FBI Files a "Secret Justification" For Gag Order 167
An anonymous reader notes a story up at Ars on the FBI's continuing penchant for secrecy. "Clearly, the FBI isn't ready to give up its Bush-era secrecy addition just yet. ...in the case of Doe v. Holder, the FBI is carrying out a secret investigation using secret guidelines on what is and is not constitutional, and as part of that investigation they've compelled the secrecy of a service provider and are using a secret justification to argue that nobody's First Amendment rights are being violated."
What? (Score:3, Funny)
This story just confuses me. Secret secret, secret secret secret. Secret.
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Their plan is working.
Re:What? (Score:5, Funny)
I can help (Score:2)
Just remember, Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo.
Re: (Score:2)
Just remember, Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo.
Mushroom! Mushroom!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I like the buffalo sentence because it is actually grammatical and meaningful:
Wild cattle from Buffalo, NY confuse wild cattle from Buffalo, NY that wild cattle from Buffalo, NY confuse.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The message there is as clear as can be. If you stand up and ask real questions that were not pre-scripted and want a real answer, an attempt will be made to dig up dirt on you and otherwise to make you pay for that. The go
Re: (Score:2)
Securing Joe's dream.... (Score:2)
"They call it the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it" - Carlin.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Ask "Joe the Plumber" who asked, are you trying to tax me out of my ambitions?" (Paraphrasing) and the media scrambled to learn everything about him, ratting him out to the local union house so he can't get a job there, and starting a media wave to make him look like some kind of hick.
He is some kind of hick, that was his whole shtick!
Re:What? (Score:5, Funny)
Under her administration as governor, Alaska has (finally!!!) started cleaning house.
What else would you expect from Alaska's first female governor?
Re: (Score:2)
Look, I'm just as cynical as the next guy (read my comment history if you want to verify it), but as a resident of Alaska for 20 years, Palin -- while certainly not perfect -- has in many ways been a breath of fresh air. Under her administration as governor, Alaska has (finally!!!) started cleaning house. The investigations into government corruption in AK have toppled both Dems and Republicans. I would really like to have seen what would have happened had she made it to V.P.
Are you fucking kidding me? Were you just not [washingtonpost.com] paying [politicsdaily.com] attention [politico.com] during the campaign??
In any case, she couldn't possibly have been worse than the "change" and "hope" that we ended up putting in the White House :(
Well, first of all, she was running for VP, not President, so I gather you're comparing Mr. "bomb bomb bomb Iran" - the guy who didn't know the difference between shiites and sunnis - to the current president, not Sarah Palin. Second, thank goodness neither of them will ever be entrusted with that kind of power in this country. I'm sure that Barbie Spice, like McCain, is well meaning and well intentioned, but neither of t
Re: (Score:2)
re: Palin vs. Monegan:
Monegan was indeed respected during his tenure at APD. However, having dated someone who worked at APD while Monegan was there, believe me when I say APD could teach graduate courses on disfunction. There are a lot of good people there, but... Anyway, if you had followed the entire story, you would know Monegan's actions regarding Wooten looked an awful lot like one cop covering up for another. From what I know of what happened, Wooten needed to be fired, and Palin p
Re: (Score:2)
In any case, she couldn't possibly have been worse than the "change" and "hope" that we ended up putting in the White House :(
If there's anything that you Americans should have learned from your last, oh, 6 or 7 presidential elections, it's this:
It can always be worse.
Re: (Score:2)
After Clinton, I thought, "It couldn't get any worse..." but it did. I said it again -- and was wrong again -- during the Bush Administration. And now I've said it again with Obama in the White House. <cringes in anticipation of the next president>
What's with (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
the "FBI isn't ready to give up its Bush-era secrecy addition" bullshit? Quit blaming institutional behavior - in this case Holder - on Bush!
Ah, well, this is simply because, up until January 2001, the FBI was so widely renowned among government institutions for the openness and transparency of its counter-intelligence operations.
