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The FBI’s most controversial surveillance tool is under threat

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Re: The FBI’s most controversial surveillance tool is under threat

#51

Post by taftster »

brookst wrote: post #42
newZWhoDis wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5 eyes as a concept is essentially institutionalized treason. There’s no such thing as a friendly foreign intelligence service, their goals are directly against the interest of the American public/civilian world (which in theory our intelligence services work for) A CIA officer conspiring with GCHQ to defraud the United States should result in lifetime imprisonment.

That is not a good take. There are many moral and political concerns with five eyes, but casting all international cooperation as “treason” discredits your position.

Hyperbole runs rampant like the roadrunner on winding roads of the internet these days.

Re: The FBI’s most controversial surveillance tool is under threat

#53

Post by MonkeyMalarky »

ck2 wrote: post #26
mrkeen wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blue-collar actions are found to be criminal. White-collar actions are found to be unlawful and stopped. Government or politician actions are found to be unlawful and continue.

It's so weird to me that everyone assumes the NSA simply stopped recording all American phone calls because they were caught doing it and it was actually illegal.

I know they also surveil other forms of digital communication but it still amuses me to think about how they built a huge apparatus for tapping phones and then millennials and gen-z come along who only make calls as a last resort.

Re: The FBI’s most controversial surveillance tool is under threat

#54

Post by ren_engineer »

philippejara wrote: post #41

"In another incident, the FBI ran searches using the “names of a local political party,” even though a connection to foreign intelligence was “not reasonably likely.” The DOJ explained the errors away by saying FBI personnel “misunderstood” the search procedures, adding they were “subsequently reminded of how to correctly apply the query rules.”" Fascinating, FISA was created iirc in part in response to nixon's spyin…

93% of DC voted Democrat in 2020, surrounding areas about 80% Democrat. Not sure why anybody would be surprised by this. The people in charge are fine with it and only promote people with similar ideology. Anybody in the FBI who might change things gets assigned to some FBI field office in the midwest and their career is over. Similar situation in the Pentagon and most other DC/Federal government institutions

Re: The FBI’s most controversial surveillance tool is under threat

#55

Post by HaZeust »

IncRnd wrote: post #46
wpietri wrote: post #21

It's good to see here that one part of the government is calling another part to account. But I have to think that's unusual, and I'd love to see a better balance of responsibilities here. In Greg Bear's novel "Queen of Angels", set in 2047, their solution to the conflicting needs of privacy and crime prevention was a separate organization called "Citizen Oversight". All the digital-trail data (cameras, financial rec…

> It's good to see here that one part of the government is calling another part to account. But I have to think that's unusual, and I'd love to see a better balance of responsibilities here. This is the very reason and design for the three branches of government and the origin of the term, "checks and balances."

The idea of "Checks and Balances" was coined by Montesquieu in his "The Spirit of the Laws" treatise, where it is justified as "balanced forces of equal leverage amongst one another having an embedded tension against each other".

The problem is, despite the Founding Fathers' near-fetishization of Montesquieu's work, and the fact that Checks and Balances are a genuinely good idea, the Founding Fathers weren't true to it. In a country of three branches (Legislative, Executive, Judiciary), it is absolutely paramount that the installment of each branch's authority is independent from the actions of another. Obviously, this didn't happen: Congress itself is THE delegate to assigning the President of the Executive - of whom decides his cabinet (which is also meant to be a Check and Balance to Congress), and Congress (and the President it chooses) not only votes on the Supreme Justices of the Judiciary - but Congress also has the power to ordain any court inferior to the Supreme Court.

This creates a system where Congress seats its utmost authorities intended to act as its checks and balances, and it doesn't work.

Re: The FBI’s most controversial surveillance tool is under threat

#56

Post by ethbr0 »

bradleyjg wrote: post #40
wpietri wrote: post #21

It's good to see here that one part of the government is calling another part to account. But I have to think that's unusual, and I'd love to see a better balance of responsibilities here. In Greg Bear's novel "Queen of Angels", set in 2047, their solution to the conflicting needs of privacy and crime prevention was a separate organization called "Citizen Oversight". All the digital-trail data (cameras, financial rec…

How is the leadership of this other organization selected? It sounds like a government agency by another name.

Why not randomly?

And that's randomly without jury strikes. There's a reason corporate and government interests have tried to keep more and more matters out of a jury trial -- the outcomes are unpredictable.

Which is exactly as it should be. If the people's will were predictable, democracy would be unnecessary.

And if a bad investigation is allowed, or a good investigation is stopped... that's a fair price to pay for, on the whole, having greater civil control.

Re: The FBI’s most controversial surveillance tool is under threat

#57

Post by [deleted] »

HaZeust wrote: post #55
IncRnd wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's good to see here that one part of the government is calling another part to account. But I have to think that's unusual, and I'd love to see a better balance of responsibilities here. This is the very reason and design for the three branches of government and the origin of the term, "checks and balances."

The idea of "Checks and Balances" was coined by Montesquieu in his "The Spirit of the Laws" treatise, where it is justified as "balanced forces of equal leverage amongst one another having an embedded tension against each other". The problem is, despite the Founding Fathers' near-fetishization of Montesquieu's work, and the fact that Checks and Balances are a genuinely good idea, the Founding Fathers weren't true to…

[deleted]

Re: The FBI’s most controversial surveillance tool is under threat

#58

Post by ethbr0 »

giantg2 wrote: post #50
wpietri wrote: post #21

It's good to see here that one part of the government is calling another part to account. But I have to think that's unusual, and I'd love to see a better balance of responsibilities here. In Greg Bear's novel "Queen of Angels", set in 2047, their solution to the conflicting needs of privacy and crime prevention was a separate organization called "Citizen Oversight". All the digital-trail data (cameras, financial rec…

Any group who becomes part of the system will then act to protect the system. I mean, judges are supposed to grant warrants for things already, yet we continually see stories of them just rubber stamping requests, or police lying to obtain them. I assume that system would suffer similar issues.

That's why you have limited terms of service and randomly turn over membership.

Re: The FBI’s most controversial surveillance tool is under threat

#59

Post by TEP_Kim_Il_Sung »

wpietri wrote: post #21

It's good to see here that one part of the government is calling another part to account. But I have to think that's unusual, and I'd love to see a better balance of responsibilities here. In Greg Bear's novel "Queen of Angels", set in 2047, their solution to the conflicting needs of privacy and crime prevention was a separate organization called "Citizen Oversight". All the digital-trail data (cameras, financial rec…

Equip all public officials and bureaucrats with camera vests, and livestream their duty hours. Immediately fire anyone who's gear malfunctions, nullify their pensions.

Make public office publicly accountable.

Re: The FBI’s most controversial surveillance tool is under threat

#60

Post by StanislavPetrov »

localplume wrote: post #24

Of course here come the articles undermining the intelligence community, right in the wake of the Chinese balloon incursions and continued Chinese/Russian foreign intelligence efforts, and at its core are republicans. As usual these articles pertaining to the IC massively misunderstand, misrepresent, and downright act against the interests of the United States by so feverently spurring on the de-fanging of intelligen…

I'm not sure what's worse, the intelligence agencies brazenly breaking the law and violating the Constitutional rights of US citizens on a daily basis or those who crawl out of the gutter to defend these abuses.
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