Live data from Hacker News

FBI Monitored Aretha Franklin for Years, File Shows

nytimes.com

211–220 of 276 posts

Re: FBI Monitored Aretha Franklin for Years, File Shows

#211

The FBI is more or less a legalized criminal organization that is funded by U.S. taxpayers, but is unelected and unaccountable to them. This article is from 2013, but I haven’t seen anything to suggest that this behavior has changed: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/08/04/fbi-in... The important part to consider: > The FBI gave its informants permission to break the law at least 5,658 times in a single…

As bad as the FBI is, it pales in comparison to the international terrorist activities of the CIA.

Re: FBI Monitored Aretha Franklin for Years, File Shows

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perjury or giving false statements

Not a lawyer but I thought perjury was false statements under-oath, like in a trial. That's a very different matter than being wrong in a casual interview with the cops/feds. Do you have any examples of laws about "giving false statements" to local police? Seems like a rather blatant 1st amendment violation.

https://www.georgiacriminallawyer.com/false-statement-to-pol...

Re: FBI Monitored Aretha Franklin for Years, File Shows

#214
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But who investigates the federal agencies?

Congress and the attorney general? https://www.fbi.gov/about/faqs/who-monitors-or-oversees-the-...

The attorney general is a political appointee of the executive branch. So... we've seen that doesn't work.

The executive branch is WAY too powerful, mostly as a result of Congress ceding its authority over the decades to avoid accountability. Separation of powers is clearly broken as a result.

Re: FBI Monitored Aretha Franklin for Years, File Shows

#215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even in places that have reasonably good and democratic government, officials take bribes. This happens in Italy, Greece, Spain, India, and many more (almost all of South and Central America). The US and UK are pretty unique in that they aggressively prevent low-level corruption.

Motte: All governments are like criminal organizations. Bailey: Even some Western governments have issues with low-level corruption.

Umm... those are two completely different statements, not a Motte and Bailey fallacy. I am happy to defend my position that governments use force the same way mobs do, but they give you more of a say in how the force can be used and they give you some written protections (that they are happy to infringe when convenient).

Also, I never said that we would be better off with a despot or a gang or anything of the sort, as the original reply tried to claim.

Re: FBI Monitored Aretha Franklin for Years, File Shows

#216

The FBI is more or less a legalized criminal organization that is funded by U.S. taxpayers, but is unelected and unaccountable to them. This article is from 2013, but I haven’t seen anything to suggest that this behavior has changed: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/08/04/fbi-in... The important part to consider: > The FBI gave its informants permission to break the law at least 5,658 times in a single…

Wait until you find out about the DHS. Unlike interactions with the FBI, it is illegal to record them*. They do not wear body cams. You have no right to a lawyer when interacting with them. They can jail you without charging you or accusing you of a crime. They can search you without probable cause or a warrant. They can put you in cuffs, take you to a hospital, and lie to doctors that you have drugs up your ass, all…

> They can stop you on the road without reasonable suspicion / PC / a warrant.

If you're within 100 miles of the border or the oceans. That covers something like 2/3rds of the U.S. population.

Re: FBI Monitored Aretha Franklin for Years, File Shows

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also have the seemingly unique and blatantly unconstitutional power to imprison you for ""lying"" to them. The actual wording/charge is "providing false statements", which means anything that they can later suggest is untrue . This is why you should never, ever speak with anyone associated with the FBI even if they are being "friendly". Say they knock at the door and have questions for you about your shady neigh…

I don't believe this is the case, but I am also not a lawyer. The _actual_ wording of 18 USC § 1001 is "[...] knowingly and willfully" "(1) falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact; (2) makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation; [...]" [0], not simply "providing false statements." The DOJ must show that the statement was false, the fact…

I have personally been threatened by FBI agents with threats of being charged for "making false statements" to compel me to divulge information on an investigation. I believe it may be a common tool in their playbook based on how quickly they utilized it.

Re: FBI Monitored Aretha Franklin for Years, File Shows

#219
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you dreaming? Cops are more present then ever As an example... I was standing in the street to meet my kids... my wife called the cops for no reason and 4 cars showed up in about 60 seconds... they ended up giving me a criminal trespassing warning even if I was on public property They do like to hide though so you can't see their presence The previous city I lived in had a population of about 20k and they had two…

> The leading hypothesis for why these [police shooting protests] increase homicides and total crime is an abrupt change in the quantity of policing activity. In Chicago, the number of police-civilian interactions decreased by almost 90% in the month after the investigation was announced. In Riverside CA, interactions decreased 54%. In St. Louis, self-initiated police activities declined by 46%. This is from a 2020 p…

It's probably because the number of crimes keep decreasing... not because there is less police officers...

Re: FBI Monitored Aretha Franklin for Years, File Shows

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you name the cities that actually defunded the police? Blaming post-COVID crime trends on BLM is just lazy interpretation of data. Most of what you’re saying here is blatantly wrong, there is no post-2014 crime surge, in fact crime was much worse in the decade before and has been oscillating around a mean since: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/crim... . Why lie when the data is public? EDI…

Criminologists disagree with you. Not only did homicides increase following 2014, criminologists believe it is caused by BLM protests. > For nearly a year, Richard Rosenfeld’s research on crime trends has been used to debunk the existence of a “Ferguson effect”, a suggested link between protests over police killings of black Americans and an increase in crime and murder. Now, the St Louis criminologist says, a deeper…

A single criminologist whose work has mostly focused on his own cities crime is now being used to establish that "criminologists disagree." You would have a great career in TV journalism!

You're taking a data source that is already known and acknowledged to be flawed by the publisher, cherrypicking years that seem significant to you, and using it to draw conclusions about trends across the country when the data set itself acknowledges that individual cities and even blocks within those cities skews data all the time. Again, it's lazy data analysis.

Post reply on HN