Re:What's with (Score:4, Insightful)
While you may have understood it that way, and the story's poster may have meant it that way, the grammar doesn't imply what you think it does.
What the statement implies is that under the Bush-era administration, such secrecy was allowed (a well-recognized fact), and that while we expect that to be changing under the new administration, it appears not to be in all cases.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
we expect that to be changing under the new administration,
Based on what? Obama's policies on on domestic security and spying fall somewhat in line with Bush's, and he made no attempt to hide it during his campaign. There's even evidence with Gitmo shutting down. Some of the detainees will still be held indefinitely without trial in the interest of national security that the administration can't elaborate on.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Sorry, but I call bullshit right back at you. The whole mess our country finds itself in, with this any number of other threats to our Constitutional protections still ongoing, is a direct result of the over-reaching of neo-con ideologues like Cheney and the hand-picked to team of "reliable" lawyers who drafted the various rationales intended to support the sundering of those protections. The fact that the various agencies are still operating under heretofore unconscionable guidelines is exactly the kind of
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Not being able to "put the genie back in the bottle" is a weak metaphor when one considers the damage that has been done.
How about "put the mushroom cloud back in the bomb casing?
Re: (Score:2)
Presidents treat presidential power like a ratchet. They'll NEVER give it up willingly. Congress has to actually do something.
God, this makes me remember how much I hated (and still hate) Richard M. Nixon.
Re: (Score:2)
you must be very, very young if you think the transgressions and abuses you describe started in turn of the 21st century. You could at least go back to World War I if you're too lazy to look at events in the 19th century.
Re: (Score:2)
I am, almost certainly, older than you think, and your assumption that I am unaware of things like the "Alien and Sedition Acts", and other assorted attempts to step on The Constitution, is badly off the mark. But we are talking about issues which, as a nation, we are facing today, so arguing that something bad was done last century, or the one before that, or the one before that, has what relevance, exactly? It was wrong then, and it is just as wrong now, perhaps even more so f
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You really need to get on board with Teh Holy Narrative, or things will become hard for you.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
SSHHHH...
Many people here didn't even know about government pre-Bush. Don't shatter their realities. Everything started with Bush and was an idealistic paradise before that.
Now repeat after me, I will not discuss American history on Slashdot again.
Re:What's with (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What's with (Score:4, Insightful)
Thank you. That was the first thing I noticed. Mr. "Change" and "Transparency" is neither. Not that I'm surprised though. There's a reason I've never voted R or D. People say voting third party is a waste, but hell... voting for ANY of these assholes is a waste.
Re: (Score:2)
It's never a waste when you are attempting to limit the damage. Picking the least of two evils still gives you an advantage you wouldn't have normally had.
Re:What's with (Score:4, Interesting)
Except there's NO SUCH THING as the lesser of two evils. That's where the joke is on everyone who thinks that way. How many people voted for Obama because he was the "lesser" of two evils? And what are we getting now? Not only do we have someone who has no intention of any real "change" but his party is also in control of congress which can help expedite tyranny.
And, as I always say, give me the greater of two evils. Democracy is a useless fat asshole who will always follow the path of least resistance and apathy. In order to get that fat ass to rise to action, the situation has to get really, really bad. I was really hoping McCain made it in to office because I think he was losing it anyway and with Palin we'd have had a pair of lunatics that would have caused such an obvious nightmare that maybe, just maybe, the bloated and disgusting Cheeto-eating diabetic soda drinking toothless brainless blob that best represents the American people may have been so scared that it moved.
Or it would have eaten up the rampant nationalism and authoritarianism and imploded on itself. I'm okay with either one really.
Voting for the lesser of two evils is more dangerous than putting a lunatic in office who is bad enough to wake the people from their collective stupor. It slows the erosion of liberty down to a slow enough pace that the Kentucky Fried Majority never even notices they've been robbed of their rights.
