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FBI Monitored Aretha Franklin for Years, File Shows

nytimes.com

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Re: FBI Monitored Aretha Franklin for Years, File Shows

#91

Post by RetpolineDrama »

fsociety999 wrote: post #62

The FBI is more or less a legalized criminal organization that is funded by U.S. taxpayers, but is unelected and unaccountable to them. This article is from 2013, but I haven’t seen anything to suggest that this behavior has changed: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/08/04/fbi-in... The important part to consider: > The FBI gave its informants permission to break the law at least 5,658 times in a single…

They also have the seemingly unique and blatantly unconstitutional power to imprison you for ""lying"" to them.

The actual wording/charge is "providing false statements", which means anything that they can later suggest is untrue.

This is why you should never, ever speak with anyone associated with the FBI even if they are being "friendly".

Say they knock at the door and have questions for you about your shady neighbor down the street. You're not the one under investigation, so what's the harm in talking to them right? Well officer friendly asks the innocuous question of if it was raining last Thursday. You tell them that it was. As it turns out, it was not raining last Thursday and your honest-but-wrong answer means you are now able to be charged with "lying to the FBI".

In practice, they knew it wasn't raining last Thursday and the question was a trap. By answering incorrectly officer friendly can then threaten to charge you at a later date, except there's an out! _You can become an informant!_. By agreeing to spy on your neighbor for the mafia they'll spare you federal inditement. You're now an "asset" that they can work for as long as they please and you have no legal recourse.

EDIT: To expand upon this, lets say it wasn't last thursday but was in fact 60+ days ago. They have a text message from you to your wife saying how beautiful/sunny the day was, because despite being "end to end encrypted" your iMessage private key is stored on Apple servers because you clicked the default CTAs during iCloud setup to enable iCloud backup. They _know_ it was not raining and have "proof" you knew it was not raining, because you texted your wife how nice and sunny it was. You honestly don't remember at the time you were questioned, maybe you think you're 100% telling the truth. Maybe you're confused, and are thinking of the thursday prior where it _was_ raining. None of that matters, they have you on a federal felony and you're their asset now.

Re: FBI Monitored Aretha Franklin for Years, File Shows

#92

Post by the_optimist »

prange wrote: post #24
theandrewbailey wrote: post #2

Defund the FBI, CIA, NSA, ATF, and DEA. They've proven themselves to cause more trouble than to solve problems.

Quoted post unavailable.

Maybe he noticed this problem before you did. Something to do with the time they offered $1M to a foreign national to find evidence incriminating him. They didn't get anything, promised FISA court they did, and enabled political opponents to tap global historical messaging databases, two-hop unlimited.

Re: FBI Monitored Aretha Franklin for Years, File Shows

#93

Post by throwaway894345 »

landryraccoon wrote: post #26
throwaway894345 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> (homicides are up like 60% compared to the pre-BLM days). Where are you getting this statistic? A quick google search doesn’t show any such surge in the murder rate in the United States. 60% is a very large increase. I would expect this stat to have huge ripple effects if it were true.

The stat has had huge ripple effects, especially in poorer urban communities. Checking the homicide rates on the FBI data explorer shows an increase of 50% which gels with my 60% ballpark figure (rates accounts for population increases in a way my homicide increases figure doesn't).

My 60% figure was grabbing the homicide count in 2014 from the FBI UCR (14,249 per https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-....) and comparing it with the stats from 2021 (22,900).

Re: FBI Monitored Aretha Franklin for Years, File Shows

#94

Post by HarryHirsch »

waboremo wrote: post #83
HarryHirsch wrote: post #59

Pirke Avot 2.3 applies, as it always does: https://www.sefaria.org/Pirkei_Avot.2.3 People have internalized that HR is on the company's side, not theirs, but sometimes their goals are congruent. Everyone should look at government the same way.

If everyone should look at government the same way, then government has failed tremendously and we should stop pushing this farce of "democracy".

What if the US government was really dominated by a small cadre of elites? One can make a good case for that thesis; it would be terrible if true, but we have to be realistic in our outlook. Someone clever said that politics is the art of what is possible.

Re: FBI Monitored Aretha Franklin for Years, File Shows

#95

Post by bell-cot »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #82
fsociety999 wrote: post #62

The FBI is more or less a legalized criminal organization that is funded by U.S. taxpayers, but is unelected and unaccountable to them. This article is from 2013, but I haven’t seen anything to suggest that this behavior has changed: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/08/04/fbi-in... The important part to consider: > The FBI gave its informants permission to break the law at least 5,658 times in a single…

Governments are basically the mob, except that they figured out that they can exert more control over a longer period of time if they have documents that "constrain" their powers and they offer you a say in some matters. Every year, I pay the US government protection money at a higher rate than the mob demanded (~35% vs ~15%). They mark their territory, control who enters and exits, and demand compliance with their r…

> I pay the US government protection money at a higher rate than the mob demanded (~35% vs ~15%)

Does your mob allow a bunch of deductions, tax dodges, "carried interest" rates, IRA's, and other tricks to cut what the well-to-do actually pay them down to half (or less) of their headline "rate"?

EDIT: Examples so far seem to be limited, one-off "if you're patting the right guy's back" situations. Vs. the US gov't allows an unlimited number of sleazy Wall Street types to launder unlimited amounts of money through various tax dodges. This might be good evidence that the mob is smarter about collecting "taxes" than the US gov't...but it sounds like the answer to my question is "basically, no".

Re: FBI Monitored Aretha Franklin for Years, File Shows

#96

Post by throwaway894345 »

femiagbabiaka wrote: post #30
landryraccoon wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (homicides are up like 60% compared to the pre-BLM days). Where are you getting this statistic? A quick google search doesn’t show any such surge in the murder rate in the United States. 60% is a very large increase. I would expect this stat to have huge ripple effects if it were true.

It’s a complete fabrication of course.

According to the FBI, there were 22,900 homicides in 2021 and 14,249 in 2014. If a ~60% increase isn't the right figure, what do you think it is, and how did you arrive at your conclusion?

Re: FBI Monitored Aretha Franklin for Years, File Shows

#97

Post by chasd00 »

mansion7 wrote: post #76
pjc50 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump is against the FBI because they're investigating him. It's not that deep.

We do know that at least two FBI agents were found to have conspired against him during his first campaign. We also know that an FBI attorney falsified information to get warrants against his campaign advisor. We know that the FBI urged the media to actually censor negative news about his political opponents. It would be difficult to them trust such an organization to them perform fair investigations against you afte…

The Russia collusion fiasco cost the FBI so much credibility. The moment I saw them raiding Trump's Florida residence, even if justified, I just rolled my eyes.

Re: FBI Monitored Aretha Franklin for Years, File Shows

#98

Post by throwaway894345 »

AaronFriel wrote: post #11
throwaway894345 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Which municipalities in the US enacted "defund the police" programs?

Hi Aaron, let me quote myself:

> Not that we actually defunded them, but we have sharply reduced the quantity of policing (not usually through official policy as much as pressure on police departments to sharply reduce discretionary, proactive policing) which is what 'defund the police' aimed to do

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