Remember the FBI's promise it wasn’t abusing the NSA’s data on US peeps? Well, guess what… The FBI routinely misused a database, gathered by the NSA with the specific purpose of searching for foreign intelligence threats, by searching it for everything from vetting to spying on relatives. In doing so, it not only violated the law and the US constitution but knowingly lied to the faces of congressmen who were asking …
I get the impression that the FBI makes employees denounce ethics and similar rogue ideologies.
Which is why turning off end-to-end encryption might not be a good thing. There already seems to be too much data getting in the way of the FBI catching the bad guys.
Probably similar to a bad school teacher. If you increase their salary, it does not automatically make them a good school teacher. Ethics and morals are what makes a good school teacher.
Really? I would have thought that a good knowledge of the subject, enthusiasm for it, the ability to engage with and inspire students, and to communicate concepts and principles would be more relevant.
You've been watching Dead Poets Society again, haven't you?
That type of teacher are rare anyway, even those with just a spark have that crushed out of them after a few years.
Also, teachers that over engage with students might be viewed with suspicion by onlookers as to being the 'P' word.
They want to catch bad guys. Statistically speaking, most of the bad guys they're interested in are US persons. They've got this huge database of information about US persons, what are they supposed to do - not use it, spend tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars on gathering the same information again through other channels...?
If I had a choice between "trying to get approval to spend two weeks of time and tens of thousands of dollars to find out whether X is dirty" and "spending half an hour to get the same information from an existing database", I wouldn't hesitate. I wouldn't think I was doing anything wrong, either. Your privacy can be invaded by a team of half a dozen agents and a full dossier created specifically on you, or it can be invaded by one guy with some SQL. Which is worse, really? (Yes, I know the latter allows 100x more people to be intruded upon more of the time. But that's not much comfort if you're one of the 1% who gets the much more detailed attention of the old approach.)
Really what this story shows is that the regulatory system is broken, not because it's too lax (although it is), but because it's based on the assumption that "reasonable people" will ultimately agree on what's ethical and what isn't.
"They've got this huge database of information about US persons, what are they supposed to do - not use it, spend tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars on gathering the same information again through other channels...?"
If they can't get a Warrant to use it, then absolutely YES.
"...I wouldn't hesitate. I wouldn't think I was doing anything wrong, either."
That is the problem. They don't think that anything is wrong with it. But if it isn't actually wrong, why to they need to lie about it? It is one thing to search the database without a Warrant, but for a Law Enforcement Agency to actively lie to Judges and Congress, under oath, is a MASSIVE issue.
"Your privacy can be invaded by a team of half a dozen agents and a full dossier created specifically on you..."
That is old news. The issue isn't that this database exists, or that the FBI was given access to it, the issue is that the FBI did so without a Warrant on such a massive scale and outside the scope it their access was intended for. Getting a Warrant is a fairly standard process, and for some Warrants all it takes is a phone call to a Judge. The Judge then decides if they have a good enough reason to pull information from the database, not the FBI investigators. Instead, the FBI treats the database like a phonebook instead of a set of highly privileged information they only have the right to use on a case-by-case basis with Judicial oversight.
Due process is a big thing in the court system. If it comes out that the FBI used this information in prosecutions without a Warrant, and having lied under oath, hundreds of court cases could be thrown out.
Due process is a big thing in the court system. If it comes out that the FBI used this information in prosecutions without a Warrant, and having lied under oath, hundreds of court cases could be thrown out.
That is assuming that they tell the truth about the source of the information during the court case. It has already been demonstrated that they are prepared to lie to judges and congress so why would you assume they would tell the truth in the court case?
One word: perjury. Don't forget the oath any witness must agree upon taking the stand: to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you {INSERT DEITY HERE}. If a witness perjures on the stand, not only is that a felony, but the entire case can be declared a mistrial as a result.
The problem here is that you need a prosecutor to bring a case against the people who lied to the court (i.e. the FBI). But the Prosecutors are on the side of the FBI. I mean the FBI brings criminal cases to the prosecutors to try in court. So there is zero chance of a Prosecutor bringing perjury charges against a member of the FBI (especially in a leadership position), because that will absolutely hurt them later when the FBI brings sub-standard evidence to them out of revenge. Failed/No convictions means Prosecutor out of a job.
The best we can hope for is that Congress are able to bring the axe down on the entire FBI leadership who lied before congress and to judges and cost them there jobs. The chances of anyone going to jail for lying to the courts or congress is about the same as a snowballs chance in hell...
"But the Prosecutors are on the side of the FBI."
Not necessarily. All it takes is one honest United States Attorney and the whole works can start getting uncomfortable looks. Any attempt to cover it up would then (especially in today's hyperpartisanism) be seen as such and just elicit more dirty looks. Basically, if someone blows the whistle, it can bring things to a head where it's either back down or just throw the book away, in which case you're likely looking at a new Civil War.
I'm completely at a loss as to how a single word would stop people from lying through their teeth when they know they'll get away with it, even if caught. I'd like to see studies detailing the percentage of effectiveness. Looking at the news headlines over the year, it sure doesn't appear to be 100%.