You can't mitigate the damage coming down from on high in Washington. They're ALL bought and paid for. Obama is as much of a stooge as Bush... and Clinton... and Reagan... etc. You can be a harbinger of POSITIVE change while working for one of the two political machines that's been sodomizing this nation for the past century plus. Neither of those organizations is designed with anything in mind but consolidation of power and wealth lining its own pockets.
If every asshole out there who voted for the "lesser of two evils" (and make no mistake, Democrats are not the only people who do that) voted their conscience and went third party or independent instead, I don't know who would win but I can tell you, it probably won't be any of the front runners since virtually ALL their "supporters" cast their vote while holding their noses.
Re: (Score:2)
Except there's NO SUCH THING as the lesser of two evils.
Cthulhu [cthulhu.org] would beg to differ. :)
I might go so far as to call your premise ridiculous. The rant itself was entertaining and raised a few interesting points (and I hasten to say that I am a third party voter, in general), but there seems to be this idea going around that because neither of two major US parties is ideal, they're both equally bad, and that's a steaming pile of crap (usually offered, as far as I can tell, by apologists for the more evil of the parties and/or the more evil elements of both parti
Re: (Score:2)
And, as I always say, give me the greater of two evils.
Your candidate has arrived. [cthulhu.org]
Re:What's with (Score:4, Insightful)
Picking the lesser of two evils is still picking evil. If enough people figure that out and start acting on that knowledge, then perhaps we'll finally have a chance to elect some real change.
Re: (Score:2)
If you had a choice and knew I was going to do something bad to you, would you pick me shooting you anywhere on your body except your chest or would you pick me stabbing you twice at random locations on your chest?
Third party candidates are generally always the same except for a few issues. This means you are still selecting the least evil of the bunch.
Re: (Score:2)
Voting in California avoids that dilemma (Score:3, Interesting)
California was going solidly for Obama anyway, so I didn't need to consider voting for him to stop McSame. So I was free to vote third-party; too bad the Libertarians have been taken over by quasi-Republicans, and their allegedly-Libertarian candidate doesn't really even believe in drug legalization (though at least he's strongly gung-ho about privacy and getting government out of non-gay-marriage-related parts of people's lives.) I was tempted to vote for Nader just as a complaint against Barr, but I hel
Obama and other Democrats only had a problem with (Score:3, Insightful)
the secrecy and similar government abuse because it was under a Republican Administration.
Look at all the crap Obama's group is pulling with various IG across the country. Shutting down investigations or attempting to intimidate. He has brought Chicago style politics with him.
I was never really afraid of Bush's abuse. We had the press constantly nipping on his heels. They and a adversarial Congress were are best line of defense against that Administration. Now with ABC fighting MSNBC for the rights to
Re:Obama and other Democrats only had a problem wi (Score:2)
I was never really afraid of Bush's abuse. We had the press constantly nipping on his heels.
You have a faulty memory. It wasn't until the final couple of years of the Bush administration that the media paid any attention to his abuses. Up until then, the press were cheerleaders for the administration, who helped disseminate their misinformation.
Re: (Score:2)
This is the kind of action that the FBI has an institutional bias in favor of, but it became much stronger under the Bushes. The Democrats rarely push back against is, but they also don't push to increase it. So it's fair to blame the Republicans more than the Democrats (though Teddy Rooseveldt wouldn't have been in favor of it). OTOH, it's also not right to give the Democrats a free pass. Their game plan seems to be to get the Republicans to do the things they don't want to be blamed for, and then take
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There wasn't unprecedented transparency, like any administration, which is why there is plenty of surveillance issues to talk about.
Politicians have already demonstrated abuse of his power to silence his opposition. They even abused their position during the campaign to silence opposition.
Speaking of abuses, do you all remember when that person "mishandled" national secrets of the highest security level and it was mysteriously swept aside? If that person had been prosecuted they would have likely been convicted and executed but it never happened because he was in the "good ol' boys" club.
Politicians are very disturbing to me and they need to be watched closely. If left to their on devices they will ruin this country.
