I have not thought this through, but it seems like that is what you get for implementing such a law in the first place? Why should an agency be allowed to spy on non-americans more anyway?
If they have a good reason, they can spy, and they can get a warrant for it. If they don't have a reason, they shouldn't be able to search anything, American citizen or not.
> Why should an agency be allowed to spy on non-americans more anyway?
The answer is that most democracies have various fundamental protections against spying on their own citizens (including the USA), because citizens want that. But governments still want to spy on their own citizens anyway, because terrorism and think-of-the-children and the war on drugs and geopolitics and general control of 1%ers over 99%ers. So it's not even really about non-Americans.
So what to do? How to get around that, in a way that citizens don't mind? Why, you set up a secretive Five Eyes agreement (also the other "Eyes"). UK spies on USA citizens, USA spies on UK citizens, the USA shares that gathered intelligence with UK, and UK shares their intelligence with USA.
Voila! Now each government can spy on all its citizens via trusted foreign proxies. It's legal, and the citizenry is not informed enough to care.
Anyway, that is the answer to your question. 1%ers want it, and citizens are not informed enough to care.
U.S. Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Dennis C. Blair, said in 2013: "We do not spy on each other. We just ask."
"In recent years, documents of the FVEY have shown that they are intentionally spying on one another's citizens and sharing the collected information with each other."
In order to ask for that data, the US needs to obtain a warrant. Similar laws apply in the other countries.
Your quote is just saying that the parties think that any information they could get by spying on each other they could get by directly asking the person they would have spied on instead.
I mean we are seeing that they didn't even bother with a loophole 280k times, just straight up broke the law. Do you really think they might follow procedure in this situation.
Are you of this? I have seen examples to the contrary even though most of this activity is very secretive since they are not allowed to disclose activity to third parties per the five eyes agreements. The agreements are about sharing of information. The patriot act explicitly allows spying on foreigners' communications and the five eyes agreements allow sharing by default. If you can share where in the five eyes agreements that spying on people in the five or nine eyes jurisdictions is not permitted, I would really like to see.
The controversy which caused this misunderstanding is that incidentally collected SIGINT (i.e. not intentionally targeted) of UK citizens, collected by NSA, was shared back with GCHQ.
Because this 180 degree myth about skirting domestic law by spying on each other's citizens is so widespread, it actually makes accurate information difficult to find.
The Wikipedia page is squatted by editors who refuse to admit they are wrong, but this article is pretty clear [0]; "The partnership has one core rule, that the members agree not to spy on each other."
Wikipedia implies this is limited to governments but it is not.
This is an article for an AU government-funded policy think-tank, written by a China-hawk who is also a fellow at America's government-funded, war-hawk Center for Strategic and International Studies, saying that 5Eyes is actually fine. His main thrust seems to be that AU just needs super-effective oversight like the US has with its secret rubber-stamp courts and nothing-to-gain-from-it Congressional review.
> The partnership has one core rule, that the members agree not to spy on each other.
The US's core rule #4 is that you can't rifle through people's shit without convincing a judge of the crime you suspect them of committing, and why you need to look, and what the narrow limits of your search are.
Uh oh. I'll need to look into this myself. I thought I've learned enough about keeping track of the provenance and validity of any information I consume, and weighing my beliefs by it - but this one, if true, will be something that completely blindsided me. I'm wondering how I never heard anything like this over what's now few weeks short of a decade.
You've never heard anything like this because it's the intelligence agencies responses to the Snowden documents. They're usually mentioned in the same articles but nobody really buys their excuses.
NSA previously hosted the original UK-USA 1946 agreement[0] which was declassified in 2010 i.e. pre-Snowden (seems to 404 now). It is limited to sharing of "foreign communications" which is defined as those not being UK/USA.
The Snowden leaks included material acknowledging that this was the purpose of the agreement. The reason the incidental collection was controversial was _because_ it was against a strict reading of the agreement.
See this article[1] which I believe is quoting straight from Snowden leaks; "[The March 1946 UKUSA agreement] has evolved to include a common understanding that both governments will not target each other's citizens/persons. However, when it is in the best interest of each nation, each reserved the right to conduct unilateral Comint action against each other's citizens/persons.
"Under certain circumstances, it may be advisable and allowable to target second-party persons and second-party communications unilaterally when it is in the best interests of the US."
Note that this is saying that they reserve the right to do it unilaterally i.e. without the knowledge of the other, and this is considered against the purpose of the agreement.
I stand by the statement that the general understanding of the agreement - that it is a way for countries to request surveillance of their own citizens to skirt domestic law - is 180 degrees wrong. The agreement is the opposite.
You keep looking at what the intelligence agencies are publicly saying and ignoring the leaked documents showing they are regularly spying on each other's citizens and then using the agreement to share the data. Like this comment
>Note that this is saying that they reserve the right to do it unilaterally i.e. without the knowledge of the other, and this is considered against the purpose of the agreement
Yes, the US independently decides to spy on Brits. What makes it malicious is they then share that data with the British. The UK didn't request anything, but the end result is the UK intelligence agencies having sensitive data on UK citizens.
My mistake, that one part (that says it's fine for us to spy on Five Eyes citizens) was a directive to staff, not the public. Nothing in my post changes.
Yes, if they are not spying on OTHER countries in the agreement, what that actually means something worse:
The five countries are actively spying on their own people if they are respecting the agreement, Constitutions be damned.
Because modern governments are going to spy on everything they can.
We already know FBI agents used domestic spying infrastructure to stalk women and mistresses and ex-wives. That level of casual use means there is a 99.9999% chance it is used by the government for tracking journalists, leakers, liberal activists (but not right wing ones), profiling uppity citizens, etc.
If facebook and internet ad companies have complete information on you and your associates and post history and beliefs and location, the government has it. Multiple government have it.
We're already running shameful (Obama and Trump) concentration camps for immigrants (aka "lesser" humans), have detained US citizens as enemy combatants, performed extrajudicial assassinations on US citizens overseas, have two gestapo departments (Immigration Customs Enforcement and Customs Border Patrol) with radicalized right wing membership in their ranks.
All it takes is a charismatic strongman (probably from the right but can be from the left too), a false flag event like Gulf of Tonkin, do McCarthy hearings in Congress to stoke fear of external enemies within us, and start rounding up people.
The US could turn into a fascist regime in record time aided by complete IT awareness, soon with AI for profiling and analysis, AI agents for complete propaganda, and all the legal, historical, and dirty pool history to enable it.
As I understand it, the 5 eyes are not allowed to spy on their citizens nor on the citizens of the partner nations. How are we here then discussing these problems?
Specifically in this context -- 9/11 and perceived ongoing threats from international terror.
A shocking and terrible event happens, a report identifies that intelligence agencies collectively had all the pieces to prevent it but were unable to see the entire picture due to compartmentalization, and the country decreases that compartmentalization.
Cause, reflection, and effect.
After that, it's been the intertia of "hidden privacy erosion" vs "visible perception of safety." (Yes, actual safety has poor statistical support)
But democracies generally discount hidden evils and multiply visible goods when voting.
