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John Raines, 84, Who Evaded Capture in an FBI Break-In, Dies

nytimes.com

41–50 of 77 posts

Re: John Raines, 84, Who Evaded Capture in an FBI Break-In, Dies

#41
post #20
post #17

Can someone explain this in simple-english? It’s pretty difficult to understand good-doers from evil-doers here… Edit/clarification: non native english speaker here…

* America fought a war in Vietnam * This war was deeply unpopular. Many people protested these in groups * The head of the FBI at the time, J Edgar Hoover, was immensely powerful. He decided to crush the dissident groups by ordering FBI agents to infiltrate them. According to the article, he is the bad guy (I personally agree with this) * John Raines and a few friends (the good guys) broke into the FBI office, stole…

Thank you so much

Re: John Raines, 84, Who Evaded Capture in an FBI Break-In, Dies

#42
post #17

Can someone explain this in simple-english? It’s pretty difficult to understand good-doers from evil-doers here… Edit/clarification: non native english speaker here…

Seems like in the 70's this guy, his wife, and six other people pulled off a daring robbery of an FBI office. They broke in by picking the lock, then stole a bunch of files. They relied on the people in the office being distracted by a boxing match, and they were. The burglars then went over their files, and found what seem to me to be pretty silly things, like FBI agents being instructed to create the perception tha…

Thanks for this info

Re: John Raines, 84, Who Evaded Capture in an FBI Break-In, Dies

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I don't doubt that Snowden caused some damage to the IC community. However, I would argue that the benefit to people who would like to live in a modern democracy far outweighs that damage. I truly believe that the only reason more people are not be outraged by the IC's actions is by not understanding their capabilities. I'm a graduate student in CS and am still amazed at what they could do. There's no way…

Since it's gone now, I'll toss in context for those confused: there was yet another comment descending from this one that was also deleted. It too advanced a weird suggestion that the Hi Capacity makerspace was somehow deeply tied into politics and the intelligence community, and was disrupted by Snowden. (And, of course, offered no support for that claim.)

[deleted]

Re: John Raines, 84, Who Evaded Capture in an FBI Break-In, Dies

#44
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's impossible to look at 46 years ago without seeing through the lens of four years ago, so I imagine people's opinions on Raines closely mirror their opinions on Snowden. Which is fine by me, as I think both Raines and Snowden should be viewed closer to the "heroic whistle-blowers" end of the spectrum. But I suspect there are many who see both Raines and Snowden as traitors. I'd be very interested in hearing the r…

It seems likely that anyone with split opinions would support Raines over Snowden; the obvious difference between the two cases is J. Edgar Hoover. Snowden exposed a mass surveillance program, some of which appears to have been illegal. Raines did likewise, but also exposed a serious campaign of harassment against activists - one prosecuted by an FBI director who was apparently viewed as beyond the control of even th…

Just making sure I understand your argument. Is the following hypothetical in line with your thinking?

The important difference was if you agree with the administrations goals when they abuse power.

So if Obama spies on all American's private conversations, only to stop only totally evil child pornographers... that's ok.

But if future President Jeb Bush spies on all American's private conversations, in order to find Russian spies and retaliate against their countries interference in our election... that would be wrong.

Re: John Raines, 84, Who Evaded Capture in an FBI Break-In, Dies

#45
post #28
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's impossible to look at 46 years ago without seeing through the lens of four years ago, so I imagine people's opinions on Raines closely mirror their opinions on Snowden. Which is fine by me, as I think both Raines and Snowden should be viewed closer to the "heroic whistle-blowers" end of the spectrum. But I suspect there are many who see both Raines and Snowden as traitors. I'd be very interested in hearing the r…

The people who broke into the FBI office uncovered, as they suspected, a massive illegal FBI program to surveil and disrupt entirely legitimate political opposition (among others). This was a direct and real threat to democracy. Snowden collected gigabytes classified documents the vast majority of which had nothing to do with anything questionable. The program he revealed was not obviously illegal and, however distas…

Great. As a European, I don't care at all whether the Congress thinks its legal to spy on me or not. I'll applaud anyone who takes a stand against mass surveillance.