Fixed that for you. I don't know why people keep trying to blame Democrats/Republicans. Look at the full political spectrum and you'll realize they are the same party and elections are just there to give us perceived democracy. The only purpose of keeping the 2 parties separate is to keep the people's focus on ridiculous squabbling. If you don't believe that then ask yourself why if "every vote counts," that voting for a third party is considered "wasting your vote."
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The term for that is "divide and conquer". It's an age-old device that works as well today as it did thousands of years ago. Unfortunately.
Bush-era? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bush-era? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, it's a bit facetious to say "Bush-era" when talking about all government secrecy -- but you have to admit it was taken to all new levels after 9/11, if for no other reason than the fact that no one was willing to stop them for a while at risk of looking "unpatriotic."
Re:Bush-era? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
All new levels? ... for decades after WWII under the argument of national security... the FBI was run by Hoover... I really don't think that Bush was any more secret than most of the administrations of the 20th century up until the Church committee. The only real difference is the amount of information that's available to the general public.
Up until the Church committee... 1975.
Oh, you mean the committee formed to investigate illegal
and unconstitutional acts by the FBI & CIA.
Your logic is a real face palmer.
You seem to be saying that Bush Jr. was no more secretive than any other President
who allowed or ordered flagrant illegal acts and constitutional violations.
The only real difference is the amount of information that's available to the general public.
More facepalm.
The difference is government recognized that lawless behavior was not in its or society's best interest.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, yes, which would include a good chunk of the Presidents of the 20th century. But people single out Bush for behavior antithetical to their idea of America, but what if their idea pf America runs counter to the actual history?
That isn't to necessarily say that Bush is right, but rather that the issues are more complex. The Church committee didn't exist in a vacuum, but was a product of a number of political trends. This was after the Democratic Convention of '68, the McGovern candidacy and during th
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe it is time to shut down the FBI for good. Back in the old days when they caught up with Dillinger or Baby Face Nelson we could all see the good that was done. But as they became more and more secretive we lack evidence that they justify the expenses of their existence. It is also next to impossible for the public to know when they are going to far as we are not free to know what they are doing at all.
As a matter of fact I was recently astounded
Re:Bush-era? (Score:5, Informative)
The NSL at the heart of this case was issued while Bush was in office. The Patriot Act (with the NSL provisions) was signed into law by Bush. I don't think it is unfair to mention Bush in this context.
Re:Bush-era? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Try: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act [wikipedia.org]
Re:Bush-era? (Score:5, Interesting)
the 535 members of congress draft them, ratify them, and present them for signature. If you are so upset with it, I'd suggest that you blame them.
Congress has an approval rating that sometimes dips into the single digits, and never gets far above them. Congress as an incumbent return rate of well over 80% and never drops significantly below it.
Any student of economics who was looking at a product with a 10% approval rating and 80+% customer loyalty would immediately suspect some kind of serious market interference. Can you imagine a car that almost everyone hated but that everyone still kept on buying, year after year, model after model?
"Yeah, I bought a 2008 Republican and it totally sucked. Unresponsive handling, fuel hog, huge maintenance costs and the financing just about killed me."
"So, you gonna buy something else this year?"
"Naw, I figure since the 2008 is so bad the 2010 is bound to be even worse, so I'm going to get it and see."
What is wrong with this picture? Political choices are made in a market-like context, and almost everyone hates almost everything on offer in that market, yet no one is able to crack the barriers to entry.
As with many problems in modern democracies, this appears to be a largely American problem. In Canada we generate new political parties every few decades (they start off regional, usually in the West, like the Social Credit, CCF and Reform, and then go national, sometimes forming governments--our current federal government is the Reform Party under a false name.) Britain manages to turn over the established parties once a century of so, having killed the Liberals in favour of Labour in the first half of the 20th century, and now the LibDems are up-and-coming today. In Europe the democracies are so young it's hard to draw comparisons, but the American one-Party, two-wings system is so strongly entrenched that despite almost universal dissatisfaction with the product, everyone keeps buying it.
