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FBI Documents Reveal Secret Nationwide Occupy Monitoring

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Re: FBI Documents Reveal Secret Nationwide Occupy Monitoring

#71

Post by wes-exp »

rayiner wrote: post #26
sneak wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dissent: just one misinterpreted statement away from jailtime. ...because the FBI and DoJ have such a long and varied history of making sure that the free and legal exercise of one's first amendment rights are upheld.... riiiight. This is the same FBI that tapped the phones of MLK Jr. Fuck them. To DanielBMarkham: what fucking world do you live in where this is your reasonably-considered view?! Please go read some hi…

Did the FBI and DOJ jail MLK?

No, they just "... ordered agents to wiretap and spy on his hotel rooms and his private home; ... pushed newspapers to publish sordid details about King’s relations with women other than his wife just before he won the Nobel Peace Prize". Oh yeah and sent him a letter urging him to commit suicide.

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/4/j_edgar_hoover_vs_marti...

Re: FBI Documents Reveal Secret Nationwide Occupy Monitoring

#72

Post by anigbrowl »

mindcrime wrote: post #62
anigbrowl wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The courts, that's why we have them. You might also like to recall that at least some of the occupy movements involved violent and wholly unecessary destruction of private property, eg Occupy Oakland. Sure, that was only a few fringe anarchists who had attached themselves to the ideologically pure movement, but that's little different from the 'few bad apples' excuse that is sometimes advanced to forestall criticism…

The courts, that's why we have them. Meh... courts have no real intrinsic authority. All political power ultimately derives from the people, and their consent.

...whose sovereignty is what backs a constitution, which is what courts derive their authority from. Devoid of institutions, 'the people' are no more than a mob, which lacks anything more than a pretense of moral authority.

Re: FBI Documents Reveal Secret Nationwide Occupy Monitoring

#73

Post by dredmorbius »

mindcrime wrote: post #62
anigbrowl wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The courts, that's why we have them. You might also like to recall that at least some of the occupy movements involved violent and wholly unecessary destruction of private property, eg Occupy Oakland. Sure, that was only a few fringe anarchists who had attached themselves to the ideologically pure movement, but that's little different from the 'few bad apples' excuse that is sometimes advanced to forestall criticism…

The courts, that's why we have them. Meh... courts have no real intrinsic authority. All political power ultimately derives from the people, and their consent.

That's the popular belief in this day and place.

Previously, "the divine right of kings" was frequently invoked. Or simply the biggest brute in the squad.

Re: FBI Documents Reveal Secret Nationwide Occupy Monitoring

#74

Post by kbolino »

cstejerean wrote: post #27
pyre wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are both missing the plethora of articles about how every breaks at least 3 federal laws a day (unknowingly). We are rapidly approaching a state where everyone is a criminal, and all it takes it putting your life under a microscope to cart you off to jail. If the FBI are creating a file on everyone that goes to a protest, then fewer people will be willing to go to protests to avoid having their life under the mic…

Will a jury of your peers convict you for one of these things that supposedly everyone is violating?

Will a jury of your peers...

There are many objections that can be made to this line of argumentation.

1. You will not, in fact, sit before a jury of your "peers", especially if you are knowledgeable about the law. Juries are generally selected to find the most pliant, least informed individuals.

2. Juries are not immune to the problems of group mentalities. You could easily be in a situation where a majority of the jurors, if asked on the street, would never consider such an act criminal, but when placed in an isolated group with one or more authoritative-sounding busybodies, will agree to convict (see the Milgram experiment).

3. Jurors are specifically instructed to evaluate the case on its merits (does the law as written apply to the act committed by this individual?), and to disregard personal opinions and feelings about the nature of the law itself. This is related to the discussion on "jury nullification" by other posters.

4. A trial is an exhausting, humiliating, and possibly financially devastating process. You will not even get the opportunity to present your case, if you are under duress from the circumstances created by the prosecution and agree to a plea bargain instead.

Re: FBI Documents Reveal Secret Nationwide Occupy Monitoring

#75

Post by kbolino »

anigbrowl wrote: post #70
pyre wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What statistical rigor do you suggest? How do you gather stats on "people that unwittingly were convicted of Federal crimes that most normal people wouldn't know about (or wouldn't think are crimes)?"

Data on number of actual prosecutions and convictions. you're arguing like someone who finds a bug in a piece of software and decries the entire computer industry as a conspiracy to part him from his money. Of course the law fails on occasion, look at how many lines of code are in it. But the idea that everyone is breaking 5 or 6 federal laws every day and is at risk of financial ruin or indefinite incarceration at t…

There is no doubt that the legal system is institutionally unjust in statistically significant ways to certain groups of people. And there is also no doubt that it is short-sighted and selfish for people not in those groups to expend more effort decrying infrequent injustices instead.

