemy in the future.
| asdfman123 wrote:
| If they throw out things like due process and reasonable
| doubt they can do a whole lot with the data they've
| collected.
|
| That may sound hyperbolic but I hope it's obvious to most
| people by now that it's not.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| > I've never seen the government efficiently action on any
| data they have collected.
|
| Someone else on HN said it would be nice if the NSA published
| statistics or something, data so aggregate you couldn't
| determine much from it, but still tells you "holy shit they
| prevented something crazy" levels of information, harder said
| than done without revealing too much.
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| >I've never seen the government efficiently action on any
| data they have collected.
|
| As a former intelligence officer with combat time I promise
| you there are A LOT of actions happening based on that data.
| OhMeadhbh wrote:
| Meh. Palintir is optimized to sell data to the government. Said
| governments usually don't care about the quality of data about
| any one individual. Wear sunglasses when you go out and stay
| off facebook and it's amazing how little palintir signal you
| send up. Bonus points if you created an LLC to pay your utility
| bills. But... Palintir is not as good as you seem to be
| implying.
| subscribed wrote:
| Oh, you don't need to have Facebook account to have a very
| comprehensive and accurate profile:
| https://www.howtogeek.com/768652/what-are-facebook-shadow-
| pr...
| mikkupikku wrote:
| How does Palantir defeat Signal's crypto? I suppose it could be
| done by pwning everybody's phones, but Palantir mostly does
| surveillance AFAIK, I haven't heard of them getting into the
| phone hacking business. I think Israeli corps have that market
| covered.
| blurbleblurble wrote:
| It doesn't, they're infiltrating the groups and/or gaining
| access to peoples' phones in other ways.
| fudged71 wrote:
| It's noteworthy at this point in time that there is a
| contradiction. The government is currently ramping up Palantir
| and they are using "precise targeting" of illegal aliens using
| "advanced data/algorithms". And yet, at the very same time we
| are seeing time and time again that ICE/DHS agents are finding
| the wrong people, seemingly going to any house
| indescriminently, and generally profiling people instead of
| using any intelligence whatsoever.
|
| Maybe now is exactly the right time to publicly call out the
| _apparent_ uselessness of Palantir before they _fully_ deploy
| their high altitude loitering blimps and drones for pervasive
| surveillance and tracking protestors to their homes.
|
| (My greater theory is that the slide into authoritarianism is
| not linear, but rather has a hump in the middle where
| government speech and actions are necessarily opposite, and
| that they expect the contradiction to slide. Calling out the
| contradiction is one of the most important things to do for
| people to see what is going on.)
| larkost wrote:
| I think this is mostly because they don't care about false-
| negatives. They have forgotten the idea that our justice
| system was supposed to hold true to: "better a hundred guilty
| go free than one innocent person suffer" (attributed to
| Benjamin Franklin).
|
| This can be seen in the case of ChongLy Thao, the American
| citizen (who was born in Laos). This was the man dragged out
| into freezing temperatures in his underwear after ICE knocked
| down his door (without a warrant), because they thought two
| other men (of Thai origin I think) were living there. The ICE
| agents attitude was that they must be living there, and
| ChongLy was hiding them. That being wrong does not cost those
| ICE agents anything, and that is the source of the problems.
| ryandrake wrote:
| > And yet, at the very same time we are seeing time and time
| again that ICE/DHS agents are finding the wrong people,
| seemingly going to any house indescriminently, and generally
| profiling people instead of using any intelligence
| whatsoever.
|
| If the end goal is that the broad, general public are
| intimidated, then they're not necessarily "finding the wrong
| people." With the current "semi random" enforcement with many
| false positives, nobody feels safe, regardless of their legal
| status. This looks to be the goal: Intimidate everyone.
|
| If they had a 100% true positive rate and a 0% false positive
| rate, the general population would not feel terrorized.
| OhMeadhbh wrote:
| Couple of minor nits:
|
| 1. Some rando on X saying "OMG! I infiltrated a lefty signal
| group" doesn't mean said rando actually did infiltrate a signal
| group.
|
| 2. Signal was not the app Hegseth, et al. used. They used TM
| SGNL, which is a fork of Signal. But that's a minor nit.
|
| 3. Encryption is not the same thing as authentication. And
| authentication is somewhat meaningless if you let everyone into
| your encrypted group chat.
| nextlevelwizard wrote:
| Anyone organizing your neighborhood and events keep inner
| circle chats to only people you have personally vetted and use
| a new group chat for every event/topic and delete the groups
| for past events.