Gerrymandering is an important feature in this system, by which state parties set electoral boundaries, and incumbents can be substantially protected by the two wings of the Party in this way. That means they don't have to worry much about voters. Likewise, the role of the Party in voter registration is probably a significant barrier to a second party forming and becoming competitive.
The US needs an arms-length electoral body like Elections Canada to take the Party out of the electoral process. Unfortunately, that would require the Party leadership to approve of it, which isn't about to happen.
Re: (Score:2)
The US needs an arms-length electoral body like Elections Canada to take the Party out of the electoral process.
I don't think Americans would take too kindly to the electoral process being overseen by Canadians.
SETEC Astronomy (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
SETEC Astronomy
Cootys Rat Semen... nahhhh!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Cootys Rat Semen... nahhhh!
Dmmi, now I hve to replce his keyboard. Pepsi spewed ll over i. hnks soooo much.
Re: (Score:2)
Somebody get that guy that has a face like an old catchers mit.
Cosmo Kramer?
Damn (Score:5, Funny)
Existential rights (Score:5, Insightful)
If a right is violated, and no one can talk about it,
then it must not have happened.
Re:Existential rights (Score:4, Insightful)
And be sure to give your co-conspirators legal immunity. Funny how aiding and abetting the government in violating the constitution can be make legal with a rider.
Re:Existential rights (Score:5, Interesting)
If a right is violated, and no one can talk about it, then it must not have happened.
Indeed, and it's scary how that seems to be the point. Also from the fine summary:
If that provider had any sort of decency or respect for this country, they would hold a press conference or equivalent and make sure everybody knew all about this shady deal. That kind of courage and good priorities are unfortunately quite rare. There's a lot of cheap talk about "patriotism" but that is what a real patriot would do. Of course I use that definition (that I wish I could attribute right now) which goes "a patriot supports his country all of the time, and his government only when it deserves it." These days, that would mean refusing to support the government most (or all) of the time.
...
Makes me wonder how many cases the FBI handles that have nothing to do with an activitiy which crosses state lines or otherwise could not be handled on the local and state level
Re:Existential rights (Score:4, Insightful)
Up here in Canada, many ISPs stood up to RIAA style tactics requesting subscriber data at one time. It ended up going to court, the recording industry demanding information on subscribers from the ISPs and the ISPs refusing to cooperate. The courts ruled that the ISPs were in fact right, thus ending the whole mess once and for all (or at least a while).
All it takes is one ISP to ignore such an order and actually take it to court. Unfortunately, that may also turn out to be a secret trial with secret evidence.
This is the democracy you fought and your ancestors died for, now are you going to use it or not?
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
The US is a Constitutional Republic.
Constitutional Republic [wikipedia.org]
Schrodinger Rights (Score:2, Insightful)
Until someone we talk about it, everyone's rights have been violated, and not violated, at the same time.
Re:Existential rights (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the FBI are just a gaggle of incompetent Catholic and Mormon scumbags yearning for the good ol' days of the inquisition. That's what happens when little god-fearing geeks who watched too many cop shows as children grow up to do their god's bidding using any means possible. And the motherfuckers can't even catch any real crooks.
This quite rightly deserves the "Flamebait" mod it received. Having said that, I still want to try and add something useful. I think your sentiment is accurate but your target is not.
There is indeed a religious element to this, but it's not the one you have identified. Statism is what you're dealing with here, which is the belief that the State as represented by the government needs to have powers expanded and its interests furthered at all costs. It follows that anytime there is a conflict of interests between the State and the citizenry, the State should prevail at the expense of the citizenry. Otherwise, statism is very much a religion. What's hard to understand and even harder to relate to is the derived concept that anything which increases state power is "morally right" and "good" no matter how much real harm it does. In the religion of statism, the government is "God" and can do no wrong, and neither can "God's" servants.