Bill Binney, technical director of NSA at that time, disagrees. He already had a system in place that heavily used filters to only collect what was needed and excluded citizens, which was called "ThinThread." Later, Gen Michael Hayden (NSA Director at the time) switched priorities and went after everything, called TrailBlazer. They got way too much data and couldn't sift through it, even though they had the info in their systems. Binney quit the day after 911 and later revealed the program and the Gov't went after him, along with Thomas Drake and others.
I'd watch the linked interview below. It gets really interesting when Binney talks about how much money and contracts were awarded to make TrailBlazer. All of the data storage, etc. Huge, massive contracts to keep it going. It also greatly increased their annual budget. ThinThread was internal, and fairly cheap.
Not to detract from your point, which I agree with- it's very arguable that the order is wrong. The Patriot Act was written and ready before 9/11- it just needed a catalyst to allow it to be passed.
Feel free to watch this interview with Bill Binney, who was technical director of the NSA at the time. He goes over it in detail. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3owk7vEEOvs
I am aware of ThinThread. The assertion made was "The Patriot Act was written and ready before 9/11". Do you have any specific pointers into where in this 2 hour 35 minute video that claim is made? Or better yet, does anyone have a pointer to anything in writing?
Yes. I believe that myopic, reactive legislators were able to go to the NSA/CIA/FBI and get lots of input on what they would like in a new bill. I am skeptical that "the Patriot Act was written and ready before 9/11".
9/11 is what people point to but it's really just modern national security ops. We live in a time of peace for those lucky enough to be in developed nations with democracies, but war is always one button press away. When WW3 happens any and all information will be an asset for maintaining stability and enabling attacks in wartime operations, particularly with how the next world war will be fought by causing direct harm to the economy and companies of foreign nations via cyber attacks and stealing information.
There you have it, all the reasons you ever need to explain why foreign countries are not very thrilled about the prospect of having to share personal data about their citizens. Given this attitude, and the evidence of misuse, why should any sane country cooperate willingly and put their citizens at risk?
Constitutionally, I believe this is largely untrue. Non-citizens can't vote or hold federal office, but are otherwise granted the privileges assigned to all people by the remainder of the US Constitution. This likely (IANAL) only applies within the bounds of US borders/territories/holdings, but that's where the FBI should only be operating, IMHO.
The exceptions written to this by Congress (FISA, USA PATRIOT, etc.) are unconstitutional and should be struck down.
One of the differences in the US is that evidence obtained by espionage is rarely admissible in court. Often spying bypasses constitutional and legal protections and renders evidence unusable. In the US, cases get dismissed all the time because evidence was "fruit of the poisonous tree" where law enforcement attained evidence unconstitutionally or illegally. This evidence is not allowed in court. This often renders the work of agencies like the CIA, DIA and NSA fairly useless BUT NOT ALWAYS useless for law enforcement. A lot of the problem with FISA and PATRIOT act is they create loopholes in the line between espionage and law enforcement.
I agree. The ethos of the US is described in the Declaration of Independence.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Our laws, particularly those restricting government power, apply equally to all humans.
This logic doesn't work because in many cases the spying is on things like communications. And you can't tell whose communications they are until after you've spied on them. Bytes don't have little US flag stickers on them.
EU human rights law doesn't make this distinction between citizen and non-citizen.
All enemies, foreign and domestic, specifically those operating within the federal borders of the United States, it's territories, and any foreign holdings (e.g., embassy grounds).
Investigation should begin with crimes that have occurred, suss out those circumstances where there is a bigger picture, and attain warrants for further investigation. Lack of probable cause means no search, a right extended by Amendment IV to all people (at least within US holdings as described above, which is where I think the FBI should be operating).
The fault here lies with Congress. FISA is their doing, and it expressly violates all clauses of Amendment IV. The FBI is at fault for swinging this particular bat in a room full of citizens, but they shouldn't have been given the bat to begin with. Why FISA hasn't had a Supreme Court challenge on constitutional grounds is beyond me, but IANAL.
What experience, metrics, literally any data are you basing this on? Do you believe Russia is a current enemy of the US? How about North Korea and China?
The life I've lived would be my experience. I have had zero direct interactions with any of these enemies. Enemies to the US aren't necessarily enemies to me. Should I be forced to inherit these enemies?
I agree with self defense. However, I'm not sure this is always the case.
Do you believe nuclear or conventional weapons choose only military targets when they explode? Do you believe standing in any major city that you are safe from any kind of bomb? Or are we going to play the game of “it hasn’t happened yet”? Perhaps the US military should just lay down their weapons cause there’s clearly no threat?
There doesn't need to be an enemy, but there is never not an enemy. I mean this on the petty, day to day, citizen level, not the global political scale. Organized crime exists and must be investigated and prosecuted to avoid endangering the everyday life of the citizenry. When this crime crosses state borders, a federal investigatory body can be an asset.
I think the FBI has succumbed to scope creep and overstepped what I perceive as their remit; however, that doesn't mean they're an unnecessary body.
Classic self-fulfilling prophecy. I don't think the spying made any friends, on the contrary. And in effect it didn't increase security either because people are way more distrustful.
It think this ignores the simple economics of surveillance and information gathering.
Mass surveillance of this type is always directed at a countries own sphere of influence, domestic and at close allies. There is little camaraderie between people in power and the average citizen. On the contrary, to keep the power, you must collect info on everyone that could become a danger to you.
In racing teams your largest opponent is often your racing partner.
Surveillance of foreign adversaries is best done by getting info on key players. Why would info on the average foreign citizen matter at all? It just isn't interesting information.
I strongly suspect that post-January 6, the ease with which Americans can draw that border has decreased.
You poll 10 random Americans on whether they think the government should have all powers necessary to defend against another January 6th riot and I don't know what they'll say.
1 person was murdered on January 6 and she was a Trump supporter killed by a careless trigger happy cop that was known for leaving his gun in the bathroom
>A spokeswoman for the department told Roll Call that Lt. Mike Byrd will be investigated after his Glock-22, which has no manual safety to prevent unintended firing, was found “during a routine security sweep” by another officer in a bathroom on Monday.
You are aware that you are conversing with many such "enemies" every day, through venues like this site? What about US citizens that regularly converse with your enemies? Can they be spied on too?
There are no natural rights absent power to enforce them.
One could say there are natural desires, or natural ethics/morals, but these have no weight without a granting and enforcing entity.
E.g. "my personal right to not pay taxes"
At its heart, the Constitution and Bill of Rights are a formal trade between the people and the proposed government, each of whom start with some power.
People: "We will give you legitimacy and support, if you give us these rights."
Government: "We agree to give you those rights, in return for your legitimacy and support."
The people and the government can believe they have other rights (e.g. a right to privacy), but until they're codified and agreed to by the government they don't exist.
Hence why it usually takes revolution, civil disobedience, or riots to force a government to grant (natural) rights it doesn't want to.
That's a strange negative. How about, my personal right to control my body (without harming others including not stealing from others).
I do not have a right to steal from you. Goverment is granted some authorities from the people to the government. People can't grant to others what they don't have (like a non-existent right to steal). Therefore, government does not have a right to steal from you or me.