|
| Be mindful of what you share in a big group chat where you
| don't know everyone
| soupfordummies wrote:
| Oh wow this article contains "ICE" in the title and isn't flagged
| yet!
| chinathrow wrote:
| The FBI should investigate the murders done by ICE and until done
| with that, remain silent.
| hollandheese wrote:
| The police (FBI and ICE included) are never your friends. They
| work to protect the rich and powerful and not us.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| Cynical responses like this are meant to make the speaker
| sound smart, but actually what you're doing is making further
| tyranny more likely, because you're deliberately overlooking
| that-- whatever the existing problems with the FBI-- there
| _is_ a significant difference between their behavior now and
| their behavior before.
|
| Not even bothering to run the established investigation
| playbook when law enforcement kills a civilian is a major
| departure, and one worth noticing. But if all you do is go
| "same old same old", then you can safely lean back in your
| chair and do nothing as the problem worsens, while calling
| yourself so much smarter and more insightful than the people
| around you.
| SauciestGNU wrote:
| Furthermore, going back as far as I remember, if you take
| part in a protest the police personally disagree with they
| will use violence against you regardless of your
| occupation.
| Cornbilly wrote:
| I would disagree to a certain extent. "Law enforcement is
| not your friend" is a good mindset as a citizen. You should
| never hand them information without a lawyer and you should
| always push for oversight.
|
| I agree that the "same at it ever was and always will be"
| attitude isn't great. It's defeatist and I choose not to
| live my life that way, even if it would be much easier
| mentally.
|
| I think part of the reason I see this attitude so often is
| that, especially since 9/11, a large portion of the US
| population has decided that the police and military are
| infallible and should be trusted completely, so any large-
| scale attempt at reform runs into these unwavering
| supporters (and, in the case of the police, their unions).
| throwaway-11-1 wrote:
| cmon man seriously?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_letter?wprov
| =...
|
| https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-
| opinion/newb...
| krapp wrote:
| The only significant difference is that law enforcement is
| treating white people the way they've always treated
| everyone else. Which is a difference in degree, but not
| character.
| cucumber3732842 wrote:
| They've always treated white nationalists and other
| weirdos like this. I mean, the whole "any infraction is a
| grounds for execution" ROE is very reminiscent of Ruby
| Ridge, for example.
|
| But the kind of white people we have here have never
| really had anything in common with those people so now
| that the Feds are coming after people of the sort of
| political persuasion they identify with for the first
| time since, the 1970s it "feels" like they're just now
| going after white people.
| mindslight wrote:
| I guess nothing matters and there's no point to expecting
| any sort of justice from the system. And at least now I
| can laugh at _those other people_ being hurt. ( </s>)
| cess11 wrote:
| By before, what do you mean? COINTELPRO?
| Analemma_ wrote:
| This is exactly my point. Yes, COINTELPRO was really bad.
| But it was intelligence and disruption, they weren't
| executing people on the street and then bragging about
| how they'd get away with it. Do you not see the
| difference?
| baq wrote:
| Nothing cynical, that's just the truth. They're called law
| enforcement for a reason, not emergency hugs.
|
| Whether they behave like civilized people or like thugs
| should be besides the point regardless of your political
| leaning in the matter of the system. Naturally from a basic
| human perspective civilized law enforcement is much more
| preferable than the alternative, but they aren't your
| friends!
| asdfman123 wrote:
| Software engineers are definitely among the class of people
| protected by the police
| smrtinsert wrote:
| There is no protected class from malevolent government.
| Everyone from oligarchs down to the have nots can be
| targets. Let's not keep relearning that lesson.
| throwawaygmbno wrote:
| Depends on the race of the engineer. If you're gay or live
| in a blue city/state then you also lose your protection
| tehjoker wrote:
| It's conditional on whether you are affirming the opinions
| of your employer or oppositional
| cucumber3732842 wrote:
| They work to protect the government. Now, for peasants there
| isn't much of a distinction, but the rich and powerful would
| do well to remember it.
| epistasis wrote:
| And importantly the DoJ attorneys who would be responsible for
| investigating g the murders _resigned_ because they were
| prevented from performing the standard procedure investigation
| that happens after every single shooting. They were instead
| directed to investigate the family of the person who was shot:
|
| https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/nyt-6-federal-prosecutor...