"..One word: perjury..."
That isn't even a speed bump on the road for them. Clapper has perjured himself repeatedly, and even when given the opportunity to prosecute him for that documented fact, no one has done so. The statute of limitations timed before anything was done.
No, these people ARE the muscle of that 'deep state' that people want to pretend doesn't exist.
The "beyond reasonable doubt" bar is high. The prosecution has to prove its evidence is legit. In demonstrating its veracity, it's hard to hide the source of the evidence from a defence attorney in the discovery process and cross-examine the prosecution's LEA witnesses under oath about how they got the evidence.
"That is assuming that they tell the truth about the source of the information during the court case."
Well yes, if the prosecution is going to be thrown out, it'll have to be proved.
However, right now everyone the FBI have convicted for anything over the last few years, are going to be ringing up their lawyers and asking for an appeal. So, even if not a single person goes free, they've still wasted enormous amounts of time and money that will be spent re-litigating hundreds/thousands of cases.
"They've got this huge database of information about US persons, what are they supposed to do - not use it, spend tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars on gathering the same information again through other channels...?"
More fundamentally, what if the FBI use it to get Krompromat on judges, maybe even Supreme Court justices - what future does the Republic have then?
"More fundamentally, what if the FBI use it to get Krompromat on judges, maybe even Supreme Court justices - what future does the Republic have then?"
What if they already did? There was a rather significant Supreme Court case you might recall in recent memory, where the chief justice voted very surprisingly.
Slight problem: THEY DIDN'T HAVE THE RIGHT TO USE THE DATABASE THE WAY THEY DID, THEY KNEW THAT, THEY LIED UNDER OATH, AND THEY'RE LITERALLY POISED TO CONTINUE AS SOON AS THINGS COOL DOWN. Fcuk the idea that it "saves money" to spy on citizens indiscriminately. The nerve!
I wouldn't hesitate. I wouldn't think I was doing anything wrong, either.
But the fact is, you *would* be doing something wrong. You would be breaking the law. Which you are sworn to uphold.
So, if you don't like the law, change it. Or live within its requirements.
But don't knowingly violate it, then lie about it. Because at that point, you're no better than the people you're looking for.
What an excellent idea! Lets shred the Bill of Rights and allow these unelected bureaucrats to carry out their ruthless scorched-earth campaign completely unencumbered. It's not like we have tens or hundreds of thousands of statutes such that the chance of any person being made to appear guilty of infringing upon multiple statutes reaches to virtually a probablistic certainty. It's also not like the FBI prosecutors routinely "venue shop" by making bogus "related charges" claims in order to hand pick judges who they know will be beyond unsympathetic to the defendant. Or that jury selections are completely one-sided so that the DAs can dismiss any and every juror they even suspect of being open to the possibility of making a determination of innocence. Or that those judges routinely issue gag orders at the outset of a case so that the defendant's can't solicit any type of public support or even awareness if the entire court proceeding has been blatantly stacked and rigged against them. Oh and of course they don't issue rulings to seal the identities of the jurors so as to ensure that no one can look them up to see if they spend their evenings typing out FB and Twitter posts delineating extreme biases or even exposing that they blatantly lied to get on the jury in order to convict. I mean c'mon, it's not like the US has a higher conviction rate than any and every other country, including North Korea and the former Soviet Union, or a prison population that dwarfs every country of the remaining ~8Billion people on the planet. If they're not supposed to be using this database then how could they even introduce any evidence at court, it would clearly be inadmissible as bearing the fruit of the poisonous tree, I'm sure they don't engage in parallel construction in order to fabricate the origins of their investigation by leveraging paid confidential informants to sign off on a false witness testimony.
Oh, wait, actually that is what happens every single day in federal law enforcement and courtrooms. Many of the cases are highly political or are chosen purely for sport so the agents and prosecutors can get on tv and brag about what heroes they are. What about when federal crimes are committed by the rich, powerful, well-connected, or fellow government employees? Ha, ya right, last time that happened was in the 70s, but I guess we were just cured from corruption on a societal level. And while these agents and prosecutors are going through NSA databases and unmasking random citizens looking for their next victim to destroy, you have multiple credible reports with a high confidence level that a very disturbed person poses an active shooter threat at Parkland HS. Well everyone was kinda busy so they didn't really get around to checking out those reports so a very preventable massacre occured but that's not an unacceptable failure that can be cleanly laid at the feet of the FBI & Local PD, it's just the beaurocracy yknow, crazy. The real problem there is we need to take your guns away but don't worry, we have the FBI to protect us! I feel safer already.
Any American citizen that was arrested and charged for any crimes related to these unlawful queries should be allowed to be set free, period.
And every single FBI agent that abused citizens constitutional rights needs to be charged.
As stated in the article, the constitution protects it's citizens from abuse of unlawful search and seizures.
Not a very good look for the FBI at a time when the US president has accused them of illegal survaillance of him and his associates.
Whether true or not I am sure these ugly truths will be used in his defense (and rightly so).