Both major political parties are faithful members of this religion. That's why neither of them is making any serious efforts to reduce the size and power of the federal government. No deficit is large enough to change this and no resemblance to the methods of various 20th century dictatorships is strong enough to give them pause. The mainstream news media is probably the single biggest part of the problem.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
If I might quote the lord... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing much has happened to change that, apart from government organisations wanting more power, and the governed giving it to them. RIP Justice, it was kinda cool while you were around...
Simon.
Re: (Score:2)
"RIP Justice, it was kinda cool while you were around..."
Must have been before my time, and I was born in 1958.
What is this "justice" of which you speak?
Re: (Score:2)
Truth, Justice. Or the American way.
Power once given... (Score:5, Insightful)
This only goes to show what everyone else already knows. If you give the government powers, it will continue to use them no matter what party is in power at the time.
This isn't a partisan issue, except in that those who suggest that giving government more power through secret wiretaps, or special prison camps, or government bailouts or nationalized health care are making the problem worse. It doesn't matter that this is a "Bush-era" innovation as much as it was an innovation to begin with. We don't call Social Security a "Roosevelt-era" initiative (at least not anymore), it's just accepted that it is there. The same thing will happen with most powers granted to the government when it tries to "help us" by taking care of things for us. Eventually, unless this is overturned, it will go the same way, but wouldn't you think that the Obama Administration, as the Anti-Bush, wouldn't have been the best chance we had to get rid of these? Yet we are disappointed, but I think we shouldn't be surprised.
I don't consider the government to be "the enemy" like some people do, but I think that any entity which develops too much power and gains responsibility in too many areas is bound to become grossly inefficient at best, and quite possibly dangerous to liberty. We are abdicating our responsibilities and rights in order to have security, be it from terrorists or from being uninsured. And we all know what people get when they trade liberty for security: neither.
Re: (Score:2)
As you have stated, when you give most people power, they will never relinquish it. What do you think will happen with the bailout mentality now? This only goes to show why George Washington was the greatest President, far-and-wide. He didn't want power. He gave it up at a time when relinquishing power was unheard of.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
What you say about power once granted is true, but thing that is missing from this debate is that the executive branch has a duty to defend the constitutionality of laws in court. If it doesn't, it gets a de facto retroactive veto on past legislation. They get somebody to challenge a law they don't like in court, then roll over and play dead.
This doesn't mean that they are necessarily obliged to use powers they see as unconstitutional during an investigation, but once a dispute gets to court they've got
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
but one day, we may get someone who's not so respectful of the Constitution and the Powers afforded the President and the Government.
One day? It could be any day, regardless of who is in power.
I guess it is a human condition for people to hold on to their illusions until they finally can't reconcile reality anymore. Maybe I am missing one or two but I can't think of a single government on the globe that has moved toward less repression of the public in the last ten years.
Looking at Iran, the only thing t
It's sensationalism and garbage posts (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
If the current administration wanted change it would change.
Easy to say from the armchair - in reality the "most powerful man in the world" is anything but. Every move gains or loses political capital, make too many losing moves and you essentially become powerless. It's a little early in the term for this administration to sink itself on principles.
Chicken Chicken Chicken... Chicken? (Score:2)
Chicken, chicken chicken chicken chicken. Chicken. Chicken. CHICKEN!!!
-Chicken
Bush era? (Score:4, Interesting)
the FBI isn't ready to give up its Bush-era secrecy addition just yet
"Bush-era secrecy" is what you will get if you vote for most any Democrat or Republican. Obama isn't any different.
Re: (Score:2)
evidence says otherwise:
"last month the Obama administration decided not to appeal a federal court ruling that the FBI must justify these gag orders by meeting a relatively high First Amendment standard. "
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But hey, tell yourself whatever you need to to justify your vote.
Re:Bush era? (Score:5, Insightful)
I voted 3rd party in 2008. Was my vote wasted? Well, if I had voted for Obama or McCain...we'd still have ended up with Obama or McCain - so also a wasted vote.