If you want to enter into a commercial agreement with government for some purpose then sign whatever forms and contacts you desire. For me, taking the fruits of my personal labor is theft.
This is contrary to Enlightenment philosophy, that influenced the Founders, that reasoned that the rights of man exist outside of government. Yes, the US government was established to protect those rights. But, individuals can protect their own rights as well absent government.
That's muddling hypothetical rights with de facto rights.
Which was the same argument that lead (rightly, IMHO) to their enumeration in the Bill of Rights, in contrast to the unenumerated British system.
Individuals protecting "their" un-enumerated rights risk the violent wrath of the state, or are able to do so only because the state chooses to ignore them.
>Non-Americans don't have the same rights as Americans.
It is precisely this violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that is causing so much calamity in the world today, alas. Americans should really, really not accept this state of affairs - either American lives are human lives, and are thus as valuable as any other human life, or they aren't - and therefore international law need not apply to Americans in other aspects of life, either.
The efforts to which an American citizen will proclaim their exceptionalism over the rest of the world and duplicity in applying that exceptionalism is a major cause of the diminished trust that the world feels for the USA, today.
> It is precisely this violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Pretty much all countries distinguish citizens from non-citizens. This isn't an American thing. And you're committing a category error, namely that rights Americans have aren't a superset of any internationally agreed rights. They are.
Bah, this is just another example of how Americans' can be convinced to buy their own doom by packaging it as exceptionalism instead.
Human rights supersede citizenship, which is as it should be - especially for those human beings who want to exercise their rights while not being citizens of any state, whether by choice or by war, etc.
Non-citizens are humans too, and therefore have the same rights citizens do.
Sure, no. The cop with a gun pointed at you shouts your rights at you; rights which the government wrote down.
In all seriousness though, I've no idea what this means in any practical sense. I don't know what being a subject of a government is, not how it compares to being a sovereign.
But is this is not missing the point? Just as with any country, if the US didn't agree them, then they aren't agreed. Thus they aren't an example of the US differentiating between its citizens and its non-citizens on its agreed human rights.
I agree with the counter-conclusion you propose, which is that these international laws need not apply to Americans either. (Although I agree with the notion, in a reply, that they aren't 'real' or binding law anyway.)
It's still the case that spy agencies will have more of a difficult time in court and in public perception dealing with the ramifications of spying on citizens. Nonetheless, I don't think this means very much, and if the Federal government would like to, they could take this 'right' away, lie about not violating it, or violate it and ignore the fact that it's happening.
And this isn't about American citizens proclaiming exceptionalism. I suggested no such exceptionalism, and I highly doubt there are many citizens who agree with this any more. I would guess that somewhere near a majority of Americans prefer that we don't waste money spying on anyone. You can put this on the citizens if you like, but I view it similarly to hearing some Americans complain about "the Chinese" rather than "the Chinese government." It doesn't reflect what I believe reality is, that most normal people are not in support of these policies, and normal citizens from 'foreign adversary' nations are not our enemies, and we should not talk about them that way. (Edit: A caveat on this, the US is a democracy so I can see it being argued that the citizens are complicit in their government's behavior. Briefly stated, I disagree, but that's a really long argument and tangent I don't want to go down this morning.)
Here's a poll touching the subject from 2021 (no idea about the veracity, just a result I found Googling "poll americans who support spying"):
> In particular, 46% of Americans say they oppose the U.S. government responding to threats against the nation by reading emails sent between people outside of the U.S. without a warrant, as permitted under law for purposes of foreign intelligence collection. That’s compared to just 27% who are in favor. In an AP-NORC poll conducted one decade ago, more favored than opposed the practice, 47% to 30%.
American law enforcement also has the power to throw Americans in jail. Therefore it is much more important to strictly regulate what information they obtain and how they obtain it when it pertains to Americans. Non-Americans generally don't run the risk of having their civil rights violated by US agencies (barring extraordinary cases, eg. extradition requests). And even then, extraditions can be contested if the evidence was obtained through improper means.
I assume that this article is true, written in good faith and it seems like a powerful reminder that the FISA court is a disgrace to the American democratic process. Therefore in all likelihood the US Executive is even now racing to identify it as having all the hallmarks of Russian misinformation. Turns out Putin's fell grip extends even to Rudolph Contreras, FISA Court Judge. Who knew?
There is a general rule in public discourse that it is best to assume good faith of all parties. It is difficult to apply that to the FISA court while still believing the legislators can be allowed to legislate. They are looking past a system that was always going to be used for political suppression that, if tested, is likely to be scandalous and probably illegal. Someone has to be lying in the conversation.
The only silver lining here is that the political right wing of the US were the ones who championed it most strongly and it is their candidate who is being hit the most effectively. The world isn't fair, but occasionally karma happens. They should have listened to the human rights advocates and people standing up for honourable legal traditions.
Almost certainly correct. The change was implemented because the firewall between domestic and foreign surveillance was highlighted as one of the unforced errors in the 9/11 attacks succeeding, but this was the anticipated consequence of it.
If you ask the average American whether they're comfortable with this tradeoff (added general scrutiny for added ability to prevent the next attempt at a 9/11), I don't know what they'd say.
The Americans being surveilled almost certainly have the right to vote both for the people who make these laws and the people who oversee enforcement of them at the top level.
The problem isn't an unaccountable minority; it's that if you poll ten Americans on whether these are actually good policies, you get different answers depending on how you structure the question (and that's borne out in the voting booth, where Americans keep sending the Congresspeople who passed these laws back to Washington).
It's tough to foresee that something like FISA or PATRIOT Act would even be on the table during the previous election when voting for representatives. Yeah, you're right, incumbents tend to keep getting reelected, and while I think the similarities of Democrats and Republicans are overblown, one place where they are very similar is supporting law enforcement, intelligence agencies and the military industrial complex. Taking that into account, even if my senator answered the phone, they have no accountability to me for up to 6 years, and political parties can play games with votes when they know they have the numbers to make sure congress people representing risky districts or having elections coming up soon vote in a safe way.
There are some politicians who side with the American people on this, sure, but they are few and far between, even if you look at who is running in primaries. People who voted against the patriot act, like Bernie Sanders or Ron Paul are considered political extremists, even from their own parties. Add to that silence from SCOTUS on the matter (as recently as this: https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/22/supreme_court_wikimed...), and it becomes clear that to say that my right to vote for congressional representatives gives me a say secret surveillance is awfully hand wavy, I think to the point of naivety or victim blaming.
In the wake of Snowden's leaks, Gallup found that only 37% of American adults approved of the program, even saying it was designed to fight terrorism: https://news.gallup.com/poll/163043/americans-disapprove-gov..., which is a very charitable way to frame the question for proponents of the program, but again, it doesn't matter what Americans think even when they go into the voting booth, because intelligence community is going to continue doing this anyway.
Name one country that does not spy on it's non citizens.
The core part of story was the spying on citizen part without warrants.