Quite correct! I look forward to the squeals of anguish from law enforcement and "tough on crimers" when people are released from the clutches of the legal system that should not have them. One of the few things I think the US legal system has compared to here in the UK is the "fruit of the poisoned tree" doctrine. I wish our courts would develop the same thing - it removes some of the incentive for investigators "doing the right thing"(!) to go around the protections that ordinary people must have. I look forward to the courts here developing it the future, as it must.
...the Scottish police. My parents house was raided / visited about ten times in three years due to bogus allegations by police informants in the peace movement, even though they knew I didn't live there. I'd already agreed to visit any police station on their request at any time, and gave them a full statement about the NVDA I'd been responsible for, but the allegations got wilder such as fascism and terrorism.
I ended up sitting down with a top cop, the head of the region, just after an environmental protester had recorded Strathclyde police had tried to recruit her.
The top cop I was talking to started with that, and I said, "Aye, that was embarrassing."
I meant it was embarrassing for the police. He misunderstood and replied, "I know. What they don't realise is if we can do it then we will do it."
An upfront admission that legality wasn't a concern for them.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/apr/24/strathclyde-police-plane-stupid-recruit-spy
Or raided by a poorly trained SWAT team who will shoot you (and your family and your dog) for "resisting arrest" when you react to a 3:00am door smash in.
Never seen Facebook (or Amazon/Google/et.Al.) manage to do that, seen law enforcement do it on a regular basis.
If they're not just limited to the NSA's "incidental" scoops of data, the sky's the limit!
It's not that I'm just afraid of bad guys getting access to my back door. It seems I can't even trust the so-called good guys. Although, it seems they are also bad.
Is a moment in time, a slight inconvenience but soon will all be forgotten like so many other inconvenient matters that never seem to result in any kind of repercussions ever.
Sure, it'll stick in public consciousness but will soon be joined by other crimes that become the latest outrage and things will move on.
It's also becoming more clear that we're just not paranoid enough when it comes to these sorts of things.
and the way in which the first head of the FBI used illegally obtained and retained data for several decades to blackmail presidents, hide his own (then illegal and poilitically sensitive) sexuality and extend his own reign way beyond the limits for public employees, it's hardly surprising that his successors have learned that they're big enough to do whatever the fuck they want; both to the law and to the little people...
Let's be honest: Which government does NOT grab as much data as possible?
You can't afford to play nice these days, cyber warfare is real theses days.
That said I'm not a fan of data grabbing. But we need a structural change which makes it impossible (or at least hard enough) to get user data that easily. And we still have a long way to go here, the vast majority of computer users neither has the knowledge nor do they really care for security concerns.
Don't hate the player, hate the game. If people are stupid, don't blame agencies to make use of the low hanging fruits, because other agencies WILL use the data..
You mean they are treating American Citizens in the same way that they have given themselves the right to treat every other person in the world?
As if American Citizens were just ordinary people? Not shining examples to the rest of the world of what they ought to be aspiring to but obviously can never be because they are not American Citizens?
"...a database, gathered by the NSA..."
"...the FBI was breaking the law and the constitution..."
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No comments here about whether the DATABASE ITSELF WAS ASSEMBLED LEGALLY!!!!!
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My take is that the whole process, end to end, was illegal.....data gathering by the NSA, data use by the NSA, data use by the FBI, data use by who knows who....yet to be disclosed.
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You know you are in serious trouble when THERE ARE NO GOOD GUYS!
You know you are in serious trouble when THERE ARE NO GOOD GUYS!
O? How about Edward Snowden? Him being called a bad guy by this proven set of bad guys most definitely raises the odds of him being a good guy to way better than fifty/fifty. And I seem to remember something about a good girl doing time in Leavenworth.
Once you cede your rights to the government, you are never, ever going to get it back peacefully.
Big brother is watching you everywhere like the Chinese government in the name of terrorism.
Nets question is who benefits from terrorism, governments to keep citizens in perpetual fear and control.
Welcome to the new world!
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned "parallel construction". PC is when the FBI has a suspect for a crime, and have difficulty assembling enough evidence to arrest or convict. They have been able to go to this database and search it for incriminating evidence - gathered in a way that they cannot legally use. So if they find something they can use, they need to find a way to show that they obtained this information via lawful means. So they construct a method whereby they found the information legitimately - that's the parallel construction.
I'm not sure of the validity of the source, but apparently many hundreds or even thousands of cases have been resolved using PC, which is nominally illegal. If exposed a lot of genuine federal criminal cases may well collapse.
And just for all those who seem to be assuming that because they're not American that this doesn't apply to them, do you really think that your country's intelligence services aren't doing exactly the same ? Really ? And the chances of that coming out publicly are probably a lot lower than in the US where there at least are some constitutional safeguards, even if often ignored.
Chris Morris, the best English satirist, is getting good press for his new movie "The Day Shall Come".
After an attempt to frame a man for a terrorist bombing goes wrong, Agent Kendra Glack of the FBI comes across one of Moses's live-streamed sermons, and decides that he will make the perfect patsy to pin criminal activities on. The FBI plan to arrest Moses after misleading him into committing a criminal act, making them look successful for capturing a dangerous revolutionary.
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