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A Decade-Old Gag Order, Lifted

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Re: A Decade-Old Gag Order, Lifted

#121

Post by giardini »

peteretep wrote: post #79
tracker1 wrote: post #52

This is part of why the ACLU, EFF and NRA are the institutions I'm most in favor of donating to. The encroachment of civil liberties, increasingly intrusive actions from our own government and the like are getting pretty rediculous.

> ACLU, EFF and NRA I consider my neighbour being able to own an assault rifle as an encroachment of my civil liberties.

Please explain.

Do you feel the same way when they buy a new car? Is this "keeping up with the Joneses"?

Perhaps you should buy an assault rifle for yourself (and another for the wee wifie)!

Re: A Decade-Old Gag Order, Lifted

#122

Post by karmacondon »

raquo wrote: post #120
tptacek wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're giving the FBI a whole lot of credit for their ability to orchestrate what would be one of the great conspiracies of the last 100 years: despite the fractious nature of modern politics, with politicians charging through revolving doors of office and then lobbying jobs all the while accusing the sitting President of being a traitor or even a foreign agent, not one of these attempts at blackmail has ever been br…

There might be plenty of reasons why we don't know of such instances. For example, those being blackmailed might not know or have any proof that it's FBI who's blackmailing them. The FBI of course has endless opportunities of plausible deniability, starting with "rogue contractor". It all boils down to incentives: what exactly do you have to win from disclosing? What is the chance that people will believe you given t…

It's difficult for the FBI to use mass surveillance techniques to blackmail anybody. Sure they can make allegations, even true ones, but if they present evidence it would be pretty clear where it came from. Only so many entities have the ability to gather the kind of data necessary to separate fact from rumor.

In terms of incentives, blackmail is generally a lower tier crime in terms of likelihood of success. Think about if someone tried to blackmail you. There's a good chance you'd think "Sure I can give in to their demands now, but they'll just ask for something else later and they never have to stop asking". Unless the crime being covered up involves significant jail time, most people would rather face the consequences than live the rest of their lives under someone else's control. Many former politicians have successful careers even after mundane scandals (Weiner and Spitzer come to mind).

And depending on the nature of the secret, most politicians would get some slack from the public for having the courage to standup to FBI blackmail. They might even be able to spin themselves as a flawed hero. In fact, having a three letter agency try to blackmail you right now is kind of a get out of jail free card.

As tptacek said, this is really fascinating fiction but it's just wildly impractical in real life. Blackmail is messy and has a lot of moving parts that are difficult to control. The FBI is better off doing exactly what they do now: asking Congress for money and getting it.

Re: A Decade-Old Gag Order, Lifted

#123

Post by godgod »

jimrandomh wrote: post #8

This is reporting that Nick Merrill, who was under a gag order restricting his ability to talk about a subpoena he received in 2004, is no longer gagged. It links to an editorial he wrote (anonymously) about that gag order, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03... , in which he writes: > "Based on the context of the demand -- a context that the FBI still won't let me discuss publicly -- I suspe…

Russ Tice. Sibel Edmonds. Thomas Drake. William Binney. Jesselyn Radack. John Kiriakou. Take your pick.

No doubt these people have all felt the wrath of the federal government.

Re: A Decade-Old Gag Order, Lifted

#124

Post by dang »

yourepowerless wrote: post #116
peteretep wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are confusing two issues here, but yes, I am happy for the government to have a monopoly on assault rifles, tanks, missiles and artillery.

So you expressly support torture and genocide?

We've banned this account for repeatedly violating the HN guidelines.

Re: A Decade-Old Gag Order, Lifted

#125

Post by peteretep »

giardini wrote: post #121
peteretep wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ACLU, EFF and NRA I consider my neighbour being able to own an assault rifle as an encroachment of my civil liberties.

Please explain. Do you feel the same way when they buy a new car? Is this "keeping up with the Joneses"? Perhaps you should buy an assault rifle for yourself (and another for the wee wifie)!

You know how Americans feel about Iran getting nuclear weapons? That's how I feel about my neighbours acquiring weapons intended for war zones.

Re: A Decade-Old Gag Order, Lifted

#126

Post by peteretep »

arca_vorago wrote: post #118
peteretep wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ACLU, EFF and NRA I consider my neighbour being able to own an assault rifle as an encroachment of my civil liberties.

Well it's a good thing we beat you brits in the war and have a superior constitution that protects our rights to bear arms. Speaking of the original subject, wasn't it some despotic king of yours that formed the star court in the first place? Am I going crazy or is LaRouche seeming a bit less crazy these days?

    > have a superior constitution that protects our rights
Mmm, you guys have certainly managed some impressive innovations in habeas corpus[0][1], property rights[2], and free speech[3][4] O_o

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_St...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plea_bargaining_in_the_United_...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC

[4] The article, innit?