Stop voting for the lesser of two evils and vote for someone who isn't evil.
Oh no! (Score:4, Funny)
This hust in: Constitution now considered secret (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Haven't you heard? If you quote and carry a copy around a copy you are now consiered a "constitutionalist," which, according to several dubious law enforcement training pamphlets makes you a likely "homegrown terrorist."
I only wish I was kidding.
Republican?? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Just because two things are ocasionally associated doesn't mean one always has to do with the other.
This story is about the FBI, not Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Mormons, Moonies or Xenu.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, c'mon man, it is too about Xenu, isn't it?
Just a little bit?
What's up with this compelling crap? (Score:3, Funny)
From the summary:
they've compelled the secrecy of a service provider
How exactly would they accomplish this? I can understand them demanding information, hopefully with warrant in hand. But if I'm a service provider, I'm not an agent, employee or contractor of the police. I've not taken any secrecy oaths. I'm a member of the public and if I come to know something, it is already by definition in the public domain. If they want to hire me as a spook, I'm available, but the price is high. Very high.
Re: (Score:2)
The price is your ass. They won't arrange to have it violated in Federal Prison if you co-operate.
Obama Era (Score:2)
It's no longer the "Bush" era. It's the Obama era now and these are now "Obama Era" techniques as well.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity.
Bad rule these days. Tons of what the Bush administration did could have been attributed to stupidity (bad WMD information, exposing Valerie Plame, etc.) But in retrospect much of it seems to have been malice.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:The FBI? (Score:5, Interesting)
The FBI is institutionally one of the least efficient and bureaucratic law enforcement agencies in the country.
While simultaneously being one of the best law enforcement agencies in the world. Seriously - who would you compare to them?
They're pumping billions into "modernization" efforts, but they still file their cases largely in paper format, use fax machines instead of e-mail, and "IT" is what they say happens in the men's room after 5pm.
No doubt you thought that was a cute quote and copy-pasted it. But alas, it's completely wrong. The recent Sentinel problems were an upgrade/modernization of the existing electronic case files. The Bureau is computerized. Not as sleekly or as efficiently as they'd like (which is why there's a big government contract working on it), but you make it sound like they're still thumbing through index cards. And yes, they use email.
In the 60s, the FBI was busy snapping pictures of protesters... and at the same time devoting forensic resources to finding out who (or rather, what) crapped on J. Edgar Hoover's front porch. You might have heard of him--he had a real temper, hated communists, and had a garter belt and fishnet fetish.
Please provide some proof that Hoover was a cross-dresser other than Anthony Summers' discredited book. That's the only source for this accusation.
As to hating communists - God bless the man.
Re: (Score:2)
"As to hating communists - God bless the man."
Wow, you really bought the commie crap hook line and sinker
Seriously, if someone believes communism is a valid form of government, you think they should be hunted, lied about and jailed?
Re: (Score:2)
Well damn, if that's not a justification for better funding for the techies, I don't know what is.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Let me see now ...
KGB?
Was I right?
This whole thing seems familiar...
Oh, there it is;
Catch-22 states that agents enforcing Catch-22 need not prove that Catch-22 actually contains whatever provision the accused violator is accus [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
That is one of the longest non-form-submission type URLs I've ever seen. I realize that on the back end it is likely a submission to blog software, but DAMN.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
....and the pink tights and boa? Its no fun to be freaky jiggy with the hoes and bros in the light of day, ya know! Can't a G-man enjoy a G-string without diluting the oppressive regime's value system with blatant hypocrisy? Whats the fun in that? Its like Halloween in the light with pants on - no tricks or treats...
Yawn. Is the "crossdressing Hoover" nonsense dead yet? There is zero factual basis for this. One guy's sensational book and since then everyone takes it as gospel...
Re: (Score:2)
But it was written on paper! If it had been posted on the internet first, then nobody would have believed it.