FBI Document: [DELETED] had "plan to kill local Occupy leaders via sniper fire" • Hacker News Board

Re: FBI Document: [DELETED] had "plan to kill local Occupy leaders via sniper fire"

#71

Post by flexie » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 8:32 AM UTC

gasull wrote: post #12

I've done some research before upvoting this. I thought whowhatwhy.com would be some kind of conspiracy site, but they just do investigative journalism. They are usually featured in Salon.com. http://www.salon.com/topic/whowhatwhy/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russ_Baker Also, it's known that the FBI coordinated the crackdown on Occupy: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/29/fbi-coor...

Interesting :-) But I still do think it's a good idea for all of us to cool off before we jump to any conclusions based on things posted by new members with links to websites few of us had heard about before, even if these websites are not just conspiracy sites.

There is a lot of anger going around in here these days - and rightfully so - but it also attracts more radical comments with less convincing comparisons to totalitarian police states and it attracts a lot of hatred against Americans.

Just look at some of the comments to this post or the post yesterday about a girl who was jailed when ABC enforcement thought she bought a beer or the post a couple of days ago about a dog that was killed while its owner was arrested for filming a police raid.

The US is a big country, and we will be able to hear these stories every day if we want to. Right now, a lot of people really want to see stories that "demonstrate" that America is a police state. It kind of suits our mood.

Re: FBI Document: [DELETED] had "plan to kill local Occupy leaders via sniper fire"

#72

Post by Sharlin » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 8:33 AM UTC

smsm42 wrote: post #70

zanny wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Terrorist is todays communist, or yesteryears fascist, eugenicist, jap, negro, etc. Blanket arbitrary term to apply to dissenters you want to control and treat inhumanely, and society doesn't judge you for it because they are the "enemy" or "other". It incites an emotional response in people that let those holding the pen get away with way more than they should.

There's a pretty big gap between dissent and blowing people up on the streets. So let's not engage in false equivalency.

The grandparent didn't do that. His/her point was that governments do.

Re: FBI Document: [DELETED] had "plan to kill local Occupy leaders via sniper fire"

#73

Post by smsm42 » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 8:36 AM UTC

ScottBurson wrote: post #46

saraid216 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm wondering why there haven't beeny any arrests yet. Because making such a plan is protected by the First Amendment. Carrying it out is not.

No. Conspiring to commit murder is definitely not protected by the First Amendment. And even fantasizing openly, which should be protected as long as no attempt is made to act on the fantasy, has tended to get people locked up in recent years.

If no actual preparations were made to execute the plan, it would be clear violation of the 1st amendment. What is the case of being locked up for fantasizing?

Re: FBI Document: [DELETED] had "plan to kill local Occupy leaders via sniper fire"

#74

Post by lclarkmichalek » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 8:37 AM UTC

nnq wrote: post #58

cjambassador318 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that definitely justifies upvoting a speculative conspiracy theory to the front page of Hacker News. Given that the US is literally Nazi Germany, it's 100% believable that the FBI would murder protesters. I wish the sheeple could see the US for what it really is: literally Nazi Germany. People like us here on HN and reddit understand what's really going on, unlike the sheeple.

0. throwaway HN id 1. unwarranted extreme historical references 2. use of the word "sheeple" on a superior tone referencing the HN and reddit crowds as some kind of "elite" that knows better than the other sheeple I'd say "gg, man!", but I don't fully get what's your game. But I'll upvote you just for good humor :)

I think the clue might be in the username; cj has a fairly specific meaning on reddit, but saying the word on HN will get the comment [dead]ed.

Re: FBI Document: [DELETED] had "plan to kill local Occupy leaders via sniper fire"

#75

Post by davidjohnstone » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 8:39 AM UTC

zanny wrote: post #53

grey-area wrote: post #31

It's hard to know what to make of this as without the [DELETED] portions, as there's no evidence of government agencies being involved. I'm not sure why Occupy were not informed of such a plot though? Perhaps the FBI didn't think it was credible? The part that worries me even more than the death threats was the classification of the Occupy movement as 'terrorist activity'. This opens them up to a whole catalogue of s…

Terrorist is todays communist, or yesteryears fascist, eugenicist, jap, negro, etc. Blanket arbitrary term to apply to dissenters you want to control and treat inhumanely, and society doesn't judge you for it because they are the "enemy" or "other". It incites an emotional response in people that let those holding the pen get away with way more than they should.

Slightly tangential, but I'm pretty sure eugenicists were never thought of in the same way as communists et al. In the US, eugenics was an important idea in the Progressive Era of the late nineteenth/early twentieth century, and while it wasn't universally liked (the Catholic church being a notable opponent), it did have broad social approval and at least a few countries practiced eugenics in some form. This all changed with Hitler and World War II, and now eugenics is another idea sidelined to the dustbin of history. (For now?)

As Wikipedia says: "At its peak of popularity, eugenics was supported by a wide variety of prominent people, including Winston Churchill, Margaret Sanger, Marie Stopes, H. G. Wells, Norman Haire, Havelock Ellis, Theodore Roosevelt, George Bernard Shaw, John Maynard Keynes, John Harvey Kellogg, Linus Pauling and Sidney Webb. Its most infamous proponent and practitioner was, however, Adolf Hitler who praised and incorporated eugenic ideas in Mein Kampf and emulated Eugenic legislation for the sterilization of "defectives" that had been pioneered in the United States." — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#Supporters_and_critic...