Re: A Decade-Old Gag Order, Lifted

#127

Post by bitwize »

A lot of people opine that instead of the Global War on Terra we should treat terrorism strictly as a concern for law enforcement.

However, the LE attitude to the terrorism problem is "we can't wait until crimes have been committed to start making arrests; we have to identify and neutralize potential terrorists before they do something awful". And, absent a Minority Report pre-crime unit, this is where we end up: with the FBI aggressively and warrantlessly sniffing around, looking for a terrorist under every rock, and even falling on the wrong side of the sting/entrapment divide and goading people it thinks might be terrorists into participating in fake terror schemes to round them up.

I don't have any ready solutions to the terrorism problem, but it seems as if leaving it to the military, intelligence community, or law enforcement each comes with its own set of severe drawbacks which undermine human rights.

Re: A Decade-Old Gag Order, Lifted

#128

Post by raquo »

karmacondon wrote: post #122
raquo wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There might be plenty of reasons why we don't know of such instances. For example, those being blackmailed might not know or have any proof that it's FBI who's blackmailing them. The FBI of course has endless opportunities of plausible deniability, starting with "rogue contractor". It all boils down to incentives: what exactly do you have to win from disclosing? What is the chance that people will believe you given t…

It's difficult for the FBI to use mass surveillance techniques to blackmail anybody. Sure they can make allegations, even true ones, but if they present evidence it would be pretty clear where it came from. Only so many entities have the ability to gather the kind of data necessary to separate fact from rumor. In terms of incentives, blackmail is generally a lower tier crime in terms of likelihood of success. Think a…

Parallel construction should work for blackmail just as well as it does in the courts I think to obscure the true source of information. And people don't do bad things alone, there are always other people involved who could simultaneously be plausibly claimed as source and plausibly deny this. A "stolen hard drive" could explain anything.

Any crimes that the politicians are involved with probably do carry significant jail times, given how corruption and pedophilia apparently still exist.

> depending on the nature of the secret, most politicians would get some slack from the public for having the courage to standup to FBI blackmail

I don't really see this playing out in the politician's favor.

Politician: FBI is blackmailing me! Press: with what? Politician: ... Press: do you have any proof it's FBI? Politician: Nope FBI: We're not doing anything FBI: (anonymously releasing some info) Politician: resigns / get jailed Press: boo bad politician!

Or:

Politician: FBI is blackmailing me! Press: with what? Politician: They say I stole a billion dollars FBI: we're not doing anything, but we should investigate this FBI: wow this guy really did steal a billion dollars, we can't ignore this Press: politician announces he stole $1 billion dollars, gets jailed

I don't get one thing: if politicians' decisions can be purchased by campaign donations and lobbying, why would they be any more resistant to something more persuasive? Again, to reiterate, blackmail does not need to be letters with threats compiled from newspaper cutouts. There's a whole range of methods they could be using that rely on the information they collect.

Re: A Decade-Old Gag Order, Lifted

#129

Post by yarou »

jamoes wrote: post #25
raquo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By all appearances, a significant chunk of the US law enforcement apparatus has simply gone rogue, stopped respecting Congress and the courts and is instead focused on increasing its own power. I truly don't understand why nothing is done about that. Why doesn't anyone lose their job over this, let alone go to jail? I mean, I've gotten used to such indifference in Russia, but US seemed like the country that shouldn…

> I truly don't understand why nothing is done about that. Why doesn't anyone lose their job over this, let alone go to jail? My suspicion is that the FBI and various three-letter-agencies have dirt on most of the elected representatives. The mass surveillance apparatus is the perfect tool for collecting blackmail material on current and future leaders.

That's an awfully charitable view you have of politicians in the United States. The corruption is so deep within the US government that three letter agencies needn't blackmail any elected official. Our elected officials are collaborators; Quisling-types that pay lip service to the founding ideals of our great Republic.

Re: A Decade-Old Gag Order, Lifted

#130

Post by JupiterMoon »

raquo wrote: post #23
jimrandomh wrote: post #8

This is reporting that Nick Merrill, who was under a gag order restricting his ability to talk about a subpoena he received in 2004, is no longer gagged. It links to an editorial he wrote (anonymously) about that gag order, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03... , in which he writes: > "Based on the context of the demand -- a context that the FBI still won't let me discuss publicly -- I suspe…

> By all appearances, a significant chunk of the US law enforcement apparatus has simply gone rogue, stopped respecting Congress and the courts and is instead focused on increasing its own power. I truly don't understand why nothing is done about that. Why doesn't anyone lose their job over this, let alone go to jail? I mean, I've gotten used to such indifference in Russia, but US seemed like the country that shouldn…

> > By all appearances, a significant chunk of the US law enforcement apparatus has simply gone rogue, stopped respecting Congress and the courts and is instead focused on increasing its own power.

This is one of my specific concerns about these programs. I worry that in order to correct the current state we will have to eventually disband some of these agencies and that this will leave a gap in our countries' ability to prosecute serious crimes.

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