How the FBI uses laws to spy on foreign terrorists to spy on you

How the FBI uses laws to spy on foreign terrorists to spy on you(thehill.com)

41 points by cascom 3 years ago | 18 comments

I guess we had better call law enforcement to get the FBI prosecuted, and get them to start following the law. Who do we call? Certainly not the FBI.

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?

dontbenebby 3 years ago | |

> I guess we had better call law enforcement to get the FBI prosecuted, and get them to start following the law. Who do we call? Certainly not the FBI.

>Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?

I don't speak latin, so I can't respond to your second point, but part of why I have been posting so anxiously lately is because I actually was groomed to join them, but decided not to due to all the illegal behavior.

Right when I was close to reconsidering, since I have a genuine interest in defensive cyber stuff + counter intel (in a nonpolitical way), I saw one of the teachers who used to terrorize me because she was convinced I was some kind of future spree killer running up on the capital as

The FBI is worse than useless -- they divert resources away from useful work to terrorize anyone left of neoliberal.[0,1]

When "my way" is just a return to Reagan era tax brackets[2], and using the money to fund things like... the EPA... which was established by the noted violent communist Richard Nixon[3]

;-)

[0] If I was posting from Germany I'd identify a member of the social democratic party, if I was Canadian I'd be in the New Democratic Party... and in the USA I'm "not a Democrat" and thus fair game to be denied employment and harassed as if I'll start guillotining people at any moment if I don't get my way. [1] https://theintercept.com/2020/07/15/george-floyd-protests-po... [2] https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/87inintxr.pdf [3] https://www.epa.gov/history/origins-epa

anonymousiam 3 years ago | | |

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quis_custodiet_ipsos_custodes%...

wolverine876 3 years ago | |

We elect people to Congress and to the White House.

anonymousiam 3 years ago | | |

Yes, and who "we" are has changed significantly over time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Presidential_elections...

Overtonwindow 3 years ago |

Perhaps controversial but I think the FBI should have its policing powers taken away, and reverted back to a scientific agency that assists law enforcement, not investigate and make arrests of its own.

wolverine876 3 years ago | |

Who does national-level policing? There are national-level crimes, such as espionage and terrorism, and others that require national-scale resources.

rschneid 3 years ago | | |

Somehow I don't think this country will have trouble finding folks to perform 'national-level policing'. From pop culture, I've gleaned that it's more often the opposite case: investigations are fragmented as a result of multiple organizations pursuing cases in their bureaucratic 'information silos.'

Here's a list of all of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_law_enforcement_in_the...

Ironic that one of the FBI's self-reported 'priorities' is to 'Protect civil rights.' I wonder how much longer Hanlon's razor will be a plausible excuse for this kind of lying...

trenning 3 years ago |

They can’t even find the person who put bombs outside the DNC and RNC in freaking Washington DC and the person is on video using a smart phone.

wolverine876 3 years ago |

When issues like this come up, people say 'there's nothing we can do'. People believed they could change law enforcement in SF by recalling the DA, the Trumpists certainly believed they could take over the GOP and win widely, and they did. Why are we so lacking in faith in our enormous power?

daniel-cussen 3 years ago |

Absolute least of my worries. Maybe if they spy on me enough they can figure out whodunnit when I get murdered, I'd really appreciate that.

fsflover 3 years ago | |

This is completely missing the point of why one needs privacy. Lack of it harms journalism and activism, making the government too powerful and not accountable. If only activists and journalists will try to have the privacy, it will be much easier to target them. Everyone should have privacy to protect them. It’s sort of like freedom of speech is necessary not just for journalists, but for everyone, even if you have nothing to say.

daniel-cussen 3 years ago | | |

Well I want privacy from other things, I do. It just so happens the FBI isn't in my threat model, to the contrary of what the ACLU and civil liberty advocates talk about. I really didn't expect it to turn out that way.

Privacy is kind of a fantasy, though. The concept of privacy. There's a quintillion amplifiers made every year (ie transistors), and that rate is increasing rapidly. Moore's law is essentially antithetical to actual privacy, meaning nobody knowing your secret.

What there is is keeping a low profile and avoiding emphasis on what you don't want amplified and repeated. Working the system.