A Little history...in early 20th century there was a big concern when the pen warrant precedents were established as the FBI felt that it was somewhat illegal. Several SC cases changed their view on that namely specifying that they needed to get a pen warrant for telecommunication eaves dropping.
current 702 upended that as pen warrants generally applied to US citizens even out of country whereas 702 changed that to a probability of there being a US citizen caught in the telecomm eaves dropping.
What would be nice is a revamp of 702 to be warrant based wire-taps that go through a special court for the warrants with the appropriate increase in judges to handle such a change.
Shockingly, even the smallest micro-states participate in surveillance of non-citizens.
> San Marino
Is 23 square miles of land with a population of 33K and is land-locked by Italy. Even still -- as a tiny micro-state land-locked by a friendly NATO and EU member state -- San Marino participates in foreign surveillance in a variety of ways; e.g., a member of the Customs union it collaborates with Europol on counter-terrorism.
> Tuvalu
Is 10 square miles with 10K people, and even then collaborates with a Five Eyes nation on maritime surveillance.
> Costa Rica
Unlike the other two examples, Costa Rica is a reasonably sized country. Like other countries which are not tiny micro-states, Costa Rica has its own dedicated intelligence agency independent of collaborative agreements/treaties. It additionally collaborates with both INTERPOL and western intelligence agencies.
I think the real thought exercise is how does one resolve this problem? What are the avenues to correct this? Seems like this is much more of a political problem to solve than it is a legal one.
Accountability is something we are lacking in this country at this point in time. What good are laws and ethical codes of conduct if they are not enforced and bad actors are even promoted? It starts with the executive branch committing to enforcement and shaking up captured agencies by appointing people who will enforce.
It starts with actual democratic representation, which means ranked choice voting and ending unfair and illegal election tactics like gerrymandering. If our only two options weren't always two turds that were chosen for us we could get real accountability.
Let's say for example country A invades country B.
Country C sends aid to country B.
Some segment of citizens in Country C are upset by this.
Country A now creates an indirect funding route to people in Country C who are influential on social media. They amplify their voices through shares, likes, retweets and other aspects of social media algorithms. They employ farms of people around the world to ensure that these voices are liked, shared and amplified, to create the illusion that this is the popular view.
Citizens in country C take the approach of "crowd wisdom" and go along with it. This influences elections and influences policy. The funding stops, and the invasion is now successful without the external defense funding.
What mechanisms do countries have to deal with this? One could argue that surveillance may help uncover whether a common thread is linked to internal discord in society, and that thread can be pulled on to reveal a foreign adversary.
Let's say the reverse happens. Country A and country B have a territorial dispute. Country A occupies parts of Country B. Country C is aligned with Country B. The intelligence agencies in Country C do the same kind of social media influence operations to manufacture consent for their policies.
What mechanisms do countries have to deal with the intelligence agencies manufacturing consent in this manner? What if there are counter-intelligence operations run by foreign adversaries who are calling out these manufacturing consent operations on social media. One could see how surveillance will help follow the thread and identify these adversaries, if they exist in this part of the tapestry.
In the 2016 election there was evidence that this type of activity is now routine and commonplace between countries.
We also already know that the US government has conducted operations like Mockingbird, Cointelpro and others through the news media in the past. It is not a stretch to presume they engage in this as well, except now through social media.
There is ample evidence to assume that all the conversations taking place online, and the downstream effects thereof, are simply the manifestations of some other prime movers. How does the citizenry become educated about these phenomenon in a way that somehow at least partially inoculates them against becoming pawns in this bigger chess game?
The US government can run warrantless wiretaps by sending Section 702 data requests to communications providers (iCloud, Gmail, FB Messenger, Skype, etc.) on people who aren't US citizens who live outside the US if they are suspected to be relevant to national security (email communications, chat communications, etc.). US law allows the FBI to search these foreigner's communications for mentions of Americans who are suspected to pose a national security risk without a warrant. Any other searches of this data related to Americans requires a court order.
Here is a better article by a reporter who understands what the government's report said: https://archive.is/jgWUt
Jeez reading over some of the other literature I could find looks like they can issue “batch jobs” to run many queries without having to do them manually/wait. Makes me think performance isn’t that quick and that there is an ungodly amount of data they are querying.
20 years ago I was in college and worked as a bank teller. Because of the PATRIOT Act, we had a new mandate to check a person's ID before letting them deposit a check. I would get so irritated that all the "old people" would gripe every time because "I've been banking here my whole life and have never had to show my ID to deposit my paycheck!"
Sadly, it didn't occur to me at the time that they had a really good point.
In the USA there is a statute of limitations to challenge wrongful convictions, unconstitutional sentences, etc. Imagine that. Yes the government agrees your were wrongly convicted but because you didn't get a challenge together in time they will keep you in prison anyways and deny you access to the courts. Also, when a certain standard practice is found unconstitutional or agent found to be breaking the rules, etc they do not automatically release everyone who was convicted using it. Each person must (within the time limit as stated above) file a legal motion in court in the correct manner and then win that motion. Things that hold up guys challenging are stuff like you can't file in the Court where you are held (say you are at the supermax in Colorado, guys think they file to the Colorado court) but at the Court that sentenced you. And no, they don't forward your case. And no, your time window to file the case doesn't start over once the Colorado circuit court takes 9 months to find 'lack of jurisdiction' on your first filing.
There is no incentive for Judges to play hardball with anyone in the judicial system. Meanwhile, if you are "soft on crime" you can expect to lose your job. There's also just a classic bias in that, if you have worked law long and hard enough to become a judge somewhere, you likely have a high opinion of the system and the status quo.
Typically evidence is only void if it's been obtained illegally. In this case, it sounds like they used the intelligence to get leads, and only prosecuted after getting hard evidence admissible in court.
Again giving you an answer you will hate and refuse to believe…
Your fellow Man is corruptible and treacherous.
You refuse to believe you are not alone in your own mind, and that thought control is screwing with you.
You refuse to believe white hate Americans are waging a secret war for power among you.
You refuse to believe Muslims Russians and Chinese aren’t the threat to the free world (though these may be instrumented against you); that white American thought control is playing God in your minds (and of these others), exploiting you in ways ordinary minds cannot perceive or comprehend (and would refuse to believe when confronted.)
The US government is not the true enemy, while their incompetence and duplicity may well be a chronic threat.
You are thought controlled America, and thought controlled America is the enemy of truth, law, and free world.
Combined with the Durham reports findings this is enough for some to say the FBI should simply cease to exist. The safety and justice they provide does not stack up to the lies, injustice, democracy subversion, illegal surveillance that comes along with it.
It's an inherent problem with "dark budgets" though.
>Combined with the Durham reports findings this is enough for some to say the FBI should simply cease to exist.
Not just the FBI. Remember when the head of the NSA lied to congress, and got away with it? The spy agencies have gone rogue, acting however they wish without consequence.
It's the dark budgets. And yes all spy agencies need them. But the main issue --to me-- is that the US govt works for big biz, not for its voters.
Voting is basically a facade at this point. There is no democracy, we should stop repeating that it is and demand our schools stop repeating as well. We live in a somewhat-free dictatorship/plutocracy. Somewhat free means that you can use freedom of speech to criticize the govt a little bit, but not too much (or you get Assanged/Snowdenized).