And it's not like anyone really asked the Congress either, is it?

http://www.hasjamesclapperbeenindictedyet.com/

>ended up in the hands of unfriendly intelligence services

Sucks to be the NSA, I guess?

Re: John Raines, 84, Who Evaded Capture in an FBI Break-In, Dies

#47
post #17

Can someone explain this in simple-english? It’s pretty difficult to understand good-doers from evil-doers here… Edit/clarification: non native english speaker here…

In case it makes you feel better, I'm a native English speaker and I had to read the first seven paragraphs - which are very poorly written, I would say - twice before I really understood what was going on. Probably if you knew the context and had heard of this man it would have instantly made sense, but it certainly didn't to me.

Re: John Raines, 84, Who Evaded Capture in an FBI Break-In, Dies

#48
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You left out the part that I find horrifying: > It is the third reason, though, WikiLeaks wrote, that “is the real kicker.” “If we publish them it will dramatically improve the perception of our impartiality,” WikiLeaks explained. “That means that the vast amount of stuff that we are publishing on Clinton will have much higher impact, because it won’t be perceived as coming from a ‘pro-Trump’ ‘pro-Russia’ source.” It…

Actually that quote is incorrect. It has been widely misquoted by the main stream media for their own propagandistic reasons. https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/the-atlantic-commits-malp... https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/930237935680618496

To summarize, various sources have quoted wikileaks as saying "because it won’t be perceived as coming from a ‘pro-Trump’ ‘pro-Russia’ source". The message is actually "because it won’t be perceived as coming from a ‘pro-Trump’ ‘pro-Russia’ source, which the Clinton campaign is constantly slandering us with".

I'll be honest, that doesn't really change my interpretation of the sentence, they already had "pro-Trump" and "pro-Russia" in quotes, which made it clear to me they didn't believe them to be as such.

It's not the semantics of the sentence that bother me, it's that they went to great lengths to get DNC and Clinton emails but just go ahead and ask the Trump campaign for information. Clearly they are treating the Trump campaign with softer gloves than the Clinton campaign.

Re: John Raines, 84, Who Evaded Capture in an FBI Break-In, Dies

#49
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually that quote is incorrect. It has been widely misquoted by the main stream media for their own propagandistic reasons. https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/the-atlantic-commits-malp... https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/930237935680618496

To summarize, various sources have quoted wikileaks as saying "because it won’t be perceived as coming from a ‘pro-Trump’ ‘pro-Russia’ source". The message is actually "because it won’t be perceived as coming from a ‘pro-Trump’ ‘pro-Russia’ source, which the Clinton campaign is constantly slandering us with". I'll be honest, that doesn't really change my interpretation of the sentence, they already had "pro-Trump" an…

This may seem pedantic, but I think your quote of the misquote is wrong. The media have been putting the period / 'full stop' within the quotation marks (not just outside which you have above) which Caitlin Johnstone rightfully calls out as journalistic malpractice. That very few people know the actual quote is testament to the mainstream media's ability to sell a false narrative.

Edit: Why the downvotes?

Re: John Raines, 84, Who Evaded Capture in an FBI Break-In, Dies

#50
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are they discredited?

It appears that wikileaks did work directly with Trump Jr. to coordinate pro Trump leaks and campaigning [1]. Whether wikileaks was actually pro-Trump, or merely playing the part with the hope of developing a relationship which could lead to their acquisition of confidential information is unclear. "“Hey Don. We have an unusual idea,” WikiLeaks wrote on October 21, 2016. “Leak us one or more of your father’s tax retu…

No need to make things this complicated. Assange simply tried to do the most damage that he could to US interests. That this aligns quite well with Russian interests and Trumps is merely coincidence.
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