But two wrongs do not make a right. You are not likely to fall into a situation where you are arrested/convicted/imprisoned for an act that most people perform on a regular basis and do not consider a crime. But such laws do exist, real people have been arrested/convicted/imprisoned because of them, and it is still wrong.

Also, every person is subject to more jurisdictions than just the Federal government. I presume that we elide them from most discussions because of the wide variation from place to place, but they are no less able to arrest, convict, and imprison people (some can even execute).

Furthermore, one can recognize the effect of something--e.g., the existence of frivolous laws enables abuses of the justice system--without attributing it to willful intent. It may not be an "evil plot" by an all-knowing mastermind, but that doesn't mean it's not happening (also known as, unintended consequences).

Re: FBI Documents Reveal Secret Nationwide Occupy Monitoring

#76

Post by anigbrowl »

kbolino wrote: post #75
anigbrowl wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Data on number of actual prosecutions and convictions. you're arguing like someone who finds a bug in a piece of software and decries the entire computer industry as a conspiracy to part him from his money. Of course the law fails on occasion, look at how many lines of code are in it. But the idea that everyone is breaking 5 or 6 federal laws every day and is at risk of financial ruin or indefinite incarceration at t…

There is no doubt that the legal system is institutionally unjust in statistically significant ways to certain groups of people. And there is also no doubt that it is short-sighted and selfish for people not in those groups to expend more effort decrying infrequent injustices instead. But two wrongs do not make a right. You are not likely to fall into a situation where you are arrested/convicted/imprisoned for an act…

It's still wrong, but so is the assertion that everyone is breaking 3 federal laws a day, and the implicit assertion behind that the federal government is therefore a Bad Thing.

Re: FBI Documents Reveal Secret Nationwide Occupy Monitoring

#77

Post by ced »

btilly wrote: post #68
ced wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

French Quebecer here. I've been trying to learn more about why the perception from English Canada is the way it is and posts like yours help a lot. likely the most racist law passed anywhere in North America In what ways? Do you feel that it was specifically intended to kick out English Canadians? It didn't help that the value of my Canadian sourced scholarship dropped sharply due to I don't follow - how did that hap…

Bill 101 was clearly intended to make Quebec unpleasant for anglophones, and the fact that within several years something like 1/3 of all anglophones living in Quebec had left Quebec is strong evidence that it succeeded in that goal. These were not people who particularly wanted to leave. These were people who lived in Quebec, had jobs, had houses. Yet they abandoned those, and the ones that I knew were very clear th…

Thank you for the detailed answer.

Re: FBI Documents Reveal Secret Nationwide Occupy Monitoring

#78

Post by btilly »

ced wrote: post #77
btilly wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bill 101 was clearly intended to make Quebec unpleasant for anglophones, and the fact that within several years something like 1/3 of all anglophones living in Quebec had left Quebec is strong evidence that it succeeded in that goal. These were not people who particularly wanted to leave. These were people who lived in Quebec, had jobs, had houses. Yet they abandoned those, and the ones that I knew were very clear th…

Thank you for the detailed answer.

You're welcome.

Over the years I've had a number of friends from Quebec. Invariably my views on Quebec separatism came as a surprise - they'd never seen it presented from any point of view but their own.

Re: FBI Documents Reveal Secret Nationwide Occupy Monitoring

#79

Post by mindcrime »

anigbrowl wrote: post #72
mindcrime wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The courts, that's why we have them. Meh... courts have no real intrinsic authority. All political power ultimately derives from the people, and their consent.

...whose sovereignty is what backs a constitution, which is what courts derive their authority from. Devoid of institutions, 'the people' are no more than a mob, which lacks anything more than a pretense of moral authority.

From the point of view of the minority, that's still all "the State" is: a mob. "majority rule" is just a euphemism for "tyranny of the majority" or "mob rule". And even a representative republic system still can't guarantee that the majority don't violate the rights of the minority.

Let's say you were an innocent man, wrongly convicted of murder by a jury. Would you feel that the State truly was justified in imprisoning you for life or executing you? I mean, the "institution" of a court and judge and a jury decided to do it, so does that make it OK?

Re: FBI Documents Reveal Secret Nationwide Occupy Monitoring

#80

Post by jeffdavis »

jlgreco wrote: post #38
jeffdavis wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"support a national intelligence agency monitoring the non-violent" What's wrong with "monitoring"? It sounds bad, but from the article, it seems like they are just keeping their eyes on a potential problem. Given that OWS was a public protest movement, monitoring it is hardly an unreasonable search. So, does this article offer new evidence that some unreasonable searches, seizures, or harassment took place? If not,…

What is your tolerance threshold for surveillance? What percentage of the population can they 'monitor' until it makes you feel uncomfortable?

Monitoring many people is of course cause for concern, but it has little to do with what the article was talking about. The article was talking about the monitoring of specific, fairly small groups of people.

I would object to any attempt at widespread monitoring of public spaces by the government (though I don't see an obvious constitutional problem there). I don't object to using their existing monitoring capabilities to focus on certain groups.

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