Same issue with the German Verfassungsschutz ("Agency for the protection of the Constitution"). Over time these kind of agencies become political weapons, and thus a danger to the very thing they were created to protect - the constitution.
When Nixon tried to stop it in his time, the intelligence services set him up, creating the Watergate scandal [0]. We are now learning from whistleblowers there were hundreds (!) of agents from many different agencies present at the Jan 6 "insurrection", it was probably the same playbook [1]. The FBI is even using this as an excuse and refuses to release hundreds of hours video, claiming it would expose too many agents [2].
Loosely connected to this is the "Russia Collusion" hoax, where they FBI willingly interfered in elections to smear the opposition with the full knowledge that the accusations were baseless, uncovered in the the Durham report. [3]
Not long ago I would have laughed those stories off as nut job conspiracy theories, but the pattern becomes hard to ignore.
I am just sceptical, that there ever was a time, when the "Verfassungsschutz" was actually different. It was founded and staffed with ex Gestapo personal after all and the main historical mission was anti bolschewistic - and (ex) nazis are plausible anti communists, so they were hired.
There are difference in how the different branches operate, though (every federate state has also their own agency) and some seem to do good work, but others (thuringa) seem to be made up of Nazis themself, who rather support the neonazi organisations, they are supposed to be fighting against.
Frankly, I don't see a strong argument why they should exist in the first place and why their work cannot be done by ordinary (professional) police.
So yes, neonazis (and left wing extremists and islamists) operate in secrecy. But so do common criminals.
Edit: And the actual dangerous nazi terrorism cell that operated for years was indeed caught not by the specialised secret agency Verfassungsschutz, but by ordinary police. (With strong hints, that they were protected by some parts of the Verfassungsschutz)
Its not really a "both sides" issue - employees of the state naturally tend towards the left (except military and special forces), for obvious reasons. Over 90% of US state personnel vote Democrat. And since no administration can function effectively without this "deep state", this kinda invalidates democracy itself.
Could you enlighten me and list some of these "obvious reasons"? Also, since you say "naturally", I assume there are sources you might be able to point at?
Not the OP, but let’s use a more libertarian definition of the right— that is, let’s say the Republicans actually believe “that government governs best that governs least.”
If that was so, then it’s natural for folks employed by the government to vote to keep their own jobs. If one party thinks, we need fewer government employees, and one side thinks, we need more of them, you can see how incentives might line up.
That said, Republicans talk about limited government, but in my lifetime, I’ve seen very little difference in the expansion of governmental powers regardless of which party is in control.
> If one party thinks, we need fewer government employees, and one side thinks, we need more of them, you can see how incentives might line up.
It doesn't even have to be the "greedy self-serving" kind. Just thinking you want "to make the world a better place" is enough to justify funds, power and influence. It takes a very rare kind of restraint to not intervene.
> That said, Republicans talk about limited government, but in my lifetime, I’ve seen very little difference in the expansion of governmental powers regardless of which party is in control.
> That said, Republicans talk about limited government, but in my lifetime, I’ve seen very little difference in the expansion of governmental powers regardless of which party is in control.
Since what they say in order to get votes and/or keep up the facade of democracy, can be 180deg opposite of what they big biz "partners" and "campaign donors" what them to actually do. Govt does not serve people at this point, it merely claims it does and that is just one of their many lies (especially on the top, less so at the municipality level).
> Not the OP, but let’s use a more libertarian definition of the right— that is, let’s say the Republicans actually believe “that government governs best that governs least.”
Tell me about how libertarianism and Christian nationalism come together to form a base that supports law enforcement (eg FBI), the military and CBP.
Frankly, I find the current version of the party most confusing, but especially the “small government” part.
Im sure they will be just as compelling as his last 3 of a random self published audiobook, a known propaganda rag and a random Twitter user posting a Fox News clip.
The audiobook isn't quite so random. The author[1] worked for Nixon under some of the names made infamous by Watergate: Erlichman, Egil Krogh, and Nixon's lawyer Fred Buzhardt. Attempts to paint Nixon as an innocent victim of Deep State machinations should therefore be treated with appropriate caution
It is true of course that "Deep Throat", the source who allegedly kept the journalistic investigation climbing through the Nixon Administration's ranks, is commonly held to have been Mark Felt[2], occupant of the number two job at the FBI at the time, so there is that.
What did for Nixon in the end, though, was mostly the taped evidence of his clumsy attempts to have the CIA, in the person of Richard Helms, warn the FBI off investigating his campaign's dubious money trail, or risk having "the whole Bay of Pigs thing" revealed if they didn't. (Whatever that might have been!)
> no administration can function effectively without this "deep state"
Why? I mean we need "dark budgets" to some extend (spy agencies, military). But do we need a "deep state", meaning: big biz and govt make the decisions behind closed doors and then merely project an image of democracy/voting/transparency?
Where was the public support for Iraq/Afghanistan/Unkrain and soon Taiwan? The deep state need no public support, they just need a "positive impact on the bottom line" (profit) of their "partners". Disgusting.
Since I can't find my original source anymore, I cannot defend this statement right now - consider it retracted. There are multiple sources for "majority democrat", but nothing close to 90%.
What I did find, and what I possibly confused it with, was that political spending of the respective government employee unions are overwhelmingly democrat:
"Of course, it’s not just teachers’ unions. In the 2020 election cycle alone, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) dedicated 99.1% of its political spending to Democrats. The American Federation of Government Employees gave 95.6% to Democrats." [0]
Many conspiracies have turned out to be real. The Gulf of Tonkin incident (how the US tricked everyone in believing North Vietnam attacked them) being an obvious example. That puts the whole "conspiracy theory come from bad civilians" and "misinformation comes from bad civilians" narrative in a psy-op kind of day light. I see most problematic mis-info being peddled by govts, NGOs (WEF, NATO) and the(ir) MSM. The BS they crank out in the context of the Ukraine destabilization by the US+NATO is, quite literally, unbelievable.
I think that ultimately, both sides believe in conspiracy theories, they just don’t think of them that way. Leftists believe in the Russia Collusion one, right-wingers in the stolen election.
The problem is that the ones perpetrated by the state are more severe because the consequences are often war, and only a small minority (usually rw) has any idea they took place. Ultimately, falsehoods and fabrications are how democracies launder war. Most people still believe Pearl Harbor came out of the blue, which is ridiculous if you know about the preceding blockade.
Since Durham we know it is stolen. Also the irregularities in Oregon state voting are telling the story of a stolen election.
"Leftists" do not exist in US political arena. Sanders was close but even he would not want to "socialize" (bring under control of the workers) US business. What is called "left" in the US is generally more right-wing than right-wing liberal parties in Europe. Probably you mean Democrats (that we know since the Durham report do not give a f*ck about democracy).
I’m curious why you point to the Durham report as being a strike against the FBI. As far as I know, he has zero indictments against the FBI as a result.
For lack of recommendations to prosecution, the rest seems opinion? At least the Mueller investigation resulted in 34 separate indictments. So I don’t understand the disconnect here. Seems overtly political.
