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FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

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Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#421

Post by jki275 »

djmips wrote: post #412
XorNot wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being a suspect does not mean you are guilty. Being arrested and charged does not mean you are guilty. This whole line of "what could go wrong!?" starts from a much deeper sickness in the way Americans view the criminal justice system.

It's almost become that arrested is conflated with guilty.

For a professional, being arrested for a major crime in America is a life ending event.

Proving one's innocence once the powers that be have determined one to be guilty will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, will almost certainly mean loss of job, family and friends, etc. And you might still go to prison for the rest of your life anyway.

Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#422

Post by kaishiro »

valvar wrote: post #356
sosborn wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, realistically, it isn’t about preventing crime, it’s about catching criminals. (I’m not a fan of all this)

Isn't catching criminals a pretty good way to prevent crime?

Not particularly, no. The nature of having caught a "criminal" means the crime has already occurred. Crime prevention is less a cause of justice and more a cause of social work.

Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#423

Post by shkkmo »

XorNot wrote: post #376
_underfl0w_ wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recall (likely pre-covid) seeing a story posted here of some unsuspecting schmuck who became a suspect in a crime because his smart watch showed him circling near the area on his usual bike route. Scary times.

Being a suspect does not mean you are guilty. Being arrested and charged does not mean you are guilty. This whole line of "what could go wrong!?" starts from a much deeper sickness in the way Americans view the criminal justice system.

> This whole line of "what could go wrong!?" starts from a much deeper sickness in the way Americans view the criminal justice system

The sickness is in how the criminal justice system works. Jury trials are a rare edgecase, most detminations of guilt are made by DAs. For most people in this country, being arrested and charged means you will be pushed into a plea deal and those that fight for their innocence face retaliatory harsh charges and sentencing.

Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#424

Post by AWildC182 »

javajosh wrote: post #338
quercusa wrote: post #303

If you've never seen it, it's worth your time to watch "Don't Talk to The Police", a lecture by a law professor, in case the FBI, etc. come knocking on your door. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE

Well, if you agree with that advice then you shouldn't say anything in public either, e.g. here on HN, since that too can be used against you.

Unless you use your real name and really start mouthing off, this isn't really the kind of network the DA is going to start shooting off subpoenas to....unless you Enron...

You know what... Nevermind.

Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#425

Post by defen »

mhh__ wrote: post #323
hehetrthrthrjn wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you change the subject or redirect when someone asks you a difficult question you're not lying. That sort of thing could be called social engineering.

Obscuring information from Law Enforcement is still probably perjury if they find out and can prove you knew

OP said the store contacted him, not LE.

Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#426

Post by pnw_hazor »

trident5000 wrote: post #83
sneak wrote: post #2

Presumably this also includes journalists and other people the government has no business tracking. At what point will people say enough is enough to these kinds of insane overreaches?

The same people complaining about the Patriot Act and cheering on Snowden for publicizing NSA PRISM are the same people cheering on govt mass triangulating civilians.

Many of these people are cheering for the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2021.

Turning your phone off or leaving it at home is already used to identify suspects.

Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#427

Post by AWildC182 »

inefficient wrote: post #322
donkeyd wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which means there will be 100 suspects where usually there would be maybe 2. Which means the data is useless and therefore won't be used. Law enforcement doesn't want a system that incorrectly flags hundreds of people, unlike what some people seem to think. They want systems that reliably flag potential suspects, because that reduces work in stead of increasing it.

That is only true if you assume they truly care about having the correct suspect rather than having a suspect they can get convicted. However, there is a long history of wrongful convictions and police and prosecutors using bad data to get them. Check out the Central Park Five for a big name one.

This. To put it simply, they like Precise data, not Accurate data. They want a bunch of data-points saying one thing and couldn't care less if it's objectively the right target, not a bunch of data points saying a bunch of things, one of which is actually right.

Precision data gives them convictions and convictions give them promotions. As they say, any metric that becomes a target... This is why giving the police invasive surveillance tech is a terrible idea, they will only focus on the data that fits their narrative and discard the rest. The defense doesn't even need to know that any other data exists.

Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#428

Post by pnw_hazor »

caseysoftware wrote: post #56
op00to wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Luckily, you're not a police investigator, because you can't be more wrong. All manner of weapons were confiscated - guns, ammo, explosives, crossbows, brass knuckles, etc. These were people who came to kill. https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a35214244/cap...

Read your article. None of those things were found inside the Capitol. If they didn't go into the Capitol, we're clearly talking about different groups. The unasked questions are: Why not? What were they there to do? I did work in law enforcement in DC. One of the first things you learn is how to separate facts from conjecture from imagination. Mixing up the three isn't helpful to anyone and often taints you as an in…

Conflating the facts is very useful to ones who are trying to establish or control a narrative.

Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#429

Post by AWildC182 »

alwayshumans wrote: post #172
nabla9 wrote: post #33

Forensic methods used by police and intelligence go much deeper than just looking at phones near the crime scene. 1. They look at phones moving towards the crime scene and going dark when getting close. This is also how you can detect secret meetings between people. They move towards the same area and shut down their phones. 2. They look at suspect phone going dark anywhere around the time of the incident. 3. Leaving…

Interestingly the same techniques are applied to the fishing industry to monitor for illegal fishing in protected areas.

Looking at AIS dropping out I assume?

Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#430

Post by pnw_hazor »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #104
shakna wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> More guns and C4, fewer selfies. It's not like there weren't homemade explosives found on the site: > Coffman, 70, told police he had mason jars filled with "melted Styrofoam and gasoline." Federal investigators believe that combination, if exploded, would have the effect of napalm "insofar as it causes the flammable liquid to better stick to objects that it hits upon detonation," according to the court record. [0]…

FWIW, those aren't explosives. Flammable, yes, but definitely not explosive. Spreading gross misinformation like this is part of the problem.

It is not part of the problem, it is part of the plan.

How else are we going to get bi-partisan support for the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2021

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