Re: FBI Document: [DELETED] had "plan to kill local Occupy leaders via sniper fire"

#76

Post by smsm42 » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 8:40 AM UTC

contingencies wrote: post #24

furyofantares wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That reads like pure speculation

As does your comment. Hell, so does mine. We're not in S-expressions anymore, Toto!

There's a difference between logically following an evidence and reasoning like "DELETED might mean FBI or NSA or Black Helicopters Squad - we are doomed! PANIC!!!" DELETED might mean anything, so there's absolutely no reason to give any weight to that specific speculated meaning against a meaning of "two patients of local mental asylum, when their meds were accidentally switched".

Re: FBI Document: [DELETED] had "plan to kill local Occupy leaders via sniper fire"

#77

Post by smsm42 » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 8:43 AM UTC

Sharlin wrote: post #72

smsm42 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a pretty big gap between dissent and blowing people up on the streets. So let's not engage in false equivalency.

The grandparent didn't do that. His/her point was that governments do .

Governments can lie. But terrorist is not an arbitrary term to stifle dissent - it is a specific and identifiable tactic used to achieve certain goals. If somebody says black is white, it doesn't mean black and white are arbitrary labels that can be applied to anything. That's the false dichotomy that is offered to us.

Re: FBI Document: [DELETED] had "plan to kill local Occupy leaders via sniper fire"

#78

Post by smsm42 » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 8:52 AM UTC

mtgx wrote: post #67

anigbrowl wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most likely candidate to me seems some fringe right-wing types flapping their mouths in an internet forum. I've heard plenty of people at that end of the spectrum averring that the Occupy movement was some sort of Marxist 5th column under orders from Obama, or variants on that theme. Right-wing fringe thinkers like to fantasize about putting their guns to patriotic use in much the same way that leftist fringe thi…

But they were calling the Occupy people potential terrorists...not the right-wingers who might've wanted to assassinate their leaders. Strange, isn't it?

One does not preclude the other. People who planned to shoot Occupy leaders might be terrorists - or not, depending on what they wanted to achieve by this shooting - terrorism is a tactic, relying on fear and intimidation for a political goal, so depending on if they wanted to intimidate Occupy protestors for a political goal or not they may or may not be terrorists.

Some Occupy people could be potential terrorists too - if they wanted to use violence against peaceful citizens to achieve their political goals. Reports from Occupy protests show that at least some in the movement are not reluctant to use violence - throwing rocks, bottles, improvised incendiary and explosive devices, etc. If they ever employed such tactics against a civilian target for a political goal, it would be an act of terrorism.

Re: FBI Document: [DELETED] had "plan to kill local Occupy leaders via sniper fire"

#79

Post by downandout » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 8:54 AM UTC

These documents by themselves do not show any government complicity in a plot to kill Occupy leaders, as this article strives to imply. This was a criminal investigation into people that were allegedly talking about doing this.

As to why the targets of this investigation weren't arrested, in order to be arrested for conspiracy to commit a crime, you have to actually take a step toward executing the conspiracy. Planning or talking about it is not enough for an arrest. The FBI receives alot of information, much of it from criminals trying to save themselves, that turns out to be neither actionable nor credible. This appears to be an investigation that simply didn't go anywhere.

Re: FBI Document: [DELETED] had "plan to kill local Occupy leaders via sniper fire"

#80

Post by anigbrowl » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 8:58 AM UTC

mtgx wrote: post #67

anigbrowl wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most likely candidate to me seems some fringe right-wing types flapping their mouths in an internet forum. I've heard plenty of people at that end of the spectrum averring that the Occupy movement was some sort of Marxist 5th column under orders from Obama, or variants on that theme. Right-wing fringe thinkers like to fantasize about putting their guns to patriotic use in much the same way that leftist fringe thi…

But they were calling the Occupy people potential terrorists...not the right-wingers who might've wanted to assassinate their leaders. Strange, isn't it?

No. You have a second-hand, uncorroborated report that someone within the FBI and/or DHS referred to the Occupy movement as terrorists, with no context whatsoever.

First, without context or a link to the source the report is meaningless. The documents that are cited in this report make no such characterization. Second, these two organizations are huge. It's entirely possible that someon in the FBI wrote a report describing the Occupy folks as potential terrorists - I can easily believe that occurred. That's not the same as the entire organization or even its leadership holding that position.

Context matters a lot, and so do primary sources. This sort of political free-association that you seem to enjoy quickly ends up in conspiracy-theory territory because it's not falsifiable. This is why it's so hard to talk to people who buy into UFO conspiracies; possibility is continually treated as probability, and eventually it starts to look to them like everything revolves around an attempt to conceal Aliens Among Us. You can't talk them out of it, because that's just sort of thing a PsyOps operative would do, right?

Do you remember the shitstorm in 2009 when DHS came up with a report on 'rightwing extremism'? That was a fairly dry and dispassionate overview of one type of possible domestic terrorism (http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/rightwing.pdf), but to look at the reaction in the blogosphere you'd think the Obama administration was about to carry out the bloodiest purge since Stalin. Forgive me if I don't give random extrapolations based on a single word a great deal of weight.