Certain key words are auto blocked so I’ll spell them out for you.
Again giving you an answer you will hate and refuse to believe…
Your fellow Man is corruptible and treacherous.
You refuse to believe you are not alone in your own mind, and that tho-ught contr-ol is screwing with you.
You refuse to believe wh-ite ha-te Americans are waging a secret war for power among you.
You refuse to believe Musli-ms Russians and Chinese aren’t the threat to the free world (though these may be instrumented against you); that whit-e American th-ought c-ontrol is playing God in your minds (and of these others), exploiting you in ways ordinary minds cannot perceive or comprehend (and would refuse to believe when confronted.)
The US government is not the true enemy, while their incompetence and duplicity may well be a chronic threat.
You are thoug-ht control-led America, and t-hought contro-lled America is the enemy of truth, law, and free world.
This is bad discipline. Make the regulations and enforce them. Make laws and enforce them. Keep applying the pain until agents comply. Bust enough heads and they'll get in line.
I was listening to Lawfare and they had an interview wi to Matthew Olsen, the Assistant Attorney General of the National Security Division at the U.S. Department of Justice claiming that section 702 is absolutely critical for reauthorizarion and that all sorts of reforms have taken place and the problems we heard about aren’t. Now of course it’s possible the FBI instilled better controls since then but I remain highly skeptical. I’m glad there’s serious opposition against the intelligence community here. Too much of their signals collection is rubber stamped and there seems to be little pushback. Honestly, I’m surprised at how Wray was kept on by Biden considering this was squarely all on his watch.
They've been pulling shady stuff for ages. Ever heard of the false flag attacks in relation to Cuba? The bay of pigs false flag bombings, and the proposed https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods ? Terrible stuff.
What percent of Americans do you think know about these things? If you set the over/under at 5%, I'd happily take the under. I'd probably be inclined to take the under at 2% as well. That's what's really changing. The government being horrific and abusive is nothing new, but having any remotely relevant chunk of people aware of it, is. And many of those events you mentioned remained completely classified for decades. Operation Northwoods was not made fully available until 2001, about 40 years after it happened.
Now everybody is getting to see this happen in real time. Fabricating evidence to invade Iraq, a completely dystopic domestic surveillance system revealed by a whistle blower, what happens when societies faces even the slightest threat (from a pandemic in this case), the complete collapse of media integrity, completely routine abuse of spying powers, politicization of every single body of the government, and much more. This is what makes now, so much different than the past. "We", as in way more than 5%, are all seeing this play out in real time - and it's shaping our worldviews.
I think it's over 5%, but not much more. There's also the issue of learning about the government abusing power can be intimidating. You learn they do lots of extrajudicial murder, do you speak out and be the next target? We need mass movement of people to call it out and resist for them to change, and I don't see that happening soon enough
.. not to mention the impressive apparatus that was applied to make people think that the Cuban missile crisis started with Soviet missiles showing up in Cuba ..
I'll just quote the second paragraph of the Wikipedia article on it:
"In 1961, the US government put Jupiter nuclear missiles in Italy and Turkey. It had also trained a paramilitary force of Cuban exiles, which the CIA led in an attempt to invade Cuba and overthrow the Cuban government. Starting in November of that year, the US government engaged in a campaign of terrorism and sabotage in Cuba, referred to as the Cuban Project, which continued throughout the first half of the 1960s."
I'd recommend The Jakarta Method for some insight into the legitimacy of the concerns of regime change.
Could those missiles be (late) reactions to Soviet activities in the areas, such as keeping their most combat-ready forces just across the Ljubljana Gap and the very recent territorial claims for Eastern Anatolia?
Mate, Soviets outnumbered USA+UK in Europe by a factor of 2 as of late 1945 (see Operation Unthinkable) and it only got worse from there. In 1949 there were about 3.5 million Soviet soldiers spread across East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Czechia etc. The entire US army went below 1 million by 1947, with a very small fraction deployed in Europe.
The West was consistently on defensive/deterrence against the USSR throughout the Cold War, there's no point denying that.
The USSR ceded their claim to parts of Turkey some 8 years before the missiles were deployed there, yet it kept the 13 rifle, mountain and mechanized divisions in Armenia and Azerbaijan, under the so called Transcaucasian Military District. Similarly the so called Southern Group of Forces was stationed in Hungary just across the Ljubljana Gap from Italy.
It is a bulletproof fact that throughout the Cold War the USSR had an offensive stance in Europe, and conventional NATO forces there only stood some chance in defensive. Eventually the insane military production, sometimes amounting to 25% GDP, including ludicrous quantities of tanks, IFVs and SPGs to support the supposed rush to the English Channel, brought the colossus down.
the FBI has been misusing its power since its inception, it's always been this way, you're just aware of it now — hopefully this broader awareness can help
I don't know if you're being sarcastic, but the people have not elected the FBI or any other 3 letter agency that seems to have infiltrated every facet of our government. These agencies have more power than our elected officials right now.
Oh I'm definitely being sarcastic.....I am endlessly fascinated by the mental hoops (the various caveats they will inject into their articulation of "democracy") people will jump through to continue believing that their country "is" democratic.
I appreciate that this is a very complicated space that requires flexibility, compromise, etc, my complaint is that we tend to pretend (often extremely enthusiastically) that the situation is actually simple.
If something is good, I don't think it should require continual lying, deceit, and delusion to prop it up in the minds of the population.
I'd say the US is democratic with a polity that is deeply split on some key issues. But that doesn't imply the government doesn't reflect the will of the people (sometimes the will of the people is "a hot mess;" this was one of the deep concerns of the people who set up the Constitution in the first place).
> I mean... 79% of Democrats say the FBI is doing a good job
And what school curriculum here most of these people raised on? American school curriculum perchance?
That we believe that the average person is anywhere near remotely competent to judge such things is a big problem in itself.
> I'd say the US is democratic...
Based on what criteria, the fact that they get to cast a vote now and then, for a person that was pre-chosen in some also questionably democratic process?
If people were able to wonder what is true, perhaps we would stand a chance.
> for a person that was pre-chosen in some also questionably democratic process?
I'm disinclined to entertain that notion until I see the average participation in the primary elections go above 40%.
People need to stop complaining about the system choosing leadership without their input if they aren't providing the input.
Besides, the two thoughts you expressed are contradictory... If the public isn't sufficiently educated, they shouldn't be choosing their leadership. That was exactly the risk that the authors of the Constitution were concerned about when they put in checks against simple mobocracy. Maybe the opinion that the FBI shouldn't be surveilling folks stems from an uneducated point of view?
Either way we slice it, it seems like Americans are getting the government they should have... Paternalistic because they cannot self-govern, or governed by them and beholden to their general apathy.
> If people were able to wonder what is true, perhaps we would stand a chance.
We have plenty of folks who wonder what is true. Some believe (still) that a child prostitution ring was operating out of the basement of a building with no basement. Some believe (still) a massively decentralized election was centrally rigged via voting machine manipulation in spite of a media company losing a defamation suit... An incredibly hard kind of suit for a media company to lose, because truth is always an affirmative defense.
