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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

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm sorry that PDF hurt your feelings. I didn't anticipate that. The notice, as well as other materials associated with it seem rather philo-semetic to me. The reaction to it here implies (to me) that it was likely not intended to be made public. Now that you bring up your grievance about it, though--I do wonder if one of these tools the FBI uses for surveillance is the ADL, as is evident in other declassified docume…

Thank you for this. I appreciate it.

The NYTimes article only says something more vague in its headline, but the body is talking about the need for Jews to be more active in social justice work, and that communism is incompatible with Judaism. I’ve read what I could find of the report and all it talks about is social justice work. I’d love to learn more about this.

Whatever the context was, we know that a huge amount of jewish soldiers died in WWII as linked by another commenter, so in my mind as a seeming non-sequitor it followed a common anti-Semitic trope that American Jews are more loyal to Judaism and Israel than to the U.S. Of course this has also been the trope for many other immigrants as well.

I cannot guess about the ADL other than it being involved a huge amount of other stuff clearly not related to the FBI. Remember that in 1935 Harvard had an official Jewish quota of 15%, and Israel largely exists because the U.S./UK/France didn’t want to take the Eastern European Jewish diaspora — discrimination was widespread at the levels of power. The population was also small, so its hard to imagine it had much value other than perhaps keeping tabs on intellectuals who were friendly to communism.

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

#122
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But who is going to give up their career to be a citizen watcher for just a few years? A Citizen . Rights and responsibilities , etc. > Likewise, random selection may not yield a cohort with the correct capacity to properly administer the system. Of course. That's the downside of random cohorts. But compared to the alternatives (that we actively gripe about), occasional lack of ability is the lesser of two evils. T…

"A Citizen. Rights and responsibilities, etc." Haha OK. Why not do that for police and judge positions too? Then you'd eliminate the need for this. "That's the downside of random cohorts. But compared to the alternatives (that we actively gripe about), occasional lack of ability is the lesser of two evils." That's one opinion. "This would also be lessened if there weren't a way to get out of it." In one way I agree.…

> Why not do that for police and judge positions too?

Because police and judge positions require specialized skill sets and training, and both have access to the force of government, which would seem to merit a higher minimum bar of professionalism.

Oversight's "feature" is that there are fewer negative consequences when it's inappropriately applied.

> By theway, how are Putin's conscripts doing?

You're arguing Putin's conscripts are an example of when a country's best and brightest aren't allowed to excuse themselves from random selection?

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

#123
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what reasonable way is what you wrote an argument? Don’t be offended, be refuting .

They refuted it with anecdotes of their family members serving. If you want more, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_Jewish_Ame...

I did not interpret it in that way; I thought it was “That is offensive to me and even more so to these other people I know”. Your point is correct – it can charitably be interpreted as being a form of refutation argument. However, anecdotes about individual people are a very weak form of argument. I could think of a few better arguments immediately from the top of my head: The clumsy wording of the text (in the PDF) itself. The fact that there seems to be no personal testimonies about what is implied to be an extremely widespread conspiracy. And, of course, your link is a much better argument than any individual anecdote.

But ‘azinman’ did not do any of that; they chose instead to play the “I’m offended!” card. If this is allowed to fly, well, then anyone can be offended by anything, and argument and debate is dead here.

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

#124
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They refuted it with anecdotes of their family members serving. If you want more, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_Jewish_Ame...

I did not interpret it in that way; I thought it was “That is offensive to me and even more so to these other people I know”. Your point is correct – it can charitably be interpreted as being a form of refutation argument. However, anecdotes about individual people are a very weak form of argument. I could think of a few better arguments immediately from the top of my head: The clumsy wording of the text (in the PDF)…

When one sides entire argument was "this flyer apparently exists," criticizing the rebuttal for killing the debate seems silly. They did not try to debate or present a real argument in the first place, though they have since somewhat fixed that.

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

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know about MKULTRA. I meant the Jew thing

Haha why did that comment get downvoted? Any downvoters want to explain?

Sometimes I feel like people just downvote randomly without fully processing the text or context

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

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm sorry that PDF hurt your feelings. I didn't anticipate that. The notice, as well as other materials associated with it seem rather philo-semetic to me. The reaction to it here implies (to me) that it was likely not intended to be made public. Now that you bring up your grievance about it, though--I do wonder if one of these tools the FBI uses for surveillance is the ADL, as is evident in other declassified docume…

Your unsupported claims damage the case against such overreach. You are just helping the FBI to ridicule these accusations.

Don't wonder, stick to the facts. You are drifting the topic. Your conclusions are baseless for that matter. This is why they are so easy to ridicule.

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

#127
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…

That is insufficient. An institution can be subverted and that isn't even too difficult. No, people need to control their own information and need to be empowered to do so.

Such indirection might make sense for data that must be collected anyway. But it should only be collected if necessary in the first place.

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

#128
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did not interpret it in that way; I thought it was “That is offensive to me and even more so to these other people I know”. Your point is correct – it can charitably be interpreted as being a form of refutation argument. However, anecdotes about individual people are a very weak form of argument. I could think of a few better arguments immediately from the top of my head: The clumsy wording of the text (in the PDF)…

When one sides entire argument was "this flyer apparently exists," criticizing the rebuttal for killing the debate seems silly. They did not try to debate or present a real argument in the first place, though they have since somewhat fixed that.

I didn’t criticize the rebuttal for killing this debate, since this debate is immaterial, and the PDF is easily debunked. I criticize people killing the idea of debate with “I’m offended” rebuttals.

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

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two details: Only recently has FISA been expanded to allow an amici role for government-licensed attorneys to argue against certain requests. We’ve kind of had three phases of FISA: Church commission FISA rejected 4 out of 25,000 requests. And those were approved after re-submission. Numbers like that cannot refute rubber stamp allegations. Then, after 2001, submissions started getting wild. The rejection rate and pu…

Ah, this is super interesting, thanks for the insight!

For some reason, Wikipedia doesn’t provide its usual level of detail on the FISA court page. Amendments to FISA look like:

1978, formed out of the Church commission

1994, business communications added to scope, and surveillance might be physical. “Business” would eventually include GPS and cell tower locating information kept by cell provider businesses.

2007, expanded to legitimize a dragnet for cases where foreign agents are included among bulk collection. I say legitimize because in 2005 the intelligence community was busted surpassing the bounds permitted by law. Retroactive immunity of telecom companies is one of the more interesting policy debates, I think.

Since 2008, it has been renewed by every President.

While Snowden is perhaps the most prominent face of what the public is permitted to know, Trump campaigner Carter Page is the most prominent FISA target. Any American citizen is legally protected by FISA unless they’re a foreign agent.

Page acted suspiciously like he was being paid by Russia to courier information. I think we can conclude that the FISA court acted in their typical knee jerk fashion to allow surveillance without bothering with civil rights; four times. The DoJ would eventually conclude it did not have probable cause to surveil Page. Republican legislators felt Page needed to be protected, and he became the face for some changes to FISA. Carter Page lied about trips to Moscow. Depending on your politics, this might be to cover up crimes, or you might fantasize that he was on a secret mission. Attorney General Jeff Sessions also lied about the trips. Anyway, fighting for changes to the kind of suspicion FISA is allowed to investigate is based on Page lying about when he was in Moscow.

The material unconstitutionally gathered on Page is tightly guarded by the government. His lawsuits have been thrown out. Having been at one time such a prominent victim that he was changing FISA law, he would later be described by the White House as an unknown.

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