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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

#61

Post by azinman2 »

uog2jeeY3Jaiphu wrote: post #35
boomboomsubban wrote: post #15

>While the analyst attempted to remove the US information, in some cases, it said, they “inadvertently failed” to do so. A reminder that every abuse we hear of is one they failed at covering up. The most famous example of this is MKUltra, where everything we know about the program is from one document cache that survived the incinerator by being mislabeled.

[dead]

I don’t know what the context of this is (or its legitimacy), but what you’re implying is extremely offensive… especially to the Jewish members of my family who did fight in WWII under extremely anti-semitic leadership who would send them on missions first (not last!) that they thought were the most dangerous.

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

#62

Post by [deleted] »

uog2jeeY3Jaiphu wrote: post #35
boomboomsubban wrote: post #15

>While the analyst attempted to remove the US information, in some cases, it said, they “inadvertently failed” to do so. A reminder that every abuse we hear of is one they failed at covering up. The most famous example of this is MKUltra, where everything we know about the program is from one document cache that survived the incinerator by being mislabeled.

[dead]

[deleted]

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

#63

Post by vuln »

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…

> articles undermining the intelligence community

Why would they undermine themselves? These News Companies have _Expert_ IC individuals on payroll. If these articles had teeth wouldn't the embedded pro IC assets stop the undermining or would these individuals not be asked for their "opinion" on the articles prepublication?

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

#64

Post by akira2501 »

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.

Casting spying as the only means of international cooperation is disingenuous.

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

#65

Post by criddell »

newZWhoDis wrote: post #32
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 don’t believe my tax dollars should fund the CIA, NSA, DHS, etc. DIA seems reasonable.

Now I’m imagining an ad-supported NSA.

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

#66

Post by defen »

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…

How is the balloon incursion related or relevant?

> at its core are republicans

The article names Ron Wyden and Hakeem Jeffries as two lawmakers who are interested in reining in the power of the FBI, hardly Republicans those two.

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

#67

Post by wpietri »

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.

There are a number of ways to approach it. But even if it's just a different set of elected officials, you'd get inter-agency competition.

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

#68

Post by wpietri »

ttyprintk wrote: post #27
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…

Using civilian oversight of police as a metaphor, the high-profile civilian killings lately have come from police departments with civilian oversight. Less than 1% have it, which means an even smaller fraction have civilian discipline.

The US has a long history of dubious police killings. That some are now high profile seems like a step forward to me.

Yes, civilian oversight of police in many places is weak. But to me that's an argument for stronger oversight.

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

#69

Post by ethbr0 »

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…

> Congress itself is THE delegate to assigning the President of the Executive

Subject to the certification only procedure outlined in the Constitution, as was recently vividly demonstrated. (Originally, under Article II, Section 1, Clause 3; since 1804, under the 12th Amendment)

There's a reason the states transmit their electors' votes to Congress, rather than meeting in DC.

Furthermore, current case law is that states have virtually unlimited rights, subject only to US constitutional protections, to run their elections as they see fit.

> and Congress (and the President it chooses) not only votes on the Supreme Justices of the Judiciary

As above, Congress does not choose the President. Ergo, the President nominating and Congress confirming a Supreme Court justice are two independent branches.

> but Congress also has the power to ordain any court inferior to the Supreme Court.

Which may then be overruled by the Supreme Court. All in all, a surprisingly flexible arrangement that maintains superiority of the explicitly authorized and described Supreme Court.

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

#70

Post by wpietri »

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.

Every system suffers abuse issues. Which is why I think we should look for systems that minimize that.
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