We need more critical thinkers, not blind questioners.
Oh, there's plenty of room for improvement on me, no doubt. But there's been more than enough money spent on teaching me critical thinking that if I'm not somewhere past the median, we're not capable of teaching it.
I'm sure I'm carrying some unjustified beliefs. I've never counted "child sex trafficking out of the basement of a building with no basement" as one of them. And I generally try, if I notice I'm gathering extraordinary claims, to bring the extraordinary evidence; I started working the polls when I had questions about how elections are done (turns out it's not hard to do; most municipalities are desperate for volunteers) and learned quite a bit about potential failure modes and the mechanisms employed to mitigate them.
> Oh, there's plenty of room for improvement on me, no doubt. But there's been more than enough money spent on teaching me critical thinking that if I'm not somewhere past the median, we're not capable of teaching it.
Does this same law (of optimality?⁰ apply to manufacturing processes and various other human undertakings?
As for elections: seeing what you've seen, do you consider the system (across all states) to be more or less air tight, and also that this is necessarily knowable?
I don't know what you mean by "law of optimality," so I can't answer that question.
> As for elections: seeing what you've seen, do you consider the system (across all states) to be more or less air tight, and also that this is necessarily knowable?
It's definitely not airtight. But airtight is fragile. Not unlike the Internet, It's better than airtight: it's decentralized and distributed.
Each state runs its own election. Each election district (varies from state-to-state, because it really is fifty states with fifty sets of laws) sets its own policies for running its election. Each polling location is locally administered. The coordination necessary to attack such a decentralized and adversarial system (remember: the party affiliation of individuals within this process varies wildly, with many of the "battleground states" run by GOP operatives) is preposterous to assume, especially as a secret conspiracy. Any such conspiracy would be at a scale that would be obvious.
One potential attack vector would be electronic voting machines, but (a) as previously noted: lawsuit, settled, wouldn't have settled if the truth was on the side of those accused of defamation and (b) those digital records are backed (in most jurisdictions, and specifically in the jurisdictions that were considered "battleground" in 2020) by paper records. Aligning fraud in the two records to escape the notice of poll workers, counters, and board officials (who are, again, generally of both major parties) is an absurdly improbable scenario.
It's been three years since the 2020 election. That's more than enough time for the accusations levied by one party to materialize into something concrete and legally-actionable, something other than ghosts and innuendo. When all the accuser has is ghosts and innuendo, the critical thinker asks why a concrete story of fraud with numbers and responsible parties hasn't manifested.
> I don't know what you mean by "law of optimality," so I can't answer that question.
It is regarding (the italicized part): "But there's been more than enough money spent on teaching me critical thinking that if I'm not somewhere past the median, we're not capable of teaching it."
> Not unlike the Internet, It's better than airtight: it's decentralized and distributed.
This depends on what variable(s) one is optimizing for - if optimizing for correctness (which is what I'm interested in, [in part] because that is what has been claime3d by The Experts), your argument seems to be doing the opposite of supporting that aspect.
> The coordination necessary to attack such a decentralized and adversarial system...is preposterous to assume, especially as a secret conspiracy.
Representing a strawman characterization of concerns and then knocking it down is an excellent way to persuade the public, but it is terrible when it comes to logic & epistemology (something The Experts tend to be not very good at (on an absolute scale), but do not seem to realize). To me, this is a very big deal, "pedantry" aside.
> Any such conspiracy would be at a scale that would be obvious.
"Obvious" is mostly related to belief, not knowledge....but then belief is what matters most, so credit where credit is due I guess?
> but (a) as previously noted: lawsuit, settled, wouldn't have settled if the truth was on the side of those accused of defamation
Incorrect - this requires that there is zero discovered misjudgments by courts in the past, which is not the case. Legal scripture covers the epistemic issues of this problem extensively, and is why we use "presumed innocent", "beyond reasonable doubt", etc.
> is an absurdly improbable scenario
Again: belief (derived from prediction, possibly sub-perceptual), not knowledge.
> That's more than enough time for the accusations levied by one party to materialize into something concrete and legally-actionable, something other than ghosts and innuendo.
It's also adequate for it to not to have happened.
> something other than ghosts and innuendo
You have no way of knowing if this is all that exists.
> the critical thinker asks why a concrete story of fraud with numbers and responsible parties hasn't manifested.
A "critical thinker" on a relative scale may be satisfied by only this, but on an absolute scale the competition is much higher.
> this requires that there is zero discovered misjudgments by courts in the past, which is not the case.
Not at all. There was no judgment here in that sense: Fox looked at the circumstances and instead of offering truth as an affirmative defense, refrained from doing so and settled the case. the likeliest conclusion is they couldn't offer truth as an affirmative defense (slightly less-likely conclusion: they could but doing so would open them up to even more liability than the defamation suit).
> Representing a strawman characterization of concerns
You may not have been claiming a vast conspiracy, but the people claiming election rigging definitely are. Look how many states they tried to sue in. That implied a vast multi-state conspiracy.
> Again: belief
Sure, I have a lot of beliefs grown from my personal experience. If you're going to argue epistemology, we'll be here awhile because that's a rich and dark sea to swim in. I don't know we'll have a productive discussion if epistemology is actually what you want to discuss. You asked me "seeing what you've seen, do you consider the system (across all states) to be more or less air tight," and I've answered based on my epistemology; I don't have nearly enough drugs to discuss "But how do you, like, know that you know" right now.
> It's also adequate for it to not to have happened
Unsupported conjecture. As T approaches infinity, odds of action approach 1. T of three years is plenty of time for something to have stuck and nothing has.
You can flip that script and say it's been a long time for Trump to not have had criminal charges brought. It's true. It's entirely possible he did nothing criminally wrong. Burden of proof is on the other side to prove he did.
> You have no way of knowing if this is all that exists.
You're right; I have beliefs based on experience. But the parties claiming an election-theft fantasy have not provided concrete evidence to dissuade that belief; what they have put together doesn't hold up under simple scrutiny. My default belief will be "they're lying or blowing smoke" because that's the skeptical position; absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but it's also not evidence of evidence (and lacking evidence, the likeliest scenario is "things were basically on the up-and-up" because they tend to be).
> Not at all. There was no judgment here in that sense: Fox looked at the circumstances and instead of offering truth as an affirmative defense, refrained from doing so and settled the case.
This is certainly a possibility (I'd say even the most likely, by far), but in law it is not that uncommon to realize one doesn't have a great case and going for innocence can backfire. Plea deals with not well educated inner city people are alleged to be a common abuse of this inherent complexity.
> You may not have been claiming a vast conspiracy, but the people claiming election rigging definitely are.
There is a lot of nuance in this space, please acknowledge it (perhaps conceptualizing it as billions of rows of survey answers across millions of people would help....say, like the extensive analytics that are captured at runtime in a video game?).
> Look how many states they tried to sue in. That implied a vast multi-state conspiracy.
I think it's fair enough to say that that's what they were representing. It's funny, all humans do this, but generally disapprove when [certain] others do the same. I wonder if humanity has received any guidance on these matters....