|
| We are through the looking glass, folks. This will be dropped
| and ignored like so many other outrages unless we demand
| answers from Congress, and hold SCOTUS responsible for partisan
| abdication of their constitutional duties.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| If those shooters don't get presidential pardons, they're
| going to get prosecuted sooner or later. No statute of
| limitations for murder, right?
| mothballed wrote:
| That depends, the civil service has a lot of leverage
| because most of them cannot easily be fired. And POTUS
| needs the civil service to execute his policy goals so his
| fellow party members and possibly himself can get re-
| elected.
|
| Therefore there is considerable leverage for allied
| servants to form an alliance that more or less offers their
| allegiance in exchange for non-prosecution. I would expect
| especially DHS to basically become a non-functional (or
| even seditious) department if they prosecute those guys and
| they could purposefully make the president look bad by
| making his security apparatus look incompetent.
| DFHippie wrote:
| > the civil service has a lot of leverage because most of
| them cannot easily be fired
|
| Unless, as Doge showed us, you ignore the law, fire them
| anyway, and the SCOTUS says, "Yeah, whatever."
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Therefore there is considerable leverage for allied
| servants to form an alliance that more or less offers
| their allegiance in exchange for non-prosecution.
|
| Won't help if the prosecuting sovereignty isn't the one
| they work for (state vs federal charges.)
|
| Also won't work if the agency is disbanded and they are
| dismissed _en masse_ before the prosecution happens.
| wizardforhire wrote:
| But pardons only apply to federal crimes... murder is a
| state offense.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Correct, state charges are mostly pardon proof and there
| is no statute of limitations on murder.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Well, they are entirely _Presidential_ pardon proof, but
| each state usually has its own pardon provisions.
| Unlikely to benefit ICE agents as a broad class in any of
| the places where conflicts over their role are currently
| prominent, though.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Presidential pardons have no impact and their liability for
| state-law murder charges (though federal seizure of crime
| scenes and destruction of evidence might, in practice.)
| donkeybeer wrote:
| That's straight up corrupt third world country stuff.
| lateforwork wrote:
| It is going to get a lot worse. Trump's eventual goal is to
| send the military to all Democrat-controlled cities. Back
| in September Trump gathered military leaders in a room and
| told them America is under "invasion from within". He said:
| "This is going to be a major part for some of the people in
| this room. That's a war too. It's a war from within."
| xnx wrote:
| "Sh*thole countries" was projection
| lateforwork wrote:
| > _unless we demand answers from Congress, and hold SCOTUS
| responsible for partisan abdication of their constitutional
| duties._
|
| You can demand answers from Congress, but until a significant
| portion of the GOP base demands answers, they are just going
| to ignore your demands. As of now 39% of Americans support
| the administration. Also, you can't hold SCOTUS responsible,
| only Congress can.
| xeonmc wrote:
| > Also, you can't hold SCOTUS responsible, only Congress
| can.
|
| Until the population becomes disgruntled enough to
| Wolfenstein those involved, that is.
| epistasis wrote:
| Currently they are attempting to strip our second
| amendment rights. They murdered a man in the street, from
| hands up to shit in the back in under 20 seconds, merely
| for lawful possession and in direct violation of the 2nd
| amendment. The President is bumbling around today
| mumbling "you can't bring a gun to a protest" when yes
| the 2nd amendment directly allows that.
|
| A lot of people that care a lot about the 2nd amendment
| saw the photo of Pretti's gun on the ICE rental car seat,
| and they saw a well-used, well-cared-for weapon that was
| clean and seen a lot time at the range. They saw that it
| can happen to somebody just like them.
| touwer wrote:
| The US is not a democracy anymore. Only one year in
| aa_is_op wrote:
| Apparently that's what you get when you elect a pedo scam
| artist backed by Russian troll farms
|
| Who would have thought it
| clcaev wrote:
| With every resignation, the ranks are purged of those unloyal
| to Trump.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Maybe they should subscribe to some of the top secret Signal
| chats that Trump Administration officials use to exchange memes
| and discuss military invasions, or the White Supremacist Young
| Republican Signal chats where they praise Hitler and say the
| N-word.
| jorblumesea wrote:
| Kash thinks Trump should be king, there will be no
| introspection or proper investigations. He was put into that
| position of power for exactly that reason. No comey or Mueller
| investigations.
| dashundchen wrote:
| In case anyone thinks you're kidding, Kash Patel's embarssing
| sychophancy includes publishing a election denial children's
| "book" portraying Trump as a king and himself as a hero.