> I don't know we'll have a productive discussion if epistemology is actually what you want to discuss.
Based on extensive experience: we won't! :)
> and I've answered based on my epistemology
You have expressed your opinion on the matter.
> I don't have nearly enough drugs to discuss "But how do you, like, know that you know" right now.
Framing epistemology as drug-addled "woo woo" is typically a very effective approach for persuasion, it works well in all communities I've experienced, even The Rationalists.
> Unsupported conjecture.
Is the irony intentional?
Is what's good for the goose not good for the gander?
> T of three years is plenty of time for something to have stuck and nothing has.
Have there been zero legal cases in the past where the truth took longer than 3 years to emerge?
> You can flip that script and say it's been a long time for Trump to not have had criminal charges brought. It's true. It's entirely possible he did nothing criminally wrong. Burden of proof is on the other side to prove he did.
Yep! But then, hardly anyone cares about burden of proof these days, or proof in general. The mainstream ideology of this era has many similarities to the hippies of the sixties, except without the good vibes lol
> But the parties claiming an election-theft fantasy have not provided concrete evidence to dissuade that belief; what they have put together doesn't hold up under simple scrutiny.
I sometimes wonder if these people, and the people who subscribe to their dumb stories, are fucking idiots tbh. But then there go I if not for the Grace of God!
> My default belief will be "they're lying or blowing smoke" because that's the skeptical position
If one thinks in binary, which seems to be the rather convenient (for some, less so for others) evolutionary/cultural default. Wouldn't it be wild if people could be taught not only what to think, but how to think?? Holy mackarel, you could control the world!
> absence of evidence is not evidence of absence
There's a good paper out there poking holes in this theory, that's why I always use "absence of evidence is not proof of absence".
> and lacking evidence, the likeliest scenario is "things were basically on the up-and-up" because they tend to be
And the best part: this requires literally zero probabilistic calculations....it's just "the way it is"!
>> but on an absolute scale
> What does that even mean.
What is possible vs what is actually done. Think of it in terms of efficiency at extracting energy from fuel: humans have gotten much better over time. What's interesting is that we seem intuitively aware that the physical world can be improved, but the metaphysical world seems beyond our ability to perceive (at least with the same quality of thinking we use in science). I wonder if people will ever figure this out, the parallels to religion vs science in the first enlightenment are uncanny imho, but its like people have switched teams!
This isn't new, but most Republicans didn't care when the brunt of this was felt by Muslims and others. Only when a far-right politician who plays to white supremacist tropes wanted to buy political dirt from an American adversary who was also emgaged in a digital misinformation campaign against the politician's opponent did they start to act like this was some abuse of power.
Meanwhile, during peak "War on Terror", they routinely accused people who raised concerns about law enforcement abuses of being unpatriotic "bleeding hearts"
And now most democrats don't care when the brunt* of this is being felt by those who they are against and seem to be in love with the organizations doing the acts they once protested as long as it is against their political opponents. During new revelations of impropriety of the FBI, at times admitted by the FBI themselves as incredible as it seems, they routinely accuse people who raise concerns about its actions as being unpatriotic "russian assets", as they have been doing with zealous fervor for over half a decade already.
I completely agree with your position that the stance on the war on terror was abhorrent - although I wouldn't claim it to be as uniquely republican as you make it out to be, democrat warmongers were and are aplenty, and it was under obama that the biggest surveillance scandals of this century occurred-. All this shows is that both sides are about as hypocritical as the other really, three letter agencies are good when they're on my side, bad when they're on the other side, the population in general be damned.
*:curiously they may not even have been the brunt of people that felt it, due to its use on the george floyd riots.
If there's a lesson to be learned, it's that everyone needs to appreciate that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
I have little faith in efforts to criminal justice reform, because just about everyone, regardless of party, has a crime for which the mere allegation is enough to justify throwing the book at the alleged perpetrator. This seems just as true with government abuses (at least in the social media era -- no idea what the real median is) -- but the far left seems more than happy to allow the government to abuse the rights of the far right, and vice versa. The degree varies depending on what suspected wrongdoing has occurred, but the point of rights is that if they don't apply in the worst cases (e.g., hate speech "exemptions") then they don't really exist, so nobody should be surprised when the government does a poor job of protecting them.
If you're referring to the Patriot Act, neither party cared. Democrats loved the war on terror just as much as any Republican. Obama loved the Patriot Act so much he EXPANDED IT.
I don't really care who was "cared" 20 years ago. There's a problem that needs to be fixed now. It's a wasted of time to whine about different people at a different time not being upset at a similar thing that was going on.
To start addressing this problem, I think one has to understand why someone actively supports this state of affairs. Don't start from "They're under-informed;" that's hubris (and studies show trying to reason someone out of a hard-felt feeling makes them far likelier to just tune you out than change the feeling). Consider the voter who thinks being spied on by the FBI is great. How do you reach them.
I give as an analogy nuclear weapons. People are pretty universally in agreement that the threat of global armageddon is, well, bad, and we could really minimize it if we just ditched the nukes. Even unilateral disarmament, given the massive disparity of the US stockpile vs. other stockpiles, would take a huge chunk out of the apocalypse pie-chart.
... so why is suggesting unilateral disarmament absolutely horrifying to so many people?
People vote their hearts. Dig into the feelings underpinning support for a surveillance state and address them, because if the feelings don't change the votes won't change. Propose alternatives to the surveillance state that address those feelings.
Americans just watched a faction try to take over the government with violence. There's a story that can be told there, and told one way it creates feelings that encourage more centralized surveillance, and told another way it creates feelings that encourage far, far less surveillance.
I do not agree with this "Americans just watched a faction try to take over the government with violence."
The think they watched someone try to take over the government because that's what the media and certain politicians wanted you to think. In no way was that a government takeover unless you're talking about the actors (cops) that opened the doors and led clueless people inside. No government takeover consists of unarmed people with zero plan, where the only person killed was one them doing nothing.
> No government takeover consists of unarmed people with zero plan
Certainly no successful one that I can think of. But that doesn't mean it wasn't an attempt. Also, they were not unarmed (https://www.npr.org/2021/03/19/977879589/yes-capitol-rioters... ); they were (thankfully) under-armed to deal with the resistance they encountered.
> where the only person killed was [the] one [of] them doing nothing
I'm assuming we both saw the same video. That's definitely not "doing nothing." Never was and never has been, and the question has already been litigated and put to bed.
But all that aside, to determine whether they were trying to take over the government, one need merely ask: had they succeeded in getting to the floor while the Senate was still in session, what did they want to do? What did those who spoke about their intentions say they were going to do?
Yeah, there's a certain karmic justice to all of this. It really restores my faith to know that what goes around really does come around. Helps me strive to be a better person myself. It shouldn't be lost on anyone that the FBI was founded by a Republican, and has always been controlled by Republicans, at this very moment no less. Really no one to blame but themselves.
If they have a good reason, they can spy, and they can get a warrant for it. If they don't have a reason, they shouldn't be able to search anything, American citizen or not.