|
| 51 senators voted to confirm this unqualified moron to lead
| the top law enforcement agency.
| jorblumesea wrote:
| It's literally not a joke, probably the most egregious
| example of a completely unqualified doormat that will do
| whatever dear leader wants. It's also by design, no
| roadblocks for the fanta menace.
| throw0101a wrote:
| "For my friends everything, for my enemies the law" -- Oscar R.
| Benavides
| dolphinscorpion wrote:
| They will, one day. No statute of limitations on murder.
| I-M-S wrote:
| Biology is definitely a limit.
| mrandish wrote:
| I suspect they're going to find it challenging to turn protected
| speech into something prosecutable like obstruction - assuming
| activists exercise even a modicum of care in their wording. Seems
| like just another intimidation tactic but in doing that, they've
| also given a heads-up to their targets.
| nextlevelwizard wrote:
| Considering ICE is executing people in the streets and were
| already breaking laws before this something little like free
| speech won't help
| hypeatei wrote:
| I'm convinced all this talk around Signal, including Hegseths
| fuckup, is to discourage "normies" (for lack of a better term)
| from using it. Even in this very HN thread, where you'd expect
| technical nuance, there are people spreading FUD around the phone
| number requirement as if that'd be your downfall... a timestamp
| and a phone number? How would that get someone convicted in
| court?
| pjc50 wrote:
| They don't have to get a conviction if they know your address
| and have a gun.
| sschueller wrote:
| Interesting, this may result in showing how secure signal really
| is.
| tbrownaw wrote:
| > _Patel said he got the idea for the investigation from Higby._
|
| This is confirmation that this _wasn 't_ being investigated until
| just now. This is surprising, I would have thought that "how are
| these people organizing" would have been an obvious thing to look
| into.
| kergonath wrote:
| > I would have thought that "how are these people organizing"
| would have been an obvious thing to look into.
|
| You assume competence. Have you heard (or heard of) Kash Patel?
| LastTrain wrote:
| Why is it so obvious to you to investigate something that is
| perfectly legal?
| mtswish wrote:
| The current bias is so large for the administration that most
| people haven't even clocked that what they are doing is legal
| plagiarist wrote:
| The FBI should investigate the first item in the Bill of Rights.
| nextlevelwizard wrote:
| Three letter agencies do three letter agency things
| bsimpson wrote:
| > "You cannot create a scenario that illegally entraps and puts
| law enforcement in harm's way"
|
| Remember when words, at least usually, meant things?
| bigyabai wrote:
| I remember a time when people were better at lying, at least.
| oceansky wrote:
| This sounds like IMAX level projection
| CMay wrote:
| It's not illegal to track law enforcement, but if any of their
| still visible chats show intent it will hurt them. They'll also
| want to find out how many people in the group chat are outside of
| the US, if any money was being exchanged, etc.
|
| Hopefully they can unwind these groups, because it's just pitting
| people against law enforcement who have no idea what they're up
| against. They don't seem to have a sense for when they have gone
| beyond protesting and have broken the law. There's this culture
| about them, like protesting means they are immune to law.
|
| If this all ties back to funded groups who are then misinforming
| these people about how they should behave to increase the chance
| of escalatory events with the knowledge that it will increase the
| chance of these inflammatory political highlights to maximize
| rage, it won't surprise me.
|
| If they want to follow ICE around and protest them, fine, but
| that's not what they're doing. These people are standing or
| parking their cars in front of their vehicles and blocking them.
| They'll also stand in front of the street exits to prevents their
| vehicles from leaving parking lots and so on. They refuse to
| move, so they have to be removed by force, because they are
| breaking the law. Some people are just trying to get arrested to
| waste ICE's time, and it's particularly bad because Minneapolis
| police won't help ICE.
|
| A lot of video recordings don't even start until AFTER they've
| already broken the law, so all you end up seeing is ICE reacting.
|
| Any time someone dies, there'll have to be an investigation to
| sort out what happened. Maybe the ICE officer made a mistake, but
| let the evidence be presented. Being that this is Minneapolis,
| hopefully they do a better job than the George Floyd case. I
| absolutely recommend you watch the entire Fall of Minneapolis
| documentary to get a better sense for what the country may be
| increasingly up against in multiple states:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFPi3EigjFA
| cantalopes wrote:
| Its really sad to see what kind of bottomless pit has the usa
| gotten into after that lunatic got into presidency. Years of
| effort burned by one fsb agent
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2026-01-27 23:00 UTC)